Closing of the American Mind: Teachers and the Cave

Closing of the American Mind, Part 1.

It's like seeing strands of thought, floating up from the pages like a cobra being enticed from his basket with a tune.  These strands weave and spin themselves together, along with ones already present, to create new webs.  Yes, that's a good metaphor, webs, just as the spider that spins them together to glisten in the sunlit dew.  Spin one thread, and tie it to the center, and tie it to the circumference of the web with like strands, until the web is complete, except for this, it never is.

I wish to record the strands coming from this book, Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, because so many lines in the book come out as strands of thought and connect to other ones in my head.  Ones that must be tied together in words.  And this is, after all, what this blog is all about.  The number at the start of each section corresponds with the number I have in the book (makes it easier for me to reference it), along with the quote, and then my thoughts. It'll make it less rambly.  Hope this works. 

1. Teaching can be a threat to philosophy because philosophizing is a solitary quest, and he who pursues it must never look to an audience. (20)

Let's go back into Plato's cave for a second.  Say the philosopher, the man with new knowledge, a new outlook on life because he's gone outside and seen the world, goes back in and realizes that his peers don't want to listen to him.  They don't want to learn. They're too busy watching Jersey Shore on the cave wall.  Should you even want to try and reach those students who simply don't care about knowledge or forwarding the human race, but rather would be entertained by those who would create those images? I learned long ago that, even in the 8th grade classes I taught, there are only a handful, probably 5%, that would be interested in leaving the cave.

But enough cynicism. I thought that teaching would be about me imparting the knowledge which I had accumulated to the minds of the students I had in front of me.  Turns out, it's the accumulation of knowledge that I am interested in, not the teaching of it.  I am, as Jung would say, an Introvert. My locus is inside myself. I draw energy from the connection my brain makes from within. I've always told my fellow workers, after I've told a particularly bad joke, that as long as it makes me laugh, I don't care. Because while I entertain the  people that I am around, I do it because it make me feel good.  I learn and process information, I write these blogs, because I want to learn and to amass knowledge.  I want to be, in some respects, much like Faust, although without the whole making a deal with the devil thing.  And the more I learn, the more connections I make between thinkers and writers and life, the further I will be along the road to understanding how the world works.  And I write those things in this blog for those who would like to see what conclusions I've drawn. I've said from the beginning that I really don't care who reads them.  It is your choice. It sounds so selfish, to hold knowledge inside, and you'd be right. But it is man's desire to re-enter the cave and plead and beg his peers to come outside, no matter how much they will ignore him. Teaching, as Allan Bloom talks about later, is something that a philosopher must do in order to achieve the satisfaction in reaching those conclusions. It is the climax of the process.

2. There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech. The soul, so the teacher must think, may at the onset of education require extrinsic rewards and punishments to motivate its activity; but in the end that activity is its own reward and is self-sufficient. (20)

The problem is that education has become less about the speaking to the soul of students and more about teaching to the CRCT test so that the school can receive increased funding. Or, if you talk about college, and Bloom mentions this later, that the training of students into fields that are monetarily successful far outshines any need to enhance the human mind or reach into the soul and turn on that spark that ignites the desire for learning.  It is done by the direct need for rewards, money, fame, power, and less by a need to further their own knowledge. As I said before, only about 5% get to that stage. And those of us who reach that point are destined to stay at college forever (either as student or professor) or stuck in menial jobs, scanning groceries and making subs at Subway. The absolute rarity is that philosopher that can apply his learning, mold the world into something wonderful, become the producers, the makers of mankind.



(I thought of this song as I was writing the last paragraph.)

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So this is how this'll go, and I'll post some along, so that eventually I'll have done the whole book.

Kenny on the Mountaintop (last one)

I've always thought that everyone had the ability to stand on the mountaintop. If you look at Caspar David Freidrich's painting Traveler on a Sea of Fog, which is my favorite painting, you see a man calming looking out into the distance at far peaks, after having reached the cliff tops. It's an amazing work. The man himself, just like Howard Roarke standing atop of his masterpiece at the end of The Fountainhead, or Frankenstein at the top of the Alps, has a clear countenance. He has achieved the pinnacle of human thought, and it's this that I want to talk about, to end this series of individuality. Because, like I said, I always thought that anyone could reach this state of being. I have found out that not everyone can, and there are reasons why.

Maslow, a prominent sociological figure, made a pyramid called the Hierarchy of Needs. The premise is that people must fulfill basic needs before moving on to mental and spiritual needs. At the bottom, are food, water, shelter, etc..., Then social needs, happiness, a job, friendship, biological reproductive needs...etc..., and at the top, is total mental and spiritual awareness, something he called "Self-Actualization." And I've seen the people who are mentally aware of themselves. You can tell, it's like they have their eyes open. They are the people that have the ability to reach the mountaintop, the top of the pyramid. They are the individuals that I have talked about in past blogs.

