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The Connection
Between Education and Success by M. John Allen
How did you come to be the person you are today? Are you
what many others would consider a success? Do you consider yourself a
success? If you are like most people, you would answer no to the
above questions. You would say that you are Mr. or Mrs. Average, born in an
average home, with the normal, average, everyday problems. You aren’t exactly
a success, but you aren’t a total failure, either. Yes, that certainly is what most people would say, isn’t
it? But chances are, if you are reading this
article, if you are interested in success, you want more out of life. You
yearn to get out of your rut and start living the kind of life YOU want to
live. In this and future editions of this publication, we are
going to be publishing a series of articles called Be a Winner With the
Laws of Success! But right now, in this article, we are going to discuss
the very important issue of education and its connection to success. Do you realize that in the world today, the educational
system actually works to PROGRAM PEOPLE FOR MEDIOCRITY? And worse yet, did
you realize that education, which has been decaying for years and decades
now, is VIRTUALLY AT ROCK BOTTOM -- BANKRUPT? Yet, this is the same system that most of us depend on to
educate our children, and is the same system that produced us. By analyzing what is wrong with the system, we can then
stand a chance to understand what TRUE education towards success is --
because there is a WAY OF EDUCATION that would produce the productive,
useful, SUCCESSFUL members that our deteriorating world society so sorely
needs. Yet, the great universities and schools today simply don’t seem to be
interested in CHANGING FROM A LOSING FORMULA. You owe it to yourself, to your future well being and
happiness, to understand what is going on, and how to make positive changes
in your life. Also, please don’t forget to read our series of articles on
success, starting elsewhere in this publication. In order to understand, then, why so many people, and our
society in general, are profound failures, we have to have everything clearly
in mind at all times. When you read this future booklet, or listen to some
tapes on it, keep in mind the background you have learned in this article. Let’s examine some of the problems we are having in the
United States now, and the Western world in general.
This will help us to understand what is wrong today, and what some of the
answers must be. We are all a product of our society. Have you every
stopped to wonder how you came to believe what you believe? What gives you
your value system? Did it come out of thin air -- were we BORN WITH IT -- or,
did we get our values from our environment: our family, school, friends, community? The family, the school, and the church are the three major
institutions of society today. However, as religion has diminished, and as
two income homes and single parent homes have become the norm, the school has
been leaned on more and more to develop morality and literacy in our
children. These children become the adults of the next generation, and so on,
gradually changing society as it goes along. It can’t be denied, then, that the school is possibly the
major institution influencing children, with the family second, and the
church third. This is not the way things have always been. The family used to
be at the top of the ladder, the church second, and the school third
(although many schools were also associated with the church). As we have come
to depend on our educational system more, its breakdown has become more
evident. A rampant cancer is extant in society today, eating it from the
inside out. The crises we face as a nation and a world will not go away just
by ignoring them. The sad fact is, though, that most people DON’T EVEN
REALIZE THAT THERE IS A CRISIS. I could pick many problems to talk abut, but I think a
discussion of the problems in our educational system will speak more to the
heart of our crisis today than almost any other thing. Since much of this article was originally written, about
ten years ago, a clueless and degenerate educational system has lost its way
more than ever. It seems that there is no level to which the present system
will not sink. It used to be true that Academic Freedom existed so that
professors and students could study and propagate unpopular views unmolested
by the current fashion in politics -- or any fashion, really. But the last
few years have led to a lack of Academic Freedom so appalling that if one is
not in step with the current multi-cultural and politically correct agenda,
they are in danger for their jobs or their positions as students. Students
have been expelled for expressing their politically incorrect views too
openly -- views which have broad exposure in t he rest of society. Professors likewise have to tip toe through the landmines
of political correctness, especially if they don’t have tenure! A gang of
radical students can torpedo their career for not parroting the current party
line on campus. And just what is this new "party line." It is a
party line that views women and minorities as victims of past heinous
oppression by centuries of white male dominance. And the white male must now
atone for this in the most obnoxious ways. He must step aside and give the
best academic and job opportunities to any woman or minority member who wants
the position, even if less qualified! And how about the validity of views? It used to be that
opinions were arrived at through a weighing of the facts, then lining up the
facts to give the obvious answer through logic. This method of reasoning,
called rationalism has its roots deep in our culture’s Greek and Roman
past. Only an argument supported by the facts and logic is considered to be
valid. All other theories must be rejected as being non-factual. This is the
way that many people still think, but in the modern world of so called
education, this is no longer the case. Thus a course in Afro American
Hairstyles now has the same status as a course in Logic! If you think I am kidding,
you will soon be amazed at something I just got through t he internet. But
that can wait a second. IN this topsy turvey world of modern so called "higher"
education, the facts are now subordinate to ideology and "ethnic
pride." People are taught to respect the opinions of others, no matter
how ridiculous and fanciful. It no longer matters whether something is TRUE,
because if you confront the other person with the facts he or she will lose
their "self respect and pride," or "dignity", which in
the twisted world of modern education so called is more important than the
facts. After all, historically oppressed groups must be allowed to have their
dignity and pride, so to disagree with them over something as petty as facts
or common sense just doesn’t work anymore, and you can be expelled or demoted
for writing or reading lines such as these. I am also a fascist pig for even
daring to mention this! Let me illustrate the terrible situation in modern
education with some material I recently received over the internet which is
shocking indeed. Feel free to verify these FACTS: The following list was produced by the Young America's
Foundation < www.yaf.org> . Warning:
this list is not for the faint of heart. 1996-97 Top 10 Politically Correct Campus Events Young
America's Foundation _Libertas_, May-June
1997, page 8 10. For proponents of "tolerance" at Dartmouth,
some things are just not worth tolerating - like Christmas
carols! After a long tradition of the school's glee club performing at its Christmas tree
lighting ceremony, administrators pulled the plug.
