We Don't Need No Education
We Don't Need No Thought Control
There has been controversy in Kansas over the
teaching of evolution in, government schools since 1999, when
evolution was "de-emphasized" in science teaching at the behest of
an elected state education board. Opponents of teaching about
evolution consider it just another theory about human development,
comparable to that of creationism or intelligent design and feel
the state should not favor one of these theories over another in
its science curriculum. While this issue seems to be resolved at
present since a pro evolution majority was elected to the state
board in 2000, during the debates about evolution no one seemed to
be concerned about the broader question of whether the government
should be mandating anything, regarding what is taught to
students, or even whether the state should be in the business of
education at all.
From Christian conservatives to "freethinkers," it
appears that most people in Kansas and the rest of the United
States favor the continued existence of government schools. Even
when people disagree with what or how the schools are teaching,
they organize to change only the parts of the curriculum or the
methods they dislike, never challenging the very institution of
compulsory "public" education: conservative religionists try to
get prayer back into schools and evolution out,
It is rare to hear anyone advocate dismantling the government
school system and letting people provide for the education of
themselves and their children without the interference of
politicians.
The worst thing about government schools is not that
they promote this or that incorrect or inaccurate idea, bad as
that may be, but that participation in them is forced. Children
are required to attend these schools by compulsory education laws,
and working people are compelled to support them with tax money
extorted from them.. While these laws do allow children other
education options besides government schools, their parents are
taxed whether their children attend public schools or not making
private' -alternatives unaffordable to many. And even when
parents and children do manage to choose non-government methods of
teaching and learning, they are still hounded by the state.
Governments presume to license or approve private schools and
require home schoolers or deschoolers to present education plans
or curricula to education bureaucrats for their approval before
they are allowed to educate their children themselves.
Government schools have a mission: to educate
children sufficiently that they can function as workers in the
American economy, and to indoctrinate them in the ideas important
to the continuation of current economic and political
institutions. While they often do a.lousyjob of teaching even
basic skills like reading, writin' and arithmetic, public schools
are quite efficient in promoting loyalty and obedience to
government, hierarchical relationships, and conformity among
students. Students are forced to pledge allegiance to the
govermnenfs flag, vote in mock presidential elections; participate
in behavior control programs like the cop-run DARE; perform
mandatory community service, which is paradoxically called
"volunteerism;" engage in team-building activities where they are
taught to sacrifice their individuality to be part of the group;
and, more and more often, wear. uniforms. They are forced to
attend classes, eat, and even use the bathroom on a rigid
schedule. They are encouraged to show loyalty to "their"
teachers, "their" class, "their" school, "their" athletic teams.
Such regimentation and institutional loyalty set them in good
stead for their later lives as employees
Students are seen as members of groups, not
individuals with developmental needs and goals based: on their
age and grade, not their personal desires and preferences.
Students who are bored with school or can't stand being confined
in a classroom are commonly labeled as discipline problems or.
"diagnosed" with a fake disease like hyperactivity/attention
deficit disorder. Children with this diagnosis are then drugged
into submission to make them more malleable in the classroom..
Same-age groups are all taught the same thing in the same way.
Forcing children to associate with others of the same age, whether
they share interests or not, promotes, conformity with others in
their arbitrwy - group, instead of individuality and freely chosen
friendships and alliances. Students who don't fit in ate
disciplined and punished by teachers and administrators and/or
terrorized and bullied by more compliant "peers."
The disregard in which students are held by the
education establishment is demonstrated in many ways. Physical
facilities are allowed to deteriorate, doors are removed form
toilet stalls, inadequate cooling and heating are provided, and
less than nutritious food is provided in cafeterias. Students in
Boaz, AZ, were even fed chicken nuggets made from diseased
poultry. Out-of-date and inaccurate textbooks are used,
incompetent teachers are hired and promoted, and violent students
are allowed to attack their more vulnerable fellows. Like
prisoners, students are conAned in unsanitary, sometimes
dangerous, institutions and punished with more intensive
incarceration if they rebel, Unlike most prisoners, however,
students have done nothing to put themselves in this position
besides living in a certain place and being a certain age. It
should come as no surprise that so many students leave these
places as soon as they are old enough to do so.
