The Corporate Diminishment of Education

Teaching is an inspired vocation, not an occupation.

Giving the youth of America an education with a corporate mentality is an accident waiting to happen. The process of educating young minds to Think, and Think critically, should have less to do with the bottom dollar and corporate driven national tests and educational systems, and more with giving students the tools and knowledge from a vast array of bright, devoted and creative minds, in order to better deal with and shape the world as a whole.

The relationship a child develops with a knowledgeable, inventive and caring teacher is far more important than their being able to effectively regurgitate information on some multi-million dollar corporation's 'national or state test'. In this situation who is giving what to whom, and what for?

Education is not just about teaching students to get a job. It is about guiding them to become Enlightened Citizens for the future. Citizens who care about and knowledgably understand their neighbors, their government, and the world at large. Citizens who aspire toward noble ideals and standards within their conduct and the conduct of others. Citizens, who through hard work, perseverance and due diligence strive toward their dreams while enriching and considering the dreams of others.

Such Citizens are created through loving and disciplined parents, loving and disciplined teachers, loving and disciplined mentors, loving and disciplined bosses, loving and disciplined social structures, loving and disciplined relationships. Relationships in which everyone recognizes that each child and young adult develops differently and at different times. Social structures that common sense acknowledges as a fact of nature and circumstance and create environments which harness such potentialities. As humans, we are organic, sentient beings, not coldly metallic cogs for corporate machinery.

Citizens who realize that difference and being different is a scientific rule of nature and is important. It is important that no teacher is alike; that no teacher teaches the same materials alike. Difference creates variety and vitality and variety and vitality create questioning innovation and stimulated thought processes. Multi-million dollar corporate testing diminishes the student/teacher relationship. Taking the power of teachers out of the classrooms and giving it to distant, governmentally rule laden bureaucrats diminishes the student/teacher relationship.

 

Life is a collection of educational moments involving various modalities of learning and thinking. The totality of a person’s Value is not locked into just one rubric measurement or event in Time. One national or state Standardized Test given on one day in a person’s Life.

 

Life is experiential. Art is experiential and applies lessons in geometry, chemistry, philosophies, history, technologies, applications and perspective. Music is experiential and applies lessons in math, listening and instrumental skills, history, technologies, writing skills, applications and perspective. Physical Education is experiential and helps human beings maintain basic good health and fitness. Physical Education also teaches team work and cooperation toward a specific goal. And a fit body is necessary for a healthy and fit mind. So why are we eliminating these vital sources of personal and interpersonal education from our schools ?

 

Education is Alchemical in nature. It takes all of the elements of Science, Math, Reading, Writing, Art, Music, Physical Fitness with varied individual and group activities to create a well rounded and inspired Student.

 

Teachers need to get their classrooms back. The bureaucrats need to their hands out of the classroom in order to validate their jobs, and find other areas to focus upon within administrative duties, and let the teachers be the heads of their classrooms once again.

 

The administrations need to stop being so afraid of law suits that they refuse to back to back their teachers when difficulties arrive.

 

Parents need to be more supportive of their children’s studies and educational activities, and of their children’s teachers. Discipline is key. Discipline needs to be returned to the teachers and administrators, and supported by the parents. And that only comes with trust. A trust that is built upon actual personal relationships between the teachers, parents and children.

School systems operating on corporate precepts and concepts that see parents and students as consumers and not as cooperative participants and learners ultimately diminish the functionality and fundamentals of education as a whole. These present seemingly innocuous truths diminish our collective future.

Education is something that you must be able to get your Hands onto, and your Mind, into.

 

Like Socrates, take any one person under a tree with a book in the hands of an inspired, knowledgeable and caring teacher and the pathways to new worlds and ways of thinking and experiencing life will emerge, blossom and bear fruit within the present and the future. Teaching is an inspired and inspiring vocation; not an occupation; not a tool for the gradual diminishment of our culture.