Are Public Schools Designed to be Propaganda Systems to Indoctrinate the Young?

Are Public Schools Designed to be Propaganda Systems to Indoctrinate the Young?

Are Public Schools designed to be propaganda systems to indoctrinate the young or are the overwhelming majority of the Adult population (i.e. parents, teachers, principles, school administration, politicians, US Secretary of Education, ect.) really so ignorant/stupid that they do not recognize the blatant miseducation/abuse that is occurring year after year, generation after generation, ect.? Or, do you challenge the premise of the question entirely? Thoughts?

As a reference, see short video where Linguist/Commentator Noam Chomsky discusses the Public Education System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo

xMathFanx said:

Are Public Schools Designed to be Propaganda Systems to Indoctrinate the Young?

Are Public Schools designed to be propaganda systems to indoctrinate the young or are the overwhelming majority of the Adult population (i.e. parents, teachers, principles, school administration, politicians, US Secretary of Education, ect.) really so ignorant/stupid that they do not recognize the blatant miseducation/abuse that is occurring year after year, generation after generation, ect.? Or, do you challenge the premise of the question entirely? Thoughts?

As a reference, see short video where Linguist/Commentator Noam Chomsky discusses the Public Education System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo

Click to expand...

Please don't start a new thread every 12 minutes.

Public Schools aren't designed to be propaganda systems, they can however be used to propagate some misinformation. However, access to internet, public libraries and good parenting are all adequate ways to combat this possibility.
I personally think the new generation is less likely to be influenced by the government. Most millenials fact-check and get information from various websites. Self-education it seems is on a rise.

We need to teach our kids the value of critical thinking and sources. We also should point out the political biases in the way some facts are presented. Nuance is key.

Cisero said:

Please don't start a new thread every 12 minutes.

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Noted.

Cisero said:

Public Schools aren't designed to be propaganda systems, they can however be used to propagate some misinformation.

Click to expand...

Agreed. However, does this not suggest that the majority to vast majority of adults in essentially any given community simply are effectively clueless about the knowledge and effective thought processes that have been discovered/invented by now in the modern world? Is this majority fit to "teach" the next generation? Are there not viable alternatives to the current system? Is "home schooling" potentially a viable alternative to the current public schools? E-learning?

Cisero said:

However, access to internet, public libraries and good parenting are all adequate ways to combat this possibility.
I personally think the new generation is less likely to be influenced by the government. Most millenials fact-check and get information from various websites. Self-education it seems is on a rise.

Click to expand...

In fact, e-learning has democratized learning and made the highest quality education (in a number of areas) available to everyone. With projects such as MITOpencourseware, Yale/Harvard/UC/ect. opencourseware, MOOC's, ect. even a person anywhere in the world caught up in extreme poverty (as long as they have access to the internet in some way) has access to an elite level education. Also, public domain book projects such as OpenLibrary.org (along with public Library Systems), public libraries (including e-book checkouts, online audio books, ect.) and other outlets have made it so you have access to essentially all of the worlds knowledge for free. That is, in the modern era, there are countless resources available that thoroughly teach any given technical subject area for free or a limited fee, and would prove to be an invaluable asset in learning material (either for formal training/school or self-study).

Cisero said:

We need to teach our kids the value of critical thinking and sources. We also should point out the political biases in the way some facts are presented. Nuance is key.

Click to expand...

I partially agree with this, although this is where we seem to diverge. That is, I agree that "we need to teach our kids the value of critical thinking and sources", however I do not agree that this is at all seriously on the agenda. Let me explain (Note, this will be posted in 2 parts):

The huge difficulty with this is that the number of stupid/ignorant/stubborn people vastly outnumber the amount of reasonable people. So, changing the education system (which absolutely needs to happen) is much easier said than done considering the overwhelming majority of the people who teach the next generations in society through public education are imbeciles, and the parents of the children themselves are overwhelmingly imbeciles (this is how the current system is in place to begin with). Also, the majority of adults are so attached to their infantile superstitious beliefs that they think learning science is "dry", "scary", "cold", "devoid of any deep meaning/feeling" and don't want their kids to learn it either for these reasons. Furthermore, the leaders of the business world and governments (the powerful classes) have a vested interested in keeping the populace misinformed, uneducated, unintelligent, conditioned toward obedience, ect.