When I ended the last blog, a friend of mine commented that the individuality that I was talking about was not always attainable by all people. The reason, she said, was that not everyone in the world has the same mental capacity and ability to reach the upper stages of Maslow's pyramid. Of course, there are numerous reasons for this, not all of them known to us now. But as the pyramid shows us, if people are not able to achieve basic physical needs - food, shelter, water - they cannot be expected to cogitate on the spiritual world, or deem any sort of meaning in exploring the innermost consciousness or in achieving individuality. In fact, they probably would shun away from such an idea. A person who has been without would not be independent, but dependent on whatever entity would come about to provide them with the basics. This entity could be something known, as a government or charity organization, or it could be supernatural, such as provision given by God.

Government as Entity

The Government has become an primary entity that provides people with the basic steps outlined in Maslow's pyramid. They provide protection (military), bread and food (Welfare and other subsidies), shelter (HUD, Fannie Mae, other Government programs for low-income housing), and other things as well. In some instances, I feel, the government has a right and an obligation to do these things. The government's main responsibility is to protect its citizens from outside threats, and we have the greatest military force ever assembled to help us do that. It also should provide certain basic services for those that absolutely could not afford or be able to live without them (SSI, for instance). This is what the life and liberty parts of the Preamble to the Constitution talked about. It's the Pursuit of Happiness that gets a little more difficult, and is what takes me into my argument.

To me, the "pursuit of happiness" is the liberty to pursue the path of independence. To achieve "The American Dream" as it were. Because it is precisely the American Dream that makes this country as amazing as it is. It is not to be rich, necessarily, or completely successful. Happiness, as I believe the writers of the Constitution saw it, was to have the independence to control one's own life, to live out that life at one's own choosing. In today's capitalist market, that does tend to equate with financial success and wealth, but it doesn't have to. The Constitution doesn't say that we are guaranteed this, because in order to climb up Maslow's pyramid, we have to do most of it on our own. The Constitution simply says that the government has an obligation to start us off. To provide the foundation for individuals who have no foundation to start with. But that is all it is supposed to do. To provide any more, or to expect recompense, is to exert itself onto the individual more than it should. When an individual climbs up to the pinnacle, and finds that an organization is there waiting for him to serve it, then we have eliminated self-actualization and replaced it with another entity. We have become enslaved to the people that are providing for us. Much as the Pharoah was God and ruler to the people of Egypt, so are the organizations and entities that sit atop Maslow's pyramid, waiting to be served and depended upon. It is we that give them the power over us, it is our sanction that allows other people to give us direction in life. And since I'm talking about the Government first, let's look at how the Government takes the pinnacle of "Self-Actualization" and makes it into its own Mount Olympus, for us to be dependent upon.

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Looking down from the tower high above London (600 years A.F.), Mustapha Mond smiles in the knowing way that he would have, seeing the horizon of a city filled with happy people. The unhappy ones, like Bernard and Helmholtz Watson, he had banished to Iceland, where independent thinkers would not upstage the world government by challenging the collective laws. The city languishes in amusement centers, drug supplemental centers (places where they give people free drugs, called Soma), and churches (which are little but gatherings for orgies of habitual pleasure). All this, of course, takes place in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, where Mustapha is the leader of the European area of the World. The government of this Dystopian world rules through providing its citizens with everything. From the basics to everything they would need to attain happiness, even to the genetically controlled DNA makeup in their bodies. The provide recreation, sex, drugs, anything except material that would cause those who could think the desire to do so. All education is done through osmosis and sleeping chambers, and during the day, the children are taught the skills necessary to be happy, from games to sexual discoveries. There is no poverty, no unhappiness in life, and death is simply done in chambers where the elderly are "soma'ed" until their bodies stop functioning.

Obviously, today's government doesn't rule our lives like this. But it makes sense. Why would a government rule by fear, such as in Orwell's 1984 or in places like the Romulan Empire (Star Trek) when they can rule by happiness. Give the people everything they want, and then eliminate the need for anything else. There would be no desire to think outside the box, because it would not occur to them that there was an "outside." A government that would do this has ultimate control over the people's lives, and there would be no one to question them. For those who control your life have power over it.

[ As a side note, there are many dystopian novels and programs that will further deal with this issue. Among them:

Andre Norton Outside
Movie: Logan's Run
Ray Bradbury: "The Pedestrian"
Frank Bonham The Forever Formula
D.J. MacHale Pendragon Book 7: The Quillan Games]

The government does provide recreation, happiness, and passivity to all it's citizens, if they choose it. Certainly there is no more addicting game than the lottery to blow your life savings on, trying to get an even bigger life savings. There have been proposals made to provide Underground Atlanta with Casino type machines that would support the economy there as well as provide funds for the Georgia Lottery. There are also instances of medications like Viagra being paid for through government health care programs. Now, with the proposal of health care reform under the current administration, it will be easy to get Prozac, Viagra, Zoloft....anything to make us a happier nation. And, I am sure, the government will have no problems giving those medications out, as it will neutralize the unsatisfied and quell the bitter. Soma, as Huxley called it, is not so far away.

