MAKING HUMAN ROBOTS

In school we were taught how to be robots, so we could be plugged into robot jobs.  Nothing was expected of us except to function as workers and consumers in a consumer society. 

As children we were taught how to memorize long lists of “facts.”  We learned how to score well on exams, but we were not taught much about how to analyze, how to reason, how to create, how to appreciate beauty, how to be ethical, how to lead, or how to solve problems. 

If we became capable and wise, it was because of the influence of family and friends, and life’s school of hard knocks!  If we learned how to learn, it was no thanks to the schools.

Now we have a population of adults that, for the most part, are incapable of taking action to correct the numerous ills of society, the climate crisis for example.  They go about, business-as-usual, just waiting for further instructions, I suppose.  Why would we expect people who were spoon-fed “facts” all their young years, and taught that success is being able to regurgitate “facts” on cue, to suddenly show initiative? 

Learning facts is a useless endeavor.  I challenge you to find anyone who can remember a single fact from fourth grade history.  Alright, I can remember a couple of things there; I was thinking of them as I typed.  But the whole point of education should be to teach someone how to learn, not just teach a bunch of facts.  Teach them how to find what they need in a library, but don’t expect them to memorize whole textbooks!  Of course in professional studies at the college level, one would have to memorize facts.  But not at age 10 for crying out loud!

School stifles the inherent exploratory nature in kids.  “Don’t raise your hand unless you’re sure you know the answer.”  What does that teach?  It makes a child afraid to speak unless they are sure.  It nips any give and take.  Nips any chance of discovering the right answer by making mistakes.  It discourages assertive searching.  It makes kids fearful and passive.

Our schools taught us to be stoic and fatalistic in the face of adversity.  How many hundreds of tests does a child typically have to take while growing up – each one absolutely unavoidable.  Such rigorous testing teaches a child to accept the inevitability of fate, no matter how unpleasant.  It means that rather than rising to meet a challenge or figuring out a way to solve a problem, the child merely submits.  School is a place where children live lives that mimic the structured routine of adults in a workplace, at least the part that involves getting up before sunrise and spending the day away from home following a schedule that they have no control over.  What does this teach them except being punctual and submitting to their fate?  

What about making kids sit silently for six or more hours a day, five days a week, every week of the school year?  In the years when social skills are forming, this requirement of silence is harmful to the child.  A child who only knows how to recite, and only knows how to say “Yes, ma’am, yes, sir,” is not going to know how to be a project leader in an office setting, is not going to know how to be a team player on the job, is not going to know how to give a power-point slide presentation, is not going to know how to initiate a project or sell that project within the office or workplace.  Children should be having social interactions all day long in order to prepare them for the adult world.

They should be interacting with other children, but more importantly, they should be interacting with adults in monitored ways.  Children should not be alienated from the adult work world but should have some way of either watching or marginally participating in that work.  A once a year “bring your child to work day” isn’t enough.  Children need to know what their parents do, and need to have a realistic understanding of what adult work is all about.  They need to be able to learn from interactions between adults in realistic settings, not just on TV. 

What about making children sit still for six or more hours a day?  That is unnatural to say the least.  Children’s growing bodies need a lot of exercise and the younger ones long to run and jump and play.  Making them sit still has to be unhealthy for their bodies.  No wonder there is an obesity problem in our young – kids get fat from sitting still so long.   Children are forced to sit on incredibly uncomfortable chairs in school.  And I suspect that the school day is far too lengthy for many children.  What this unnatural discipline of sitting all day does to young minds is anyone’s guess.  I always felt like I was in prison every minute I was in class.  Why do we allow young children to be tortured in this way when every natural instinct calls for them to be exploring their worlds by running hither and yon like so many puppies?  We wonder why there is so much depression among adults.  What other stress-induced illnesses might be linked to this imprisonment in childhood?

I suspect that many children who cannot conform to this unnatural discipline of sitting silently are incorrectly labeled as having “attention deficit disorder” and drugged so they can be as robot-like as Miss Sweetie-pie who doesn’t mind sitting silently for six hours a day or more.  Who knows the long-term consequences of drugging so many children?

What about making kids do homework every evening?  When do children have time to just be children, to play and daydream as children should in order to be normal?  Many children work longer hours than their parents.

I just shudder when I read in the newspaper that schools have no time for courses in music, drawing, photography, journalism, and drama, and no time for field trips and extra sports, because every minute has to be spent memorizing facts for the Standards Of Learning tests (SOL).  What a dreadful harvest we will have from this short-sightedness.  And what are the implications of a society of mass-produced minds?  It is particularly sad to read that a teacher feels that she cannot teach some things her way because of the standards.  When you have a good teacher, teaching something she knows particularly well, some story or parable perhaps, and teaching it her way, that is the stuff of memories.  The rest of it, all that required stuff, is just a stream of drivel and is best forgotten as soon as the exam is over.

Only a small fraction of students can consistently get A+.  Do we really want to be constantly rating, grading and scoring children, making the vast majority into adults who suffer from low self-esteem? (with the minority of “achievers” becoming adults with swelled heads).  What is real achievement anyway and what are we teaching children about goals?  So many children get little or no sense of accomplishment all their years growing up – it is just a pity that they are made to feel worthless by this degrading grading system.  No wonder that in our society, there is so much anger, destructiveness, violence, and so many people who couldn’t care less how much damage they cause.  They spent a decade or more of childhood having teachers telling them that they just didn’t measure up or that they were “only average”!  What is gained by having children compete with each other, particularly in the early years?  Except in the rare instances when arrangements are made for one child to tutor another, children don’t learn to help others in school.  