As of right now, the education system is so bad and the adults are so stupid/ignorant/arrogant that they can't even let the kids come in to school and watch credible lectures, documentaries, OpenCourseware or point them in the right direction with people to look up, book recommendations, the fundamental questions that any given topic is exploring , ect. The kids would be naturally drawn to this information if they were exposed to it, they simply are not exposed to it because there is an obscurantism at work that is pervasive in our society (and world wide). Instead, in the current system, children growing up through their teenage years into young adulthood are subjected to a Perpetual Firehose of Bull**** through the "education" system and the "mature" adults in our societies.

(End of Part 1--See Part 2)...

(Part 2)...


People have been strongly primed to believe that magical type thinking is "wonderful", "beautiful", "interesting", "hopeful", "fun" ect. due to things like Sana Claus, Easter Bunny, Superhero tv/comics, Harry Potter type Sci-Fi, ect. ect. Although these things in-and-of-themselves are not harmful (and can be enriching in many ways), when combined with not be expose to the real world, how it actually is and the methods by which we have determined our limited range of knowledge thus far, then the magic show becomes extremely pernicious and confines ones worldview to a Disney Channel Snow Globe of a World.


After people hit a certain age there is going to be a level of courage required of people in order to break free of the Disney Channel Snow Globe World for which they have always resided. We are in difficult times because we cannot allow people to program their children with this primitive mindset and we also cannot force them to teach their children a certain way either without becoming completely tyrannical. Even people who have the potential to be intelligent (or highly-intelligent) and make real contributions to society/progress are being reduced to half-mentally disabled, chimp-human hybrids that are destroying society/the upcoming generations (and it is sad/alarming because I have seen a lot of this at Uni. particularly in the technical subjects). The overwhelming bulk of the adult population are oblivious to just how breathtakingly unrespectable people they are for indoctrinated their kids into their bullsh't and how they comport themselves in life more broadly.

I called them "Chimp-Human Hybrids", because Homo Sapiens living in the 21st century fails to truly capture it. Brain Development in Humans/Homo Sapiens is an important factor here, because one does not truly acquire the unique characteristics that make us "Human" until you are in your low to mid twenties or so when frontal lobe development is completed. Now, there are many factors that can potentially "derail" this development such as excessive alcohol abuse, chronic stress, social isolation, other types of drug abuse, ect. I think that due to the way our society is structured, a huge bulk of peoples brains are not becoming properly/fully developed and confine them to a stage of quasi-Homo Sapiens (e.i. more like an adolescent or quasi-adolescent brain) for the entirety of their life. Now, it would be highly probable that said people are unable to recognize the failure of their brains to fully mature since their mind-space would have complete continuity from their adolescents-young adulthood-adulthood, and simply think that "this is how things are" while failing to realize that a "shift" should have been felt at some point in their twenties to thirty that is significantly different than that of the teenage mind/brain.

xMathFanx said:

Are Public Schools Designed to be Propaganda Systems to Indoctrinate the Young?

Are Public Schools designed to be propaganda systems to indoctrinate the young or are the overwhelming majority of the Adult population (i.e. parents, teachers, principles, school administration, politicians, US Secretary of Education, ect.) really so ignorant/stupid that they do not recognize the blatant miseducation/abuse that is occurring year after year, generation after generation, ect.? Or, do you challenge the premise of the question entirely? Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure schools are purposefully, or rather, thoughtfully, designed to be camps of indoctrination -- but they certainly are.

Schools our main method of social engineering -- our method of raising the future generations to be the most productive yet compliant as possible, but I doubt that the teachers/administrators/school board members look at their role in that manner. Because, they too (most of them) are also products of that social engineering system.

Quoting Cisero...
" We need to teach our kids the value of critical thinking and sources. We also should point out the political biases in the way some facts are presented. Nuance is key. "

Those who are inner city public schools should be doing this and perhaps the grade levels would rise. I may add it depends upon the materials available.
" Please don't start a new thread every 12 minutes. "
Why not ?
The idea is to post new threads for discussions.
It's going to be a good year here @ DP !

In my opinion, yes. I am a high school teacher.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

xMathFanx said:

Are Public Schools Designed to be Propaganda Systems to Indoctrinate the Young?

Are Public Schools designed to be propaganda systems to indoctrinate the young or are the overwhelming majority of the Adult population (i.e. parents, teachers, principles, school administration, politicians, US Secretary of Education, ect.) really so ignorant/stupid that they do not recognize the blatant miseducation/abuse that is occurring year after year, generation after generation, ect.? Or, do you challenge the premise of the question entirely? Thoughts?

