The State of Affairs We Are In
16/9/2003
“School is the advertising agency which makes
you believe that you need the society as it is.” Ivan Illich
“I am quite satisfied with the way I’ve been
educated. My school was a good school.” were the words of an Italian
25 year-old son of an old friend. When he said it I wanted to ask
him, ‘But how do you know? With what are you comparing it? What are
your parameters for a good education? How do you qualify a good
education today?’ And many other questions I wanted ask him.
However, I did not make any comment, because I knew there was no
point having an argument at that stage.
“John
and I have only ever had positive experiences with school here in
Australia, and we are happy with it,” was the response of a relative
to whom I revealed my displeasure with the education system in
Australia and elsewhere. Several times I came across people with the
same “positive” attitude who never question, let alone criticise,
the state of affairs we are in today.
As I
have written a few essays in the past on education in a narrow and
broader spectrum, there is no need to repeat myself on the same
topic, apart from saying a few things as a reminder. If ‘Johnny’
cannot read, write or spell, it is a sign and a symptom of a very
deep malaise in our modern society, which has lost the “road map.”
Berit
Kjos in ‘A Strategy for Brainwashing’ says:
“How are we cultivate morality and character in our students without
indoctrinating them … ?” This provocative question came from a 1988
ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) panel
on moral Education. In his written statement, Richard Paul, Director
of the Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critic, shows how to
hide classroom subversion behind misleading labels such as “critical
thinking” and “individual moral reasoning skill.” Students “discover
for themselves” that none of old ways fit the moral framework of the
coming world order. Then they are led to “discover” what does fit
earth-centered beliefs and new-paradigm values. Ponder these obvious
steps to transformation:
-
Present
palatable version of target beliefs.
2. Dismantle
the students’ previous beliefs.
3. Blend new
beliefs with science to add credibility.
4. Redefine
words to fit the new beliefs.
5. Rewrite
history.
6. Provide
mystical experiences that contradict old beliefs.
7. Immerse
students in enticing forms of the new belief.
8. Use target
beliefs to answer questions traditionally answered by former
beliefs.
Nowadays, we are able to observe how the above is being implemented.
Yet the question is still legitimate and needs to be answered:
‘How and when do we know that education is good education?’
I will come to that.
‘A good education is good investment’
is
the saying.
To illustrate my point, allow me now to compare the education system
with money and economics.
"Where is the
money going to come from?" is a question often asked. Well, where
does any money come from? It’s not mined or produced like a
commodity, although there might, even in this day and age, be some
among us who still associate money with something tangible, like
precious metals. No, money is created when a loan is made. If you
borrow $10,000 from a bank, do you ask where it comes from? You
might suspect that the bank has it somewhere, just waiting for you
to borrow it, and the banker would be happy to have you labor under
that delusion. In fact, before you asked for it, the money did not
exist. When the banker adds the number 10,000 to your bank balance –
hey presto! – it comes into existence. Inflation, (im)pure and
simple!
So where will
the proposed $87 billion [for the Iraq
effort] come from? From thin air, like all other money. The
numbers created can be exchanged via checks, or the familiar paper
Federal Reserve notes.
The "amount" of money is not finite: money
isn’t a thing. Spending X amount here doesn’t mean doing without X
amount there. There’s no limit – spend away! Indeed, spending, per
se, is a prime government priority. With no source of money except
borrowing, and with each new borrowing increasing the total debt by
more than the amount borrowed (let’s not forget interest!) the only
hope that the economy can be kept afloat until the next election is
to create (borrow) more money. With the debt burden so high, private
borrowers might decide they’ve had enough: the interest burden is
crushing them at a time when the economic outlook isn’t rosy. So
Uncle can step in as the borrower of last resort. It’s the classical
situation of trying to borrow one’s way out of debt, but there is no
alternative – short of sound money, and an end to fiat money. Until
that day, to keep the economy under some sort of control and keep
prices from rising too rapidly, controls and taxes are necessary.
And the people’s acceptance of the government’s fiat allows them to
be controlled far more subtly than with whips and chains: economic
control is the means by which we’re limited, controlled, and
regulated, i.e., governed. [From, “The Cost of Money”, by
Paul Hein <
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hein/hein34.html ]
Fiat
money, money that comes out of thin air, with no intrinsic value
whatsoever, describes well what the state or government education
system is: a ‘bubble full of hot air’.
H. L.
Mencken wrote in the Baltimore Sun, February 23 1924:
“The
assumption that it is the aim of the American public school to fan
the intelligence and to produce large numbers of alert and curious
youths of both sexes is foolish. The state maintains its control
of elementary education, not primarily to reduce illiteracy and
turn the eyes of the plain people toward the stars, but to make sure
that they are not taught anything that is subversive.
“Public
education is thus a police measure. The goal it moves toward is
perfect standardization, perfect ‘discipline’, perfect imbecility.”http://www.americastateterrorism.com/AboutThisSite.html
All
this happened because, for many decades, our education system has
been based on a flimsy humanistic philosophy, anthropocentric rather
than Christocentric, as it had been for many centuries
So,
how to qualify education as a good education today? The
answer is, you cannot,
because we don’t have the base to do it. Good money, as we have
seen, has gold or other precious metal base as redeemer, or is debt
free [not loan-made]; likewise education is a good education when it
has God, i.e. the Father of Jesus Christ, at its beginning, at its
end, as well as at its centre. God is the
qualifier
for everything, especially for education.
What
we call education today is actually nothing but a humanistic
indoctrination, a sort of monetary
inflation – with no value in it. Your money, any money,
is worth nothing, because it is based on debt; your education is
worth little or nothing, because it lacks the
qualifier,
i.e. God. We have lost the parameter for measuring things –
the
yardstick
is nowhere to be found.
Sir
Walter Scott (1771-1832) said:
“We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and
destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as
moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.”
Finally, how then do we know education is a ‘good’
education? When we will
reintroduce, or restore, the
good back where it
belongs – with us. The gospel according Mark 10: 17-18 says:
“Good
teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered
him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
References
and Links
Education – State
school or Catholic school? [8/5/03], by
Nadir Martello
Ashley Anderson
[16 year-old girl] -- America's Failing Public School System
http://www.newswithviews.com/public_schools/public_schools10.htm
Problems –
Problems – Problems, Erica Carle, August 2 2002, NewsWithVews.com
Destroying A
Nation, Lynn Stuter, May 5 2003, NewsWithViews.com
Education,
History of –
http://wwwencarta.ninemsn.com.au/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=761561&page=2415
Catholic
Education, 27/7/03
http://www.oltyn.com/cfn/CathEd.htm
FOCUS;
Using the Delphi
Technique to achieve Consensus, Lynn Stuter
www.icehouse.net/lmstuter
EDUCATION
REPORTER
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1998/nov98/focus.html
Bush, Gorbachev,
Shultz and Soviet Education, by Berit Kjos
www.crossroad.to
http://www.crossroad.to/text/article/Bush4-99.html
Habitat II The UN
Plan For Global Control, Berit Kjos
www.crossroad.to
Charts: Three
Sets of Meanings for Educational Buzzwords
http://www.crossroad.to/charts/NewMeanings.html
Reinventing the
World, part 2: The Mind-Changing Process, Berit Kjos
http://www.crossroad.to/article2/Reinventing2.htm
BOOK
Brave new
Schools, Berit Kjos, Harvest House Publisher, Eugene Oregon 97402
[1995]
