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The Underground History of American Education
The true purpose of schooling, according to Gatto, is to produce an easily manageable workforce to serve employers in a mass-production economy. Actual education is a secondary and even counterproductive result since educated people tend to be more difficult to control.
Over the course of the book, Gatto exposes many of the individuals, organizations, and crises (both real and manufactured) that helped to make our public school system what it is today. Such architects as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and a handful of teaching and management experts sought to benefit directly from a dumbed-down citizenry. Others contributed in a naive attempt at Utopian social engineering, mostly unaware of the harm that they were doing. There was never any master plan, though. The author puts it best:
With conspiracy so close to the surface of the American imagination and American reality, I can only approach with trepidation the task of discouraging you in advance from thinking my book the chronicle of some vast diabolical conspiracy to seize all our children for the personal ends of a small, elite minority.Gatto maintains throughout the book that all individuals have an innate curiosity and desire to learn. Examples are given in the first chapter of prominent historical figures who prospered with little or no formal schooling. But I found the examples of desire for substantive education on the part of "the masses" to be most compelling:Don't get me wrong, American schooling has been replete with chicanery from its very beginnings: indeed, it isn't difficult to find various conspirators boasting in public about what they pulled off. But if you take that tack you'll miss the real horror of what I'm trying to describe, that what has happened to our schools was inherent in the original design for a planned economy and a planned society laid down so proudly at the end of the nineteenth century. I think what happened would have happened anyway-without the legions of venal, half-mad men and women who schemed so hard to make it as it is. If I'm correct, we're in a much worse position than we would be if we were merely victims of an evil genius or two.
When a Colorado coalminer testified before authorities in 1871 that eight hours underground was long enough for any man because "he has no time to improve his intellect if he works more," the coaldigger could hardly have realized his very deficiency was value added to the market equation.The real function of the school system is not to empower people by giving them knowledge, but to crush this instinct toward self-improvement before it makes the workers too independent and troublesome. Another compelling example is the "Jewish Student Riots" described in chapter 9:
Thousands of mothers milled around schools in Yorkville, a German immigrant section, and in East Harlem, complaining angrily that their children had been put on "half-rations" of education. They meant that mental exercise had been removed from the center of things.
The book does have a few problems. Gatto is by his own admission somewhat casual about citing his sources. This is important because there are some assertions made that many will find dubious. For example:
Looking back, abundant data exist from states like Connecticut and Massachusetts to show that by 1840 the incidence of complex literacy in the United States was between 93 and 100 percent wherever such a thing mattered.This would be a great fact to toss out when trying to convince someone that schooling is unnecessary. But where does this statistic come from? What does "wherever such a thing mattered" mean? Some readers may be willing to simply take Gatto's word for it and accept this assertion, but skeptics will be left unsatisfied. According to historical census data from 1840, the national average literacy rate for white adults was indeed approximately 93%, and the literacy rate for white adults living in Connecticut was 99.67%. Why not simply say that the statistic refers to white adults? The omission hurts the author's credibility in the eyes of a skeptical reader.
The other thing that I found disappointing is that Gatto doesn't discuss solutions to the schooling problem as thoroughly as I wanted. Throughout the book examples are shown of educational methods which have worked well. As I read, I mulled these over, and anticipated that the final chapter (titled "Breaking Out Of The Trap") would be a comprehensive look at these methods and ways to promote their implementation. But that final chapter is mostly a collection of anecdotes. Gatto does provide a short list of positive suggestions and a promise to cover solutions more fully in a future book.
The picture that Gatto paints for us of our school system and society is frightening, but I also found it comforting to see evidence that ignorance and apathy are not the natural state of humanity. I found hope in the fact that things were once different. Having a clearly defined problem that can be solved is preferable to having a vague suspicion that something is wrong, but no clear idea what it is.
The ideas presented in Gatto's Underground History have the potential to change our society and our individual lives for the better. Even when we are trapped within the system, knowing how it works and what it is really up to can help us retain our wit and our humanity. If you are a student, if you are a parent, if you know or care about anyone who is in school, or even if you are just concerned about corporate and government control versus individual freedom, you need to read this book.
You can purchase The Underground History of American Education from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
it's no wonder he's written a tell-all book. Those who take the Vow of Poverty need to make a buck.
Fans of Daniel Quinn should take note that this very idea has been around in both Ishmael and The Story of B. Our educational system isn't designed for learning, per se, but to train kids to be proper working adults, and to make sure they know how life "really works" in our culture.
There are always exceptions to the rule -- you will always find a teacher willing to go the extra mile, or a student who rises far above the rest. Mediocrity reigns in the American public school system, and it isn't going to change any time soon.
- oZ
// i am here.
Children should be with their parents and extended family. Having transient adult figures isn't the way to be raised.
Children shouldn't spend all day with their human contact being dominated by others of exactly the same age. A child should have contact with a wide range of age groups.
Children should be being taught by example.
Children should learn the values needed to want to learn and understand the reasons why they should. Passing an exam doesn't make a person a good person, nor productive, nor creative, nor caring.
The longer a modern education system is present in a society, the more the society dies.
My mother is a school librarian in NY and she has told me how Bush's current plan means that teachers teach tests instead of lessons, but I agree with this guy; it seems evident that the school system was designed to make quasi-educated, but more importantly obedient factory workers. You want your workers to be able to read instructions, etc, but not much more; not think on their feet or anything. Its the only explanation for the disparity between college and primary school; and now that everyone is going to college, it's becoming the difference between a masters and a bachelors.
A quick intro to the ideas explained at length in the book may be found at The Six Lesson Schoolteacher, from an article by Gatto published in Whole Earth Review in 1991.
Please mod this nonsense down. The author did not claim that "religion" in schools was a problem, he claimed that the school IS A RELIGION!
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I haven't read Gatto's book (though I should). I do have a recommendation for a similar work though: James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me". It doesn't take on the whole education system (it's American history specific), but he does show at length that American history is deliberately taught in a way that discourages critical thought, heroizes the government, and suppresses historical dissent. Great read. Now I have to read the book actually reviewed...
If you've worked with little kids, one of the first things you notice is that almost every single one of them really, really wants to learn.
But somehow, during about K-4th grade, most of the kids in the US educational system seem to have that crushed out of them.
Personally, I don't think the schools are wholly to blame. Quite a lot of it is cultural. Kids learn early -- from TV, from movies, and even from books -- that it's cool to be ignorant, it's cool to be a wiseass, but it's never cool to be a nerd.