A government that provides happiness does it at a price. The dependency on the government to make you happy takes away your independence, and keeps you from reaching that last level of self-actualization. If you have the American dream handed to you, you have achieved nothing, and so that is what it's worth. Working to achieve your dreams, even if it might be harder, is worth the sweat and toil, because the rewards will be yours. And of course the government will try to take that away from you, because it wasn't given to you by them, so you should give it to them instead. This line of thinking runs right into Ayn Rand's philosophies, so I'll let her finish where I was going.

The proper government is one that interferes as little as possible in the private lives of its citizens. The only thing the Constitution gives them the right to do is to allow citizens the "pursuit" of happiness. It cannot and should not give it to them. Let the people fail. Let the economy tank and see hard times come about. Apart from providing the basics of Maslow's pyramid (shelter, food, water), the Government should let the economic system fix itself. The lessons learned from failure can only make the human race stronger, more durable. Today, it is soft, weak, whining. I see too many stories where 911 was called because the people at McDonalds gave them the wrong burger. I have witnessed the depravity of the human condition on Judge Alex. Makes me wish for a second Noah flood, so sickening are the people that appear as specimens of our society. They are the ones that need hard times so that they can learn what their grandparents learned at the turn of the 20th century. And these are the people I thought could achieve individuality and self-actualization. I realize that this will never happen as long as the government continues to provide economic security and superficial happiness to its people.

Education as Tool

"Give a man a fish, and you've fed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you've fed him for a lifetime." A popular quote in education circles. Something that makes teachers all warm and fuzzy inside (in return for not being paid what their worth). I know I've looked at Education in the previous blog or two, but there's something I wanted to touch on in regard to the Government (or the Church, as private schools go) as Entities in place of Self-actualization. Public education here in America, while being some of the best "free" schooling in the world, has its drawbacks. I mentioned in the last blog the Biblical verse about "diligently seeking." I heartily approve of this for almost anything that one does. But I hardly call what public schools think is education "diligent." It is as if a giant spoon is coming to each child and force feeding them information, to simply be regurgitated onto some standardized test, before forgotten thereafter. And what is effective in Huxley's novel is clearly not effective here. We can't just download the information into children's heads and expect them to become productive, knowledgeable citizens. They have to want to learn it. They have to seek knowledge out and combine it with a priori knowledge. Else it becomes lost in the mess of consciousness and subconscious yearnings.

As a tool for the government, public education works only half the time. In general, the government sets the curriculum (both stated and unstated) and the teachers do their best to fulfill this. While I could go into a tirade of the political bias of teachers and the liberal leanings of teacher organizations, I won't, because there are too many blogs that deal specifically with this. But if children are taught that the government is here to provide us with everything we could ask for, as if citizens had a right for the luxuries that our anscestors worked so hard for, then children will learn that individuality, that hard work and diligently seeking anything, isn't worth it, because the government will provide everything that is needed. Therefore, self-actualization isn't necessary.

Where education fails in our system, is that it does not provide the students with the skills to do anything with their lives outside of school. True, there is some minimal vocational training going on in some of the schools (Rockdale Career Academy, for instance), but it is certainly looked down upon by those that matter. A vocational degree is often looked at as something that the delinquents get because they do not or could not go to "college." The true path is to graduate with a "college prep" diploma, and then go to college and get a "liberal arts" degree. This is the most highly looked upon path. Then a student can go to med school or law school or wherever. Being an auto mechanic, or a welder, or a plumber, or someone that works on Air Conditioning, that is not a job for a "civilized person." Our public school system treats those careers in this manner. Therefore, everyone that graduates from high school might know how to type, but nothing else useful. And then we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to specialists that keep our machines running and our lives comfortable. We should be able to do it ourselves. But there is no way to learn these skills outside of our parents' teachings.

Therefore I propose that every student in public school take a "Life Skills" course, where private enterprise comes in, teaches everyone how to do basic maintenance and skills that are needed to become self-sufficient (unless a transmission blows). Changing oil, changing the wiring in an electrical socket, wiring a ceiling fan, the parts of a lawn mower, balancing a checkbook, etc... Do what Home Ec. is supposed to do. Sure, taking AP courses and Comparative Literature and Calculus is important, but living life is equally so. We must teach our students to seek diligently their goals and dreams, to improve their lives, to improve all of our lives.

