How about a quote from H.L. Mencken: "The erroneous assumption is to the effort that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence .... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such montebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else." Has a ring of truth to it, doesn't it? Making you a bit uncomfortable about sending your kids to a government school, isn't it?
My sister and her daughter are in heavy discussion amongst themselves on what to do with educating the one year old granddaughter. The regimentation they are seeing with day care is making for some grumpiness chez them. So far as current eddimification plans go, I think they suck. Once lesson plans go beyond readin' writin' and 'rithmetic and into areas where editorializing becomes possible, basic education becomes brainwashing at it's most insidious. Teaching to think is difficult, the more so when preconceptions are introduced in a classroom. Dunno how to solve that one, way out of my job code. Methinks it is well past the time for getting back to teaching facts, not interpretations, and let thinking rise after civics are taught. Rote memory learning isn't such a bad thing, if for no other reason than it enables thinking based on primary fact rather than secondary sources, or interpretations by so called expert educators. That said, there is a predisposition to follow the herd, dammit anyway.