This is so on-point it's frightening. I was a high school teacher in Los Angeles from 2000-2001, and it's frightening how much of what is articulated in this exerpt I *experienced*.
We had a principal who was fantastic, because he was a former teacher from the area. But when he was replaced by someone with more "administrative experience" it was appalling how quickly things declined. Children aren't held to standards, parents come at odds with teachers, administrators point the finger at teachers, and the children are the ones left out in the cold.
In just one year there, I was chastised for
1) Driving students home to bad neighborhoods after dark.
2) Creating an extra-curricular dance program that "interfered" with the students curriculum.
3) Attempting to engage students with "dangerous" science demonstrations (i.e. using a bunsen burner constitutes dangerous, using 1 Tesla Magnets constitutes dangerous.)
4) Breaking up a fight with my bare hands (I was chastised for "laying my hands" upon the students.)
The list goes on. I truly believe that the entire system needs reform, from the bottom up and the top down. But without involved parents, administrators who take full responsibility, students who are forced to live with their choices instead of having excuses made for them, and up to date equipment and books, it truly is a lost cause except for the few self-motivated students.
I could agree with this, were my school more like a trade school, which it wasn't. Most of my elementary and later teachers actually encouraged some level of independent thinking and creativity -- others were often astounded whenever a student thought of 'the third way' One particularly poor teacher, 2nd grade, seemed only there for the money or until she could get somewhere else -- I was frequently on her bad side and grew to loathe school, prefering to be tardy by as much as 2 hours roaming woods and poking around a creek for frogs and snakes.
I'm more likely to believe the role of schools in NYC was to keep the little animals manageable by compressing their little minds into a one-size-fits-all mould.
I'd later find I had a very high IQ and did exceptionally well in college, after graduating highschool only by the merest of threads.
If you have a kid and your kid seems disinterested or hostile about going to school, you might consider getting more involved and learn about the teacher and the school. At an early age contending with a poor teacher can have a lifelong impact.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
SINCE THE MODERATORS SAW IT FIT TO MOD DOWN MY ORIGINAL POST, LET ME SAY IT AGAIN:
Please mod the parent post down! The author did not claim that "religion" in schools was a problem, he claimed that the school IS A RELIGION.
This time with a +2 modifier so it gets heard.
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The sooner we get an education system which does not teach religion or political or patriotic based material the better.
What school system are you referring to? Not the US school system clearly, a system where highschool religion classes exclude Christianity, where political science teachers worship europe, and where students are told that if the US were to vanish in a instance the world would be fine again in a month or two (a subject I once had a heated debate with my AP US History teacher about)
Come on now. Yes I know there are some school districts across the country that may also teach creationism as well as evolution, but those are clearly not the norm by any means.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
If you'd read the book, you'd see we first started getting into this mess by "educators" going over to Prussia and bringing their system back over to the U.S. "Doing what the Europeans do" is what got us into this!
This isn't going to happen as long as educational curricula are based upon textbook teachings. As Diane Ravitch chronicled in her poignant bestseller The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, there are many lobby forces at work that keep textbook publishers from making sales to school districts if they don't fit the group's agenda. This includes references to multiculturalism from the left, and patriotic propaganda from the right, both of which are not only prevalent but pervasive in American education. There will be no end.
Interesting ideas.
My problem with current education is the ridiculous "leave no child behind" mentality. We don't need to send all these people to college. Let's be realistic about that and send some of them on the path to a meaningful trade. High school is all "college college college", and as a result, lots of kids get NOTHING out of it (and a bad side effect is that college is becoming the new high school with an influx of immature students). So, my proposed Triage:
Kids who want to go to college.
Kids who want to learn a trade skill.
Punks who are on their way to prison. Priority #1 is separating this group from the first two.
Not teaching religion, political or patriotic material is in itself a religious/politic/patriotic decision. Gatto's point is that people should be driven to learn what they want to learn --- almost in the fashion of Montessori.
I take issue on your points.
Firstly, religion: we must make sure that in our quest to discourage endorsement of a particular religion, we do not discourage religion outright. That is, we must ensure that we accept all religions equally, favoring none.
Politically based literature, I believe is essential. It is absolutely necessary to create a populace that understands issues on both sides and is able to logically analyze those issues and "pick a side" so to speak. Most of our nations most dividing issues (abortion, being the most notable one that comes to mind) have sane, reasonable arguments on both sides of the fence.
Lasly, patriotism is a vague term that is largely misused by the right to imply that you should be doing what they say. Patriotism itself is not inherently a bad thing and can pull people in a nation together. However, through education on varying political and religious systems, as well as through education that teaches the people to think on a global scale, we can both be proud of the nation we reside in (for it truly is still great, imo) and yet also be conscious and aware of other nations' desires, beliefs and rights.
The true purpose of schooling, according to Gatto, is to produce an easily manageable workforce to serve employers in a mass-production economy. Actual education is a secondary and even counterproductive result since educated people tend to be more difficult to control.
To anyone interested in this topic, I'd suggest also reading Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America . It'll make you want to homeschool your kids.
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Caveat: I did not read the whole book, just browsed through the online pages. However, this seems like a classic example of the "hasty generalization" fallacy (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/hasty%2 0generalization). The author extrapolates his personal experiences and assumes that they are representative of the whole nation's school system, weaving a conspiracy theory through it to further sensationalize it.
First of all, there is no "national school system" in the United States. Each state is responsible for public education within its own borders. I don't know about New York, but at least in Colorado, the situation is nowhere close to that described in his prologue. If a Colorado administrator had subjected a student to the verbal abuse described there, they would be subject to disciplinary action at the least, and possibly termination.
I know that education in the United States is not perfect. There are many areas that desparately need improvment, especially science and math education, but hysterical diatribes such as these do little to advance the dialogue and only serve to inflame the True Believers.
No, the full text is not available (as far as I can tell). From this page:
Each month we will post a new chapter on this Web site. If you are patient, in 18 months you will have read the book in its entirety.
Teach someone to think, and they can figure out Powerpoint and Word. Teach someone Powerpoint and Word and you have an idiot who can't do anything else.
Every homeschooled person I've ever met have been crazy geniuses because they were taught how to think and reason. Of course, they are also socially inept as they didn't have to deal with masses of other children.