Among the most important things that schools today must teach their students is information literacy. In today's world, reading is not enough. Technology has progressed us beyond simply a reading culture. Now, we use visual communication far more than mere words. Postman's ideas in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that the medium is the message, is as important as what is said. They must learn how to use the information gathered from the Internet, from TV, from the news, and apply it to what they already know. They must interpret the data being flooded in to their brains. This, and only this, will allow self-actualization to occur. I find it surprising, given the amount of revolutionary technology that has been developed since the 1990's, that school curricula have not included information literacy into their requirements. In fact, most schools are languishing behind with out of date technology and limited ability to use what they have. I had a teacher complaining to me about, while she was in a brand new school, made with the most up to date equipment they could get, had no computer in her room. She wondered where all the funding went. Controlling what children learn, and what they don't learn, is the critical tool that any Entity uses to keep themselves at the top of Maslow's pyramid. This includes any government (whether on purpose or subconsciously), or the Church, past, or present.

The Church as Entity

It's amazing how hard it is to write this section. All during my attempts to think this through, I've had to separate the "Church" entity from God as Entity. Because certainly God is one. And there certainly is a difference. In my beliefs, God is the only Entity which accepts mankind climbing as high as he can. Note that obviously God does not want man to climb to an equal footing as He, as the Tower of Babel episode doth explain. But climbing to as high a summit as man's mind will let him reach, this is perfectly acceptable, and even desirable. What would Man be, having been made in the image of God, if he could not reach his full potential? Why would God want to prevent His creation from becoming the most it can be? Therefore God as Entity is perfectly suitable to sit atop Maslow's pyramid of Needs, because God does not supplant Self-Actualization, He merely enables it.

The Church, on the other hand, has for centuries been a force that has kept mankind from reaching his full potential. Even in Biblical times, the Christian church was wrought with problems. Each letter that Paul wrote to the churches of Asia Minor contained issues that the Church faced at that time. The concept of a church, in the way that man has conceived of it, is simply another power heirarchy, where people congregate, and men in leadership roles have power over those below them. This is a perfectly acceptable idea, as William Golding demonstrated in Lord of the Flies. Some sort of leadership structure must be maintained, for those who have not yet reached Self-Regulation (which also cannon happen without self-actualization), need the guidance of those wiser than they. Plato saw it, in The Republic, and America's founders realized this as well, else they would not have made a Federal government at all.

The problem arises when the people in power try to keep mankind from reaching his full potential by withholding necessary steps in Maslow's pyramid. The Church has, for centuries, done just that. It is ironic that, in the Middle Ages, it was the Catholic Church that preserved the knowledge of the Roman Empire while keeping it from the general population. This is done most effectively by not teaching everyone to read. In the Middle ages, with books not readily available, and education handled by the richest private schools, or the clergy, a very small percentage could actually attain the knowledge passed down by their ancestors. Most of those people were either in the clergy or in places of power. Therefore keeping the general population illiterate was most advantageous. This method of control is similar to not wanting slaves to read in America during the 1800's. In this most direct example, the Church of the Middle Ages kept mankind from climbing to the apex of his abilities.

But what about the Church today? Certainly, thanks to Gutenburg, books and other media are quite common. And Martin Luther founded the Protestant movement, where every individual being has direct communication and a relationship with God. In a sense, Christianity should be a Libertarian religion, with each individual having a relationship with God, and seeking to know him better through the scriptures, through other people (church), and through the miracles and wonders of daily life. But more often, I see the power structure of a denomination or an independent church rising up to take the place of individual thinking. In the Baptist denomination, people have long been forbade to dance. In my own family, my grandfather found card playing sinful, but had no problem dating after he was married. Recently, church groups have formed political parties (such as the moral majority) to actively back candidates. It seems to me that churches need to spend less time on telling people what to think, and more time instructing people on how to pursue a relationship with God based on the Bible. Yet we have pastors such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaching from the pulpit that 9/11 was revenge on white people, and such theories. We have pastors telling their congregations who to vote for, and how to decide on amendments and laws and such. Show us the Bible passages, and let us make up our own minds. If we are wrong, then let that be between God and us.

And it goes beyond that. As I have said in a past blog (Adding Points to the Compass), I found "collectible bookmarks" in all of Borders' copies of The Golden Compass basically saying how Pullman's works were sinful and Athiest (true, Pullman is an atheist), and then gave a web site that continues with this line of thinking, linked to a church that passed out the bookmarks to people who requested them. It was an underhanded ploy not meant to be in a bookstore. If the church in question wanted to have people outside our bookstore handing them out, let them go ahead. Or publish a book decrying the philosophies of Philip Pullman, and I'll be glad to put it right next to it. But placing unauthorized material inside the books without our knowledge.... that is beyond the pale. Why not put pro-Jewish bookmarks inside of Mein Kampf, or anti-pedophilia pamplets inside of Lolita? Let the people read as they choose, and decide for themselves what to believe, and let the final judgement be for God.

