Programming your Education

by: Jamal Thompson
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Word Count: 748

Recently a friend and I were discussing what his daughter was learning at school. It seems they are teaching the second graders a new way of doing long addition by starting with the far left column instead of the far right column. Aside from the fact that this method has been practiced for thousands of years along side the conventional method with the conventional method proving time and again to be more accurate, the school is conducting yet another “let’s see what happens” experiment with its captive student audience who may suffer greatly for not having acquired the necessary skills to master arithmetic.

This is just one more example of what children are not learning at school and one more reason for the pathetic state of education in America. However the kids are there for are large chunk of the day. Just what are they learning?

Ask a high school student about meteorology, industry or the basic premise of economics, you would probably stare at you as if you were speaking another language. However, if asked about global warming, the oil industry or tax cuts, they can inform you that if we don’t change the way we live we will destroy the earth in 10 years, they can tell you how greedy oil executives are manipulating price structures and they can wax poetically on how the rich need to pay their fair share in taxes. If you are skeptical feel free to conduct this experiment yourself. The next time you hear a skateboard rolling down the street, walk outside and ask the rider about the three topics mentioned above.

How is it that so many of these students have such strong opinions about subjects in which they have so little understanding? After all isn’t a minimum amount of knowledge necessary to form an opinion? Doesn’t one have to have some knowledge about the two teams that are playing a game before he can pick a winner? Isn’t a basic understanding of computers required before one can decide which computer would best suit his needs? Wouldn’t one need a simple knowledge of the rules of the road in order to decide whether the middle finger is the appropriate response to a traffic violation?

Judging purely by the caliber of graduates public school produces it would be easy to assume that as the children matriculate through each grade level, instructors download in their minds a voice recognition virus program that executes upon hearing key words such as abortion, environment, republican, etc. Once executed, the virus searches the hard drive, otherwise known as the brain, for the list of acceptable responses relevant to the situation. If the situation is a conversation the responses are “women’s right to choose”, “we are causing global warming” or “racist, chauvinist, evangelical Nazi”. If the situation is a ballot box, the response is to vote all things Democrat.

The virus is put to the test when smooth talking politicians with a gift for empty rhetoric give flowery sounding speeches peppered with these key words. People without the virus, or those who have installed the antivirus software, known as FACTS, will sit in amazement as a nation full of people cheer in support of vacuous, platitudinous speeches and defy all rationale by voting in support of tax policies that amount to theft and education policies that only repeat the cycle already set in place.

Unfortunately, the process of programming a mind takes much more time than downloading software and skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic are adversely affected to the extent the time required to program a developing mind goes beyond that which is allotted for programming. The lack of education, the increased drop-out rate and the increase in on-campus activism are reflective of the fact that schools are less interested in producing educated graduates capable of making a life for themselves and more interested in producing activists with a predictable decision-making process.

A child, or adult, lacking the basic skills he should have received while in school is of no consequence to a politician with a gift for rhetoric and lofty sounding shibboleths. Such a politician only needs a person’s vote and his programming to stay in place for one more election. But the uneducated adult will suffer for the rest of his life for having received a compromised education which prepares him more for being an activist than a provider.

About the Author

Jamal Thompson is a financial advisor in Valencia, CA.

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