Brainwashed? Through Education

This has been on my mind for a while.
What chance do we have of a world without conflict if we call into question the educators of our youth.
There is the Islamic fundamentalist teachers that teach via the fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran. The people who fight to educate their children with the literal interpretation of the Bible.The kids in North Korea who are taught Kim Jong Il makes the sun go up and down. Those who home school their children when to be honest I would call into question their level of intelligence and worldly know-how.

On the home schooling I saw the other night a doco I had not seen in a while which brought this back to the front of mind. In it there was a lady who would not let her children go to normal school so she could brainwash them with neo-nazi propaganda. Some of the things she taught them totally proved that she had no real knowledge of the issues about which she was talking. Especially to do with the new South Africa.

Some of the more mundane first hand examples I have come across include some immigrants I have befriended over the years and what they have related to me of their education. One is an Indian who was working in India as the school janitor. A teacher retired and he was able to just waltz in and replace him as the chemistry teacher without any formal training in science or knowledge of what he taught.

Another is a Serbian who told me how surprised he was when he got to Australia. It was completely different than he was taught at school. He was taught it was a dangerous lawless place because we had no structure of government. That was all based in England and they would only bother to come and deal with the most serious problems like rioting and the risk of losing their colony. So murders, robberies and rapes and the like all went unpunished.

This leads me to think that I was lucky to be educated in this country and not another.

Or was I?

reply to post by pablos


Without a proper education, a person is doomed to failure. In technologically advanced countries like the U.S. there is no excuse to think that you HAVE to put your kids in a public, private, or religous school. With the internet, there are so many possibilities and ways to teach, it's mind boggling.

With the economy the way it is and the fact that both parents in a household have to work, wouldn't it make more sense to find an educational outlet online for your children to learn from? And if there's a question of whether they will actually do it while you're gone at work, slap a web cam or their laptop and yours and moniter them throughout the day. That, or simply have them take the classes when you're at home.

The parent picks the curriculum based on the childs learning abilities and the manner in which they learn the best. Who would better know that then the parent?

Hey, Bill Gates, how about donating about a million laptops to underdeveloped countries so everyone can have a fair shot at a good education?

Money shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether a person gets a descent education.



Peace

reply to post by Taupin Desciple


Good point but does not really allay my fears about home schooling.

There is more misinformation on the internet than anywhere else.

When it is time for my two kids to go to school I will definitely send them to the local public school. My mother is a teacher in the public system and so I have no real fear of any shenanigans on their part.

Home schooling though is about the smallest part of my problem. As stated the real trouble is fascists and dictators deciding what curriculum is adopted rather than panels of educators.

One real problem with home schooling is it does not expose kids to other outside voices of education. One of the most influential people in my life was one of my high school English teachers. He taught me many important lessons about life in his classes on the English language. Lessons might be the wrong word as a lot was giving me more information and letting me reach conclusions for myself. Everything from encouraging me to investigate the nature of censorship and it's limitations for an essay to demonstrating the effect language can have and why you should be careful how you use and listen to it by playing recordings of speeches by contrasting people such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Adolf Hitler.

Children especially of high school age need these outside influences by caring honest people to become free thinking individuals. Without it the risk of becoming a clone of your parents is all too real. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with being like your parents but it should be an individuals choice, not indoctrinated, even accidentally.

Cheers,
Pablo

reply to post by Taupin Desciple


I'm not sure i like this idea.
In your proposed model parents may choose to omit skills essential to daily adult life.Such as adequate literacy and numeracy skills, basic life science(how you get knocked up, what happens if you only eat ham) and concepts that are essential to a fulfilling social exchanges.

School does not just teach pointless concepts to everyday life such as Co ordinate Geometry and Shakespeare appreciation but basic social skills, conflict resolution, manners and etiquette.Some people are not taught these social graces at home, but by being in the school environment most will learn at least enough of these qualities to fuction in a Higher Education (College, Uni) or workplace setting.

As a teenager i met "home school kids" who were operating on such a different wavelength to those who had been socially educated that they were not able to make any lasting social connections with others.They had not been taught how to socialise.
Children from all backgrounds who do attend formal education at least have been exposed to an alternative social experience than the one they are familiar with.

reply to post by pablos


I remember in Highschool history we were always told how to feel and think about certain events.
I am not even saying that i disagreed with the view we were supposed to have but we were told just the same how to feel about each conflict, who we should feel sorry for, who we should feel was wrong.
They did not just teach the facts of time lines, events and personalities involved in the conflicts and leave us to draw our own conclusions from this.
I find it dangerous, and possibly akin to brainwashing when you are taught how to feel.

reply to post by mumma in pyjamas


This is true. I wonder how many neo-nazis came by their beliefs through their defiant personalities combined with being told that Hitler was bad, or racism is wrong. In most cases I am sure this would not cause this reaction, though most likely it has on some occasion.