In the end, it is always up to the individual to decide. I have this theory, and Galileo would agree with me, that if churches let people decide what they want to believe for themselves, that religion would slowly fade away. They are scared that self-actualization would bring about groups of people who don't see the empirical evidence of God, and therefore believe that he doesn't exist. They are afraid of losing their power and influence over all those people who don't have the ability to self-actualize. The church would stand, as Mustapha Mond did, atop the tower in London, and fear for the people below actually being able to think for themselves. And the less people that actually could do that, the better off the Church would be. I am not saying that those Sunday School teachers that I have mentioned in the past were deliberately trying to brainwash us, keep us from questioning the tennants of Christianity, in the fear that we might not find them to be true. But I am sure that somewhere, Church officials would rather us not question the prinicples of their denominations, for fear that we might find that we can believe and worship God on our own.

I wonder though, what God would feel like, if He looked down upon the world and find that Mankind had truly advanced to the point where they were all self-aware. What if God didn't need to do anything, as we had achieved all that he had wanted. (Of course, this isn't going to happen.... however....) I remember, in my youth, playing a game on the Super Nintendo called Actraiser, and, coming to the end of the game, the Angel tells us (the player actually being "God,") that isn't it every Diety's wish for the people that live under them to not need them anymore? For God to be proud of us for reaching the pinnacle of our abilities, to all reach the top of the mountains, and look out unto Paradise. Yes, I think God would be very proud indeed.
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I'm gonna move on to other topics, silly and profound, and say good bye to Kenny and Butters and the rest. Honestly, I'm not really a big fan of South Park, but I appreciate the legitimate questions they raise. A note about these last few blogs. There will come a time, undoubtedly, when my opinions change, and I will believe differently than this. If you ask me now, do I believe all that I have written, I will answer, "Probably." But as Emerson said, minds can be changed. If I contradict myself...then fine, I will contradict myself. But for now, this will do.

Kenny Saved by the Bell: The Individual at School.

Above all, when we look at the episodes of South Park, especially the ones that are most controversial (see my blog earlier), it is obvious that Butters, or Kenny, or Cartman, or any of the others continually question the status quo around them. The established rules of society are unquestioned, until Matt Stone and Trey Parker do so in a hilarious and sarcastic way. The series has been banned in some places in Russia, and I'm sure have been banned from many households in America. Society has long kept those who question the world around them at arms length. Skeptics are those who question the rules of society, who evaluate the reasoning behind them, and often, as Jonathan Swift or Lewis Carroll did, write bitingly funny works of literature exposing the paradoxes of the cultures around them. Thus we have, in "A Modest Proposal," a quite serious argument to eat the 8-year-olds of the Irish poor, as they are being squeezed out of all other treasures through taxes and other rules.

Obviously, the powers that be have no wish to have people stabbing 95 Theses on the doors of the government, or of the church (nowadays it would be published at blogs). Therefore, the same characteristics that promote individuality would be the ones that society (the church, the school) would want to squash. Because different thoughts would be detrimental to the people who are currently in power. Thankfully, in America, such thoughts and questions are asked openly, what with the 1st Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech (that statement alone would take a blog of much length, but I'll let it pass.) However, in order to express those thoughts, one must first have to learn how to form the questions and base his or her opinions upon facts and theories. Thus one way to control skeptics and other thinkers is to control the education system so that everyone is taught equally, and taught in such a way that it is hard to form opinions and question those that are educating the students. In a similar manner, I have found it extremely hard to have any kind of philosophical or theological conversation in the churches I have attended, as anything that would be looked as questionable would be considered sinful. I want to look at, in this blog (and probably the next), the way in which education should work in this country, and also why questioning the church is vital for a person's spiritual growth.

I've often wondered, in my days since I taught, what happened to some of the students I saw struggling through the day. There was one student, last name Price, who did no homework, was a constant disruption in class, and probably should have been expelled long before he got to my class (probably through social promotions.) But I noticed that he did have skill, intelligence, the open eyes that signal some fire burning inside them. But as Prometheus brought that fire, I couldn't help but think that somehow, our school was trying to squelch it. I heard stories of his abilities, how he could easily take apart a lawn mower, repair it, and put it back together, with the skill of an expert mechanic. I've seen other students, who, while they couldn't understand or deal with reading assignments and abstract math problems, could draw wondrous pictures of images in their head. While student teaching at NW High in Macon, I had the students draw a picture of what they thought Grendel would look like. I had one student, who, while he failed miserably on English assignments, drew a monster that I'd substitute for Grendel from then on. I will accept that it is partially their fault that they have not learned how to become educated in audio or visual manners, I often wonder how we have failed in developing the talents of these individuals.

When we take a look at the education system as a whole, we see that students are herded like cattle into a school and taught as closely the same as possible, even while the talented are forsaken and the struggling students are forgotten, placed in broom closets and given ISPs. I would have given anything to see Price taken to a Technical school and taught the intricacies of the mechanical world. He would have (and might still now) make more money than some of the brightest students in his class. And I would give equally to see the truly gifted children taken to higher and higher levels, where their talent would shine forth, instead of languishing in the back of classrooms where teachers repeat things for grade after grade, or teach to some standardized test that means little to the children, and a whole lot to the school systems and their wallets.