As a reference, see short video where Linguist/Commentator Noam Chomsky discusses the Public Education System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo

Click to expand...

Don't all education systems do this? I'll accept that public schools don't put enough emphasis on critical thinking, but I doubt the private Catholic school in my area is much better. Why would e-learning necessarily be better? Is e-learning necessarily less biased than anything else?

MrPeanut said:

Don't all education systems do this? I'll accept that public schools don't put enough emphasis on critical thinking, but I doubt the private Catholic school in my area is much better. Why would e-learning necessarily be better? Is e-learning necessarily less biased than anything else?

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I completely agree with you about the Private schools (mostly, there are a few decent private schools--e.g. Bronx School of Science, ect.), particularly Religious Private schools such as you mentioned. E-learning is a completely different matter.

E-learning has democratized learning and made the highest quality education (in a number of areas) available to everyone. With projects such as MITOpencourseware, Yale/Harvard/UC/ect. opencourseware, MOOC's, ect. even a person anywhere in the world caught up in extreme poverty (as long as they have access to the internet in some way) has access to an elite level education. Also, public domain book projects such as OpenLibrary.org (along with public Library Systems), and other outlets have made it so you have access to essentially all of the worlds knowledge for free.

Our system of public education is designed to provide a basic level of education to the greatest number of people using a factory system centered on the assumption and expectation that most people will learn at the same rate, at the same time and grouping by age is the best and most economical way to achieve that. A further assumption is that the exceptions to that basic assumption do not matter compared to the vast majority.

This has been the system in effect from the beginning of mass public education in America and more or less continues today with minor modifications and small adjustments.

instead of stating what ed systems should not become, a more contemporary interview presents his ideas about what ed systems should accomplish:

(the magic begins 33 seconds in)

justabubba said:

instead of stating what ed systems should not become, a more contemporary interview presents his ideas about what ed systems should accomplish:

(the magic begins 33 seconds in)

Click to expand...

Well, yeah. What Chomsky is discussing here is making contact with essentially the main point

Not necessarily but they can accidentally spread false information.

Any education is "indoctrination". Any education system requires a way to educate, and as any way to educate is going to require teaching people to think about certain things in certain ways, you're going to end up indoctrinating people in that way of thinking. The better question is whether the indoctrination in schools is better or worse than other potential systems of indoctrination.

justabubba said:

instead of stating what ed systems should not become, a more contemporary interview presents his ideas about what ed systems should accomplish:

(the magic begins 33 seconds in)

Click to expand...

Please do not post pix of this old lefty fraud as they induce nausea.

Evilroddy said:

In my opinion, yes. I am a high school teacher.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

Click to expand...

Cisero was right in that kids today do their research on things far more than my generation did. I suppose, it is mostly due to the instant access to a wealth of information on any issue under the sun, using a device that handily fits into your pocket.

Back in the 70's you had to buy a newspaper, or rely on the news. We used to spend hours or days looking for facts/info, where everything news worthy in this era is updated by the minute and accessible with your Android.

spud_meister said:

Any education is "indoctrination". Any education system requires a way to educate, and as any way to educate is going to require teaching people to think about certain things in certain ways, you're going to end up indoctrinating people in that way of thinking. The better question is whether the indoctrination in schools is better or worse than other potential systems of indoctrination.

Click to expand...

You are operating on a very expansive definition of "indoctrination" indeed (though strictly speaking that is correct--to varying degrees, which is important). The point of indoctrination is that one point of view/ideology, attitudes, cognitive strategies, ect. is pressed upon the students/children in an such a way that they may not even be aware of alternatives and are expect to consider alternatives outside of views pressed upon them. That is, there is an obscurantism at work. Now, if the young/pupils were taught scientific mindedness as well as the tools of Philosophy, and were encouraged to challenge authority rather than accept it quasi-unquestionably, then under a "tighter" definition of indoctrination, this would not qualify (however, under your view, it still would be considered indoctrination)

Sweden said:

Please do not post pix of this old lefty fraud as they induce nausea.

Click to expand...

please share with us what he got wrong in this particular video

The teaching of academic skills such as how to question, how to research and investigate, how to learn, how to develop and exercise critical thinking and how to seek out and evaluate evidence and then properly use it, goes on in our schools in varying degrees. That is good and the more the better. However standing along side this kind of learner-centric teaching in academics is a well established programme of indoctrination aimed at socialising students, reinforcing the acceptance of hierarchical authority, passivity, obedience and deference to power. Students are not encouraged to question school policy and are often punished if they do so with any determination. In addition part of the curriculum is devoted to suppressing the individual and fostering the role of being a member of a cooperative collective. So social engineering is taking place in our schools by means of rigid indoctrination in parallel with the kind of learner-centric education being described by others here.

