Statist Education

   

Years ago, I researched the idea of the state being a child's number one educational provider. The end result of that research left me with the eery sense that the state did not develop the mind of the child in a manner better than the previous notion of tutor, community hired teacher, or parent provided lessons. As far back as the mid-eighteen hundreds, we find England leaning more and more toward the notion that the state is more adept at educating children. By the twenty-first century, England’s reading, writing, math, and science scores continually drop in the Pisa and Pearson tests. So one might ask, why are we continuing to do the same thing over and over, with the results getting worse and worse?

We all know growing populations and industrialization led people away from rural communities into more urban areas.  And grandparents gradually lost a significant role in being the wiser anchor in the multi-generational family. Tragically, even the grandparents succumbed to the same individualistic mindset that was quickly plaguing modern man. It is unfortunate, but it is obvious that adults today have the same mindset as a fourteen year old. In a very real sense, children are raising children. 

The state is well aware of the power it has over today’s youth. The state tells us when our children should go to school, for how long, where the school will be, how many subjects will be taught, what immunizations they must have, what food the children will eat, what is sexually okay, what religion means and if it has any significance for a modern man/woman, what tests teens should take to assess their readiness for higher learning, what books are worthy for libraries, what makes a good teacher, the part parents will play..... This educational machine created and allowed by parents, seems unstoppable. I haven’t even mentioned the monetary cost of maintaining such a system. Can there be a way to turn this machine off if society thinks the state has gone to far in dictating the lives of its children? 

Parental responsibility oftentimes leads to wisdom. It comes from seeing what is and allowing that reality to lead the decision process. Parents are better parents when they have to take responsibility for their own children. Single adults, who are growing in wisdom, understand that they will have to aid those parents in certain ways if society is to continue to flourish. Aiding means helping, not sucking the child from the parent into a state run facility. Pushing grandparents to the side of the human equation, moving children into statist environments, parents feeding their faddish cravings, and letting others dictate the family agenda, is a recipe for pure insanity. Monetarily, it is impossible to maintain the state’s regressive educational methods, power thirsty leaders, and money grabbing bureaucratic lobbyists. Have we come so far that we cannot “see” the statist monster has positioned modern man to be a certain cog in the statist wheel?