Back in the 60’s when I started to school, there was no HeadStart or Kindergarten. 1st grade was the beginning of my public education. I was already reading Dick and Jane and Dr. Suess. “I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am!” I loved Suess, I still talk in rhymes 60 years later. Addition and subtraction were old news by first grade too but Mom never pushed the times tables too hard. I could jazz up “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on the piano, though.
I was cleaning at Mom’s recently and I came across my report cards from back then. I’m not sure why she kept them; I made it through about the fourth grade before tossing them all in the trash. I was not a standout student but it brought back some memories. There were a few teachers and classes that I enjoyed but my memory for the most part was of boredom. I had a difficult time taking any real interest, except for the playground and a couple girls that I had a crush on; Beth and Melody.
It got me to pondering the value of public education and whether it’s a good idea. I know if I had it to do over again, I would figure out how to home school or find a private school, that I could trust with my children. We didn’t see it that way 30 odd years ago when our kids were in school. Probably because we weren’t paying attention, we were too busy chasing the American Dream.
“The owners of this country know the truth… it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it!” ― George Carlin
They Call it Education
At the same time I started 1st Grade, the Federal Government initiated the destruction of our education system. Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” endeavor and the passage of the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965,” (ESEA) removed the last semblance of local control in our schools. Over the next few decades, schools drastically changed from teaching – reading, writing and arithmetic to indoctrination mills. They had a different name for it but there is little doubt about what came with the billions of dollars in Federal programs and bureaucracy.
They called it Outcome-based Education (OBE). “OBE means: focusing and organizing all of the school’s programs and instructional efforts around clearly defined outcomes we want all students to demonstrate when they leave school.” Doesn’t sound too sinister on the surface but what did it mean and who defined the outcomes? It meant that instead of parents and the local school board defining goals and outcomes, centralized Federal Government would takeover. The outcome they had in mind was that all students be conditioned the same, to demonstrate what they believed was in the best interest of society. Using Skinnerian “Operant Conditioning;” children were brain-washed. The importance of the group, rather than the importance of the individual was the focus. Emotional health rather than academic learning. Behavior modification by government social engineers, to standardize the populace.
“The most controversial issues of the twenty-first century will pertain to the ends and means of modifying human behavior and who shall determine them. The first educational question will not be “what knowledge is of the most worth?” but “what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce?” The possibilities virtually defy our imagination.” ~ Professor John Goodlad
The outcome of the government takeover of schools was horrendous. By the early eighties:
- 23 million American adults were illiterate
- 13 percent of all 17-year-olds in the United States were illiterate
- International comparisons of student achievement, reveal that on 19 academic tests American students were never first or second and were last seven times.
- SAT testing went into an unbroken decline, from 1963 to 1980.
Operant Conditioning
So much for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. B.F. Skinner was a psychogist focused on behaviorism. In World War II, he trained pigeons to fly into battle and direct missiles to enemy targets. His training and conditioning methods followed on Ivan Pavlov’s discovery; when his dogs reflexively salivated to specific stimulus. Throughout his career he experimented on animals and humans, coming up with an approach he termed “operant conditioning.” The technique uses a reward, punishment response to condition pigeons, dogs or children. Skinnerian or Operant conditioning was not just used on the children but the teachers that conditioned them. The same conditioning used on the chicken at the circus; peck the key, get the kernel of corn. Outcome-based Education (OBE) is brain-washing and it’s been going on for 60 years!
Billions and billons of tax dollars have been wasted on the Federal takeover of the education system and students have just gotten dumber and dumber over the last six decades. All in the name of a socialist, utopian dream, that has turned into a nightmare. Have we learned anything yet from this unprecedented attack on critical thinking? “Operant Conditioning” works pretty well for training your birddog to point pheasants or retrieve ducks but it’s obviously a massive failure when it comes to educating our children – Unless the objective is to create robotic worker drones. It’s not designed to stimulate creativity, imagination or educate children; it was intentionally designed to modify behavior and condition students to be good workers, obey authority and never have the courage to question the status quo.
“The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students.” ~ Prof. Benjamin Bloom
Excellence in Education
It seemed like the nation might wakeup to the disaster government had wrought on the education system in the early eighties, as SAT scores bottomed out. “A Nation at Risk” was published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. It touched off a wave of reform efforts at all levels of Government. Liberals and conservatives pissed and moaned, blamed each other for the crisis and vowed to fix the problem. But in the end it was just more empty promises from the politicians; reform never happens. Their answer is rarely, reverse course and fix the issue. They just pour more fuel on the fire in their insane attempts to slap a patch on it. Bureaucracy can only be added, not subtracted – every first grader knows that. Just throw more money at it. Always bigger, never better. Over the next forty years they did exactly that, investing hundreds of billions of dollars:
- Carter, creates Department of Education
- Bush #1, AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
- Clinton, Goals 2000: Educate America Act
- Bush #2, No Child Left Behind Act
- Obama, Common Core State Standards Initiative
And here we are 60 years later, as dumb as we’ve ever been, after investing hundreds of billions. How is that possible unless that was the goal? We have been intentionally and deliberately dumbed down. Trained and domesticated like pigeons and dogs to agree to some ridiculous utopian fantasy, contrived by a bunch of lunatic plutocrats, who see themselves as the “Masters of the Universe.” Salivating at the dinner bell and pecking the key for another kernel of corn.
Death of Critical Thinking
The real travesty of our education system has been the “Death of Critical Thinking.” Critical thinking is a requirement of human functioning, evolution and survival. Critical thinkers don’t accept absurd hypocrisy, establishment narrative or anything else where the facts don’t add up. They demand proof of any claim, knowing their very survival demands it. Critical thinking was a rarity even before the government hijacked our schools and turned them into a social engineering experiment.
In the present paradigm, critical thinking has become nearly nonexistent. The media, government and universities are rife with intellectual and moral fraud. This is not normal and goes against human nature, a direct manifestation of the dumbing down of our society through the government takedown of our education system.
There is hope though. I know people still think critically on the inside, they’ve just been afraid to show it to the outside world for a very long time. The collective chrysalis, after decades of holding society captive is cracking and falling away, leaving the individual. A beautiful butterfly, with a mind of it’s own. The human spirit is naturally independant and courageous. It can’t be conditioned like a pigeon or trained like a dog. The free individual returns!
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë