Imperfect Genius

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An April 23rd article in the Las Vegas Review Journal discusses the beginning of compulsory education in our country and why government schools “are producing an ever higher percentage of functional illiterates… Just as they were intended to.” As John Taylor Gatto said in Against School:

“Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it said that that public schools promote diversity, cultural awareness, and tolerance of differences. I think it’s completely untrue, a lie fed to the public and created for the sole purpose of making everyone feel warm and fuzzy.

Opponents of homeschooling use this same statement as a reason for why children should be in school. (As opposed to being out in the real world experiencing diversity and culture in a true life setting?) Supposedly being in school will make students learn to appreciate diversity and to get along with other children who are racially, religiously, politically, socially, and financially different than they are.

That’s just laughable! The notion that schools accomplish any of that is completely ridiculous. If anything schools do the opposite. Since when has forcing 30 people to sit beside each other for 8 hours a day made them friendly, much less tolerant and appreciative of each other?

Modern educators argue that state intervention was, and remains, necessary in order to unify American society. It is regularly contended that government schooling has been key to bringing together various racial, religious, and political groups; and that society would otherwise become polarized and antagonistic to one another. However, based on [previous] experiences… this belief is not only wrong but is exactly backwards.

Exposure to new ideas and different people is not automatically going to create harmony and acceptance, especially when it takes place in an artificial environment that is structured around labelling, sorting, and grading; a place where differences are highlighted and used to determine placement in a segregated system.

Yes, that’s right segregated - by age, ability, address, and occassionally gender. Add to this the peer segregation - the heriarchy of cliques, gangs, and groups which are often based on skin color and social status - and its quite clear that public schools are not the celebrations of diversity and tolerance that they claim to be.

The real world is full of diversity - it’s every where you look, it’s practically impossible to avoid. It’s in your neighbor’s yard, in the playground down the street, at the grocery store, at the library, and at the community pool. Why is it necessary to remove a child from these experiences and place them in a classroom?

The author poses this question to the reader, which serves as a particularly compelling argument against this ridiculous notion:

…schools are divisive. They’re all about ranking and dividing. When you were in school, how much energy went into differentiating the “popular” kids from the nerds? If cultivating fertile minds — as opposed to stressing herd unity and obedience — was ever the goal of these institutions, why are the bright kids so ostracized?

The article goes on to point out that education was not something created by the government. Before compulsory schooling became the law, there were a variety of educational venues available:

…there were nondenominational schools, Quaker schools and Lutheran schools, fundamentalist schools and more liberal Protestant schools, classical schools and technical schools, in accordance with the preferences of local communities.

And these schools served their communities and pupils well. The idea that (before government schools were created) everyone but the very elite went uneducated is simply not true. In fact, it was only after the government became involved with education that certain problems began to arise:

[community schools] and their patrons seldom came into conflict, since they did not try to foist their views on one another… It was only after the state began creating uniform institutions for all children that these families were thrown into conflict

Within public schools, many parents were faced with an unpleasant choice: accept that objectionable ideas would be forced on their children, or force their own ideas on everyone else’s children by taking control of the system.

Moreover, the creation of government schools did not offer a greater number of children an education, as it is widely believed, but simply took over the role that community based schools had been enjoying for centuries:

As tax expenditures on the government system increased during the mid-1800s, more parents were drawn away from tuition-charging schools while the percentage of the child population being educated remained essentially constant.

Government usurpation of schooling did little to increase educational access for children. Rather, it simply shifted the responsibility of education from the family to the state.

We’re reclaiming this responsibility by homeschooling, and we believe it’s in our children’s best interest. Diversity is not something that can be taught in a classroom. To be appreciated it must be experienced through living.