(Jim Blockey) – The failing of education in America is no great mystery, it could have easily been predicted when you look back at the changes that have been made over the past fifty, seventy five years. Education does not focus on the importance of thinking and providing for oneself; it is focused on importance of thinking of one’s self importance.
Take for instance sex education; we teach that you can’t control yourself so just make sure you do it safely; and the same can be said for our drug prevention seminars. These classes teach our children that self-control is not at all important, but more safety for oneself is important… you know the ole saying, “Look out for number one.”
As I pointed out, several times, in my book, “Teachers… It Ain’t Your Fault” education changed when John Dewey’s methods started taking over America’s education system. One of his methods said, “The true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s SOCIAL activity.”
If we are focused on our social activity we are not learning to read, write, do math, to learn entrepreneurism, or do research on what we hear or read to determine its validity. We don’t learn to help others, we learn to be selfish and that it is the government’s responsibility to take care of its people by raising our taxes; forced charity!
Ask anyone about the importance of reading and they will tell you it is the most important piece of the puzzle for one to be successful. But what did John Dewey’s professor, G. Stanley Hall say? “Primary reading should no longer be a fetish. This should always be secondary.” This explains why Dewey thought social activity was more important.
What may have been there motives? Dewey said, “Independent self-reliant people were a counter-productive anachronism in the collective society of the future. In such a world people who read too well or too early are dangerous because they become privately empowered they know too much, and they know how to find out what they don’t know by themselves, without consulting the experts.”
You cannot have an educated society if the government is to be a “People of the Government” and not a “Government of the People.”
So if you are wondering why children have no respect for authority, specifically teachers, it is because we teach them that their feelings are more important and that they are more important than all others. So America’s children end up with this victim and entitlement mentality that they are owed. We do not show them consequences for their actions so they do whatever they want and then wonder why are prisons are so full.
America has also educated our children to be tolerant, not of people, but of their actions. Multiculturalism is high on the list of importance in education. I always thought people came to America to get away from their culture, to be allowed the OPPORTUNITY to be successful and free. No guarantees’, just the opportunity. The idea was they would assimilate to America’s culture, after all why would you leave your culture if you just wanted to come over here to promote it. Multiculturalism has rid us of patriotism and the pride we had in America the free.
So I say to you… America’s education system, although has lowered our standards, has more numbed us down as to what is happening in our society. It has caused us to be more concerned about ourselves and our own little world and not awake to what is taking place around us.
Jim Blockey, Teacher/Author “Teachers… It Ain’t Your Fault”
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