Keep the population stupid, and they will be more apt to eat up your propaganda. Ignorance is bliss.
This isn't going to happen as long as educational curricula are based upon textbook teachings.
More to the point, this isn't going to happen as long as schooling is tax-funded.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But seriously, large organizations have no single "true" purpose which determines their effect, but are composed of tens of thousands of people, who each have different goals. Much more important is what the people actually doing the work (all the teachers and principles, who actually interact with the children) are trying to do, what their purpose is. It's laughable that we are against "actual education".
Of course certain structural reforms could improve education. But to say that the true purpose of the American educational system is against education is silly.
It's odd though...
I went to all religious schooling, my whole life. Never set foot in a public school until I was 16 and went to take the SAT at a public school across town.
You can take a look around my area and notice that virtually every prominent civic, business, and social leader followed the same track as I did. Bank presidents, mayors, city politicans, state senators, our Congressperson, etc.
My high-school routinely scored 150-200 points higher than average on the SATs.
On top of that, we took students of all economic backgrounds, all racial backgrounds, and all religious backgrounds. The only discrimination at the time was that it was all-male.
The difference in my view? My teachers were either all Jesuit priests, all themselves educated by Jesuit priests, or at very least, dedicated to their style and manner of teaching.
I can't say exactly why the school does better than public education, but by all measures, it does. So many things are different: a student took a swing once in the cafeteria at our litterally ~75 year old WWII-era Marine vice-principal. After avoiding the attack with cat-like grace and precision, he grabbed the kid by the hair and physically expelled him from campus. Can you imagine that happening at a public school? What type of red-tape would have to be brought to bear at a government run school?
Other differences? I can think of a few that might be relevant: strict dress code - pressed pants, starched shirt, suit-coat or blazer, appropriate tie, groomed hair, proper facial hair care (beards/goatees, etc allowed, but must be neat), authority of teachers, non-reproach of teachers on matter of discipline (example: teacher told student if he didn't stop interupting he'd be forced to stand the rest of the year instead of sitting. Result? Student stood for 2 months at the back of the room), required civics class, required ethics class, required religious education class (contrary to belief, it was not an evangelical style class; it was a serious study of religion; 1 year of scholarly biblical study, 1 semester of study of Jewish scripture, 1 semester stufy of world religion, 1 year study of non-religious spirituality, 1 year study of christianity), required public speaking classes, etc. Non-core non-liberal education topics were discouraged: minimal technology classes (typing, basic computing skills), minimal phys. ed, no vo-tech, etc.
Ohh well.
That's exactly what I'd expect. Our public school system grew out of the industrial revolution's need for people to have a minimum skill set and be regimented from an early age to follow a bell system. Ring. Lunch. Ring. Work. Ring. Leave.
Now that we're moving into a post industrial world (or that the industrial world is moving overseas) the regimenting is a bit less important and the skills taught have eroded to the point that McDonald's now has pictures of the food on the cash register instead of text.
The schools are great at producing people with stunted reasoning skills who can be content working at Wal Mart and make great consumers, and who vote (when they vote, if the system were perfect they wouldn't vote at all) based on emotion and often against their own interests.
There are some political parties who just can't afford to have an informed or educated electorate (hint: they tend to cut education spending and demonize teachers), and who's children never touch public school anyway.
-dameron
How many times have we heard about parents pushing for easier or non-existent teaching for their precious and sensitive whelps and yet demand that they "graduate" despite not learning a thing?
Ashamed to to say, I've seen this in my own family. A cousin of mine was coddled since he was born (hell he was in preschool an extra year, how fucked up is that?) by his relative caretakers (an aunt) after his mother died while he was a baby. Despite living in poverty, this person was spoiled continuously with toys. As I recall, he didn't stop playing with toys (complete Star Wars and He-Man collections, to name an example) till the 7th grade. Any attempts by the schools (throughout his schooling) to get him to learn or stay disciplined was met by a ferocious attack by his caretakers. Needless to say, he was socially promoted until he dropped out at 16.
He has worked a total of 2 weeks in his life (he is 32 now), in jobs given to him by relatives in an honest attempt to help, despite he not having training for anything. He quit them after complaining he was actually made to work, doing tasks as running sales money to the bank, etc. His caretakers were equally vehement in their condemnation of his kin/employer about their requirement he work for his money. To this day he subsists on $600 a month for diabetes disability, and will likely continue until he dies. For somone who has worked a grand total of 80 hours in his entire life, he has inexplicably owned more vehicles than I have. Last I heard, his aunt was saving up money to get him his latest toy, a truck, since he's never owned one.
Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
Sorry, that's a load of complete crap. The model of training kids to be good little apparatchiks started in europe, and I can tell you from the hellish year that I spent in a German school, that shools over there are, if anything, more regimented than in the USA.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
I guess I was one of those kids that didn't need that. What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time. These people need to stay the fuck at school and experience the "half-way house" experience that College helps to create.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates.
...the public education system was very good to me. I'm a distinct individual who can operate independently and think for myself. The thought that I've been "bred" to be a "working stiff" in this U.S. economy is just a fabrica...
...Ooops, here comes my Boss. Gotta run....
His verdict is not what you'd expect: the school system cannot be fixed, Gatto asserts, because it has been designed not to educate.
I agree 100%.
The true purpose of schooling, according to Gatto, is to produce an easily manageable workforce to serve employers in a mass-production economy. Actual education is a secondary and even counterproductive result since educated people tend to be more difficult to control.
Again, I agree, but I have one thing to add. The US education system also serves as a babysitter up through undergraduate degrees. Education also helps keep unemployment down, and in the case of "higher" education, people are out of the workforce and they are _paying_ into the economy.
And yeah, educated people are a pain in the ass for the "establishment". Try to get some menial "regular" job with a PhD. Who wants a person who is skilled in critical thinking and independant thought to ask people "Do you want to biggie size that?"
In fact, education is overexaggerated. I routinely ask people "What percentage of the population has a college degree?" And I routinely get answers about 50-60% while it has been 20% for a long time, and it is increasing. I don't remember what its at now, but nowhere near 50%.
I consider myself lucky in that I have done standard unskilled services work (convenience store clerk) and manual labor (landscaping and construction). I did construction when I was in college, and let me tell you, I felt very stupid for a month or so, even though I'm a good "booksmart" kind of guy. One skill I was really lacking was basic teamwork. Plus I did not know the vocabulary for the work, and basic stuff like using a level, plumbob, tape measure, etc.
