To think the idea that education is state brainwashing is BS

[Echobelly]

It’s a bit of a bugbear of mine that some people insist that schools serve a function of keeping young people docile and unquestioning. I mean, I was educated a while ago now, but at a state school, and the absolute #1 thing I remember from history was being taught always to question the bias of your sources. Hardly the actions of system dedicated to preventing children from questioning authority. I’m pretty sure kids these days are not being taught ‘Yay! The British Empire was Great’ or ‘The government is fantastic, questioning it is disloyal’, by those notorious right-wingers, teachers.

With DD starting secondary next term, I’d be interested to know if anyone does feel from their own child’s current experience, that schools are somehow attempting to beat them down into dumb subservience? As most of the people I hear espousing the view don’t seem to be those with kids in schools currently.

I guess people also go ‘Oh, but it’s all this “obedience” and following “rules”’ which I think is also kind of bullshit because people actually are intelligent enough to see the difference between rules needed to get along with things like learning, and things in the world that are profound injustices. You can follow the school rules all your educational life and still go on to protest against government abuses of human rights or whatever – it doesn’t mean you get conditioned to accept everything you’re told to think or do.

Don’t get me wrong, too many young people are ill-served by underfunded schools, but lack of critical thinking is probably more to do with distracting media and the rampant self-interest it promotes then schools being some wicked hand of The State.

whatwouldbigfatfannydo
See I think the snowflakey generation behaviours come about when students are taught that their opinion and world view is the most important thing and shouldn't be challenged. They grow up being taught that views different to theirs (or at the very least a bubble including theirs) are hateful and the response is to shut down debate, no platform speakers.
Previously, we'd listen to different views at college and university because we knew how important it was to critique and debate. Now it's all safe spaces and no platforming, someone has an opposing view then don't debate them, just complain on social media about how their existence on campus might be triggering.
It's a peculiar and contradictory mix of being so sure that their woke views or opinions are utterly correct and righteous combined with a totally fragile sense of independent thought because they can't stand the idea of encountering a different view.

Pliny - I don't think teachers are responsible for their libidinous students. The lack of reticence and reverence as you call it comes direct through the ever-pervasive culture messaging on TV and elsewhere. I think much more should be taught about sex in school: about how at ovulation a woman feels more likely to want sex, but that at other times, energies can dive. Where you are correct is that the norms of society do come through into schools and to deny that seems...odd. As a PP said though how can you stop it? Humans are bathed in the society the live in, they are its culture.

I think people get het up about what is taught in school (starting with Prince Charles) rather than what children are learning. I've criticised much about schools upthread, but one of the remarkable things walking back into my old secondary school as an adult was the diversity I never saw as a teenager - open acceptance of gay teenagers, disabled children and children of colour. Really, really good things for the human spirit :)

@lola

Interesting points definitely. I do somewhat disagree but its something to think about. Surely that's the point of encouraging discussion.
There are many things I'd be ignorant of if someone with that experience hasn't shared it with me.
In terms of education, I genuinely believe it's a multi transactional process. I learn much more than I teach. I think that's what we've lost in the system, opposing views aren't valued. We do become robotic in terms of accepting whatever someone with authority tells us.
There is something to be learned from every other person. Even those with harmful views. We don't need to agree but we should consider how their experiences have influenced them etc.

@kesstrel

I do think we underestimate the power of influence held by schools. I think it's much more to do with the overall experience rather than the time spent experiencing?
I can't overstate the importance of the educational experience and attainment on life outcomes. Poor outcomes are much more prevalent when people have disengaged from education at a young age (by choice or by isolation/exclusion). Especially when the quality of experience outside of school fluctuates so vastly. Community activities aren't accessible to all, the home environment can be nurturing or destructive, a child may find it difficult to build high quality social networks outside of their school-based peer group etc. There are an infinite number of things that have an effect. School is one of the more easily controlled environments and that increases it's impact. It's so easy to underestimate the influence of power. Children are conditioned to see teachers as manifestations of authority and power, thus making them even more susceptible to their influence.

For example, just think how many still remember a teacher who told them they'd never succeed and have made it a mission of theirs to prove then wrong?

whatwouldbigfatfannydo - The thing I'm always struck about teenagers is their searching for definite, for facts, solid world views. For example, when I took science A-levels, I couldn't have been a critical thinker, questioning models and so on, at least not for myself. There were whole chucks of the syllabus I needed to imbibe, just assimilate. It could have been alchemy or astrology for all I could discern. I took in everything as 'the truth'. So I think that level of discernment is a difficult thing to learn, even for many adults. Exposing oneself to opposing points of view and questioning sources are all very high order activities but vitally important. They can be done (I've seen it done very well by skilled teachers in history and PHSE) but requires a reorientation from 'teaching' to 'getting the students to think'. If we think these things are valuable to future lives of our teenagers, then we should be making time for them. Too often, these things get chopped as the syllabus and exams eat up the available time.

