We Don't Need No Education

Seeing how we have lost our Constitutional values nearly entirely, we need to ask ourselves, why? There is a rather simple answer to this question, and it's the 'dumbification' of America. We have often seen ourselves as the pinnacle of civilization, as well as one of the most educated societies in the world. This has seemingly been true for most of the 20th century, as our nation has leaped to the top in terms of power and influence, how could it not consist o intelligent people? But this has not been American intelligence, it has been old world intelligence, thinking that does not tend to further mankind. We have lost our ability to reason, and use common sense, something that has been so clearly evident in modern times with the passing of the Patriot Act, REAL ID Act, and the NAFTA agreements.

Coincidentally this century has seen the massive expansion of our education systems, yet we are as stupid as ever. Everyday I guarantee you are dumbfounded by the utter stupidity you see the people of this country exhibiting. This is only natural when you consider the fact that they're just doing what they're told, a staple of modern education. The child who questions the teacher, or even better, the administration is often punished and set aside like a rotten piece of meat. This in turn creates two general types of students; the outcast who is always seen as wrong, and therefore usually turns to bad behavior by the end of their scholastic careers. This loss of education creates many dumb citizens, easily manipulated and nearly deadset on turning to crime or worse, complete poverty. Only the lucky few make it out of that grind without losing hope and in turn intelligence. The next type of student you have is the goodie two shoes, the one who sees it as normal to accept everything and anything the teacher and the textbook says as gold. How dare they question the all knowing authority? The benefits for these students are great, scholarships and things of the sort, something that will surely come in handy.

With today's awfully mismanaged federal programs, we are making this divide even greater, while further dumbing down even the goodie two shoes' types. Anyone who takes a glance at worldwide education reports can see how far we've fallen in comparison to other first world nations. With this dumbification creates the American's who are much more interested in the winner of American Idol than their own well being. Simply understood, they have no reason to care about their well being, as their career often occupies most of their time. The two types are either working so hard to get by, or working so hard because that is what they're told to do, so it's natural for them to do so. And seeing how their career occupies their thinking time, they feel comfortable with their relatively safe lives, so why change a thing?

Only the select few who are taught to think critically actually make it through, usually due to parenting or some other influence, and they inlfuence change. The problem today is that they are increasingly scarce, as the new parenting generation tends to consist of one of the two groups, so the trend continues. Getting rid of the federal education standards and continuing the destruction of traditional education values can only help us. Pink Floyd put it best, implying that modern education is not education by any means, it's thought control.