It’s no secret that academic outputs in schools across the nation are pretty abysmal. In fact, things have grown so bad that now it seems we’re praising schools that manage to achieve roughly 50% proficiency.
Such allegedly stellar achievement was recently recognized by an article in the Washington Examiner. The article highlighted the schools on America’s military bases–attended by the children of military members–noting that their 8th grade reading proficiency rates were over 10 percentage points higher than those of New Jersey, the state with the highest reading proficiency rate.
While these military base schools deserve a round of applause for coming in so far ahead of other states, it does seem a little strange to be applauding them for only a 55% proficiency rate in reading.
Around the same time I read about these military schools, I also ran across the following soundbite from Dr. Jordan Peterson. He explained how he had been researching the origins of the modern education system and discovered that it had connections to the Prussian military system:
The Prussians produced a universal education system in the late 1800s because they were afraid they were losing military superiority and they wanted to produce a cadre of mindless, obedient soldiers. That was expressly the purpose! And then that model was adopted by corporate types, mostly, who wanted to produce cadres of obedient workers, and that’s why the desks are in rows, and that’s why there’s factory bells, and that’s why it’s top-down leadership. And it’s worse that that because the people who built the schools were consciously aiming at eradicating the will of the students who were part of the system because they wanted them to be obedient.
Could there be some connection here with the military origins of the school system and the success of today’s schools on military bases? Possibly.
The more important thing, however, is the purposeful, soul-crushing nature of our schools–something clearly seen in the fact that even our best schools can only achieve 55% proficiency in reading. Such an environment is nothing short of tyranny, author J. Gresham Machen noted a century ago in his work Christianity and Liberalism:
A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.
If we want liberty and freedom to continue in our nation, then we need to start with the schools. And dismantling this bastion of tyranny begins when we give parents the freedom to choose the education that best suits their child, not the type that will make their child a mindless worker in the factory-like nation of yes-men.
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This article appeared first on OAKMN.org under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license.
Image credit: Unsplash
5 comments
5 Comments
Trevor Gamar
October 15, 2023, 7:34 amThis article is even more proof for my wife(who is currently almost 6 mos pregnant) and I have another reason to work extra hard to home-school our future children. We both feel as if the school system did more harm for us than good. They made it hard for young boys to have marketable skills to find a job after high school and in doing so ruined a generation and/or 2 of young men by way of financial emasculation. I am all for empowerment of women to esteem for greatness, but do we really have to emasculate men in the process? The answer is a clear and resounding no. Dr. Jordan Peterson has referenced many times why young girls and young women do better on average when it comes to school, but also financially speaking hurt themselves is because they are more agreeable. Agreeableness is very much tied to the feminine, where courage in the face of danger is tended to show more in the masculine. After all, do not we as members of society want more stable men? Then we as a western society need to encourage our young men to not give in to temptation of vice. But, all of that is easier said than done. Which, as a future father to a daughter, in this crazy world, I would rather raise her to be self sustaining and independent, but also defend herself by any means necessary.
REPLYThanks for reading my TEDtext. (sarcasm)
I hope all who read the article and comment have a blessed day.
Trevor J Gamar
Robert True Myers, Jr.@Trevor Gamar
October 16, 2023, 4:53 pmVery well-written article and excellent "real life" response. I have 50 years in public education at all levels (teacher, coach, professor, principal, and executive director) and have witnessed the emasculation of our young men. Where are our young warriors who are willing to defend our values,,,,do we have any common values at this stage of history.? Being effeminate seems to be the direction we are moving toward.
Study basic human behavior,,,,,"Men are from Mars and Women from Venus."
I applaud those who are choosing to home school their children. Perhaps there is hope for some of us.
Trevor-Serious props for your response
Bo Myers, Captain, USMC
REPLYJeff Ludwig
October 17, 2023, 7:56 pmInteresting article. However, I would add in to the context provided by Holmquist the destructive principles of progressive education advanced by the “godfather” of public education John Dewey and his acolytes. Further the Seven Cardinal Principles of Education were advanced by progressives in 1918. These “principles” were singularly non-intellectual. Socialization goals and “working together” replaced analysis, synthesis, research, memorization, writing, calculation, and discerning of relevance, significance, and priorities. Here’s the link to the Cardinal Principles (so-called)
REPLYhttps://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/cardprin.html
Keith Brown
October 22, 2023, 8:33 pmMore dystopian future ahead. https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2023/10/oregon-again-says-students-dont-need-to-prove-mastery-of-reading-writing-or-math-to-graduate-citing-harm-to-students-of-color.html
REPLYJoel Hatcher
November 13, 2023, 12:34 pmAn Underground History of American Education by J. T. Gatto:
https://ia803006.us.archive.org/13/items/JohnTaylorGattoTheUndergroundHistoryOfAmericanEducationBook/John%20Taylor%20Gatto%20-%20The%20Underground%20History%20of%20American%20Education%20Book.pdf
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America:
https://mpnl.org/Dumbing%20Down%20of%20America.pdf
WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION, A SCHOOL TEACHER'S JOURNEY THROUGH THE DARK WORLD OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION, JOHN TAYLOR GATTO:
https://archive.org/details/WeaponsOfMassInstruction
DUMBING US DOWN – THE HIDDEN AGENDA OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION:
REPLYhttps://archive.org/details/DumbingUsDown-TheHiddenAgendaOfCompulsoryEducation