Take the educational system that Thoreau used as a teacher in Concord, Mass in the 1830's. Concord Academy used the classroom the world gave them. Thoreau used the tools he had (his father ran a pencil factory) and took the students on trips picking blueberries, from which he no doubt taught as Plato and Socrates did, in the shadows of trees below the city walls of Athens. The children then read the books and did the homework they had to do, only to go on another quest the next day. With the small class size, each student was, hopefully, taught and trained to be the best they could be given their own specific abilities. He despised rote learning and canings for punishment, rather teaching self-regulation as discipline.

We cannot do this with all the children that exist today (the thousands in Conyers alone would make it impossible). But perhaps the time is here to look at public education as not something to be given equally among all pupils, but more individually, to each according to his ability. Why would society think that, putting 1000 children in one building, that they should all learn the same way, getting the same information at the same time all for, supposedly, the same purpose. The idea of the school as some training ground for college is absurd, and should be rejected outright. There are other countries, such as Japan, that teach their children differently, and include the training needed to become successful in today's markets. Here's a proposal that might work:

Each child should be taught similarly until about the 7th or 8th grade, and this differs little from that of today's public schools. During these years, teachers should write down observations about the students and place them in a file (much like they have now), about the strengths and weaknesses of each child. They should be interviewed once every 3 years or so, and those wishes and desires of what they want to do should be noted and encouraged. A child should have his own say so into what path his education should take. At the point of 7th grade, the file should be looked at, along with the child's interviews and the opinions of the parents, and then they should be given options... stay in a college preparatory program, one that would prepare someone for a liberal arts degree... go to a school that would train students for technical and vocational work, much like the Rockdale Career Academy, but supervised by private companies that want to develop and train students in working with cars, computers, graphic design, accounting...etc... or maybe something much different, much like the Academy in Ancient Greece, which would train the literary and philosophical minded students in law, philosophy, liberal arts...etc... And there are others as well... medical school, athletic training, ROTC... as long as there is a private need for those students, and the private industry would invest into the children that are being trained, with instruments and instructors, and, if they are good enough, jobs for the graduates, this would be an excellent way to develop the kinesthetic learner into someone who would be truly successful in their lives. Learn with your hands, mold the knowledge with your fingers, create as God created, breathe life into the lifeless. I would so enjoy seeing the children of this country develop themselves into a force that no other country could compete with. And the advances and the technological breakthroughs that would result of this. Truly amazing!! The world would turn upside down, all because of the training of the individual, not the herding of the masses.

We cannot answer a child's soul until they ask "why?" And if they are punished for questioning the world they live in, then learning becomes a punishment. The most brilliant child in the world, one with bright, hungry eyes, asking their parents every question in the world, doesn't that make you want to lift them up so that they can bask in the realm of knowledge and wisdom and become the best person that they can be? But if we ignore them, talking on our cell phone and leaving the teaching up to those who are barely able to survive (today's modern teachers), then have we not failed in raising the children we have borne? They were brought into the world to achieve what no other human could, whatever that may be. We should do whatever it takes to enable our children to learn and grow and flourish, to reach the limits of what they can conceive, and then to keep on going.

Sanction of the Victim

*{An addendum to the last post.]

This is a delicate topic. Upon thinking about my previous post, I started applying the philosophies of Ayn Rand to my life, and saw that, as a "Victim," I had let certain avenues open to the people bullying me. I saw it clearly this morning, how in some respects the permission of the victim is needed before he or she can become the victim. Most people will disagree with me. Heck, I'll disagree with me. But in some cases, I believe this to be true.

My mom told me to ignore it and it would go away. I did just that...in fact, I did more than that, I ignored everyone. There was a time when I would not talk to anyone but my teachers for a whole day. The potential friends I alienated, the people that thought I was strange... I became, to the bullies, an inanimate object. Something worse than a "victim" because at least the bully can have a relationship with that victim. But in my case, I wouldn't even let them do that. I became a stone, a rock, an island. And nothing touched me. But with all the pain I suffered through middle school, the punches, the being kicked in the nuts, multiple times, I didn't let it show at all. No one could get inside the walls I had built for myself. I lived in whatever fantasy worlds I had created for myself at that time, and, not having a whole lot of family life to support me, I became a caterpillar (if you don't mind me switching metaphors). Walled up in a cocoon that would be impossible to break (at least, while I was in middle school, but that's another story.) By ignoring them all, I wasn't telling them "NO!" I wasn't yelling at the top of my lungs.. "STOP IT!!" I never told them, "Get the Hell out of my way!" I simply took it.

Is that not just the same as Hank Reardon facing his family at the table, withstanding the constant jabs by his mother, his wife, his brother? Reardon took it, knowing that he could. He could just ignore it and take the pain and never have to worry about the lies they told him. Or to the industrialists of the novel (and to some extent, to the businessmen and entrepreneurs of today's world), they could just ignore the constant taxes being leveled on the rich and productive, because they could always stand to lose a little profit for the sake of the country. For the people.