It is a very tricky subject to teach children.

It also goes to my first post about what you are taught and where in the world.

As you may or may not know the swastika was not only used by the nazis. One culture who do use it is Indians. Another one of the Indians I work with was reading the paper one day at work and asked me what this story was about and why people were upset about it. It was a few months ago at the Australian Open when Croatian fans were rocking up in nazi regalia, making salutes and displaying swastikas. First I had to explain why the swastika caused people offense. To him it was a good luck symbol.
I explained it was the emblem the nazis marched under while committing atrocities on the orders of Hitler.

He did not know any of this. I asked whether they taught him about WW2 in school. They apparently did not go into much length or he was away on the one day that they were taught about what is in our culture one of the parts of history we are taught most about.

Not only did he not know about Hitler and Nazism, he had no idea of the crimes perpetrated by them. He was shocked when I told him about the looks and possible insults that could come his way if he walked through the city with a swastika displayed on his person.

It just goes to show what I mean about the differing levels of education and what is considered important to teach the youth, especially to do with history.

I've always understood schooling to be a tool for propaganda. I think this happens no matter what country you're in. The more educated one is, the more likely they are to be hypnotized without their consent. I think this is because in order to put up with so much nonsense for years at a time, you learn to put your critical guards down and just accept what's given to you. A lot of the more educated, NPR types of people I've meet are totally brainwashed. If one could get through school all the while discerning what is knowledge from propaganda, that would be ideal. It would be nice to have a critical thinking day care program for children so they wouldn't be programmed by the state.

reply to post by mumma in pyjamas


Where I live, the state has guidelines that require a homeschooling parent to teach the basics. Reading, writing and arithmetic.

We homeschooled our daughter in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. At the end of each traditional school year, our daughter was given a test made up by the state so they could track her progress in the basics.

We decided that it would be in her best interest that we send her to public schools from the 3rd to 6th grades so she could improve on her social skills. Although alot of homeschooling parents find networks of other homeschoolers and take group field trips so their kids can socially interact with their peers.

Remember too, traditional schools typically last about 8 hours a day. You can homeschool your child during those same 8 hours. Some school districts let homeschoolers participate in their extracurricular activities, like football or chess. A public school is partially funded by the taxes paid by the people in the community. Therefore, the child of the parent[s] who live and pay taxes into that community has a right to participate.

Just because a child is homeschooled, doesn't mean they will be socially retarded. The child will be as socially active as the parent wants him/her to be. As much as a traditionally schooled child.Those kids you talked about as being on a different wavelength, it sounds to me like the parents used the homeschooling environment to not so much teach their children, as to indoctrinate them into their own way of seeing reality. And since that more than likely didn't jibe with the rest of society, they ended up being on a different wavelength then their peers. And that's sad.

Think about this though, take two children being taught in public schools. One lives in rural Montana, the other lives in the Bronx. After 8 years of schooling, they meet face to face. I can guarentee you they will be on different wavelengths. Why? Because of their different environments, and what they were taught in school BECAUSE of their different environments.

In short, I would rather my daughter be homeschooled because that way, I KNOW what she is being taught. I'm the one teaching her, not somebody else who doesn't have her best interest at heart. I'm not saying that all public schools are bad, I'm just saying that mine is better for my daughter.



Peace

reply to post by Taupin Desciple


Done properly i don't think that homeschool is categorically to the childs disadvantage.

But the problem is that a lot of people who the concept appeals to will be the kind of people who should not be trusted to do this.

Home education in itself is not the entire issue.Because the issue is more about brainwashing disguised as education.
The problem is when it involves social isolation, or only socialising with other people who subscribe to the same belief system.

I've known people who were able to brainwash their kids who did attend public school.
I once bitched to a friend that another friends parents had said the "devil" was in my home because my parents had a book on Yoga.

She then relayed to me a confused story about how someone at her church had a sore back and the devil went into her when she did yoga and made her back sore and the serpent wrapped around her spine and then she stopped and the devil went away.(her words)
And that the other kids parents were right to be worried about their daughter in my home.
She had attended a public school but through her religious education she had been brainwashed.