The glee club's offense: including "Silent Night," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and
"O Come All Ye Faithful" in a proposed repertoire of songs.
Christians songs at the _Christmas_ tree lighting were "inconsistent with having the event be
one at which persons of all faiths - and nonreligious persons - would feel
welcome," claimed administrator Olivia Chapman. 9. It's 1997 throughout the world - except at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst where faculty still live in _1984_.
The school has instituted a new program that makes ideology a determinant
of career progress. Professors must fill
out a questionnaire explaining how they have made "significant contributions to
multiculturalism in your department, school or college, or
the campus." The form will help decide faculty promotions and raises. 8. The president of Berkeley - the school that launched
the free speech movement of the 1960s - remained silent as radicals stole
23,000 copies of the school's student newspaper after it dared to
editorialize in favor of ending racial preferences and
quotas. 7. Have nothing to protest? Then import a Klansman! In an
attempt to discredit the California Civil Rights Initiative, Leftist
activists and the President of Cal State-Northridge invited David Duke
to campus to debate racial preferences. Many
of the same activists who were instrumental in inviting Duke to campus then rioted in
response to the former Klansman's visit. 6. _National Review_ Editor John O'Sullivan was
surrounded, berated, and assaulted by an angry Leftist mob after delivering a
speech at Yale on the divisive politics of liberalism.
The near-riot broke out in response to caricatures that appeared on National Review's cover of
the First Lady, Vice President and President with Oriental features and
dressed in Asian garb. O'Sullivan received a
police escort to a car that was mobbed and hammered by radical activists. 5. At Penn State, religious expression seems only
available to those who hate religion. After banning a
Christmas tree from the University's Old Main Hall, faculty and administrators defended a campus
sculpture which depicted a bloodied Virgin Mary
submerged in female genitalia. 4. University of Hawaii Professor Ramdas
Lamb ran afoul of campus feminists by stating that there
are two sides to sexual harassment cases. Lamb soon had complaints against him that he "created
a hostile environment" in the
classroom. A groundless accusation that he was a "serial rapist" followed and Lamb was relieved
of his duties as an advisor and was forbidden from grading
papers. He was besieged with death threats, denounced in classes by professors, and was mailed a
picture of a bloody, decapitated lamb's head. A jury
in a local court took ten minutes to decide the charges against Lamb
were a hoax. The university has not punished his accuser and her primary faculty ally has been
rewarded by being considered for tenure.
"Even the fact that I have been found innocent is irrelevant to a lot
of people," Lamb said. "Campuses have become a surrealistic, perverted
place." 3. alumni that the inclusion of a pornographic screed set up
like a children's book was inappropriate
in an introductory English course. _Memories that Smell Like Gasoline_ contains over a dozen
drawings of perverse sexual acts including homosexual group sex, child
molestation, and "fisting". 2. Why do colleges and universities need more tax dollars?
To finance political activism in the
classroom, of course! When Californians weighed in against preferences and quotas by voting for
Proposition 209, Berkeley Professor June Jordan lead her "Poetry for the
People" class in a "hunger strike" outside CNN studios.
Demanding one hour of air time to address the nation, bring a message: what about this country smells so
wrong?" student Erwin Cho-Woods asked. "My hunger
sings, sings, sings, about diversity, not the rape of Martin's legacy."
Following CNN's rejection of she explained, "I am asking
[CNN] to look at these students. These students are fasting. They are
putting their lives on the line. That's news." The class's
"hunger strike" consisted of eating breakfast and dinner while skipping lunch. 1. Annabel Chong, a porn queen
who once held the world's record for the number of sex partners in one day, now receives college
credit for her carnal exploits. Chong is enrolled as a student at the University of course last fall, Chong and two
women undressed and performed sex acts on one another for a class project.
While Chong's actions were defended by faculty, students were outraged.
"The bottom line is a girl got penetrated in a class ... for a grade,"
observed fine arts major Sandro Corsaro.
Would that this was all, but there’s more: Lawsuit Accuses UCLA of Suppressing Free Speech In the Name of Affirmative Action speech ends where political correctness and a university's
allegiance to race-based affirmative action
begin. An experienced and gifted tutor, Cardona applied for a
tutoring position with the university's Academic Advancement
Program (AAP), self-touted as the nation's largest undergraduate
affirmative action program. When Cardona was
interviewed for the post, he was not asked about his experience as a tutor.
Instead, was grilled about his beliefs on affirmative action and was encouraged to show
his allegiance to race-based preference programs-beliefs and
policies to which he does not wholeheartedly
subscribe. Cardona refused. In early December 1995, the AAP supervisor called Cardona
to tell him he didn't get the job. When
Cardona asked for her reasons, she told him that he was not the proper person to handle AAP
students because he did not wholeheartedly
embrace affirmative action. She was also concerned that as a tutor, Al would stress academics
"too much," when in fact it comprised only 50
per cent of the job. The remainder required "validation" of students' feelings, and
Al's responses to her questions about affirmative action and discrimination
suggested he would not provide enough validation. Today, for the Central District of the university's Academic Advancement Program (AAP)
violated the First Amendment to the California Constitution by attempting to silence
dissenting opinions by refusing to hire tutors who would not swear unyielding
loyalty to race-based affirmative action. "It should come as no surprise that policies based on
morally questionable premises require the suppression of speech
antithetical to them if they are to survive," said Donna Matias, staff attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice (www.ij.org), which filed suit on Cardona's
behalf. "UCLA used McCarthyite tactics to defend racial and ethnic preference programs that are
living on borrowed time." Alvaro Cardona is a Guatemalan immigrant who moved to
South Central Cardona never finished high school but instead dropped out
of school to support his family. Later he
earned his GED, attended community college and ultimately UCLA.