Because not saying no is the same as telling them, "Go ahead, beat me up... I can take it." And it shouldn't be that way. The victims of today's high schools and middle schools, the ones that are bullied daily, they do not yell "STOP IT!" They simply accept the social standards of the world they live in. They have to take it because that's how the world works. Men must be men and not cry. Bullies must enact their Darwinian responsibility to bring down everyone that might be greater than they are, just so they might look as good as possible for the people they are trying to impress. And the bystanders... they are just as a participant as the victim getting beaten. Do you think that those that stand around watching are saying, "Cool, look at the schmuck getting beat up? No. They are saying, "I'm glad it's not me." Only, they know, that in some cases, it could be them. So they stay out of the way, out of the line of fire, and keep their heads down, hoping not to be noticed by the teachers, by the bullies, by anyone.

This is not everyone, of course. But for the people that care about individuality, the need to protect that is more important than being friends with someone, than fitting in with the masses. When society turns against you, you must find your own standards of living, and you must hold on to those standards no matter what, else you face destruction.

Think of all the school shootings that have happened lately. Those students, that, when the time came, broke down, and their standards became compromised. So instead of yelling "Stop!", they used other, more physical methods. And seeing that they had become the people they despised, they ended it themselves, turning the anger that had enveloped them on themselves. (The idea of Anger is one I have touched on before, both Here and Here.) In relation, the recent suicide by a student in Dekalb County, Georgia, who hanged himself because of the bullying that he received in his 5th grade class. He didn't cry out, "NO!" and was not strong enough to take the years of bullying he was to receive afterward. What makes me furious was that the school system, upon review of the whole incident, found no bullying had taken place. And I am not surprised. The standards by which students live by say that nothing like this could ever be reported by students, for fear of retribution. They would much rather see a student die than to admit that there was a problem going on, one that existed in the very core of the rules in which they live. The teachers, for fear of being accused of not reporting anything, that something like that would happen on their watch, said nothing either. And so the whole thing was swept under the rug. This was exactly what happened in Atlas Shrugged with the Taggart Tunnel disaster. No one was willing to take the blame, or to stop what they knew would be a disastrous situation, for fear of the repercussions that might happen. So nothing gets done about, and people die.

So when I say that "it all worked out." in my last blog, it needed further explanation. Only through the friends that I had in Rolling Green, like Chris and Lane, and Brad and Ford, was I able to exist in a microcosm that let me be myself. It provided a safety valve that made the Hell I went through bearable. And because of this, once I got to Heritage High, and joined the marching band (yet another safety valve.), things got better. I was able to make friends, like Amanda and Rachel. It was this that kept me from becoming like the Columbine shooters, or like the boy in Dekalb County.

The sanction of the victim is actually necessary for them to become a victim. I'm sure that every psychologist will say something similar. A wife being beaten has to say, "NO! I'm not going to live like this!" The battered women's shelters are places of sanctuary, much like John Galt's valley. But this is so hard for most people to do. The victims give in to the rules of society because they see no other way to live. They decide that they can take it. That all they have to do is to escape into some other realm and all will be better. And for the most part, today, with World of Warcraft, and multitudes of Fantasy novels, and the Internet...etc... it is very possible for people to do just that. What they don't want to do is to continue in reality, take charge of their own lives, and change the standards in which they live, and force others to see that the rules that they live by, that of Victim and Bully, of Bystanders and Apathetic losers, is WRONG! Not by force, obviously. Violence only confirms that society's rules are valid. Society must be made aware of the underlying principles on which those standards are based, and then be forced to change them. Or else the Victim should escape, in Reality, to someplace where the bullying can not happen. This is not to say they should become hermits in their own house, but rather some kind of Microcosm, like Rolling Green was for me, should be formed so that, even if going to the same school is still necessary, a safety valve can be created where the child can have time to be themselves, instead of the person that society wants them to be.

In a later blog, I want to look at the school's role in protecting individuals, in producing individuals, instead of mass-creating the clones that they believe should be made in a free, public educational system. Also,the steps that parents can take to support individuality are just as important as the schools. I do not think that bullying can be ended forever. It's in human nature for the strong to overcome the weak. Nor do I suppose that the weak, that sometimes need to be weeded out, must be held in a higher regard than the strong people in this world. But a society that destroys the good, the brilliant, the truly talented in place of the mediocre, the mundane, the multitudes of muscles and obedience, that should not be allowed to happen. Give the victims a chance to grow, and, as individuals, they can become like Bill Gates, or Christopher Paolini, or Einstein, to name a few. Woe to the people that repress those who would be victims in our society, and force them to be the same as everyone else, only to squash the amazing future that we might all have as human beings. But equal woe to the victim that lets them do it without shouting to the hills for his own life, and slumps down in his seat rather than be the human being he was meant to be.

