Abolish the Schools
When we think of the worst atrocities of the world, we come to realize that most have been accomplished through obedience, not rebellion. A society based on authority as its guiding principle is bound to inflict oppression on those who submit. The people who obey are helpless to enact change for themselves as they lack the faculties and tools to know how to be individuals. No progress can ever come from the herd, only by those who escape the pen altogether.
The modern school system is an embarrassment. What is its defining objective? To teach the quadratic formula? To educate on the history of our world? To show the difference between their and they’re? All of these instructions are irrelevant compared to the real and desired consequences of the schooling system. The main objective of the school system is to teach obedience, shame, and docility, breaking children down throughout their lives so that when they are older they are not just pacified towards the world, but utterly useless to themselves.
Everybody knows school is fake. You do well in school not to learn and nourish a curious mind, but to get good grades and move to the next level. If you do well in class you are seen as an exemplar student, and if you perform poorly you are seen as a failure and destined for the lower rungs of society. It is a system built on shame, teaching students that if you do not follow the rules and authority of the system, you are stupid and impotent, and in worse cases a bad person. A system of meritocracy is well and good in the case of producing the best results where the cream rises to the top, but the incentive structure in modern schooling does not exemplify the best of the best, or the smartest, or the most courageous, it shows merely who is the best memorizer, the best test taker, the best at being silent and obedient. The student who questions the lessons of the teacher is seen as a nuisance and poorly behaved, whereas the pupil who sits in quiet docility never questioning anything is seen as the brightest youth of the class.
A homeschooler who is taught for three hours a day and then allowed to play and explore is far better off than a student who spends eight hours a day inside under harsh fluorescent light. In a strong learning environment, the students who excel and are more capable are rewarded for their curiosity and desire to advance. But in today’s schools, when one student does more poorly than the others the entire class slows, and all is dumbed down to accommodate the few students who are less apt at understanding the material.
Those who do very well in school will of course be very successful after graduation in the modern sense, becoming the elite’s perfect tool. Their behavior is always predictable, always able to be controlled. They are inoffensive and coy. They are able to sit in front of a screen for eight hours a day answering emails or marketing the latest corporate wonder product, never questioning the meaning of their life or wondering what other possibilities are out there. In contrast, the students who were made to feel guilty for their curiosity and wonder during their transformative years will have their fires burnt out by the constant shaming they experienced, and will go on to achieve little and further their ostracization. Only a select minority go through the school system and come out the other side as brave and curious individuals, most are broken and buried in the process.
What is the purpose of learning? Why do we study history, math, economics, science, or literature? To show on a piece of paper we memorized the facts about each one? Or to truly understand these concepts to build ourselves as individuals to help guide the future of our world? I recently picked up a naturalist book about owls on a flight home, and it was wonderful. It was full of vivid imagery of all of the species of owls, descriptions about the bird’s specialized structures, and anecdotes from the author about owl’s curious ways. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, and can you believe it, I was even able to retain some of the information from the book without being tested on it after! The act of learning should not be based on tests and multiple choice, instead, the entire incentive structure needs to be morphed to give students the tools to find information themselves, explore what they are curious about, discover their passion about certain topics, and teach them to be the arbiters and leaders of their own mind and decision making.
Children want to learn and discover, it is evident in even the earliest moments of their lives. They touch, see, taste and smell to uncover the mysteries of their environment, and they do this with no teacher, no lecture, no test, solely due to the fact their instincts guide them towards real discovery. To harness that should be the goal of a teacher and a school, but alas the obedience and submittal to authority taught in the school system is all on purpose, and thus, it is up to the parent to give the tools to their child to become an individual who hungers for knowledge. I understand many will counter and say, “I had a great teacher in fourth grade and so you’re wrong!” but this is irrelevant. The purpose of this piece is not to condemn good teachers who do their best to tap into the curious minds of youth, but to explain in a sense how difficult it must be for that same good teacher to produce great students in a system designed to make them slaves. If all it takes to be a third grade teacher is a fourth grade education because the only metric the students are judged by is how they do on tests, that is a failed system designed to keep us in the elite’s metaphorical boxes.
No great, heroic, or courageous life was accomplished through obedience. Progress solely comes from those who rebel, not those who follow. If in your life today you read this and think, what am I doing that is brave or passionate or rebellious, and nothing comes to mind, you are more than likely a product of America’s school system that teaches you to sequester those feelings in favor of civility, safety, and comfort. But alas, it is never too late! And whatever the schools have inflicted upon us in our youth can be undone, and you have all the power to mold your life into whatever you want it to be moving forward. I realize I write from a place of quite wishful thinking with the title of this piece, Abolish the Schools, but what is not so farfetched is the power and ability of every individual to make whatever they desire out of their lives happen regardless of whatever system may have led to their oppression or comfortability before. Once again find that curiosity that sparked in you as a child, and use it to build yourself a life of meaning where the only tests are the ones you impose on yourself to reach your greatest self.
-Will Witt
Will, one again you are “dead on”. By the grace of God I homeschooled my three children the whole way. They are bright, creative, and unlike most of their peers. My son is brave enough to be a welder by trade, a theologian and an aspiring filmmaker… all to the confusion of the herd watching from inside their safe pens. My daughter graduated from her university with a 4.0, but cares nothing for accolades or paper degrees but instead longs to pour her knowledge into her children one day and spend every bit of her brain and physical power building a home and not a “career”. This makes the herd shake their head in disgust and say “what a waste”. But as a true rebel she pursues this dream and prays for the day she can inspire the “William Wallace” God has for her… these are the true “Bravehearts!”… the ones the world scowls at and outwardly despise but inwardly they long for the courage to be as they.
Abolish the schools and we will find an America full of strong minds and courageous dreams and brave hearts!
I am 100% for abolishing the education department. We had our kids in a private Christian school and we also homeschool them. I also come from a homeschool family and I can tell you one thing it’s night and day difference. Public school is nothing more than socialist indoctrination