What is the product the schools graduate?  They graduate robots who are able to sit still for long periods of time, able to follow demanding schedules without deviation, show up each day at the appointed hour, do tasks as assigned and in a particular order, memorize trivia of all types, and speak only when spoken to; in other words, people who can say “Yes, ma’am, yes, sir,” follow orders, work an assembly line or be a soldier.  These young people are by no means “educated” in the root sense of that word, which means “to draw out.”  Nothing has been drawn out.  These young people have rather been made to fit a mold, with little semblance of their original nature left.

Not that punctuality and discipline are not important.  But unfortunately, the school manufactured robots have not been programmed to make significant decisions, to organize others to achieve a goal, or to run meetings and participate in meetings.  They cannot be expected to recognize good leadership because for the most part, they have had no opportunities to practice leadership themselves.  They cannot be expected to distinguish political campaign slogans and propaganda from actual facts, because they have only learned how to swallow what they hear, not to question it.  They know little of ethics or being compassionate.  They lack the skills which are essential to a functioning democracy.  These skills are not something you learn by sitting still and being silent for six hours a day or more, five days a week, for twelve years (16 years or more if you include college).

With so many people trained to just listen and follow orders, there’s no need to wonder at the results of those famous psychological experiments where people very willingly gave what they believed to be deadly electric shocks to “test subjects” following orders from an authority figure.

Global problems like climate change and world hunger are not going to be solved by playing “follow the leader.”

What if the schools turned out human beings instead of robots?  What if all those robot-hiring corporations that do things like rip-off the Earth, pollute the Earth with cancer-causing chemicals, instigate wars, and fuel mindless consumption were re-invented?  What if we built more human and humane social structures?  Think of the possibilities.

Maybe if we had methods of production and ways of living that were more in harmony with the Earth and more in harmony with our own fundamental values, we wouldn’t need to turn children into robots anymore.  Children could be allowed to grow up naturally at their own pace, in their own way. 

Schools are also a baby-sitting service for working parents.  Children rarely get individualized instruction and are essentially warehoused for the convenience of adults.  While schooling keeps teenagers from swamping the labor market and taking jobs away from adults, and keeps young teenaged males from forming gangs and rampaging in the streets, controlling children and warehousing them is not the same thing as educating them. 

If we didn’t have a society geared towards ever-expanding production and consumption (much of it wasteful consumption), and if parents didn’t have to spend the entire day in offices or factories, we could have a society that was child-friendly, and parents could have time for supervising and being with their children.  Why have we created this harsh and unnecessarily complicated world for ourselves and for the children?

That our schools are failing our children is evidenced by the dropout rate.  In these days when even a college diploma doesn’t guarantee a good paying job, are kids going to be warming a chair and enduring mind-numbing boredom in order to finish high school?  I thought school was boring and a big waste of time, and indeed it was.  (Well, maybe there were a few good times.)  The only reason anyone would endure it would be to get a diploma – a key to a job.

The average person spends a significant portion of their lifetime being in school, traveling to and from school, and doing homework (tens of thousands of hours).  I am glad I know how to read, write and do simple math.  But I didn’t need to throw away a huge portion of my life to be able to do that.  Isn’t there a better way?

While my education and other advantages have allowed me to survive in this world (and I am very grateful for the sacrifices of those who made it possible), I think that if I ever have a chance to live again (through re-incarnation), I will pick a culture without schools and pick a planet without anything like Western civilization.

Slide show and music on my main page.

-2007-

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THANKSGIVING GROUP MEDITATION

Below is a meditation you can read out loud at your Thanksgiving Day dinner, after all your guests are seated. 

Whether your dinner starts with a prayer and approaches the sacramental solemnity of a communion or is simply secular, you can add some structure to the dinner with a group meditation that will make the dinner more meaningful and memorable for all your guests.  Without a foundation of meditation or some other special ritual, the Thanksgiving dinner is just another party.  The meditation can also set the stage for interesting and enjoyable conversation during dinner.

MEDITATION

WE ARE GRATEFUL

On this Thanksgiving Day we are grateful for all the blessings we have received during the year.  Before we start dinner, we are going to have a brief group meditation.

WE REMEMBER FRIENDS AND FAMILY

We remember all the kindnesses of friends and family.  We remember those who live far away and cannot be with us today.  We remember our dear ones who have passed on.

WE REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE THANKFUL FOR

At this point in the meditation we will go around the table and each and every one will say briefly what he or she is grateful for.  [Anyone old enough to talk should take a turn.]  I will go first.  I am grateful for . . . . .

WE REMEMBER THOSE WHO ARE HUNGRY

On this Thanksgiving Day we remember those who will go to sleep hungry tonight; especially the poor who are victims of injustice.

WE CONSIDER HOW WE CAN HELP

We are grateful for kindness we have received from others.  We should each now meditate silently for a moment on how we can be kind to other people, and what we can do to help others. 

OK, let’s start with the food.  Remember to pass the serving dishes to your left.  Do any of you have any ideas you would like to share?

What do you think about writing your own meditation; something that will be just right for your guests? 

Slide show and music on my main page.

-2007-

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