The reasons that I don't have a problem with the education system not educating are twofold. 1) People don't need to be educated and 2) those few that do need educating and are bright will get it.
You can also see the role of being educated in our breeding habits. The more educated one is the fewer offspring they will have, and the inverse is true as well. Poor, uneducated people here in the US have tons off kids. Since kids when they are young are a liability, they tend to keep the poor poor. But one thing that I've noticed about the poor and their offspring, is that the children are more likely to take care of their parents when they are older. Whereas the wealthier/educated crowd are more independant in their old age because they do "smart" stuff like invest their money, have retirement funds, etc.
Comments?
The European system is even more overtly designed to train good little workers. In many countries, you have to pick a career by the time you're 16, and rather than receiving any sort of further general education, you at the age of 16 start receiving specialized education to train you for that job.
Same with higher education: whereas in the US people who want to be doctors get a general undergraduate degree, and then go to med school, in Europe they go straight to med school.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is one of those books you have to let percolate a bit before passing (negative) judgement against it; I first read the book just as I was getting my Master's degree and it is hard to come to grips with the idea of just how much of your life has been wasted by the system. A lot of you are still in school and the cognitive dissonance can still be bad for you.
And I was even one of those who would attack the schools on other grounds, mind; I was open to the idea it was flawed, hell, I knew it was flawed, but just how deeply and how deliberately sent me into shock.
Give it a try; more of my opinion in the above link, though I won't trouble Slashdot with it. Gatto really puts his case together well.
Also, I observe there are a lot of Slashdotters who reflexively assume home schooling is some sort of evil. Make sure you first satisfy yourself that the institutional schooling we now have is not itself a form of evil, perhaps even worse. Having read both sides of both issues, at this point I consider not home schooling borderline child abuse. Most of the homeschooling flaws pointed out by people, such as the ever popular (and unfounded in my experience) "lack of socialization" is correctable, with parental effort. The flaws in institutional schooling are not; indeed, they are assumed "beyond reproach". What amazes me about the human spirit is how many escape the system as I did without a crushed spirit, not how well it works.
One of the things forcibly impressed upon me from wasted years of "education" is the way school actively decieves you about the nature of the workplace.
Medical education is my latest nightmare. It fills the student with theory and visions of how things "should" be done, and informs them not at all regarding how things ARE done. Pity the poor medical student on their first hospital placement. The garbage colectors know more about what the score is than they do.
I've been out of public school for so long that I can't comment on how things are now, but higher education baby, that I can. What we have here is what I call Certification Syndrome. You aren't worth a damn to anyone unless you are Certified in some subject or other. Like a Certified Microsoft Engineer has a clue why XP screws up on one PC but not another.
The unholy alliance of lazy large busineses looking for replaceable cogs and schools willing to crank them out is what we have these days. Unfortunately people trained to be good little cogs don't do great things. Bill Gates for example is not a good little cog. Bill doesn't have a CME either, I bet.
Bottom line, if you want to be educated instead of trained, you have to WORK your ass off at it. Same for your kids. Teach them how to think, give them the tools of rationality or put up with them when they become Radical Vegan Socialists for Peace with a CME or an MD. Because that's what's fashionable at school this decade.
Next decade it'll probably be Radical Christian Conservatives For War. I don't see that as an improvement. You got a brain, you should get some decent software for it. God forbid you should have an origional thought.
It's not just the format of American education that's the problem, it's the content and the objective.
I think of American public schools like I think of American prisons. We really haven't figured out if we want to help the inhabitants improve, or babysit them to keep them from hurting others or themselves, and so far, we've done a shitty job of both.
But perhaps that's oversimplified. There are many different pieces that join together to form the whole problem.
1) Teachers - underpaid, underappreciated, and undertalented. We need to train, pay, and expect the best from teachers, and treat them with the respect and admiration deserving of the people who nurture the minds and interests of the next generation, because they are.
2) Parents - underinvolved and unwilling to do their part. It used to be that if you got in trouble at school, it was nothing compared to the trouble that you'd get into when you got home. Conversely, parents used to be much more active and supportive of their children's education, and "active" is not defined by putting pithy stickers on the minivan.
3) Students - "some children left behind." The hardest problem is that we have the mindset that school has a plethora of solutions for children with problems. It doesn't. Those places would be called "juvenile hall" or "psychiatric ward." Some students are going to misbehave, cause trouble, underperform, or fail, and we should let them. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, and you don't get increasing results by applying declining standards.
School was pretty boring and unchallenging for me, but it wasn't miserable. It seems like it's heading that way, though.
In the end, we get what we (as a market) ask for. If you think our system sucks, look at yourself and your neighbors to find the reason, not to some silly conspiracy.
What's up with your rants and who are you ranting against? The guys you're ranting against seem like they never mentioned anything about teaching about religions or discussing religions.
The original poster said:
The sooner we get an education system which does not teach religion or political or patriotic based material the better.
Which was not the point of the author. The author's point was that school IS a religion, based around social-compliance. Now the mods have seen fit to completely ruin a possibly good discussion by modding up unsubstantiated drivel that has no bearing on the subject at hand.
For pointing this out, I've lost about 5 points or so in karma. I'd lose another 50 if I thought it would help.
As for the distinction of teaching religion vs. practicing religion in school, I don't remember any public schools in the past thirty years requiring students to get down and pray. This leaves nothing but a discussion of a topic of very real import to life on this planet. No, I don't think teachers should shove any religion down childrens throats (that would be wrong), but how can you shy away from discussing it? This is supposedly a country of tolerance for all customs and religions! Where's the tolerance from the average slashdotter?
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The other point about religion, politics and patriotism is that much of the world's history is based on some combination of these. It would be difficult to foresee the future and its direction without a clear understanding of the past.
Karma: Neutered
A friend of mine, who has a Master's degree and is married to a college professor, recently called me "one of the smartest people (he'd) ever met".
He was flabbergasted to find out that I'd gone through the Chicago public grade/high school system, and had only completed a few years of commuter-school college before leaving to start my career at a no-paying job within my chosen industry. My logic at the time was "working for free is cheaper than tuition, and I'm going to learn a lot more."
In addition to learning about the industry, I learned a lot about getting by in life (at the industry jobs and at my many part-time jobs prior) and about the relative uselessness of a college degree.