@bloo

I agree, and I absolutely don't blame them! This world is so uncertain. The events of the past few years seem straight out of a dystopian fantasy novel and that's not even factoring in the internal struggle that being a teenage creates. I do think we do kids a disservice to treat them as empty vessels fit only for the purpose of filling them with information that can be recalled to meet the requirements of exam criteria. Their potential is infinite and I have never heard a teacher tell a child that.

I obviously don't expect critical thought at the level adults are capable of. Sometimes it's something as simple as going along with it during the infamous "but, why?" stage. Adults become frustrated that we don't have all the answers and resort to "because I said so!" This makes me despair, this teaches them nothing.

Children are capable of thought which is much more complex than we give them credit for. It is adults who are much to likely to accept something because it's just the way things are, whereas children are inherently curious and dissatisfied with answers they deem unsatisfactory. I think this is an incredible quality to possess and grieve for it's loss when it is extinguished by the one-size-fits-all obsession of the current education system!

I would be in complete awe of anyone or anything who turned my son (15) into a state of dumb subservience.

kesstrel

Whilst pupils might only spend 25% of their time physically in school you are not including getting ready for school, travelling to and from school and the hours and hours spent on homework each night. Plus all those projects that are expected to be done in the holidays.
I think it is a damn site more than 25% of the time.

Then take off the 9-10 hours for sleep each night and I would say there really wasn’t as much free time as you think.

A friend of mine who is a secondary teacher, summed it up for me, when he said 'we have to teach the year 7s to turn the page of their textbooks when they need to. Otherwise, they just sit there waiting patiently to be told when to turn the page'.

bloodebloop I have seen grievance circles being misused so that basically the kid being bullied or badly treated has to acquiesce to move on.

When I went to school we certainly were not taught that colonialism was a good thing. We were taught about slave ships and slavery and how much of Britain was built on it. We were also taught about the windrush generation.
But the only thing I was taught at school about Britain in history was the world wars. Important though they are, there were important chunks of history I had to learn by myself. So I do think it is hard to understand modern Britain without understanding about the dissolution of the monasteries.
The idea of colonialism being a good thing sounds like a very old fashioned education of the kind being taught in the 40s and 50s.

I also agree that you can't really critique something until you have basic facts. And I do think learning information is crucial.

clairemcnam I loved history. When I was taught it, we did a great module called history of medicine, that spanned many centuries, societies and cultures. I remember much of it clear as crystal. However, we learned nothing of empire, good or bad. I discovered - what a shock it was - about the colonialization of S America through an old fashioned library book I'd happened upon. It changed my world view. The absence of topics is as important as inclusion. You had the Windrush! Wow, I only found out about that recently with the current fracas .

I've been home educating for over a decade now, been in more than a few HE groups, and one can find just as much ideology and being pushed to toe a particular line of thinking at any home educating group as one might suspect could be in a school. It's not typically the same line of thinking as a school, but it can definitely be there, both among the adults and among the kids. The idea of HE groups as freethinking utopias where kids can learn anything is as much shite as if that was being said about schools. They both have benefits and risks.

One of my kids has been at a state secondary for about a term now, she joined halfway through the spring term of her own choice. There really isn't that much difference between her who was previously home educated from the start and her state-educated from the start peers. There are a few topics my DD knows a lot better and some topics her friends know well that my DD knew nothing about, but in terms of speaking their minds, freethinking, soft skill/personality shaping things, from what I can see, there really isn't much of a difference that I could say anything about their education.

I honestly don't think it's a state v private or home education issue. I think it's a good teachers in good schools/environments vs bad teachers (the kind who say you'll never amount to anything) or really burnt-out teachers in a poor environment & it's possible too many kids are dealing with this latter group. This political environment has made things much harder on teachers and schools so maybe I could see an argument that in such an environment, what has to get done may have undesirable results.

I also think we have to appreciate there are only so many hours in the day and we have to prioritize. The idea that schools should teach everything about history or everything about morals or everything about anything is ridiculous, even at home with the best will in the world and far less on my and looking over my shoulders, I can't do that. I don't expect schools to do it either, but the current political environment treats them as if they should and let kids debate it all too. Learning is a lifetime process and we have to prioritize what we teach kids.

My prioritize might be different, and that was a big part of why I started home educating alongside the issues political meddling has had with schools, but prioritizing =/= brainwashing. It's just common sense. Today I prioritized for history for me and two of my kids to discuss the coffee houses of the 1600s including the debate of the origins of the Petition against Coffee (1674) [[http://www.staff.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/wom-pet.htm]] which is a hilarious read that I highly recommend, I think it has the most euphemisms for sex I have ever seen. It's essentially 'our men drink coffee to sober up from getting drunk but they just get more drunk and become useless at sex and talk too much so please ban it or they'll be 'cuckhold'd by dildos'" - kinda easy to see why some may think it's silly to think it was a serious document. I expect few schools would choose that as a priority, even if discussing the time period or the attempt to ban coffee houses, I don't expect them to use that source - awkward enough with two kids. That doesn't mean either of us are brainwashing, it means we have mountains of information we could present and have to pick. At home, we have a bit more flexibility and I take full advantage of that which means there are some things they do that school-educated kids are less likely to and schools have far more resources (and red tape) which means my school-educated child will learn and do things her siblings not in school don't.

