Saturday, March 28, 2009

Quote for the Day

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words! --Samuel Adams

Connecticut School Bans Physical Contact

A Connecticut middle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone -- anyone -- in any way, you're going to pay...Students and parents are outraged. They said the new policy means no high-fives and hugs, as well as horseplay of any kind. The consequences could be dire, Williams warned in the letter...

Now it's almost as if it's a sanitized school. Where you have to keep your distance from everybody? And that's not what school is about," one father said. [link]

Although I would have to agree that this policy takes things way too far. I can't say that I actually agree with the last question by a concerned father. In a way he is correct, but there is something else that needs to be looked at. He is correct in asserting that keeping your distance is not what school is all about, however that is what public education is all about.

Our current public educational system as it is now is not about education, but about indoctrination, group think, collectivism, and getting children used to "following the rules". This was the entire reason behind the Prussian system which our current system is not just based on, but copied exactly from the Prussian system.

Its sole purpose is to try and get everyone to view things the same, those that don't are labeled (such as learning disability, behavior disability, and others) usually to the detriment of their education. Individualism and individual learning are discouraged. Just because someone may take a little more time to learn to read does not necessarily mean they are learning disabled. And what happens if one child exhibits unusual talents above their "grade level"? They are usually asked to help the other children in the class and not given an opportunity to see how much they can improve their talents.

Public education is not broken, and does not more money put into it. It works just as it was designed to work. If people want to see better results they need to look at the system as a whole and not just at parts of it. For an excellent article that captures the abuses of the modern system much better than I do, go here.

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