| The Need to Abolish Mandatory Schooling | | | | cooperate with one another. Standards of |
| | | | culture, morality, and behavior are |
| By Punkerslut | | | | inculcated in these blossoming minds. The |
| | | | first lesson asked us to believe in the |
| Some people are under the impression that | | | | orders of authority. The second lesson asked |
| brilliant minds will always supercede the | | | | us to work with each other to achieve the |
| potential of their institutionalized learning | | | | desired ends of those in control. If a group |
| environments, causing them serious conflicts. | | | | of children are taught to engage in the same |
| Few will doubt that brilliant minds find | | | | behavior regardless of their what they want |
| intellectual constriction in all universities | | | | to do, then they will never fight back as |
| and mandatory schooling. A genius cannot | | | | adults. This is your group of tenants who |
| bear the pain of others fumbling with a | | | | will live in roaches and never call the |
| simple subject. I doubt this theory; rather, | | | | health inspector. This your group of |
| I believe that strict and required schooling | | | | citizens who easily frightened by police |
| sterilizes the potential for brilliance in | | | | officers into "voluntarily" giving up their |
| our young. Those who survived schooling and | | | | rights. Workers who are threatened by the |
| continued to think were only the strongest of | | | | idea of a union, readers who never question |
| the will and the greatest of heart. All | | | | the angle of the newspapers or the media, |
| children at their start are tumultuous, | | | | consumers who identify the products they buy |
| curious, and highly experimental. This | | | | with their own lives. These are the fruits |
| spirit can only die if it is forced into | | | | of mandatory schooling. |
| school. Mandatory schooling has never | | | | |
| consisted of anything but the memorization of | | | | The overseers of these once untouched youth |
| monotonous and dead facts, with training to | | | | are hardly free from prejudice, |
| master repetitious behavior. For the greater | | | | discrimination, and bigotry. Children soon |
| part of their day, the words of children's | | | | learn how to manipulate the system to their |
| lips must match the interests of their school | | | | personal advantage. The students who excel |
| teachers. Their behavior must coincide with | | | | in athletics and represent the school are |
| a set policy and a set regulation. They | | | | naturally rewarded for their involvement. |
| cannot use the bathrooms without permission. | | | | Those elected to the powerless position of |
| If they wish to speak, they must raise their | | | | school president are given specific |
| hands; talking in order to speak is | | | | privileges. Even the academic and |
| restricted only to the class of adults. | | | | "scholarly," college-bound group is easily |
| After every half hour or every hour, a bell | | | | pardoned for breaking the rules. But to the |
| rings and everyone must move. There is no | | | | rest of the school, every law is harshly |
| point in the day where anyone asks the child: | | | | enforced with maximum punishments. The tone |
| What are you thinking? What are your | | | | of a principal is like that of a warden: with |
| worries? What are your plans? This daily | | | | no check on their authority, they will always |
| grind becomes a ritual for the child. It | | | | have a way of using their coercive ability to |
| becomes the plot background for their | | | | enforce a standard on the population. |
| television shows and books, the ideology that | | | | Whether it's a standard of reading the |
| is taught to them by teacher and parent | | | | prison-issued Bible and respecting the |
| alike, and finally, it becomes the verses for | | | | guards, or whether it's your participation |
| their prayers. An entire mono-culture is | | | | level in programs that benefit the school |
| developed, entirely directed at convincing | | | | administration, a very strict and painful |
| children that submitting to their authority | | | | punishment awaits those who disobey an |
| is for their own best interest. "Believe us | | | | undisputed, authoritarian force. There is no |
| and support us... All of the good things you | | | | doubt that an active student body reflects |
| have today are because of us. Believe that." | | | | positively on school administrators. Like |
| Mandatory schooling is the closest ally of | | | | factory floormen, they're fulfilling their |
| oligarchy and oppression. | | | | quotas to the inspecting superintendent of |
| | | | the local school district. All school |
| Their environment is similar to that of a | | | | programs are directed towards the interests |
| prison: by the "population" lacking any | | | | of the school and those who engage in |
| ability to check the authority of the warden, | | | | unsanctioned assembly or association are |
| their grievance process becomes a matter of | | | | strictly punished. In West Virginia, a |
| rubber-stamping. It is always "subject to | | | | student was suspended for fifteen days for |
| our rules, our means of investigation, and | | | | wearing a T-shirt that read, "When I saw the |
