: A good book on the subject that I have read isThe Teenage Liberation HandbookI agree. My mother gave me the Teenage Liberation Handbook. Another good book that tackles the issue of education is My Ishmael. I enjoy Daniel Quinn's (the author of My Ishmael) theory about the reason the education system was implemented and I agree with it. Here is a condensed version of his theory.
Firstly, in the tribal era, which occupies 2,990,000 years of human history (if not more), Children at 12 or 13 were extremely productive. If an entire community disappeared, leaving a 13 year old child on his own he could survive. Then along came the agricultural revolution. To put it shortly, the food was locked up, and to get it people had to work. Work. This was foreign to the tribal cultures. With work people evolved along a different path and in a short time they were becoming increasingly technological. To, once again, summarize, education developed to enlighten more and more people about the new advances that they were making. In the beginning education was for the elite, few people had it and no one needed it. As the world developed more and the population did some doubling, the job market got increasingly fuller. Mass unemployment was sneaking up and ready to take hold, in a short time there would be kids and adults competing for jobs that don't exist. This spawned a new "advance" in society, a solution: Make schools a requirement for jobs. This was brilliant. Keep the kids in school till they've reached adulthood and you open up the market for adults. The children themselves become an industry, more kids to school, more jobs for teachers. And it went on, the fuller the job
market becomes, the more education is required. Also, it was important to keep the kids as non-wage-earning consumers. Fourteen to eighteen year olds pump two hundred billion dollars a year into the economy. There are tones of books, games, clothes, CD's etc. all directed at teenagers and children. Most of the money spent on these things comes
from their parents wallets. If fourteen year olds had to support themselves, then they wouldn't be buying video games and CD's. Therefore, I've outlined the beginning. People began the school system to stabilize the economy. But, it didn't stop there. Here is the
next question; "Why are our graduates not productive?" "Why after 13 years of schooling all a graduate has earned is 'bag boy' and 'burger-flipper'?" This is also a law of economics. Starting grads at the bottom of the ladder is one step in regulating the job flow of young competitors in to the job market. If when kids were ready to enter the job market, at 18yrs. or so, they had all the skills to be office manager of the accounting firm, then who would be the 'lowly administrative assistant'? People think that they want their children to graduate with useful business skills, but if they did then the kids would be competing for jobs with their parents and older siblings, it would be detrimental. And, who would pump the gas, who would do the filing, who would flip the burgers? Kids have to work their way up the ladder and, just like their parents, earn their position of
office manager, on the job. Therefore, this system that we are in is just a holding tank, but it can't look like a holding tank. The system has to look good, really useful, or else the secret would be out. The government (or whomever) has figured out the problem and has solved it, but at what price. Do you want to sit in a classroom, learn enough information to pass the test and then promptly forget it? Do you want to do mindless equations that wont benefit you in the real world? Do you want to let them brainwash you, and let them use you to as a tool to regulate the job flow? And lastly, did you believe them when they
said that "Education will help you"?