Politics and state controlled educational curricula also have strong components of indoctrination. Teachers are required to teach ideas and facts which they and the more aware students know are false and teachers must deny truths uttered by their students (at least officially) and guide them to the acceptance of the orthodoxy of a prescribed received corpus of knowledge. For example I must teach my history students that Labraador is not part of the Province of "Newfoundland and Labrador" because Quebec disputes its ownership. I get around this by teaching both sides of the dispute but in an examination I am forced to penalise a student who disagrees with Quebec's interpretation of the dispute. The roles of slavery, Church abuse and fascism in Quebec are largely taboo topics too. The whole structure of the two-year, state-required high school history course is designed to promote Quebec nationalism and to weaken Canadian unity and multiculturalism through a gentle but nonetheless real distortion of history to align with the biases of Quebec nationalists. And this is not just a Quebec problem. In many parts of Canada history courses ignore or under emphasise both Aboriginal and French Canadien history in their versions of Canadian history. The indoctrination is endemic here, no matter in which province you teach or learn.

In science courses there are things I cannot teach and demonstrations or labs I can't do about basic chemistry or physics. These things are deemed too dangerous to allow students to know, from a public security perspective. I am not talking about principles tied to bomb-making or weapon making which obviously should be suppressed. I'm talking about things like the fractional distillation of crude oil (cracking), certain properties of the alkali and alkaline metals, certain properties of static electricity, and certain properties of matter and energy at very low or very high temperatures. In Biology I can no longer do real dissections as demonstrations or have the students do them either in labs. Now we must use digital dissection programmes which fall short of the real thing.

So indoctrination is still very present in schools, both public and private and in some ways it is increasing by diktat rather than decreasing as a function of student savvy.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

@Evilroddy

Very good post Evilroddy. I would like to add, many such problems extend into the University system as well (Note: I live in the USA and am a Senior at a large Public Uni.--this is relevant for what follows below)

In our (i.e. USA's and elsewhere) one could have a PhD in Biology (or any other STEM discipline) from Princeton (or some other elite school) and still be a confined to Mammal Snow Globe World, thus lacking the requisite critical thinking skills that would allow them to escape the mind-space for which they were raised.

A lot of the sane Professors are cowed into silence due to the hierarchy of the University system. That is, if a Biology professor wants to talk with candor about Evolution (not in the "textbook" way, but in the real way that "hits home" with the students who are mostly very young still), then en masse, he is going to shake up the students Snow Globe in such a way that will be very perturbing/frightening/shocking/intimidating/ect. for them with 5 separate classrooms each full of 25-200+ students (depending on the course) every semester. Now, they are immediately going to run into a huge amount of trouble, because some good percentage of these kids are bound to tell their parents about it, they and/or their parents are going to complain/issue a report to the "higher-ups" in the administration (who have no understanding nor interest with what the Professors know or the nature of the subjects, while also fancying themselves as "intelligent" because they are "successful" in the business world so they are very stubborn), the Professor very likely could/almost definitely lose their job (that they went to school for over a decade plus post-doc position just to be sufficiently credentialed to get the job). Therefore, this creates a "safe" environment for the ignorant/stupid "people to get "educated" and "earn" their degree without really understanding an iota of the subject. Furthermore, the students who are sane/outside the Snow Globe and really want to know about the true nature of the topics in detail are "missing out" because the teachers intentionally never say enough to "bridge-a-gap" for their own sake. Therefore, you would have to do a lot of extracurricular studies in addition to the formal studies just in order to keep pace with the reality of what is being taught. However, since they are undergrads, the whole point in the schooling in the first place is to receive proper mentorship from a qualified instructor, thus they do not necessarily know where to look in order get to the truth of the matter and keep pace. In short, it is hopelessly f'cked up unless society changes first.

I watched that entire video, I'm tired, I couldn't find the will to stop. He's also typically easy to listen to.

I have no idea. The issue is that there are a lot of competing factors.
- you do need some level of obedience in school because you have 10-40 young kids, of varying discipline and temperament, being asked to sit around all day doing stuff they don't want to do.
- kids in general need some level of discipline in many cases, whether the are stuck at school all day or not.
- most jobs require obedience, and only a subset of jobs require creativity
- some people learn better in an open environment, some learn better when it's disciplined and drilled

I'll stop there, but I think that gets the point across. I don't add all that up and think wow, schools are teaching people how to be obedient. It looks more like it's a combination of being a necessary skill to learn, and a hedging the bet, and a matter of practicality, to the degree schools require conformity.

