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and one that should be on the tip of many of our tongues -- especially those who dub themselves progressive and liberal -- is, "What in the heck are we educating our young for, now?" Oh heck, these days, you don't have to dub yourself anything and I take that back. You are you amongst the we who are we's and I can't find a damn thing that is normal anyway, so why pretend? But I digress, and so do you with me, but I think you know what I mean?
Really! What are we educating our kids to be, do, become, find? How many of you find yourselves as obsolete as myself and my peers, thanks to the new, improved butter churn of endless growth and change that is so much better than before if only you are not replaced by it somehow, you lucky dog?
I don't want, at all, to sound condescending, (or, you may argue, I might) but is anyone paying attention to the current, chaotic nature of our time-stream here? Most of us elders don't even know what the Bush we should retrain for when we have lost our sanctioned means for validity in this self-reformatting, elite-serving culture we find ourselves incarnated in.
We can harp on that cushy, seemingly valuable platform of education because it was something most of us grew-up within. You know, back then when we could kind of throw a dart at a map of where education might lead in the sense of self-esteem, sustenance, continuity and our place in this churning flux of emerging interactions.
Now, just what would you seriously prepare students for with a straight face, considering your good sense of things as they currently are? Oh, sure, they should be able to walk, communicate, calculate, interact, etc., but apart from the model of molding, (not truly educating, expanding and enlightening) children to fit into a corporately designed model of reality, what do we have to offer High School graduates at large, let alone College grads who may have had a great time while being exposed to some potentially mind-expanding eclectic ideas and knowledge while they managed to forestall entering the desertification of the workforce with their extra large burden of debt strapped to their financial ankle?
We have very little to offer them now factually and realistically on a massive scale. That's failure. It is failure especially when we are espousing the value of traditional, run-of-the-mill education in the middle of a global, artificially induced crises that is turning our collective World on it's ear.
I am not anti-education. I am certainly opposed to education that exists within the context of a larger, mass-produced ignorance that proves itself to be, ultimately, hypocritical and short-sighted, especially when it comes from a preceding generation that had access to both education and had a better chance of finding a viable application of it in terms of a vocation and livelihood ... though the deck has always been stacked in the numbers game agains the masses who are needed to serve the successful grads by working the "undesirable", less cushy or insecure positions. Might I add that education is not, was never, and will never be confined to classrooms and formal training programs and we might want to start fessing up to that soon. Our kids might start to love learning and see that life itself is the lecture hall. Learning is not restricted to formalized venues and trained teachers in any subject. Didn't somebody have to come up with the original ideas without a Professor or teacher to instruct? That's what we are looking for, here, or at least a combination of learning as life and instruction from experience.
So, sure, let's not just educate them, let's REALLY educate them. I mean, get back to something approximating the levels of education in America that we saw a generation or two ago. My only problem is that what we are calling education is half-assed, especially in relation to the high degree of technology and information we are swimming in today. Does anyone find that odd? The fact that we have more information and high technology at every turn should be a warning sing when we see that our progeny here are statistically coming in far behind kids in India and China in those classes, (underscore CLASSES). That's a major, academic WTF, to me!
The dumbing down is factual and continual. Our own legacy is dying, be it by our action or inaction, in a world that has obviously been going the other way. What? Well, we contribute to the idea that the institutions we entrust them to are: noble, uplifting, beneficial, altruistic, etc., etc. Or, does that sneaking suspicion prove true? They are being prepared in large numbers, for the role they are intended to play in the corporate mono-culture's wet dream come true.
Maybe it is now time to redefine just what education is, means, and accomplishes? There are many facets to it and you know, the old Scholastic view is, to me, myopic, centralized, and outdated, thought its remnants persist.
I can attest to the fact that a good, liberal education can literally open a young mind to a larger view of the world in a short time. That, in itself is valuable and worthwhile, though it does not necessarily equate with a capitalistic, directly pragmatic worth. And there is the rub! Rather than dumb our kids down or try to prepare them for what may not be, we could hope that giving them quality education for the very sake of expansion of their minds, their critical thinking, their width, breadth, and scope, would, rather than molding them into fitting automatons for business as complaint Serfs, (to make a buck and make no waves) we could empower them with knowledge that will make them non-compliant and revolutionary while it inspires them to break the bonds that have brought us to this delusional, false sense of freedom and capability that we all tend to share, just as we watch it engulf us in the darkness we have learned to deny.
Teach your children well! You may be the only one who can give them a key to their own tangible grasp on freedom and realization. Then, as you free yourself form the bondage of formalized, fit-in-the-bell-curve-mold and actually do what we can't seem to accomplish when it comes to identifying the bad guys, (we used to look for black hats) and giving them a run for their abstract concept of money. Sheesh! We are making it too easy for ourselves to be subjugated, so maybe we could unleash a vast flock of self-educated, learning beings, (our kids) on them and get better results? Or should we continue on this traditional path where they just kill time, build debt, and end-up as graduates waiting tables, doing telephone soliciting, landscaping, etc.? We do have a potential, but are we going to send them down the tube that our own, rather outdated ignorance compels us to? Yeah, we are the old fogies, but we can get with it and stop doing the program.
I am only saying this because I believe that, as entrenched in cultural realities as we may tend to get as we age we have the benefit that we have had to be more flexible than previous generations when it comes to adapting to whole-sale change in large and frequent doses. Let's use that to our advantage and apply it in our struggle to move this whole mess into something that approximates a movement of humanity for the sake of humans and not primarily as corporations and commodities for the sake of profit for a few who can only get off on owning us all as if that is what life is about in total.
Are we good to go on that?
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