SCAM PART 5 - THE EDUCATION RACKET
Even today, with all the blather about high tech, most jobs only require basic literacy. Yet, everyone is forced to get a highschool diploma. Up until 50 years ago this was not the case. The majority went as far as grade 8 and then got jobs. Only those young people going on to university or taking commercial courses for future white collar jobs completed high school. Then, in the mid-late 1950s a new scare was drummed up by the authorities, one that would eventually overshadow the Great Comic Book Panic and the Rock and Roll Hysteria. (1) This was the dreaded High School Drop Out Plague, which at times seemed a greater threat to "Our Way of Life" than those Evil Commies forever lurking under our beds.
This scam involved two groups, politicians and the education bureaucracy. The former sought to keep unemployment at a reasonably low level. One way of doing this was by keeping people out of the work force. An extra four years of schooling would reduce the unemployment figures by hundreds of thousands. For the education bureaucracy this was a gift from heaven. Force every child to go to highschool and education budgets would increase by 50%.
The scam worked its way up the education ladder. In 1960 if you got a BA or BSc that was enough. It was "open sesame" for most professions. But soon professions that were previously taught on the job required a further two years of education AFTER a bachelors degree. This sorry situation is nothing more than a cheap ploy to exclude people from these professions and create more jobs for the education racket.
Every middle class kid now must have a BA, whether they want it or not. Few will benefit much from it, other than the need for a piece of paper, so why bother? You see them jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops of the educational mandarinate. Most of them would rather be elsewhere. For many, university is a chance to drink beer, smoke weed and get laid, and for that you can't blame them. That's natural when you are 19 years old.
More to the point would be for young people to have real jobs, grab their tool boxes and head out to see the country, "on tour" like
I do, however, believe that an educated populace is a good thing. The so-called libertarians who say "Why should I have to pay for other people's kids education?" are just damn fools. Everything is inter-connected, and don't ever forget it! The more genuine education a population has, the better it is for all of us. At its most basic - people who read, paint pictures or play music aren't out stealing old ladies purses. We would not wish to reproduce the pre-1960 situation where you had a poorly educated blue collar working class, a high school grad white collar working class and a university educated middle class. Rather, have people educated at ANY point in their lives. The young who do not want to go to school beyond the most basic level should get out and work. Many of them will eventually get bored with work and will return to class.
Important point! Formal education is not real education. Formal education is just "training." Real education is something else, something that comes from within - a passion and curiosity about the world. Few, if any, schools can give this. Formal education can provide the basic tools, like reading, writing and "figgerin", but the real education begins when you apply those mental tools on your own. The informal sort of education - which should be encouraged at all levels - such as public libraries, night courses, discussion groups, coop and community radio/TV, are the true areas of “cultural uplift.” Love of true education must also begin at home in the years before a child goes to school. Let there be vast campaigns to encourage parents to read to their children and give their offspring books.
1. For those of you to young to be familiar with these 1950's hysterias. The "authorities" in the early '50's deemed comic books the root cause of delinquency. These same authorities, as well as much of the adult population, felt the same about Rock and Roll, but with addition fears about sexuality, class and race. The fact that many adults believed such utter nonsense, and we teens obviously did not, was the beginning of what became known in the late '60's as the "Generation Gap."
This scam involved two groups, politicians and the education bureaucracy. The former sought to keep unemployment at a reasonably low level. One way of doing this was by keeping people out of the work force. An extra four years of schooling would reduce the unemployment figures by hundreds of thousands. For the education bureaucracy this was a gift from heaven. Force every child to go to highschool and education budgets would increase by 50%.
The scam worked its way up the education ladder. In 1960 if you got a BA or BSc that was enough. It was "open sesame" for most professions. But soon professions that were previously taught on the job required a further two years of education AFTER a bachelors degree. This sorry situation is nothing more than a cheap ploy to exclude people from these professions and create more jobs for the education racket.
Every middle class kid now must have a BA, whether they want it or not. Few will benefit much from it, other than the need for a piece of paper, so why bother? You see them jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops of the educational mandarinate. Most of them would rather be elsewhere. For many, university is a chance to drink beer, smoke weed and get laid, and for that you can't blame them. That's natural when you are 19 years old.
More to the point would be for young people to have real jobs, grab their tool boxes and head out to see the country, "on tour" like
and Pierre Proudhon did.
I do, however, believe that an educated populace is a good thing. The so-called libertarians who say "Why should I have to pay for other people's kids education?" are just damn fools. Everything is inter-connected, and don't ever forget it! The more genuine education a population has, the better it is for all of us. At its most basic - people who read, paint pictures or play music aren't out stealing old ladies purses. We would not wish to reproduce the pre-1960 situation where you had a poorly educated blue collar working class, a high school grad white collar working class and a university educated middle class. Rather, have people educated at ANY point in their lives. The young who do not want to go to school beyond the most basic level should get out and work. Many of them will eventually get bored with work and will return to class.
Important point! Formal education is not real education. Formal education is just "training." Real education is something else, something that comes from within - a passion and curiosity about the world. Few, if any, schools can give this. Formal education can provide the basic tools, like reading, writing and "figgerin", but the real education begins when you apply those mental tools on your own. The informal sort of education - which should be encouraged at all levels - such as public libraries, night courses, discussion groups, coop and community radio/TV, are the true areas of “cultural uplift.” Love of true education must also begin at home in the years before a child goes to school. Let there be vast campaigns to encourage parents to read to their children and give their offspring books.
1. For those of you to young to be familiar with these 1950's hysterias. The "authorities" in the early '50's deemed comic books the root cause of delinquency. These same authorities, as well as much of the adult population, felt the same about Rock and Roll, but with addition fears about sexuality, class and race. The fact that many adults believed such utter nonsense, and we teens obviously did not, was the beginning of what became known in the late '60's as the "Generation Gap."
posted by Larry Gambone at
10:25 AM
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