Lest we forget, the education system made the people of this great country what we are today: obese, illiterate and unable to function on our own.
Yes, lads, we're Lenny from Of Mice and Men. A Confederacy of Dunces. We slash education to pay for prisons, which in the end is a good thing, because if you don't educate your population, you BEST be building prisons for them. Either way, we are assured the recommended daily allowance of the Institution.
Education is not benevolent, much less a panacea [in fact, I think it's lazy and mastubatory at best, if not dishonest, even manipulative (see: Hussein, Saddam, but also Dream, American). Personally, I advocate for autodidacticism. The best thing a teacher can do (certainly, the best thing any teacher ever did for me) is reach out and push that autodidact button, help facilitate natural learning instincts. Give a kid a library card and a sense of intellectual curiosity (fuck it, I'll even toss in a $20 for overdue fees) and s/he will be fine.] Formal education is a more subtle, passive means of manipulating a population, a narrowing of acceptable points of viewing, of creativity, of what one thinks is possible (for which I am a huge advocate; let's all keep this place dumb and fat and reactionary).
Personally, I believe in literacy and the self-determinism it allows.
No comments:
Post a Comment