Education in America

[coberst]

Education in America

It appears to me that there are two categories of educational techniques. One focuses on creating

graduates with large databases and the other focuses on the individual creativity of its graduates.

The US system concentrates on large databases and ignores (I think not accidentally) individual creativity.

The graduates of US education are great producers and consumers and almost totally without individual creative capability. Our economic system thrives on a policy of habit, pattern and routine. The workplace wants action and not time consuming thought. Thought must be of the kind that can quickly choose between ‘True and False’ or ‘A, B or C’. Thought should be “curtailed to a minimum”; quick action must be “accentuated to a maximum”. Any action delayed by excessive thought is to be discouraged. All thought beyond “T or F and A, B or C” is excessive.

The workplace, primarily the large corporation, needs expert specialists with finely detailed pattern recognition. The most valuable employee, at any single moment, is one with a readily available menu of routines who can--after recognizing the problem pattern—quickly choose the routine that will immediately reengage the wheels of production.

Our college graduates are primed for pattern recognition and choosing routines. If the workplace detects a situation wherein the available routines are inadequate quick action is demanded to correct that situation. Our workplaces are designed to accommodate workers who follow detected patterns with honed routines. The workplace must maximize routine and minimize the need for any thought outside that which is carefully calibrated by routine. The most efficient workplace functions like a military force wherein all actions are made in response to codified routine. Even when the need arrives to replace an ongoing routine with another, this action too, is codified.

We think of the private entrepreneur as a very creative thinker who wins because of a quick and creative brain. I suspect there is some degree of truth in this assumption but it is a very small factor for success. Someone said ‘success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration’. The major element of success results from correct business pattern recognition; followed by well-honed business routines that makes success a possibility. Luck then determines who succeeds or fails. Bruit force capitalization, I suspect, is also a big factor. Bill Gates and many others attempted to develop software in the early days of the hi-tech boom. One or another of these entrepreneurs would succeed magnificently. Gates happened to be the one.

So, when all our citizens are educated to be successful in the world of ‘produce and consume’, what citizen is prepared to make good judgement in life when faced with problems with no pattern and no routines?

I have more than 16 years of formal education. Within the American lexicon I would, I think, be considered “well educated”. In my opinion, our standard college degree does not advance our education but very little. I think that it advances our training a great deal. I think this college degree prepares us for our life as a producer and consumer and does little positive to advance our ability to be what I consider to be a “good and wise citizen”.

[Raven]

It's only in a few private institutions that you will find room for creative thought. I too was educated in America. Now I find myself in an English institution for higher learning. Comparing the two is fascinating in that they are different in their approaches but the goals are the same.

I honestly believe that individual thought is not encouraged because that leads to questioning what the State dictates. In other words, State education just gives you enough to acheive the states sanctioned ends. By encouraging knowledge, well that exposes the flaws in the system...eventually. Workers are not supposed to question the masters. Those that do are labeled as anarchists and terrorists these days. I am afraid the days of renaissance are well and truly over. Noone is interested in HOW Newton, Gallileo, Michaelangelo, Davinci etc came about their conclusions. Thats free thinking. Capitalist education has won out in showing quick returns for thinking the way the State wants you to think.

[coberst]

An oligarchy controls public policy in America. The oligarchy consists of those who manage the great wealth of American institutions. This oligarchy designs our educational system to graduate good producers and consumers and does not desire independent thinkers.

CA (Corporate America) has developed a well-honed expertise in motivating the population to behave in a desired manner. Citizens as consumers are ample manifestation of that expertise. CA has accomplished this ability by careful study and implementation of the knowledge of the ways of human behavior. I suspect this same structure applies to most Western democracies.

A democratic form of government is one wherein the citizens have some voice in some policy decisions. The greater the voice of the citizens the better the democracy.

In America we have policy makers, decision makers, and citizens. The decision makers are our elected representatives and are, thus, under some control by the voting citizen. The policy makers are the leaders of CA; less than ten thousand individuals, according to those who study such matters. Policy makers exercise significant control of decision makers by controlling the financing of elections.

Policy makers customize and maintain the dominant ideology in order to control the political behavior of the citizens. This dominant ideology exercises the political control of the citizens in the same fashion as the consuming citizen is controlled by the same dominant ideology.

An enlightened citizen is the only means to gain more voice in more policy decisions. An enlightened citizen is much more than an informed citizen. Critical thinking is the only practical means to develop a more enlightened citizen. If, however, we wait until our CT trained grade-schoolers become adults I suspect all will be lost. This is why I think a massive effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they must train themselves in CT.



“Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, has published a series of books examining who and what institutions actually control and run America. to understand who is making the decisions that affect our lives, we also have to understand how societies structure themselves in general. Why the few always tend to share more power than the many and what this means in terms of both a society's evolution and our daily lives. they examined the other 11 institutions that exert just as powerful a shaping influence, although somewhat more subtle: The Industrial, Corporations, Utilities and Communications, Banking, Insurance Investment, Mass Media, Law, Education Foundation, Civic and Cultural Organizations, Government, and the Military.”

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