Part of the series The Problem
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-02-29.
School is a giant, multibillion dollar industry that works well for everyone involved, except perhaps, students and good teachers.
We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)
Bible Reference: Matt 6:24
Last week, I shared a greatly summarized story of my experience within the school system. Bear in mind that the story involves nearly every kind of school available in Saskatchewan and Alberta. There are likely not many people who have been “privileged” to have seen the inside of as many schools as I have. One can say that I got to see quite a few schools because I was substituting for some time in both provinces, but I prefer to say that God orchestrated things as per the aforementioned prayer. You see, I did not want to teach, in spite of being gifted as a teacher. Most would understand that the last thing the enemy wants from anyone is to have them working in keeping with their God-given strengths, gifts and talents and so he discouraged my being a teacher. In any case, I wanted to be sure that I did not want to be a teacher, so I asked to experience everything in education before I quit. Nuts! Like many a prayer request, I had not really thought this one through. Even though I have indeed experienced a great many things in education, it appears as though I am still a bit short of “everything” and so I am still here! Oh well? What else could I do but serve God here after all this “training”!? Back to our topic.
Even though I cannot say I have clear evidence of such from every school I attended, for some were only for a day or two, I can say that as soon as I “cracked” the political structure of any school, the most prevalent characteristic that surfaced was usually dishonesty. Even schools purporting to be “religious” seemed to be very “resourceful” when it came to rhetoric and the collecting and distribution of money. I came to the conclusion that since government is not usually seen as a model of integrity, schools, generally must have believed it was acceptable to follow the example. Time and space prohibits me from getting into great detail so let’s look at something that generally applies to most schools. Before I begin, I want to say that what I am saying are generalities and cannot be universally applied to every school, although I can not really think of an exception from my experience.
The dishonesty begins when schools promise all kinds of things to parents, and on marquees or billboards. These are nothing more than marketing ploys to attract as much money, er… students as possible. Funding is based on the number of students, so the more students registered with the school, the more money it gets. In spite of all the rhetoric on this and that regarding students, students are really just $tudents!
This means two things. The first, is that everything possible must be done to make sure that school is viewed as the normal thing to do and to discourage, at all cost, any deviation from this mindset. The further one’s education is from public school, the greater the threat to the system. Therefore, home education should be discouraged as much as possible with misleading and/or ridiculous statements.
The second thing to observe is that it really doesn’t matter how the program is delivered, the funding follows the student. As a consequence, schools, be they public, separate or private, are offering variations of public programming to “help” er… appeal to as many $tudents as possible. We have online, distance learning, blended programming, fully aligned and seemingly no end of counterfeit varieties of these things, all with the goal of attracting as many $tudents as possible. Little thought is given to whether or not these offerings are of any benefit to the student, as long as they are “cashable”. No doubt the majority of schools providing such “opportunities” for “education” are public or separate schools, but private schools, taking their example from the “big boys” find some of these offerings just as lucrative in attracting $tudents.
So there you have it. As a student, so long ago, I found myself without value other than the fact that I had a number. I may not have realized it then, but having that number had value for someone else. I really wanted to change all that as a teacher, but the system was too well entrenched. The fact that even schools purporting to be “Christian”, $ee $tudents as a $ubstantial a$$et to their being, doesn’t make them any less guilty. What a crying shame. Tick them all off and bring those children home where they belong.