Raise the Curtain

The first thing I want to point out before I begin my ranting career is this. I do not wish to see schools completely wiped from the global community. I only wish to see it changed, albeit radically. To paraphrase my namesake, "I ask for, not at once no schools, but at once a bet­ter school."

Now, to properly start off my rant on American education, I feel the necessity to inform you about the origins of the American education system. Our story begins with a man named Horace Mann. Born in Massachusetts, 1796, Valedictorian of 1819 of Brown, dabbled in law and was elected into the Massachusetts State Senate in 1833. From there he was elected secretary to the brand new Massachusetts board of education in '37 and really started to work with education. A year after that, he made his own newspaper called The Common School Journal and outlined what he wanted to happen with the schools which is essential what you see in schools today. Non-sectarian schools, professional teachers, and publicly run.

Mann also thought something that a lot of people would frown upon today. He believed that in order for America to maintain itself, it's people needed to have a common political creed or in other words, he wanted everyone to have the same concepts in politics. That was the reason Mann got into education in the first place, he wanted to reform society. Now, his ideas weren't all bad. If everyone had the same ideals, there would be not conflict, no war, a perfect world. It boils down to the opinion of the person at this point. Would you rather live in a world with freedom or one without war?

Back to Mann's history. In 1843, Horace Mann went on a trip through Europe on his own dime, in search of a strong educational system. He took a liking to Prussia's (modern day Germany) schools and when he returned home, made a strong push for their emulation in the states. Once Massachusetts picked up New York followed suit and, as they say, the rest is history.

Now, if you're anything like the average citizen, then the amount of knowledge you posses on the matter of the Prussian education system is roughly equal to that of your knowledge of, say, the judicial system of the Byzantine Empire or the economic system of the Ottomans. So, let me tell you what I know. Prussia was amongst the first nations to establish a free, tax-funded school system. Why? After the Prussians got their ass handed to them by Napoleon in 1806, the rulers thought that the reason for their failure was because the soldiers were acting independently and not following orders. So, they invented mandatory education, the greatest weapon against free thought. It did teach students how to live in the newly industrialized world wit reading, writing and arithmetic but it also taught obedience, ethics, duty, and nationalism.

To those of you who think that our schools don't do that, I ask you this. Are students not obedient to teachers? Why is it that students will learn about American history right off the bat but most students don't learn about world history until tenth grade? Do teachers not push you to get into a good college so that you can get a job?

One of the main reasons this system was set up was loyalty to the rulers and training for the military. Now the worst part of this whole history is coming up. Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher at the time and played a major role in it's creation. Here is a quote from Johann Gottlieb Fichte that I feel sums up my argument quite nicely. "If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will." That was in his second address on The General Nature of the New Education. Johann has also been called, The Father of German Nationalism. That's nothing more then a kind way of saying, The Father of the Third Reich.

Now, a qualifier on my rant. I am not saying or implying or seeking to misinform you that the American education system is attempting to create modern day Nazis. I a saying that the American education system has nefarious origins and ideals hidden within it that, I hope, were not put there intentionally. As I said before, I do not want to see this system destroyed, simply changed. I want to see it changed so that the students of America are not confined by the actions of those who want to shape them, I want to see them shape themselves.

I am going to end with a quote from the Deceleration of Independence. "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."