But Noam Chomsky is not an idiot, so I won't dismiss it just based on that.

What I'd look for are good studies that can fairly well compare groups of students that have a curriculum like he's promoting, vs a standard public style where neither would have been likely to skew enrollment/selection ahead of time (like an elite private vs public is not apples to apples just on the basis of students).

If they can get that sort of data to look at, I think it would to be answer the question of whether or not this actually changes students to be more creative. Is all of Japan's conformity based on culture, or is some of this also genetic? etc.

I don't know, I look at my daughter who has lots of chances to be creative, etc., and all I can think is that I wish she was a bit more obedient I mean, it's weird to see children with such freedom, when they are ultimately idiots when it comes to their own safety, long term planning, etc. It seems counterproductive to want willful, creative kids, when they can easily turn those skills to doing creatively *bad and unsafe* things. I mean, some kids who love robots and want to built their own..knock yourself out...get them a giant workshop and let them go to town. But that's not most kids.

xMathFanx said:

Are Public Schools Designed to be Propaganda Systems to Indoctrinate the Young?

Are Public Schools designed to be propaganda systems to indoctrinate the young or are the overwhelming majority of the Adult population (i.e. parents, teachers, principles, school administration, politicians, US Secretary of Education, ect.) really so ignorant/stupid that they do not recognize the blatant miseducation/abuse that is occurring year after year, generation after generation, ect.? Or, do you challenge the premise of the question entirely? Thoughts?

As a reference, see short video where Linguist/Commentator Noam Chomsky discusses the Public Education System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo

Click to expand...

I know a couple of teachers who gave it up because they found themselves teaching kids how to take the test rather than being able to form a free thinking challenging curriculum. As for "indoctrination", Chomsky is right if we consider the social construct of K-12 as well as the rather unchallenging subject matter. Education is geared for competition which is very important to a capitalist business society that is more concerned with positive numbers rather than valuable ones. That is to say, gains and losses are much more important than quality. Teaching for the test for instance is supposed to guarantee higher success rates for graduation rather then basing graduation on mastering subject matter and the depth of understanding and articulation.

Education is not a priority.

Cisero said:

Please don't start a new thread every 12 minutes.

Public Schools aren't designed to be propaganda systems, they can however be used to propagate some misinformation. However, access to internet, public libraries and good parenting are all adequate ways to combat this possibility.
I personally think the new generation is less likely to be influenced by the government. Most millenials fact-check and get information from various websites. Self-education it seems is on a rise.

We need to teach our kids the value of critical thinking and sources. We also should point out the political biases in the way some facts are presented. Nuance is key.

Click to expand...

I disagree public schools are designed to train people to be obedient. I remember several things that were told to me in public school that I was lucky enough to know we're not true.

First that I would use math everyday basic arithmetic yes I use that everyday but Algebra I have never used that outside of an algebra class it is utterly worthless to anyone who is not an engineer.

Another half-truth they told was that it's important to appreciate the literature they think you should appreciate I found it tedious plotless and boring. I have found no instance in my life where I have had to think about the meaning of The Great Gatsby.

Another one I was told was that I would be pretty much a loser if I didn't go to 4-year College.

There are no useful skills. There is nothing regarding nutrition there is nothing regarding personal finance nothing about practical useful information for life.

So yes they are for propaganda but I think the more important thing is there to train people to be obedient Factory workers.

CLAX1911 said:

There are no useful skills. There is nothing regarding nutrition there is nothing regarding personal finance nothing about practical useful information for life.

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@CLAX1911

I think you have made a very strong observation here. There are many areas that certainly should be taught in order to nurture healthy, independent, ect. individuals that are never taught (at ages where it would be very useful to know of). Why is that? It is not due to a lack of time--they have you for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the better part of a year for a decade and change. You raise an interesting question

xMathFanx said:

@CLAX1911

I think you have made a very strong observation here. There are many areas that certainly should be taught in order to nurture healthy, independent, ect. individuals that are never taught (at ages where it would be very useful to know of). Why is that? It is not due to a lack of time--they have you for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the better part of a year for a decade and change. You raise an interesting question

Click to expand...

I don't get why they teach higher math. Or liturature.