During his two years at a community college, Cardona tutored several hundred students, most of
whom were immigrants from a variety of
countries. In the fall of 1995, he enrolled in UCLA's undergraduate history program and began
doing miscellaneous computer work for
the AAP. In November 1995 Cardona's supervisor, the director of the AAP Tutorial Program,
encouraged him to apply for an AAP tutoring job. Upon his rejection, Cardona initially took his grievance
to the university legal services office, which told him his was
not an isolated incident. Because they
thought he had a strong First Amendment case, legal services encouraged him to contact
the ACLU of rejected Al's case due to
"severely limited" resources. It was surely no coincidence that at the same time the
ACLU of gearing up for its lawsuit challenging the California
Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). Although the law was not passed until
November 1996, anti-CCRI forces began preparing for the likelihood
that Californians would vote to eliminate race and gender
preferences in public education, employment, and
contracting. Among the supporters of the ACLU's litigation from the outset were Charles
Young, then Chancellor of UCLA, and Adolfo Bermeo,
Director of UCLA's AAP and one of the defendants in this
lawsuit. When the anti-CCRI lawsuit was filed, both Young and Bermeo
submitted affidavits attesting to the continuing need for race and
gender preferences at UCLA. To add another twist to this story, in July 1995, the
University of California Regents, the state body authorized to
administer the UC system, voted to eliminate race and gender preferences-the
very kind of affirmative action programs Cardona was urged to
support as a condition of employment. Al
Cardona was being asked to endorse a program that the Regents would later deem inappropriate
and that Although this case is a classic free speech case, it also demonstrates the inevitable constraints on freedom that
flow from policies that classify people on
the basis of race and ethnicity. As those policies come under attack, their defenders rely not
on persuasion, but on suppression, ultimately harming not
only the very people whose interests the policies purportedly serve, but
anyone who dares question or criticize the
policies. "Intertwined in an individual's right to speak freely
is the right to refrain from speaking, that is, to not be forced to
swear an oath of loyalty to a particular political issue or
affiliation," said Chip Mellor, president of the Institute for Justice. "The
Supreme Court has held that loyalty oaths in exchange for a benefit such
as employment do not pass
constitutional muster." The Institute for Justice (www.ij.org) advances a rule of
law under which individuals control their destinies as free and
responsible members of society. Through
strategic litigation, training, and outreach, the Institute secures greater protection for
individual liberty, challenges the scope and ideology of the
Regulatory Welfare State, and illustrates and extends the benefits of freedom
to those whose full enjoyment of liberty
is denied by government. The Institute was founded in September 1991 by Mellor and
Clint Bolick. # # # How in the world did all of this happen? Well, the modern
educational system has been degenerating since the 1870’s, as we will soon
see! What is happening today is merely an extension of failed experiments in
education in the ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. At least as early as the mid ‘80’s, there were still some sane voices in higher
education. As one of the authors I quote later in this article states:
"Nothing succeeds like failure in modern education." And that is so
true. Failed experiments from 10-20 years ago are now accepted as the NORM in
education today! By and large the SANE VOICES I quoted in 1987 are GONE, and
have been replaced by pure ideologues, who now run
our educational system today! As more teachers are turned out with this new
ideological stamp of approval, this rot will soon become the norm in our
primary and secondary schools before too long as older, wiser teachers retire
and are replaced by their ideologically "more qualified" replacements
fresh from the Parents should be aware that, far from being innocent or
benign, teaching children the FACTS they need to function in adult life, education
is now permeated with an extremely radical agenda whose purpose is to
indoctrinate your children with an Alice in Wonderland fantasy world, where
white is black and black is white and where being politically correct is more
important than being factually correct! Such stupdity will NOT produce
successful people! At the end of this article I will show just what WILL. In my original material, I uncovered how education was
being used as a tool not to teach true education, which includes independence
of thought, but rather to turn out passive, docile robots for the use of big
business. That is still an objective today, but another agenda has been
added: radical political indoctrination. When this is coupled with the
original message of mindless memorization and regurgitation, coupled with the
subtle message of "do what you’re told no
matter what," this latest exercise in crimes against the children pales
the past into insignificance. If the modern education mill has its way, the
next generation will not only be unthinking, uncritical slaves, but also
parrots of radical philosophy that they have carelessly taken for granted! Now that I have added the above material, which is very
shocking to almost any normal mind, let us now delve into the root cause of
this evil and see how it developed over the years. Once we understand the way
things got into the present situation, the answers will be readily apparent
and sane parents would be well advised to take corrective action before it is
too late. Adults, knowing what has been done to their minds in their
childhood's, will also be empowered to begin the process of cleansing they
will need to attain real success for themselves. Following is the bulk of my original material, with some
additional editing and additions for relevance to our present situation.