Also of note: my old buddies from the neighborhood I grew up in either went to college or didn't, and either stayed in factory jobs or went into more lucrative and thoughtful industries -- but the dividing line between the destinations doesn't appear to jibe with the college/no college choice. Rather, it more or less lines up with how intelligent they seemed to be when they were fourteen years old.
One more thing: my father was the only one of his poor family who went on to relative prosperity. He was working as a security guard at IBM, and started teaching himself computers from the manuals that the staff left lying around. He eventually applied for and landed a job there, which started his lifetime career as a systems analyst. He also had only a few years of college under his belt.
If the kids had the time, a lot of American curriculum is focused on memorization and facts not analysis and critique. I remember seeing a comparision of European math and science school books compared to American schoolbooks on the same subject (Algebra vs Algebra. Chemistry vs Chemistry). The European schoolbooks were 1/3 to 1/4 the size of the Americans yet Europeans generally score better in math and science. The difference was that the European books emphasized theory, analysis, and techniques and not graphics and exercises.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'm sympathetic to what you're saying, but I think this is the real principle behind your school's success (and other schools like it): the school culture explicitly promoted learning and education as a value.
This is the fundamental difference between such schools and public schooling, no matter what school board members, teachers, administrators, and teacher college PhD's say to the contrary. Learning and education is not valued in the public school culture.
In non-government schools, kids are there first and foremost because their parents care enough about education to spare the money for it. Moreover, every student's place in that school is conditional: fuck up, and you're out!
There are good teachers, good students, and good books in both government and non-government schools. The fundamental difference (that makes all the difference) is the above. Promote the value of education, and the work is half done.
This will not happen in American public schools, except for rare exceptions. Government schools in America cater to discipline problem students, half-idiot students, and every half-baked educational fad that comes out of the ivory tower. Apart from the good students, good teachers, and good ideas that happen to make it in through the doors, the public schools are a dumping ground.
For what it's worth, I went through graduate school, earning an M.A. in education and currently substitute teach in several districts. I'm familiar with what goes on.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Mods:
Please mod up posts with low moderation scores so we may be inclusive of slashdotters with greater challenges. Now lets all group-hug without actually touching each other.
I also know a teacher who is constantly fighting with the school system to let the students learn, rather than follow the party line.
Background: My sister's original motivation for home schooling was to avoid some of the unfiltered acceptance of life-styles of which she disapproves. Also her expectation that the standard industrial schooling process would label her second child, a very energetic boy as having attention-deficit disorder and get "treated". I was pretty well concerned by this approach that my sister wanted to take. In the fullness of time, the positives of learning, self-confidence and genuine critical thinking will allow the children to become strong contributors to our society, probably a bit conservative but not rabidly dogmatic followers of some party line.
The fact is that millions of irreproachably competent graduates, and quite a few phenomenal ones, are coming out of the US educational system. And the Japanese and the German and the Australian and the British and the South Korean and the Swedish and the...
The notion that the US educational system, or that of any other developed country, exists to destroy students is self-evidently moronic. Certainly, I can tell you places where the US system needs improvement and having taught in Japan, Lord knows I could tell you where they need improvement. But the hook on which this discussion is hung is asinine.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Homeschooling works. If the public schools were eliminated, along with the associated massive government expenditures, maybe taxpayers could actually survive on one income. You could still have private schools for certain situations, and teachers would become journeyman tutoring consultants to teach where needed.
Don't tell me this would be worse than our current system. It's not possible to be worse. Maybe it would be a little tougher for people to not have government daycare, but then maybe they would realize that those last 12 years of childhood are the most amazing.
Wow, great post, but I'm out of mod points.
In the high school I went to 20+ years ago, a small county school, we did indeed have teachers who were way out of line in promoting religion (at least two science teachers who didn't believe in evolution), blind patriotism (two total ignoramous history teachers who knew nothing of history, but proceeded to tell us that the United States was God's own chosen land and could do no wrong). But, you know what? The majority of the students hated these teachers and scoffed at everything they said.
Now, my wife teaches as a large city school that fits more closely with the model described by the parent post and I hope that a majority of the students approach the material with the same degree of skepticism. My two kid's teachers in elementary and middle school are a mixed bag, idealogy wise, but they seems to average out and, most importantly, promote thinking. Of course, we moved across town to pick the schools our kids go to as they are among the top 5 or 10 in the state.
The trouble with extremes on either side is that, most often, the truth and real life lie somewhere in the middle.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
I suspect your private school was both better funded and had a larger percentage of middle to high income kids. I can guarantee you not. The schools mandate was to serve the underprivelaged. Most kids were (1) first or second generation immigrants, (2) children of poor catholics, (3) children of large families (for example, I have 5 siblings, my best friend had 8!).
We had no "free" or "reduced" lunch; our cafeteria was pay only or brown bag. I think the economic factor is off base. I know when I was there we were spending $8,000 per student while the public high-schools in towns were spending $12,000. (And just so you know, because I asked this when I was told, the indentured teachers - aka priests - were paid a full salary but then donated the proceeds to their order).
Oh, and if someone at my school had physically attacked our principal in the cafeteria, the administrators would have restrained the kid very quickly, and the kid would have been expelled. It wouldn't have been instantaneous like in your school, but it certainly would have happened.
Now, if that happens, it's not automatic. In my hometown there was a student who attacked a teacher in the parking lot. He was expelled, but then lawsuits were waived about, he was changed to a 10-day suspension, then a 5-day, and then finally he was just back in school. Where I was there was a low threshold for BS. The teachers didnt have to worry about the ACLU. Didnt have to worry about students rallying to not read books they thought were wrong, etc. You did as told, or you could pound sand. The kids who really made it hard for themselves were the ones who were trying to get kicked out but whose parents had worked out arrangements with the school to make sure they couldn't be kicked out. Punishments became very creative for them. In a public school they'd go to school to protest being singled out, they'd cave, Jesse Jackson may get involved, etc.
- Terrorism (Both domestic and abroad.)
- Religion (covered Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam). We had to study about an inch stack of worksheets and information packets about half an inch thick on each one. Then give a presentation.)
- Abortion. (I got fired up on this one...then I got in an email flamewar with a prominent person on the issue, got scared, and have stayed out the debate ever since.)
- Foreign wars and genocides
- Female circumcision (I got sick thinking about that one.)
- WWII and the Holocaust. (We were shown much more disturbing photos than the ones you see on the History channel.)