Students are routinely denied the due process
usually granted to adults accused of "bad" behavior. Zero
tolerance policies in regard to guns and drugs in schools result
is suspensions of even very young children for "crimes" such as
bringing an inch-and-a-half long gun-shaped medallion to school,
pointing a chicken finger at a teacher and saying "pow, pow, pow,"
or giving a nonprescription pain-killeT to ei friend. In a
particularly outrageous incident, five students in Parsons'KS,
were charged with conspiracy to "commit murder in December 1999,
solely on the basis of a lie told by another student that
they'Were planning to shoot people at school. They were detained
for two months and then released into 24 hour adult supervision,
despite the fact that their. accuser admitted making up the story
in February 2000. The conspiracy charges were not dropped until
April 14. However, despite this, the students were barred from
returning to school, and administrators advocated barring them for
the rest of the school year, because their presence would be
"disruptive." An object lesson in American justice. Many parents,
unwilling to sacrifice their children to the public school system,
have turned to non-government alternatives. Private schools often
provide a better education in basic skills and sometimes a more
varied curriculum, at least in part as a result of the need for
these schools to compete for paying customers with a "free" public
system. Tuition at these institutions, however, is an added, and
at times prohibitive, expense for parents who are already forced
to pay taxes to support government education, whether they have
children in public schools or not. Attempts to facilitate use of
private schools by'means of vouchers have been consistently
opposed by education bureaucrats, public school teachers, and most
politicians, large numbers of whom manage to put their own
children in private or bettcr-off suburban public schools. Of
course, such vouchers would increase government control of private
schools by setting standards that such schools would have to meet
to qualify to receive stolen tax revenues, . thereby gradually
whittling away at the advantages currently enjoyed by private
institutions. Despite their better academic performance and less
violent environments, private schools even now are still required
to comply with various state rules and regulations which stifle
innovation and promote traditional curricula. In most private
schools, just as in government ones, discipline, conformity, and
hierarchy remain the rule.
More and more people are pulling their children
totally out of the school system. While education bureaucrats
usually require home-schoolers to register with school boards
and/or submit curricula, parents can sometimes manage to avoid all
contact with education authorities and are overlooked by the
system. Some home-schoolers are disciplinarians and force their
children to follow a strict curriculum..
Others, however, known as deschoolers, completely
reject the model of education and teaching, instead promoting
self-directed learning. They see the role of parents and other
helpers as simply assisting learners when they lack the expertise
or experience to learn on their own or in conjunction with their
fellow learners. Such children are encouraged to choose friends
and associates on the basis of shared desires and interests,
regardless of age, sex,. color, and so on. Deschooling
challenges categories based on shared group characteristics or
identities and promotes individuality and mutual aid. Learning is
seen as a joint project of all concerned, with the learners
choosing the direction of their own development, viewing the
mastery of manual skills as just as important as academic
pursuits. In this model, learning is completely individualized,
with each child seen as a unique person whose progress is not to
be constantly compared to that of others or judged according to
some developmental model created by "experts."
The public education system cannot be reformed, any
more than other branches of government. It can exist only because
the state forces children into schools with its compulsory
education laws, confiscates the money to fund them by taxing
working people and confounds the efforts of people to create their
own alternatives by insinuating itself into private schools and
even the homes of those who reject schools altogether. The only
solution for the problems of government schools is to abolish them
and all other intrusions by government into the lives of
individuals. And this will only come about with the abolition of
government itself.
From Anarchy in Kansas #2, February 2001, c/o
Bad Press, PO Box 3682, Kansas City, KS 66103
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