Dreams Deferred: Ranting about Education.

"What happens to a dream deferred?" Langston Hughes had it right so many years ago, that dreams and goals might languish and die, or explode, if not given the chance to be fulfilled. I was thinking about my friends, about Lee and his sister in Milledgeville, and about how such potential, such intelligence, might be left like the belongings in the homes they leave behind. When does it become too much? When does the strength give in because breaking is so much easier to do? When do the dreams die because there is no use in wishing for them, as someone will knock them down?

And I would say to them, "But if you don't make good grades, you won't be able to go to college!" And then I would think about the people in their lives that have gone to college, and I think, "What's the point?" I could have done so much more than working at a bookstore, and some of their other acquaintances have multiple degrees, but are still living off the government's roles, and caring little about the dreams that they once had. What difference does going to college make in their lives, other than the opportunity to live out the lives of college students, complete with the socializing, fraternizing, and other joys that are experienced and left way too soon for the cold world of reality.

If the school systems would care about the individual, and teach and mold each of the minds of the students into works of art. If they would hown them into sharp minds, sharp blades that would be as skilled as any tool, then there would be something to contribute to the world. But unfortunately, the role of the public school system looks more like the cowboy, driving herds of cattle toward some unknown destination. Would that it looked more like Plato and Aristotle's classes in the days of the Academy in Athens, or the schooling that Henry David Thoreau did as a teacher in the town of Concord, Mass.

I don't blame them for low grades, for dropping out, for giving up. Society lays out for children paths that are easy to follow, but are ultimately useless. They don't allow for the specialization of education and the different needs of the students. I've said over and over again, that I had students in my teaching days that didn't do any of their homework, or care about the lessons they were forced to learn, but they could take apart and put together auto parts and lawn mowers expertly. I found myself agreeing with them. Why should you learn how to conjugate verbs and the meter of poems and how a plant creates photosynthesis? If, instead, they could have learned how to put together automobiles expertly, they would contribute a valuable service to society. Or better yet, teach them how to construct computers, and work their way up to the space shuttle...etc... Or even better, I was listening to Clark Howard, who was talking about conversion kits that would allow a standard gasoline engine to run on electricity, with no dependence on oil coming from the Middle East. What would have happened if all these students that were tacitly proficient, could have been taught to assimilate cars into environmentally and fiscally conservative ones? It would help solve the dependence on foreign oil issue in a matter of months or years, instead of decades. But now where are these students? They have quit school, and although some are working in Automobile shops, others took the negative paths and have gotten in trouble (drugs, crime...etc...) and are now languishing in prison.

This all comes from a certain basic assumption that has gone back to the founding of the country. Namely, that all the citizens of the US have a right to a free, basic education, and that if all men are created equal, the education they receive must be made as such. This was compounded upon in the 1950's by the civil rights movement, which, while their achievements were necessary and critical for the social healing of our nation, the idea of everyone receiving an equal education is certainly flawed. For people are not created equal. Some people have intelligences that go toward math, or science, or technology, or art, ...etc.... And these intelligences go untrained in an education program that only emphasizes core learning. Frankly, it's time for the 19th century idea of public education to wake up, get into the 21st century, and specialize teaching to individual students. They're not training current students to solve the world's problems, but rather herding children towards menial jobs that will do nothing but pay credit card bills from the results of a consumerist society (see previous blogs).

I realize that the previous statements are generalized and definitely do not apply to everyone. There are wonderful teachers out there, and students that will one day change everything. I get discouraged, however, by witnessing the teenagers that come through the mall everyday, languishing as they do (my word for the day), and doing nothing to further themselves. And I've seen friends, who, because of life circumstances, and the coldness of reality, and people who care nothing but greed and power and self-serving interests, are beaten down to the point where a thorough education means little. If a child is struggling for the basics in Maslow's pyramid, how can they hope to achieve self-actualization, to care about learning when they are needing shelter, food, love, happiness?

I guess these are two separate issues, but they blend together easily enough. There is such a magic about what teaching could be, if in an ideal society, where the individual needs of the students, all needs, are met, then they can grow and flourish. But, alas, this does not happen here.

One last thought. It seems to me that the program started by the Bush administration, "No Child Left Behind," is aptly named, but not for what was intended. Looking at the education system as a whole, the program has worked, because no child has been left behind...they curtailed the front-runners so that everyone is in the same place. This is done by reducing expectations, teaching to tests that are created to manipulate numbers to insure passage (and therefore continued funding of programs). And I've experienced this first hand. When I was student teaching at NW High in Macon, the principal at the time gathered all the teachers together for a pre-first day pep talk. And the most important goal was....and of course, I thought there would be some lofty ideal of education and help students achieve their dreams... But no, it was... to teach to the test. So they would continue getting funding and the teachers would get good reviews. The fate of those students were sealed before the year began. The NAACP has a saying, "A good mind is a terrible thing to waste." How true that is.