Sometimes I think I agree with the song "We don't need no education." At least not the way the public runs it with its leftist propaganda. If only the lessons taught in Baptist Schools were taught to the public. People would know things.
But even beyond that, I'm sitting here thinking, maybe we don't need high school education. Just think, adolescence was not invented until the 20th century. When a kid's body was grown up, so was the kid. It was when other countries developed science and space travel that the government decided we need more science and math education. Therefore, high school lasts until age 18, then they decide the kid should go to college, making him not grow up even longer.
Then they graduate college, unemployed, the boys sit and play video games while the girls overwork themselves and usually try to impress the boys who usually make them pregnant, causing them to live in poverty.
One: why do we need to compete with other nations? Why can't we go back to a time when kids had responsibilities and jobs when they turned 13?
Two: why do we thing a high school classroom education is going to properly train a young person for life? It's only making a teen's childhood longer long after he's grown up. This causes ennui in young adults who need to learn how to work and have responsibility. This then leads to rebellion and years of practicing being lazy.
What I wish would happen is that when I child finishes 8th grade, they would figure out what they are best at and study mostly that in years that follow, and possibly even work practically in that area at age 17 and 18. Why can't they go ahead and practice biology or history or even campaigning or some kind of practical knowledge of their interests? Experience is how the person learns. Not sitting in a classroom wasting life.
After reading the Anne of Green Gables books, I noticed how certain kids got to teach the school when they turned 17 or 18. They got to be adults when their bodies became adults. They had responsibilities and raised their own money for college and did not wait around on loans. In this century, I'm 27 and still living at home. High school taught me drama, how to play, and how to follow my heart, which left me with a useless music degree, more drama, debt, and not knowing my purpose in life till the first time I graduated college. Then I got a seminary degree, which I would get again, but seriously, why can't we teach this in the churches without being afraid of turning people off? And seriously, nobody told me I should try to get a practical job so I can pay my own bills or warned me that a liberal arts degree does not work in real life. You need practical knowledge.
So all in all, it's just a brick in the wall. I sure hope I am done with public school forever.
As someone who endured a Baptist education, it's not all peaches and cream.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree that education does not take place in the classroom. I appreciate the time I put in at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Genesee Community College, and Houghton College, but I have learned more in my two years as the pastor of a small country church than any of those places could have prepared me for. However, I am grateful for the education I received in those places, as they laid a great foundation for me to put my education in the world in perspective.