You can raise the consciousness-level of the world quickly if you abolish public, mandatory schooling.
Truth vs. Falsehood
In school I learned that rats caused the bubonic plague, that an apple fell on Newtons head, that Columbus discovered America, that Ben Franklin discovered electricity, that witches were burned at the stake in 17th Century Salem, that Marie Antoinette said “Let them eat Cake”, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident caused the Vietnam War, that Thomas Edison invented the first lightbulb, that the “wild west” of 18th Century USA was a dangerous time full of uncivilized outlaws and thousands of other things that have no basis in reality. And that’s just History. Similar lists could be made for any school subject.
While repeating these boring lies, school did not teach me how to
handle finances and make money,
how to grow food,
manage my mind and emotions,
how to purify water,
communicate,
have good relationships,
how to build,
discern truth from falsehood,
self-heal the body
or hundreds of other things relevant to a healthy and successful life. What does it tell you about the people in charge, that they never taught you what you need to be self-sufficient and free?
Education vs. Indoctrination
If public school were abolished, we wouldn’t miss a thing. If anything, you’d see a dramatic increase in consciousness level. You may disagree, thinking it would lead to poor education and lack of knowledge. But public schools are not about education, they’re about indoctrination. They train for a person to become an obedient worker, not an adventurous renegade or creative genius.
Here’s how it works:
You are rewarded for repeating what authority tells you and punished for not repeating it. That’s not education. Truth comes from examination, debate and experience not from mindlessly parroting what someone tells you. That’s really the opposite of truth and intelligence. Intelligence sorts, notices patterns, extrapolates and creates. School teaches to memorize and repeat. Those who provide this type of “education” see you as an animal to be conditioned, made to conform as a functioning cog in the wheel, not a creator of your own reality, equipped with original thought. It is because of poor schooling, we see so many people today walking around without much original thought.
Guess what I got reprimanded for in school the most? For being “willful”. School teachers kept telling my parents, that the problem with me, was that I am willful and “headstrong”.
Having my own will and my own intentions is the basis of my success, but in school it was a bad thing.
That doesn’t mean I don’t respect legitimate authority. I’m happy to follow other peoples rules, if they have shown a positive outcome for most involved. But our standards of schooling are so low, they don’t warrant my respect. And the standards are still in decline. People think we are progressing because of new technological developments. But in some areas we are regressing. For example in 19th Century America, Greek and Latin were taught to kids in High School. That’s hard to imagine nowadays, isn’t it? These days, we are teaching remedial English to college students!
If you believe our ancestors were “primitive” while we are “advanced” (as they teach you in school), look at some of the architecture from old days, vs. architecture from our day.
Choice and Interest
As a child, I spent hours in libraries. I learned the most when I was on my own, choosing books of my liking, instead of being forced to read books by a teacher. School was too slow for me. If I could follow what interests me, I learned at lightning speed. In most countries, you’ll be arrested if you don’t bring your child to school. Can something you are forced to do by others, really be that good? It’s interesting to note that nothing in the process of public schooling, allows for choice. What part do you play in choosing who teaches your children? What do you know about the background of those teachers? What part of the curriculum do you choose? Is there any evidence at all that public school “builds the character” of a child better than home schooling or neighborhood schooling by locals would?
School teachers never ask “Where would you like your attention to be?” or “What interests you?”. What you actually like and prefer is never brought up. How soulless! Instead they tell you what you should put attention on (or else!), providing ready-made answers to everything. As a coach of 35 years, I have noticed this need for ready-made answers in my work with people. Sometimes I pose a riddle or a question without providing an answer. My purpose is to get my student to think for themselves. Sometimes I post something online, without explaining what it is. But some struggle with that and start feeling “unsafe” because I haven’t provided ready-made answers or failed to described the entirety of an issue, leaving things open. Then I receive comments like “What does this mean?”, “Can you elaborate?”, “Can you explain?”, “I don’t understand!”. This mentality is the result of a failed public school system. People demand ready-made answers from others, but it would be much better if you learned to think for yourself.
In the way public school is organized, you can tell that the ruling elite don’t like humans that much, seeing them as subjects to be watched, trained, medicated, sterilized, ghettoized, coerced, classified, counted and disciplined rather than cherished, encouraged, inspired, spiritualized, elevated, challenged and loved.
Why do people know so little?
I say “abolish public schooling” because I have been astonished by how little people know – about anything. A person leaves school or college thinking they have the skills to deal with life. But if that were true, I would never have become as successful a coach. I’ve helped people who hold multiple degrees with things they should have learned during their extensive studies. They’ve come to me panic stricken after a corporate downsizing, an unexpected divorce, a drug addiction, a fear of public speaking or even a shocking paranormal event, with no clue whatsoever how to deal with it. Why doesn’t school prepare people for reality? If it did, I’d need to find myself another job.
My work has been to undo what school and society have done to people. Often, I don’t need to teach anything new, but help people un-learn false information so that they can begin accessing how they feel and form their own views. Sometimes, when I help people remove their beliefs, they begin feeling uncomfortable and quickly go looking for another ready-made opinion they can hold on to. It can take some time for them to liberate their minds. A free mind is incredibly powerful.
Self-Learning
A lot of very successful people do not owe their success to school. In fact, many never had much, that’s why they became successful. Experience is the wisest teacher, often better than some bore giving instructions on a blackboard. An instructor cannot teach you courage, determination, honesty and focus – things you really need for the good life.
If you’ve kept your soul, despite school, you will be able to self-learn most things, by intuition. Sometimes you get lucky and get a really good teacher who knows how to awaken your innate intelligence. Such teachers know that there is something within you that already has the answers and they creatively coax that part out of you. But many teachers aren’t that good. They lack real-life experience relevant to what they are teaching or they are just going through the motions of a pre-defined curriculum. How many students at University require actual internships and extra-curricular, reading material to really grasp the subject they are studying? Why don’t expensive Universities provide the knowledge people need to succeed in the chosen field?
In the U.S. you can sue just about anyone for malpractice. You can sue the plumber, the doctor and the lawyer, but you cannot sue the school teacher. Nor do public schools guarantee results. Schools would greatly benefit from being more choice-oriented, more local and more free-market. It would benefit from more skill-oriented learning. Or simply abolish public schooling.
Benefits of Public Schooling?
There are benefits to public schooling. It’s good for a child to be exposed to people outside of ones own family bubble. It’s good to learn teamwork, to play with others. And yes, it’s good to learn reading and writing (I’m not a fan of schools that use ipads only). A great benefit of public schooling is the relief parents get from babysitting. However, all of these benefits can also be had in private schools and schools made by the local community. I fully support any initiative of parents taking back control of their childrens schooling.
As with every article I write, much more could be said. But an article is not meant to be a comprehensive treatise. Nowadays, with almost everything I write, there are people sending me messages, telling me what I failed to mention, often with the words “you don’t seem to be aware of…”. Well, perhaps I am aware of it, perhaps not. Often I intentionally omit information so that a reader can develop their own thoughts and have the feeling of having originated a number of thoughts on a subject.
Takeaways: Interest-Based Learning (you learn what you prefer to learn), Choice-Based Learning (you choose what you learn) and Experience and Action-Based Learning (you learn by actually doing it) will speed up your learning in any field. Being forced to learn stuff that doesn’t seem relevant to your chosen field of interest, slows down learning.