| judged by us." Naturally, without any | | | | dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt |
| democratic control of their community, | | | | a newly recovered sense of national security. |
| students, like inmates, will attack and | | | | God Bless America." She also had been |
| brutalize each other. School shootings, gang | | | | promoting an unauthorized club, the Anarchist |
| violence, bullying and hazing. The youth's | | | | Student Union. [*1] In Michigan, 2003, a |
| violence problem is directly related to the | | | | student was suspended for wearing an |
| fact that they have no control over their | | | | anti-Bush T-shirt for the words |
| entire lives; the only control they can have | | | | "international terrorist." [*2] It is ironic |
| is between each other. Mandatory schooling | | | | that the administration is allowed to use |
| will only produce a society of children who | | | | these words, in fact, all officials are |
| are either terrified of the tyranny of others | | | | encouraged to use fear-based politics to |
| or have been raised to perpetually exploit | | | | achieve their ends. At the same time, those |
| the condition of others. As in the prison | | | | who criticize the ruling administration are |
| system, the child's presence in certain | | | | classified as "a threat to the general |
| buildings and their engagement in | | | | public," and removed from the system. That |
| state-regulated behavior is under penalty of | | | | is the reality of mandatory schooling. |
| imprisonment. An entire army of truancy | | | | |
| officers have been hired to make sure that | | | | Even the Parent-Teacher Association and other |
| there is no child on the other side of the | | | | national organizations in the United States |
| bars. With this forced-cohabitation, abuses | | | | are supportive of mandatory schooling. There |
| will only become a daily occurence. The | | | | is nowhere for the child to turn. Their |
| minister in A Clockwork Orange is known for | | | | culture must be developed in the company of |
| one remarkable bit of wisdom... | | | | their fellow students, against an invasive |
| | | | curriculum, cruel professors, and a world |
| "...the wretched hoodlum the State committed | | | | that has accepted forced schooling. What at |
| to unprofitable punishment some two years | | | | first was a bitter, disgusting pill that we |
| ago, unchanged after two years. Unchanged, do | | | | suffered through becomes something that we |
| I say? Not quite. Prison taught him the | | | | feel must be forced on others -- and so it |
| false smile, the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, | | | | happens, that those who graduate probably |
| the fawning greased obsequious leer. Other | | | | learned only one thing through school: if it |
| vices it taught him, as well as confirming | | | | weren't for compulsory education, people |
| him in those he had long practiced before " | | | | can't learn anything. Truancy officers are |
| | | | the final realization of this cultural idea |
| At the end of eighteen years of coercive, | | | | of forced education. The state will fold its |
| state authority, the child is released into | | | | arms and turn away when the children in the |
| the world. "Now that you're trained to do as | | | | nation are homeless, on the streets, and |
| you're told, you can be free." The produce | | | | suffering from malnutrition and hunger. But |
| of these schools, this state-controlled | | | | the moment the child does not appear in |
| manufacturing operation, is willing to | | | | school at the scheduled time, the police are |
| submit, to obey, and to listen. Civilized | | | | alerted; soon, both the child and the parents |
| members of society can only truly develop | | | | are usurped by the law. Billions of tax |
| when they are allowed access to everything | | | | dollars are spent on this corrupt, ailing |
| they need. Mandatory education is | | | | system of "modern education," when even the |
| incompatible with this idea. Forced | | | | most basic of human needs is not met for the |
| behavior, which technically amounts to a type | | | | citizen. It is as absurd and inefficient as |
| of slavery, will only inculcate a mindset of | | | | it is cruel, inhumane, and unjust. Until the |
| fear and terror. | | | | abolishment of mandatory schooling, the child |
| | | | will be brought up as a slave to become a |
| Curriculum. You need to be somewhere at a | | | | slave in adult life. |
| set time. Either at the orders of an | | | | |
| authority or a bell, everyone in one mass | | | | Punkerslut, |
| shifts to another position and another place | | | | |
| to engage in a new activity. It is a | | | | Sources: |
| training not just to follow instruction, but | | | | |
| it is also a training follow a certain | | | | 1. "No anarchy club in Kanawha County, WV," |
| behavior in cooperation with those who share | | | | by Dana Hull, San Jose Mercury News Staff |
| the same condition as us. Rules, | | | | Writer, Published January 24, 2000, in the |
| regulations, and laws are set out for the | | | | San Jose Mercury News. 2. "Michigan school |
| children. You can to this to others. You | | | | bans student's anti-Bush T-shirt," by The |
| cannot do this to others. This is | | | | Associated Press, 02.19.03. |
| acceptable. This is not. We are taught to | | | | |