These two papers that follow were written during my
training to become a teacher. They were written for one of my education
classes. That personal experience helped me to see just how bad things are --
but the truth is that no matter how much money we throw into the educational
system to improve it, it won’t help, because lack of money is not the main
problem. The real problem with education is that we don’t have a system of
real education at all -- instead it is a system of rote memorization. People
just aren’t taught to think for themselves today, and thinking for one’s self
used to be the very CORE of what education was all about! Sadly, that is no
longer the case! I hope the more formal style of these papers won’t seem
boring to you, but I am reproducing them here almost as is, because they have
an important message for us today as originally written in 1987. In fact,
this information is MORE VITAL today than it was back then. Once you understand the background of WHY one of society’s
major institutions is failing, I think the solutions will become a little
clearer to your mind. Here, then, are the papers in pretty much their
original format:
The History of the Great Moral Tradition in American
Education There was, at one time, a Great Tradition in American
education that formed the habits and the character of generations. That
Tradition, while not perfect, helped our society to flourish in freedom and
vitality. However, in recent times that Tradition has been abandoned. What
has replaced it has not done as good a job. In fact, no one philosophy has
replaced the former unifying one as the cohesive force in society. In an age
of such moral ambiguity it is no surprise that respected Wall Street
investment bankers have traded their reputations for briefcases full of
money, ministers have thrown away their ministries and moral standings for either money, sex, materialism, or all three, and
politicians have given up presidential aspirations for a roll in the hay. It
is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss all of the factors at play here,
or to analyze the full solution. My research has revealed all of this to me,
but, in this short space all I hope to do is explain what the Great Tradition
is, and discuss some of its underpinnings. Finally, I will briefly touch on
why and how the educational system scrapped a workable system only to replace
it with an unworkable Before I start my discussion of the Great Tradition I must
first define what is meant in this paper by "moral values:"
"In sum, ‘moral values’ are the vital common beliefs that shape human
relations in each culture....Whether their base is religious, traditional, or
secular, however, such values are expected to be widely affirmed under most
circumstances" (Wynne, Edward A., "The Great Tradition in
Education: Transmitting Moral Values," originally from Educational
Leadership, Dec. ‘85/ Jan. ‘86, the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, pp. 4-9, quoted from Education, ‘87/’88, Fred
Schultz, editor, 1987, Duskin Publishing Group,
Inc., Guilford, CT [hereinafter referred to as Annual Edition], pp. 96- 100).
All cultures must have this unifying factor in order to survive. Later on, Whynne stated that, until very recently, children were
taught to be moral in school, which meant specifically that they were to be:
"honest, diligent, obedient, and patriotic" (p. 97). According to Wynne, the Great Tradition consisted of the
following nine elements: "1. The Tradition was concerned with good habits of
conduct as contrasted with moral concepts or moral rationales. "2. The tradition focused on day-to-day moral issues:
telling the truth in the face of evident temptation, being polite, or obeying
legitimate authority. It assumed that most moral challenges arose in mundane
situations, and that people were often prone to act improperly. "3. The Great Tradition assumed that no single agency
in society had the sole responsibility for moral education. "4. The Tradition assumed that moral conduct,
especially of the young, needed persistent and pervasive reinforcement. "5. The Tradition saw an important relationship
between the advancement of moral learning and the suppression of wrong
conduct....The Tradition also developed concepts such as ‘scandal,’ a public
immoral act that also lowered the prestige of a person or institution. "6. The Tradition was not hostile to the intellectual
analysis of moral problems ... [but] instruction in exegetical analysis
commenced only after the selected neophyte had undergone long periods of
testing, memorized large portions of semididactic
classics, and displayed appropriate deference to exegetical experts. "7. The Great Tradition assumed that the most
important and complex moral values were transmitted through persistent and
intimate person to person interaction. "8. The Tradition usually treated ‘learners,’ who
were sometimes students, as members of vital groups, such as teams, classes,
or clubs. These groups were important reference points for communicating
values.... The emphasis on collective life contrasts sharply with the
individualism that pervades contemporary American education, and which is
often mistaken for humanism [emphasis mine throughout unless otherwise
noted]. "9. The Tradition had a pessimistic opinion abut the
perfectibility of human beings, and about the feasibility or value of
breaking with previous socialization patterns." [Wynne, pp. 97-8] even though the preceding was an
extremely large, uninterrupted block of information, I felt that it was necessary
to define exactly what the Tradition was at the start so that everything is
in one place for easy reference later on. At this juncture I would like to
comment on each point, showing how effective it was in maintaining social
order and morality. First of all, the Tradition concentrated on standards of
behavior and conduct that were impressed upon the young consistently enough
to form definite habits. The Tradition rightly felt that novices we
not qualified to pass judgment on complex moral issues. They were expected to
learn and form good character before they could understand its value. Many
modern moralists, and Lawrence Kohlberg in
particular, take the opposite approach -- often with disastrous results.
Commenting on the ridiculous position of many modern moralists, John A Howard
states: "In science, a body of accumulated knowledge still has
authority. However, in ...ethics and human values, ignorance, inexperience,
and new judgment have been proclaimed the equivalent of trained expertise. Each
student is encouraged to arrive at his own conclusions"(Howard, John A.,
"Reopening the Book on Ethics: The Role of Education in a Free
Society," from American Education, Oct. 1984, pp. 6-11, quoted
from Annual Edition, pp. 112-117.) As I stated earlier, the most ridiculous example of
ignorance being preferred to trained expertise is that of Lawrence Kohlberg
and his failures with the The second tenet of the Tradition was to espouse
individual morality in day to day actions. Students were expected to make the
right choices -- even when faced with great temptation. Today’s moral
educators can’t even agree on what values should be taught -- if any (most
don’t believe in "indoctrination," but, as stated earlier, letting
students discover and set their own moral codes). And as for morality being a
day to day individual concern, Sommers states on p.
110 that the modern student learns "... that ethics is not a daily
affair, that it is a matter for specialists...." According to Sommers, this leads to today’s moral passivity. The third point was extremely crucial in upholding the
Tradition: no single agency in society was solely responsible for upholding
morality, but the family, the church, and work were as much a part of moral
education as was formal schooling. The fourth point stated that moral conduct needed
persistent reinforcement. This did have good results. Today, the schools
don’t even know what they should be forming! The fifth point stated that there was a relationship
between moral learning and the suppression of wrong conduct. Today, students
are expected to either form their own ideas of what constitutes morality
through a Kohlbergian democratic process, or they
are asked to "discover" their own moral values by answering
questions such as "which animal would you rather be: an ant, a beaver,
or a donkey?" or : "Which season of the year do you like the
best?" (Sommers, p. 105). I think perhaps the
author of the questionnaire decided he liked being a donkey best. Both
methods of "value discovery" are equally asinine, which is
illustrated by t he fact that today’s students are very mixed up about
morality. One student saw In the sixth point, we saw that the Tradition was not
hostile to intellectual debate, as long as that debate was carried on by
experts who had spent a great deal of time studying their subject before they
formulated their opinions. Today, the exact opposite state of affairs exists.