I think it really opened my eyes to what was going on around me, stuff that most people don't hear about and don't want to hear about. I took the class because I'd heard a lot of mixed messages from other students. Some thought it was horrible, others though it was boring, and others thought it was great.tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Perhaps the majority of Western Countries based their laws on the tenets of Christianity, but America is one notable exception. Our rules were based largely on Deistic principles and on general ethics and were specifically engineered not to value religion. Dubious? Read The Godless Constitution. Or consider this: despite the fact that many Americans claim the US Constition was based on the Bible and that it was founded by Christians, so we are a Christian nation, the founders specifically chose not only to exclude Christianity from the Constitution (which was a cause of debate throughout the States), but to specifically prohibit religious tests as requirements for holding public office. One can be ethical and can have morals without religion.
Live free or die
Firstly, religion: we must make sure that in our quest to discourage endorsement of a particular religion, we do not discourage religion outright. That is, we must ensure that we accept all religions equally, favoring none.
But your statement itself contains a hidden discouragement: against atheism, which is not a religion. It's like asking whether you want grape, strawberry ot pina collada flavoring in your cynide slushie. Pick your poison.
A lot of important science raises serious questions that make people of many religions uncomfortable. But it should still be taught, undistorted. It should be taught specifically for the reason that it challenges religious belief: after all, that which is challenged and survives becomes stronger in the process, and if it does not survive, then arguably it *should* be destroyed.
Politically based literature, I believe is essential. It is absolutely necessary to create a populace that understands issues on both sides and is able to logically analyze those issues and "pick a side" so to speak. Most of our nations most dividing issues (abortion, being the most notable one that comes to mind) have sane, reasonable arguments on both sides of the fence.
I also take issue with this, though my point is more subtle here.
The person who picks how the sides are represented can determine the outcome. Rare has been the textbook I've seen that has gone out of its way to show that an issue is truly complex and difficult to decide. (This happens in favor of both sides.) Furthermore, presenting two sides of an argument equally implies to the reader that the answer lies between, when it fact the real answer could be beyond the extremes presented, or even outside of the duality presented. Many arguments have more than two sides.
Patriotism itself is not inherently a bad thing and can pull people in a nation together.
I had a German friend who went to school here, in the U.S., for a while, and the thing he said that struck him about the United States was how everyone is so determined to be patrotic here. American flags everywhere (even pre-9/11), and people conspicuously saying what a great country it is, and pledges of alliegience in schools. European nations don't fly apart at the seams, but neither do they, these days, have this kind of pervasive, cultural nationalism. We don't need these things to be brought together as a nation.
That's the evil word for patriotism of course, the negative version: nationalism. That's a thing that I'm not at all comfortable with having tought in our schools. It wasn't the everywhere-stars-and-stripes that brought the U.S. together after 9/11, that was just a result of a deeper sense of fellow feeling that emerged in response to adversity. What brought us together had nothing to do with our nation, but everything to do with our humanity.
So you're saying that those who believe in Christianity (or perhaps Judaism, Muslim faith, Buddhism, etc.?) should be told to "get with the program" and have their freedom of religion stripped from them?
Or should the state declare the official religion as atheism? "You must believe that there is no higher power, and that you are worthless and have no purpose other than a product of the Universe's machinations."
1. That would be unconstitutional. It's in the first "right" granted to every American for a good reason. For those of you who have forgotten it, it goes something like this: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
2. I submit that if you think religion is dying (especially Christianity), you aren't paying enough attention. Many of those around you are quite possibly of a faith, but choose to keep it to themselves instead of beating it over your head in an inappropriate forum.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
because private schools don't have an agenda?
Sure they do. They have the agenda that their customers demand. In public schools, the government is the customer.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The best science teacher I ever had (8th grade) started off the school year pointing to the (inconspicuous) Bible on his desk and saying "I don't draw my lesson plans from that book, and I will never open it in class--it's for reading in my off hours. But I can promise you that nothing that I teach you will in any way conflict with the spirit of what's in that book. If you have any concerns about that, I'd be happy to speak with you about it anytime after class."
Absolutely brilliant. And allowed him to teach evolution in the Bible-belt South with *nary a peep*.
But more directly to your point, as a Unitarian, I agree with you completely, and find it disheartening that the first time many people get to learn about religion, in a non-partisan, educational setting is in college, when it's often too late to get anyone to actually listen to anyone else. But on the other hand, having grown up in a small, very Baptist town, I can understand why it's a good idea to play it safe and just keep it out of the school entirely. Things don't go bad too often, but when they do, they get extremely ugly, and it happens very quickly.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
What this means is that we have a greater number of both low achievers (people who are functionally illiterate) and high achievers (people who can read highly technical and dense material). The US educational system has a much flatter distribution curve than the typical European country.
We also have a much more diverse population base than do most European countries (and Japan as well). We have a much higher "recent immigrant" population than Sweden or Japan do. Unsurprisingly, it tends to be these recent immiigrants who, understandably, fill the ranks of the lowest performers in literacy (and income as well).
Until these studies adjust for such large differences in population dynamics, we'll always tend to look like underachievers compared to the rest of the world. The surprising thing isn't how badly our schools educate our population, it's how well they do so given the amazingly diverse population they are serving.
None of the above should be construed to be a ringing endorsement of the US educational establishment. There are a lot of problems with US education. The education of gifted children in K-12 in most of the US is scandalous, and huge differences in per pupil spending is its own scandal. But nearly any school in the US will educate your child well enough to get into a good college as long as you show a modicum of interest in your child's education. Lack of parental involvement or interest is probably the biggest problem in US public education right now.
Religious secularism and prayer in school are total fabrications. Under existing laws, neither teachers nor students canlead a group in prayer. However, any student can freely exercise their freedom of religion in school by finding a quiet place to pray alone. I went to school with several Muslim students who freely permitted to step out of the room in the middle of the lesson so that they may pray as commanded by their religion.
The reason that it is important that nobody lead a group of students in prayer is because it would be a reflection of what happens during the pledge of allegiance. Anyone can look around the room and see who is not participating. We all know kids are great at picking out small differences between their peers, and exploiting them to pick on the person and make them feel bad. Lead prayer in school is just another way for children to pick out the non-conformists. The biggest difference is that, from a young age, children are taught to be particularly fierce about religion. Tolerance is not one of the regular highlights of Sunday School.
