I am Oxymoronic

(Author's note: This was originally published on myspace with an intended audience of high school students. Please don't assume I'm talking "down" at my peers. Many of the reposts from my early days will have a target audience. I shifted the target as my audience became primarily adult).

There is something inherently insane about being both a Libertarian and a public school teacher. After all, if the Libertarians had their way, there would no longer exist a free, compulsory public education system. Education would be left up to parents. It would cost. Parents could choose what kind of education their child should receive, where they would receive it, and at what age they could finally throw in the towel and send the kid to work. In the meantime, I work for a public school...and it sure as hell is compulsory for almost every kid in attendance.

Lessons I learned as a product of the public school system:

1. If you are really smart, you become educated in spite of the public school system and not because of it. In general, there is much angst that goes along with this. Being smarter than your teachers sucks. I have been privileged to have a few students who were smarter than me. I enjoyed the challenge. What a treat!

2. If you are one of the eighty percent of the world who can be considered "normal" (you can look that one up, but it won't help - never have found a definition of that word that works for me), then you will sort of coast through, struggling a bit here and there with a subject or a particular teacher, maybe with a suspension or two for a little rebellion. A fight here, a cigarette there. No biggie. You muddle through, wind up in a JC or University, muddle through some more, and eventually have relatively successful lives.

3. If you are dysfunctional (and you can apply whatever label has been applied to you to the term dysfunctional - my personal favorite is ADD), then the public school system was never intended to handle you. As a Libertarian AND as a teacher, I want to know why we have to.

If the Libertarians had their way, I'd be able to work for a school that agreed with my personal educational philosophy. The students I would get would be students whose parents agreed with that philosophy and were paying for the privilege. That would motivate them to get a little more involved in the process. I would be able to teach pretty much what I wanted. No one would send their children to my school if we "graduated" them unprepared for work or further education.

What public schools were created to do was to provide basic literacy skills in reading, writing and arithmetic so that individuals could participate in society. Our system still revolves around a time when farming dictated when students could attend school. Our system is still intended to produce compliant workers for decent paying manufacturing jobs that no longer exist.

Why pay attention to literature, social studies, and math? I have news for you. It's not about remembering specific facts. It's about training your mind to THINK in a variety of ways. Do you think? Or do you just regurgitate? That choice is up to you.
I'd rather work somewhere where the students think, even if I don't always agree with those thoughts. Regurgitation bores me.
Some of the stuff you learn in school is important. Learning how to be on time and tolerate a long, boring day is critical. You're going to spend YEARS doing that. Sorry to burst the bubble. Grown ups have to get up, go to work, deal with chronic boredom (though I must say that isn't an issue in my chosen profession), come home, deal with home stuff like cooking dinner and doing dishes...Blah. Learning how to suck it up and deal with it appropriately when someone with authority over you is acting like a jerk...also critical. I would never say anything bad about any of my recent bosses, but I HAVE had bosses in the past who made me nuts. Paycheck was more important. I sucked it up. Learning how to get along with others, even when you don't like them? How far are you going to get in life when you are spending most of you day in a cubicle, sharing your space with three other people who have nothing in common with you AND have annoying personal habits? Watch the original version of "The Office" on the BBC channel. You'll see what I mean.

I have honestly never used Calculus in my life. But I think every day. I read. I listen to NPR (because while it is biased toward the left, at least I get international news as well as local). I give a fig about the world I live in, and the civil wars in Africa, and all the other military actions my country is choosing to get involved with (or more importantly, choosing to do nothing about).

The powers that be, and the powers that were (and if you don't believe me, read The Federalist Papers), are counting on the majority of the masses to remain complacently ignorant. The elite either get co-opted and become the system, or they wind up in jail. The rebels generally wind up in jail or on Skid Row.
You choose. Are you in control of your own life and destiny? Or are you going to let the system label you, sort you, and put you safely away in your correct place?

As long as you choose ignorance, you choose to let the system determine your fate.

Oh, what I could teach if I was allowed to teach whatever I wanted...to people who wanted to learn it.

Free and compulsory public education is the single largest factor leading to the modern day entitlement mentality that currently exists in this country. But that is for another blog.

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