Sommers states on p. 104 that, "The leaders of
reform do not worry about credentials." The seventh point emphasizes strong person to person
contact in order to convey the finer points of morality. The Tradition
realized that morality is built over time with great care. Modern
‘authorities" think it can occur as if by magic just by thinking about
it! We learned from the eighth point that learners were
treated as important members of some particular group that acted as a
reference point for positive peer pressure. People also learned from this
that society is a co-operative effort. As Wynne stated in summing up this
point: "The emphasis on collective life contrasts sharply with the
individualism that pervades contemporary American education and which is
often mistaken for humanism." The ninth and final point had a fairly pessimistic view of
human nature’s ever being perfected, and doubted the wisdom of tinkering with
systems that had worked in the past. Now that I have briefly summarized the points of the Great
Tradition, and shown how many of its points contrast sharply with modern
theories that produce far less favorable results, I will now engage in a
brief historical discussion. The Great Tradition was supported by the colleges of its
era. Students were trained in morality, and expected to uphold high moral
standards once they left the college environment and took up their leadership
roles in society. The greatest underpinning of this was the course in moral
philosophy conducted during the senior year. It was a required course of all
graduating students, and was taught by no less a personage as the president
of the university, who was responsible for upholding the community’s moral
values (Parker, Franklin, "Moral Education in the United States,"
from The College Board Review, No. 137, Fall, 1985, by the College
Entrance Examination Board, NY, paraphrased from Annual Edition, pp.
101-3, p. 101). Before we move out of the nineteenth century, I would like
to underscore the importance of this course by quoting Douglas Sloan:
"The full significance and centrality of moral philosophy in the
nineteenth century college curriculum can only be understood in light of the
assumption held by American leaders that no nation could survive, let alone
prosper, without some common moral and social values.... "The entire college experience was meant above all to
be an experience in character development and the moral life" (Howard,
p. 113). As These changes began gradually at first, but the pace
picked up until, by the end of World War II, all intellectual support for the
last vestiges of the Great Tradition were long forgotten, and experimentation
with new approaches began to occur. Today, according to Sommers,
many young people are "in a complete moral stupor" (p. 105).
College presidents used to be directly involved in the life of their
campuses, upholding moral standards and values as well as standards of
education, but, "One is hard put to identify even one counterpart of
these men today" (Howard, p. 114). There just doesn’t seem to be one
source of dynamic leadership anymore, yet, if we are to remain a civilized
society, we must find some central values to live by -- and soon. In this paper, I have shown what the Great Tradition in
education is in some detail. I have discussed all nine of its points,
comparing them with modern theories, and finding the modern theories lacking
in sound guidance. I also showed how the moral philosophy course of the
nineteenth century college helped unify the community as well as imbuing the
future leaders of society with common moral purpose. It was seen that the
college president was directly involved in t he life of his campus, and
helped set the moral tone and code that it lived by. I have also shown that
today’s college president simply is not the dynamic moral leader of the past.
The conclusion, then has been reached that there is
a need for some kind of change to rekindle a unified approach to life if
society is to survive, but that just does not seem to be any such unifying
force on the horizon today. What the educational system does in the present
situation may determine whether or not we remain a free, unified society, or
return to barbarism with each person doing his or her own thing. [Note: That concludes the first paper. Its warning is even
more dire today than when this was written ten years
ago. Education continues its toboggan slide down the slippery slope towards
destruction. But why was a fine system torn down? That is going to be
answered in the next paper.] ============================================================== REFERENCES: Howard, John A. "Reopening the Book on Ethics: The
role of Education in a Free Society." From American Education, Oct.
1984, pp. 6-11. Quoted from Education, ‘87/’88, Fred Shultz, Ed.
Guildford, CT.: Duskin Publishing Group, Inc.
Hereinafter referred to as Annual Edition. pp. 112-117. Parker, Franklin. "Moral Education in the Somers, Christiana Hoff. "Ethics Without Virtue:
Moral Education in Wynne, Edward A. "The Great Tradition in Education:
Transmitting Moral Values." From Educational Leadership, Dec.
‘85/Jan. ‘86, pp. 4-9. Quoted from Annual Edition, pp. 96-100. ============================================================== HOW SOCIALIZATION AT HOME, IN THE SCHOOL, AND BY THE
COMMUNITY PREPARES CHILDREN TO ASSUME ADULT ROLES LATER IN LIFE. Many people go through life taking how they act and what
they believe for granted. They do not seem to comprehend that they have been
carefully prepared by the organized system to assume the role in society that
they are now playing. They have unquestioningly accepted what the system has
taught them, and would, indeed, in many cases fight for those beliefs to the
death. But, just HOW have we come to believe what we do? How have we acquired
the habits and followed the role models that we take so much for granted? The
answers to these questions can only be found by probing back into the
childhoods of all of us, for it was there that the genesis of what we now are
occurred. Without the early conditioning we received from out families,
schools, and communities, we would not be performing the roles we are today.