Political literature in school is rather dry and taught very matter-of-factly. It usually steers clear of any heated controversy and also fails to point out that there are serious flaws with America's political system. Considering that it hasn't been revised since the original authoring, this isn't a big surprise; but public schools teach children to remember, not to think. When I was in school, during a U.S. History class, I asked my teacher why election law hasn't evolved in the last 200+ years. I continued by indicating that in a consumer based economy that people are not satisfied with only two choices, but the two choice mentality permeates our political system. He responded by reminding us that there were more than two parties. When I elaborated that the electoral system can mathematically support only a two party majority, he quickly deflected my questions by reminding us that there are countries where people don't get to vote at all. It was a true statement, but not an answer to why our system works the way it does.
That day I went home and wrote a short essay on our political parties, their differences, and their common ground. For the common ground section I explained that our electoral system will never change because both parties agree that they want it to stay a two party system. They've been playing this game for over 150 years, and they know it well. They fear having to contend with a third, or even fourth, candidate who stands a fair chance. Even though runoff, direct elections are more representative of a multicultural system like ours, both parties have no interest in sharing their power.
I went to the copy store and ran off about 1000 copies to distribute to the upperclassmen and stuck them to cars, lockers, and handed them out in the halls. Later that day I was pulled out of class by a Sheriff and the Dean of students. I was searched, and so was my locker and car. They said they had gotten a tip about me bringing a gun to school. While my locker was being emptied in to the all, I asked the Dean what he thought about my essay. He said that productive members of society need to feel safe and secure about their [perceived] power in America's political system, and that people "like me" raise dissent and cause people to lose their faith in our system. Right about this time they pull out my girlfriend's purse, which I picked up after she forgot it at the lunch table. Inside they found a bottle of Midol and some nail clippers. I received a one week suspension for each. As a result, I could not make up the work or tests that I missed. Four weeks later I graduated 8th in my class with 4 missing tests and 13 missing assignments.
Safe and secure in our rational system.
I strongly agree with your statement. Teaching religions in high school can help in areas where students seem to be lacking the most these days. I believe that if students are opened up to the different philosophies of the world, they will better understand human psychology and culture. Perhaps it will reduce racism and promote analytical thinking (why is any one religion any better than another?).
I went to a high school in suburban Pennsylvania less than a decade ago. There was very little racial diversity (my class was 100% caucasian), and almost everyone was a Christian. Since I am not a Christian, I was made fun of and repeatedly reminded that I was "going to Hell." All I feel is sadness now. Sadness for the students' ignorance and for how hard it must have been for most to see and live in the real world. I blame the educational system. I was never taught about anything else until college, by which time I realized how much high-school failed to prepare me for the diverse world.
Students coming out of our (America) high school system seem to ever increasingly lack the ability to think on their own. Problem solving is key to a productive career. If students were allowed to debate fundamental philosophical questions, it would only benefit them. Having seen what our current educational system is producing, I have lost faith completely in it. It is embarrasing to me as an American to see this. I would very much prefer to move to Japan to raise children, knowing that their attitude towards schooling is far superior to America's.
I am not sure how one would fix America's schooling system, but perhaps the problem is not so much with funding, but instead requires a fundamental shift of our values. Students should want to learn as much as possible and contribute to extra-curricular activities. Whether or not someone in IT has perfect grammar doesn't matter - they need to be able to solve problems on their own or in a group to be useful. Teaching various world religions can help open that door, IMHO.
Another common statement, "We need new books."
I hate to say it, but math hasn't changed much. Neither has reading or writing.
But history, social studies, and physics are always changing. I went to school quite a few years ago, and the books were fine, but it would be really stupid to be teaching about geography or modern history from a book that still says the Soviet Union exists.
Kids equate money with education.
You said this many times, but repeating a lie doesn't make it true. This trait about money for schools is purely an adult thing. Kids don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about money period.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Are voucher systems somehow the silver bullet
t ml
They sort of are.
The real silver bullet is an effective system of negative feedback. When the schools do a bad job, they need to be punished, and when they do a good job, they need to be rewarded. A simple idea.
Simple, yes, but hard to do in real life. Teachers' unions, educational bureaucracies all the way up to the federal level, politicians making promises... all of these things can complicate the school system to the point where incompetence isn't punished, nor excellence rewarded. And attempts to use standardised tests to guarantee that kids are taught well, just mean that teachers will wind up "teaching the test".
The best thing you can hope to do is to allow parents to move their kids around to the best schools. This will not, itself, fix the problem instantly; but it will introduce an element of feedback into the system. Over time, this will inevitably force the schools to improve.
If a restaurant has poor food, people will take their business to other restaurants. It doesn't matter what kind of union the cooks have, it doesn't matter what kind of promises politicians might have made, etc. If the customers vote with their feet, the better restaurants will prosper and the worst ones will have to close. The same thing would happen with schools, but it would take longer (people eat several meals per day, but they would probably leave their kids in any particular school for at least a few months before deciding to move the kids somewhere else).
I have debated this issue in the past with some people who claimed that parents must not be trusted to choose schools for their kids. That's lunacy. There will be a few bad parents, but by far most parents really want what is best for their kids. The parents and kids together are the best judges of how well a school is serving them.
Note that middle-class and upper-class parents already have some freedom to pick schools; I know my parents, whenever we moved, would carefully consider what the schools were like, and they would only move someplace where the schools were decent. The poorest people, who are trapped in the bad part of town (no money to move somewhere else), those are the ones who really want school vouchers.
By the way, public school systems spend a lot of money per student. The vouchers are generally for less than the public school system would have spent on a student. If a student takes a $3000 voucher and goes to a private school, that is usually a net profit for the public school. In my state, the average per-student spending is $9,454 per year.
For more on vouchers, click here: http://www.cato.org/research/education/vouchers.h
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
From Pedro Noguera's (Ph.D., professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley) paper: Preventing Violence in Schools Through the Production of Docile Bodies:
The best quote from this paper is:
It was easy to make my case that metal detectors, and such, are no solution to the problems we face. Seems that only the intelligentsia get this as it's lost on school faculty.
Get your Unix fortune now!
>But seriously, large organizations have no single "true" purpose which determines their effect
"The purpose of a system is what it does".
Keep that in mind and you can cut through all obfuscation like a bandsaw through butter.
