Defenders of the government compulsion schools were out in force over the holidays.<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Vin,\u201d writes one earnest parent, \u201cI dropped my ‘terrified\u2019 six-year-old off today at Xxx Elementary government-funded School. Wait. Was she terrified? No; She hugged her first grade teacher Mrs. Y. When we went to the book fair at the school gym two weeks ago, she hugged her four or five times and told her she loved her.<\/p>\n
\u201cMrs. Y? What a do-nothing government bureaucrat. She is there two mornings a week before 8 a.m. to help tutor Annabelle with her reading. And when I picked Annabelle up Wednesday at almost 6 p.m. from the Kid\u2019s Club county government funded ($4 a day) after school program, Mrs. Y still was in the classroom helping a child. …<\/p>\n
Xxx, like all schools in Zzz County, met No Child Left Behind standards. Every month Mrs. Y and another first-grade teacher hold parents night to show parents how better to help their children read.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow as much as I think Mrs. Y and the educational system want Annabelle to learn far too much too soon and far more than I did at 6, I also think we are getting a deal paying her approximate $45,000 a year government salary. Why would I want to end this government school? Is a private school going to do anything more for Annabelle?\u201d<\/p>\n
A sincere and loving parent, clearly. I replied:<\/p>\n
I regret to learn you\u2019ve decided to commit your child to the indoctrination of a collectivist government monopoly, funded with moneys looted from me and others against our will.<\/p>\n
Of course they employ many cheerful and well-intentioned people who enjoy working with children. Of course they start out teaching common and useful things. That\u2019s why they\u2019ve been getting away with this for so long.<\/p>\n
(Though if you do any of the reading I\u2019ve recommended \u2014 start with John Taylor Gatto\u2019s \u201cDumbing Us Down\u201d \u2014 you\u2019ll find the rejection of teaching reading through phonics, a nutty idea unless it\u2019s your goal to stretch 6 weeks of reading instruction till it lasts a stultifying three to five years, dates back more than 160 years, to Horace Mann himself. Given how easy it is, I\u2019m a little surprised you and the other parents there need professional help figuring out how to teach your kids to read. Is it something in the water?)<\/p>\n
I also suspect you vastly underestimate Mrs. Y\u2019s compensation. If the poor dear won\u2019t have to live on and pay her health care costs out of her savings when she retires — given her hefty tax-paid pension and health benefits — can you really compare her nine-month $45,000 to that of the 250-day-a-year private-sector taxpayer who funds her salary and all her benefits, and then must save for his own retirement and medical insurance out of what\u2019s left?<\/p>\n
Meantime, now that you and Mrs. Y are teaching Annabelle what wonderful things can be accomplished with funds looted from others against their will \u2014 and that the government can best determine what she should learn \u2014 do you really think those lessons will have no long-term impact?<\/p>\n
Have you ever heard the story of the guy who started dumping free corn in the field for the wild pigs, after driving just a single fencepost into the ground? Every day he went out and drove another fencepost into the ground, laying a few cross-beams between the posts. Every day the pigs waited for him to walk off a piece, and then came around for the free food, having learned they could walk away again whenever they pleased.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow absurd were your warnings about accepting the free corn!\u201d they said, ridiculing the lone holdout pig who stayed lurking at the edge of the woods as they glutted themselves. \u201cNothing bad has ever happened! We LOVE the corn man, and he loves US. You should come give him a big hug!\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally the day came when the pen was finished. The pigs walked in, just as they had become accustomed to doing. And the man closed the gate.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m glad you appreciate all the free stuff you\u2019re getting at the expense of all those who would find their furniture set out on the sidewalk if they declined to \u201cvolunteer\u201d their school taxes. I sincerely hope you don\u2019t wake up some day to wonder why Annabelle is helping them load you in the trucks.<\/p>\n
At the very least, you might want to visit one of our local high schools, watch the kids with the spiked hair and the body piercings go through the metal detectors and hunker down to sneer \u201cI\u2019m never gonna read another book as long as I live once I get outta this dump,\u201d and ask yourself how on earth these institutions manage to produce such an end product from such promising raw materials as our bright, lovely, enthusiastic Annabelles.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not as though we weren\u2019t warned. I recently came upon an old copy of Rose Wilder Lane\u2019s \u201cThe Discovery of Freedom \/ Man\u2019s Struggle Against Authority,\u201d a book of only 262 pages.<\/p>\n
A joyful clarion call to freedom, a seminal work of modern libertarian philosophy, \u201cThe Discovery of Freedom\u201d analyzes the struggle for freedom from ancient times, concluding \u201cAmericans are the richest people on earth, not because an exchange of useful goods is hindered at the frontiers, but because Americans are better able to use their natural freedom than any other people on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Way back in the distant mists of 1943, Ms. Lane was explaining: \u201cForty years ago, American children went to school because they wanted to go, or because their parents sent them. Children knew the fact that schooling is a great opportunity which the Revolution had opened here to all children alike.\u201d<\/p>\n
But \u201cThe American method of education was never fully developed; it was stopped about forty years ago, by the eager German-minded reformers, who believed that the State can spend an American\u2019s money for his, or his children\u2019s education, much more wisely than he can.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican schooling is now compulsory, enforced by the police and controlled by the State (that is, by the politicians in office) and paid for by compulsory taxes,\u201d Ms. Lane explains. \u201cThe inevitable result is to postpone a child\u2019s growing-up. … His actual situation does not require him to develop self-reliance, self-discipline and responsibility; that is, he has no actual experience of freedom in his youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is ideal education for the German State, whose subjects are not expected ever to know freedom,\u201d Rose Wilder Lane points out, \u201cBut it does not work that way in this country. …\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying \u2014 and failing \u2014 to disguise the underlying compulsory nature of their undertaking, \u201cThe teachers try to make learning easy, a game,\u201d Ms. Wilder pointed out. \u201cBut real learning is not easy; it requires self-discipline and hard work. The attempt to make learning effortless actually keeps a child from discovering the pleasure of self-discipline and of the mental effort that overcomes difficulties. . … It is not the best preparation for inheriting the leadership of the World Revolution for freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rose Wilder Lane warned us, 65 years ago. John Taylor Gatto \u2014 New York City and New York state (government) teacher of the year \u2014 quit in disgust in 1991 and has devoted the rest of his career to tracing the history and bad effects of compulsion schooling.<\/p>\n
No one believes them. They watch our kids doped up on Luvox and Ritalin to keep them docile in their seats, our fine expensive schools reduced to madhouses where teachers are refused the power to discipline or expel the depraved, where the inmates occasionally march in with stolen guns to mow down everyone in sight \u2014 and they merely tell us \u201cAnnabelle hugged her first grade teacher and told her she loved her.\u201d<\/p>\n
I liked my first grade teacher, too. But India and China now graduate many times more qualified engineers than we do, and the \u201chigh school graduates\u201d down at McDonald\u2019s don\u2019t know how to count change, and they can\u2019t find Iraq on a map.<\/p>\n
But they sure have a pantload of self-esteem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Defenders of the government compulsion schools were out in force over the holidays. \u201cDear Vin,\u201d writes one earnest parent, \u201cI dropped my ‘terrified\u2019 six-year-old off today at Xxx Elementary government-funded School. Wait. Was she terrified? No; She hugged her first grade teacher Mrs. Y. When we went to the book fair at the school gym […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}