We could just as easily have assumed the roles of Roman society or Russian --
what we are and what we believe is inextricably intertwined with the impact
these institutions had on our early lives. In this paper I intend to briefly
touch upon the impact of these institutions on the minds of children to
prepare them for their roles in adult life with special emphasis on the role
of the school. The first institution that touches our lives, and
therefore the one with perhaps the most profound implications for the future
is that of the family. Despite what people say about the impact schools and
society have on a child’s chances in later life, "Of greater importance
than either of these," according to Audrey Schwartz (1982), "are
children’s experiences at home; within their families they acquire
perspectives about themselves and the world around them which influence in
some way most of what they do in later years" (p. xiii). As if this was
not enough, Schwartz goes on to state that, "In spite of American
folklore that desirable positions are equally available to everyone, most
people still end up in a relative social position close to that of their
parents." It can be concluded, then, from these statements that it is
the family which acts as the first and perhaps the most important determining
factor in the later success or failure of the child. As we shall soon see,
though, the schools certainly do their job in insuring that people stay in
their so called places. In other words, despite all the hoopla people make
about upward mobility and opportunity in Many will protest that, despite this fact, It would seem, then, that we have a self perpetuating
cycle of social stratification that is reinforced by both
the family norms and environment as well as the school system. In
fact, Schwartz indicates that social order (or stratification, with everyone
staying in his or her place) is upheld in three basic ways: "1. Power is used by stronger members of the group to
force weaker members to comply with their preferences. "2. A social contract is entered into by most members
of the group, each of whom willingly relinquishes some personal freedom out
of enlightened self-interest and promise of personal reward. "3. A core of values is held in common by most
members of the group which guide and control their behaviors" (p. 5). As we begin our exploration of the role of the schools in
socialization and in helping keep people "where they belong," the
enforcing agent of this social contract will be revealed. It is interesting
to note that it was business and industrial leaders of the early twentieth
century who really pushed for compulsory education so that they could have a
trained work force for their industries and businesses (Schwartz, p. 11).
This fact is conveniently left out of most history texts, probably to try and
hide the relationship that has existed from t he beginning between business
and the school system. Further, it is interesting to note in passing that the
rich and powerful have always enjoyed the benefits of education. And today
they still enjoy the benefits of their own private educational system. They
do not attend the same schools as the average person, but instead maintain
their own private systems to dispense superior education. I know this from my
own personal experience. I got my undergraduate degree from a small private
university. since I had nothing to compare it to, I
took the personal attention, academic rigor, quality of the professors, and
efficiency of support personnel for granted. I naturally assumed that my
university functioned like almost all universities. I was in for a rude
awakening when I began attending Cal State, LA, where inefficiency of support
personnel, laziness of many professors, unresponsiveness to personal concerns,
and lower academic standards are the norm. The hostility and bureaucratic
morass that large state universities thrive on teach students that there is
nothing they can do. They are simply taught to passively take whatever is
done as the norm. This was not my previous experience, where expression of
views was encouraged. This has served as a fantastic example to me of the
dual educational system that exists. I was also brought up in a wealthy suburb. Though my
parents were not as well as many of my classmates’ parents, I attended a good
school system rich in academic courses that prepared me well for later life.
I can contrast this to deprived environments such as the The public school system is expected to instill certain
values in its students that employers value in employees: 1. Patriotism. 2. Belief in the legitimacy of existing governments. 3. Democracy. 4. Legitimate authority of government employees. 5. Toleration of minority views. 6. Participation in the electoral process. (paraphrased from Schwartz, p. 17) Students are taught, both overtly through the stated
curriculum and subconsciously through the hidden curriculum. Other writers
have developed other lists of values taught by the hidden curriculum, which
serves to teach students their life roles as obedient adult employees. Simply
looking at the school classroom environment will demonstrate this. Schools
are not bright, cheery, happy places, but are, instead, usually housed in an
ancient building reminiscent of a penitentiary, or, more properly, an
industrial plant. Life is regulated by bells. Students learn that they must
regulate their lives according to outside stimuli such as bells, grades, etc.
rather than what they might naturally prefer to do. They are taught that
there are rewards for compliance and stiff penalties for non-compliance.
Students with superior intelligence, though, learn that, even in this
stifling environment, they can manipulate things to make life more
comfortable. The administration has created useless, powerless, student
senates to keep the smarter students occupied, and to reward the intelligent
student leaders for compliance by dispensing special favors, such as an
office to go to, unlimited hall passes, etc. Thus, those students aware enough
and with enough leadership ability to cause potential problems are safely
channeled into harmless activities. As to the passiveness of modern students, this was brought
home very clearly one day in a discussion I had with my tenth grade class.
These were working class Hispanic students. They were on the next to the
bottom track in this particular school: perfect candidates for tomorrow’s
unskilled labor. We had just finished reading a story by Isaac Asimov
("The Feeling of Power") about depersonalization brought about
through computer technology. I informed the students that anyone who wants to
could find out where they lived and other personal information simply by
contacting the Department of Motor Vehicles [I believe this is no longer the
case today in California; however, credit reports with the same information
are readily available to any and all comers]. If they had credit, a simple
credit report would give a person very detailed personal information. I then
told them that when they graduated and wanted to look for their own
apartments, the landlord would probably give them an application so that he
could find out such personal information from them. I asked them what they
thought of refusing to give certain information to foil the search, such as
not giving the social security number or refusing to answer other questions.