So just take a look at what the school system does. My late mother was a teacher. She got memo after memo from upstairs and filed tons of paperwork. Her report on the percentage that bore on helping children to learn: 0%.
Oh, and the author didn't say it was "conspiratorial", he said it was a pattern. As he points out, patterns are harder to change.
The true purpose of schooling, according to Gatto, is to produce an easily manageable workforce to serve employers in a mass-production economy. Actual education is a secondary and even counterproductive result since educated people tend to be more difficult to control.
Hate to piss on the parade, but this is exactly what they teach in Education Foundations 101, History of Education. At the University of Alberta, at any rate.
I didn't realize it was some sort of secret.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I am a certified teacher as is my spouse; we both have multiple university degrees, and two school age children. I have taught in both public and private schools and found both to have good and bad qualities. I agree fully with Gatto (read his work a while ago) about the purpose of public schools and where they are taking our children, to the factory floor (or lower with off-shoring). In the private school I saw the tuition dollar driving educational and advancement decisions, students advanced because the tuition cheque cleared. If you want to make the most of your student/child's education and give them the opportunity to grow and develop into their full potential remember the following: 1: Parents are the first and most important teachers. Your kids will follow your example; read a book, have a discussion, take a course, learn something new, and do this with them. 2: Know what happens in your student's school (public/private/home); call the principal, visit the teacher, send notes, follow up tests, question policies, etc. Don't let a problem be the first and only reason you talk. 2: When they are in a school you must provide positive support both direct (volunteering) and indirect (reading to kids, having books in the house, shutting off the tv/Nintendo/ps2/computer/etc) participation is paramount. 3: Talk about school with your kids; what did they learn, can they teach it to you? 4: Empower them with their right to a good education, and their responsibilities as a student 5: Take opportunities to expand their worldview; take them out of school for family trips, special events, bonding opportunities. 6: Finally, help them learn to make decisions and then let them make decisions. Yes, they will make mistakes and learn from them and grow... Of course there is much more you can do. If you do some of what I suggest you will be part of the solution. Of course you may drive some teachers and administrators nuts first and your kids will want you to walk way behind them at the mall...
Umm, no, Freedom of Religion is not derived from Christianity. Christianity is a triumphalist religion, like Islam. This means that, according to Christianity, unless you're a Christian, you're going to hell. Or according to Catholicism, if you're not a Catholic, or according to Presbyterians, if you're not a Presbyterian... you get the picture.
Christianity now plays nice mainly because it gets beaten up if it doesn't. It wasn't long ago Christians were as bad or worse as political Islam is now. Consider the Crusades, the slaughter of the Cathars, the wars that were sparked by the Reformation, Cromwell, the witch hunts, Northern Ireland, and the list goes on and on. And of course, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...
Ahem... sorry...
What I'm driving at here is that the First Amendment is the separation of church and state, because it means that the state is never to take any religion's side against another religion. A lot of the people who had emigrated to America had already had quite enough of that. I think every child should probably be taught the Bible in school, and the Koran, and the Tao Te Ching, be acquainted with the ancient Greek philosophers, as well as being taught critical thinking, the ideas of the enlightenment, and humanism. But none of the religions would permit their own faith to be treated as just one more color in the rainbow. Triumphalist religions think the have the TRUTH (caps necessary), while everything else is just the opinions of those who don't know any better--or work for Satan.
As soon as you teach religion in school, you have to choose one. The alliance of the faithful will only last until they win. That's when the real holy war starts, between the faiths, and the various forms of each faith. What the Falwells and Robertsons of the world have to understand is that the secular humanists are their best friends. They're the ones preventing the faithful from strangling each other.
And if anyone pipes up and says that science and evolution are religions too, I will have to hurt them.
Badly.
Actually, this statement would indicate that you are an agnostic, not an atheist.
Not true.
An atheist, on the other hand, would hang onto his disbelief in God regardless of any proof.
Again, false.
You might use the word that way, but that isn't what it means.
I don't "doubt" the existence of god which would be agnosticism.
I don't believe there is any such thing. I don't think it's even possible for there to be such an entity. Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Good is a fallacy Just look around.
Now if God himself came down and started doing god type stuff, well, I certainly don't deny evidence. That doesn't mean I am agnostic, that's just basic rationality.
For a person to present solid proof is totally impossible by the very nature of the beast which is one of the reasons it seems so incredibly silly to me.
Why:People will pine over this for 20 minutes. This is a test of common sense. I've heard that the box has failed, all the servers are down, even the power is out. Simply put "YOUR IN THE WRONG ROOM!" The box with the lights are in the Lab you walked into your OFFICE, duh. Some clever people will say, "I don't know but I turn the lights back on in my office and walk down to the lab and check so see if the box lights are ok." That is someone you want working for you verus "I don't know" as an answer. I'll take a guess over nothing.
Some of your questions are wise, but this one is not. It's a childish trick question that uses semantics. If all your questions required a careful analysis of their semantics, it would be a reasonable question; but to throw out ten or twenty or fifty ordinary fact-oriented questions, and then mix in a trick question based on semantics and shell-game manipulation of words, is just a petty power trip that mean-spirited teachers use to bolster their need for a quick fix of superiority.
Essentially, it's just changing the rules so the house is more likely to come out on top.
The Internet is full. Go away.
I graduated from High School with a career 59% grade average. For those of you who didn't go to school in New York, that's basically an F average. I was awarded a diploma because I passed all of the required classes, barely. The conclusion you might come to is that I hate learning. But you'd be wrong.
For someone who loves to learn, school is the absolute worst enemy in this regard. In my case, I would cut school simply to hang out in the library and study with notebook in hand. School is not about learning, it's about control, purely and simply. Some teachers could recognize your interests and help you along, but these teachers were so rare and could only do so much.
I never did go on to college. I never even took the SATs. I regret nothing.
One thing I said to myself then, which I say to myself now, is that the beaten path is the easy way out. Down that road is what everyone else has. A 9-5 job with unpaid overtime, living for the weekends, and genuinely being told what to do throughout life hoping that someone will someday appreciate your obedience and throw you some scraps. Public schools train you to fit in this kind of life. In my opinion, that's not life. I don't know what it is, but I can't imagine calling it life.
You can take away my car, house, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, heaven forbid even my high school diploma, but as long as you haven't taken away my ability to think, I can still survive and I can still be happy.
Like they said in trainspotting (but missing the point entirely): Choose life.