I was shocked to get the response from them that they were not the ones in
charge, and so must give whatever information was asked for. NOT ONE STUDENT
IN THE ROOM COULD BE PERSUADED TO FIGHT FOR HIS RIGHT TO PRIVACY! In order to get them concerned about violations of their
privacy, I then posed the hypothetical situation of a girl who encounters
some creep in a parking lot. Even though she eludes him, the jerk manages to
copy down the license plate number of the car she is driving and gets here
address from the DMV. Needless to say, she is surprised to come home one day
to find him waiting for her in the driveway. Even with this extreme example,
I still could not get any of the students even mildly interested in joining
or starting a pro-privacy crusade. The school system (along with television,
no doubt) seems to have done its job well in creating a docile population
willing to accept whatever is foisted upon it by those in power. It is
frightening indeed. I am not the only person who has noticed this, though. Hurn states that, "The organization of traditional
schools does perhaps imply a set of messages to students [a hidden
curriculum]: obedience, passivity, concern for correct rather than thoughtful
answers" [p. 190]. I have already covered most of the material in the
first part of this passage with my own personal experience, but the last
part, where students are taught to give "correct" rather than
thoughtful answers is very interesting. This is the age of Miss Scantron ["Miss Scantron"
is based on a real teacher in the school where I did my student teaching. She
was an older English teacher whose lectures were painfully boring. She used
yellowed old tests, and the students used a scantron
form to fill in the multiple choice answers, which were then machine graded.
An English course without essay questions is an abomination.] and the multiple choice exam. It is not the age of
reasoned, logical, thoughtful essays or speeches. Robert J. Conners, in an article
entitled "Mechanical Correctness as a Focus in Composition
Instruction," tells how the modern educational strait jacketed,
stimulus/response system of so called education developed. Until 1870 (about
the time employers decided they needed an "educated" work force) an
important component of secondary and college education was the subject called
rhetoric. Rhetoric had its roots in Greek and Roman civilization, and
recognized the fact that the written and spoken language
were merely tools to be manipulated by the intelligent mind to present
logical arguments and as an aide to deep thought. There was no such thing as
a "writing" class independent of oral communication. The educators
of the day recognized that one should first instruct a student to present his
arguments logically in oral discourse, and then the transference of the same
logical systems to more formal written discourse would be very simple.
Professors and teachers at the secondary level were concerned with t he CONTENT
of essays, not ridiculous mechanics. In fact, the first style handbook had
not yet even appeared. People put comas where they felt it would be natural
to take a breath, and other matters such as spelling were still somewhat up
to individual discretion. Far from being chaotic, this system insured that
students could do that which is most important with language -- viz.,
COMMUNICATE their thoughts using LOGICAL ARGUMENTS. Passivity certainly had
nothing to do with such an education! In fact, I know from my own personal experience what
effect speech training has on the whole personality. Since I am a handicapped
individual, I was a social outcast throughout my junior high years.
Perceiving this, my ninth grade English teacher insisted that I take speech
the following year in high school. I was very shy and isolated. I was a
hermit who came home from school and locked myself in my room. Needless to
say, that first day of speech class when the instructor had us all stand up
and introduce ourselves was a traumatic experience. Fortunately for me, my
speech teacher was of the old school of rhetoric. Reading one’s speech from a
piece of paper WAS NOT public speaking. He taught us the logical outline
format, and insisted that we stay on our feet even if we forgot where we
were. This experience totally changed my own personality, as well as the
personalities of my classmates. By the end of my first semester of speech
class I began to develop a more extroverted personality, and that process has
continued to this day. In addition, my written compositions improved
dramatically. Unfortunately for those who want to instill passivity and
conformity, such training has exactly the opposite affect on students. Getting back to the Conners
article, in the year 1870 the entire educational system was radically
changed. Rhetoric was broken up into two separate disciplines: writing and
speech. Writing became emphasized by the establishment, while speech
diminished in importance over the years, until today it can only be found in
higher class suburban high schools or private schools for the rich elite.
Meanwhile, the type of "writing" that was done took an abrupt
change of course. Whereas in the past writing had concerned itself mainly
with logical essays, it quickly degenerated into a hunt for so called
"errors" in mechanics. The first handbooks were published, and teachers seized on
these as Bibles of authority for "proper form" in writing. Instead
of being taught to write logical essays in "writing class,"
students were no drilled on parts of speech, punctuation placement, and error
finding in endless workbooks. Rather than raise the level of literacy and
student competence as its proponents claim, this system has served to strip
the curriculum of any meaningful thought content. I am now faced with massive
numbers of students (as are all teachers) who would not know how to put
together a logical argument if there life depended on it. And if, horror of
horrors, they are ever called upon to get up on their feet and give their
views on an issue impromptu, they do not have the first idea of where to even
begin! They would much rather simply sit passively doing multiple choice
exercises and listen to lectures (all passive activities) than have to do any
thinking. It is beyond the scope of this brief chapter to trace the
full history of this atrocity, but I feel that the foregoing can shed at
least a glimmer of light on the travesty daily being perpetrated on modern
students. rather than teach high level skills to
prepare students for higher level positions, "Traditional schools ...
teach the kinds of qualities and personality characteristics that are
essential for the performance for low and middle status occupations [that
require little or not thought, I might add]: obedience, punctuality, respect,
orderly work habits, and the ability to follow instruction" (Hurn, p. 201). In fact, Hurn
concurs with my premise stated above. He says on p. 188: "Schools, many
believe, do not foster independence of spirit and mind, they foster
conformity." All of this preparation for mediocrity creates docile,
compliant adults willing to continue following orders from their elite
masters. Their whole lives have been spent in preparation for their
monotonous, unthinking roles. I feel that I have uncovered, with the Conners article, the underlying CAUSE of the present
conformist education foisted on the public today. If anything is to be done
to reverse this trend, I think the reintroduction of rhetoric as a unified
discipline and a deemphasis of petty conformist
mechanics in the writing curriculum will be the only means to reverse the
current trend towards conformity and mediocrity, and then, and only then,
will the schools produce high caliber men and women in greater quantity. [Note: Since writing the above, I have found that indeed
the power of the major corporations is behind much of the mischief that has
turned most of the world’s people into wage slaves. This power is everywhere
manifested, from the school classroom to the corporate owned newspaper and
television network’s newsrooms. People are daily fed a steady diet of what
their corporate overlords want them to see and hear. We occasionally publish
articles in The Real Truth exposing these machinations. A great author
to study for mounds of information on these types of subjects is Dr. Noam Chomsky. His insights into the inner workings of the
world around us are penetrating and amazing, and will bear out in much more
detail some of the things I have commented on in this chapter. It is worth a
trip to your local library or internet search resource to read some of the
works of Dr. Chomsky on these and other subjects.] ===============================================================<
P> References: Conners, Richard J.
"Mechanical Correctness as a Focus in Composition Instruction," College
Composition and Communication, Vol. 36, No. 1, February, 1985. N.Y. pp.
61-72. Hurn, Christopher J., (1978). The
Limits of Possibilities of Schooling. Myers, Greg. "Reality, Consensus, and Reform in the
Rhetoric of Composition Teaching," College English, Vol. 48, No.
2, February, 1986. pp. 154-171. Schwartz, Audry J., (1982). The
Schools and Socialization. N.Y., NY: Harper and Row. ===============================================================
As seen in the material above, modern education is deigned to mold each
individual into just another cog in the wheel of corporate society. We are
taught to unquestioningly take the role predefined for us in adult life. That
role is predefined, of course, by both t he educational system and our social
standing. I realize that these thoughts may seem radical to you, but
if you reflect back on your own experiences I think you will see that I am
right. It is as if, as Mr. Herbert Armstrong said in one of his
first articles, the teacher was standing at the front of the classroom with a
pitcher. The pitcher is labeled "ready made propaganda." Each
student has a funnel in his or her head, into which the teacher pours from t
he pitcher. The students are thus expected to parrot back what has been fed
them, without independence of thought. In other words, even though a student
may realize that Christopher Columbus was NOT the first to discover There is also a move towards enforced, unquestioned
"volunteerism," which, in the Orwellian newspeak so common today is
actually DRAFTING OF THE YOUNG to do social work determined by their
government masters. This so called "voluntary" work is now a
requirement in some school districts, never mind the fact that slavery was
long ago abolished. Now, it is being resurrected in this new form (the draft
for the military has persistently been the most blatant form of slavery
imposed by despotic governments upon people "educated" -- er, INDOCTRINATED to think that this heinous slavery is
somehow noble and patriotic when in actuality it is nothing but dehumanized
mass murder for the sake of corporations who sell guns and ammo to both sides
in every way, including Vietnam! To question such atrocities and blatant
disregard for our God given rights is considered treasonous by some evil and
despotic governments in their drive to keep people cowed and "in their places."
REAL EDUCATION, the kind that produced such firebrands as Patrick Henry,
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin,
etc., etc., etc. is considered too dangerous to offer the masses. They might
get funny ideas, such as that they would rather have freedom from government
interference than a life of slavery! Oh, what horrors to think that people
might learn to defend THEIR PERSONAL RIGHTS for a change! As we have seen, then, a century and a half ago what
passes for "education" today would have been considered an atrocity
-- mere indoctrination -- not education. However, the needs of the industrial
elite at the turn of the century imposed its will on the American educational
system. They wanted virtual robots, given just enough knowledge to do their
jobs right, and not enough independent thought ability to cause a problem. I
remember an article I read years back about "walls in the mind" in
this context. According to this article, which I no longer have in my
possession, the modern secondary system of bells to change classes after a
specific, predetermined time, and the switching to an entirely new subject of
study immediately, has the effect of breaking up people’s concentration so
that they are actually TRAINED to have a short attention span and thus not be
able to spend whatever time is necessary to solve a problem thoroughly that
they are working on. The mind is thus trained to respond to outside stimuli
and parrot back what it has been told to memorize, unquestioningly, in an allotted
period of time. It is a pity I no longer have this article, as I believe this
thesis has some validity and can help us further understand the problems of
our so called system of education / indoctrination. Only by returning to the subject of rhetoric, as discussed
in the above paper, can we ever free our system from its present vicious
cycle and become a really literate, educated nation and a successful people
once again. What this nation needs right now, and the world in
general, is to stop teaching, learning, and wallowing in the same old lies
that are bringing us down to destruction. Only by understanding this
information can we have any hope for true, lasting, success both as
individuals and as nations. Destiny Worldwide Associates understand this very well,
and one of its goals is to make the PROPER education, that allows you to grow
as a person in the direction that you want, available to all of its members
worldwide. This ezine is part of that effort. As time goes on, we hope to establish a university of our
own. This university will be UTTERLY UNIQUE on the face of the earth, because it’s one mission will be to train people to
think for themselves, and also to give them the TOOLS OF SUCCESS! It’s not
easy, but it can be done. But, to start with, we will soon be introducing Destiny
Clubs all over the country. These will be mini success laboratories that only
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will also teach you the much needed, almost unheard of, subject of rhetoric!
It is much more vital to your success than you can imagine. After participating in these clubs, you will be able to
think on your feet, act decisively and logically, and push towards whatever
goals you might have. Or, if you have trouble setting those goals, it will
help you to set them. Then, once the academics are out of the way [in about a
year or so, this is NOT a get rich quick seminar or some other cheap quick
fix, but practical, down to earth training obtainable almost NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH
TODAY!], the practical master mind groups will be formed with the object of
helping each and every member obtain their goals by going through practice
exercises in whatever area they wish to excel, whether it be music, writing,
business, acting, etc. By the end of your participation in this Club, you
will be a success! And since it didn’t come through a get rich quick trick,
it will be LASTING SUCCESS! So watch these pages in the future. Exciting things are
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