Risks and benefits, and like most parents, I try to give my kids as much of the benefits as possible, and as for risks, I really don't think brainwashing is one of them - even at a CoE school. That's really the least of my concerns and I think some of the HE parents who focus and talk a lot about 'schools just brainwash and make robots' protest too much and tend to be the most ideological and the most likely to have issues with other people not towing their line.

trying the link for 1674 petition again

Ultimately, school is just one influence on a child. I'd say my parents were a far bigger influence on my personal politics than my school, but then I had a very good relationship with my parents.

BiBabbles
I agree on the home ed front. Some people I knew home educated and there was a sizable community who did it for religious reasons so they taught a very narrow curriculum. Another friend decided school were wrong for expecting her badly behaved child to behave and pulled both children out of school. These days they seem to spend a lot of time sharing alternative parenting memes about the need for freedom, why boundaries are psychologically damaging, how they like just follow the children's interest (and there's a lot of unschooling ideology in their posts).
Obviously not all people who home ed are like that but it is interesting how some groups who have an issue with schooling, claiming it's oppressive and ideological go on to offer a much narrower education to their children.

All the home-eders I know have strong values and ideas which conflict with the mainstream. Even something like unschooling has implicit ideology behind it. Good, healthy, well-adjusted adults come out of home-ed, state and private boarding schools. But culture is never absent. We aren't blank slates and our experiences, all of them, change our perceptions and how we interact with others. Picking a single case where it did or didn't work (I'm thinking of Echobelly's comment at 17.37) doesn't reveal much of the global picture. But the point is still valid to me because parents do have massive impacts on their children, of course they do.

Does anybody else not think we live in a society of traumatised individuals? I see it daily. Schools are mirrors of our society. I see festering, poor relationships in school just as on the street. No doubt this goes on in their homes. Why is that the case?

It's interesting to hear thoughts about excluded and disillusioned kids. I spent half my career working in alternative provision, teaching excluded and emotionally vulnerable teenagers, re-engaging them in education. In their world of (often) no boundaries, no consistency and no responsible adults, they needed the solidity and reliability of school, albeit in a smaller and slightly more flexible environment. We didn't just provide education, food and nurture, we were often their only safe place. Many hated the holidays for this reason.

The remit of alternative provision is to find creative ways of helping students rediscover enjoyment and worth in learning. It took time to build trust and form relationships. They hated new faces and change. Ironically those times we did something different - had visiting artists, speakers, theatre groups etc or went on trips were often disastrous! Didn't stop us trying though

Ultimately, with consistency, clear rules, high expectations, engaging tasks that were appropriate to their ability level and tons of pastoral support, many were able to return to mainstream and be successful.

Many students rely on school for its structure and stability as their lives are so chaotic. Its routine and predictability can be a lifeline.

Hard for me to say as I went to a progressive school but made me think of my exh. I don't think it was school as he hardly went but my god 15 years in the army does not allow for critical thinking and the idea of it made his head practically explode.

@whatwouldbigfatfannydo

I think the trouble is that with traditional subjects is that any debate is way beyond a child's competence.

It is a professional scientist job to question conventional wisdom but it would be ridiculous to teach children to do the same. In 20 years time, maybe they will be questioning the science they were taught at school but until then, they just need to assume the scientists were right and learn it.

Not all opinions are as valuable as each other. You have to show some humility and take the time to truly understand the subject before you can question it in a meaningful way. If you tell kids their opinions are as good as someone who has dedicated their lives to studying the subject, you are just teaching them to be ignorant.

Sorry this is gonna be long

"I just don't think governments are organised enough to think 'Ooh, I know, we'll make education insufficient so people will accept bad policies!' They're mostly just lazy."

Really? Then why has sociology as a subject largely been phased out? Why have certain books been removed from reading lists?

I was educated mainly in England as a Scot of Irish descent, and as an army brat several schools and counties too. I'm wondering if you're accurately remembering what and how you were taught because I certainly remember things like mostly being taught to negatively view the Irish and especially Catholics (I was fortunate at one point to have an Irish history teacher but even then it was "this is what you need to say in the exam" but "even though that's a biased inaccuracy").

We weren't taught how we're governed and why it's that way, what our rights were, how the law works...

Things my dd who's mainly been educated in Scotland HAS been taught and which my parents were taught as part of their scots education.

The history we were taught was called British history but was actually English history, with barely any references to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Major influential events were excluded from the history we were taught as a result.

It was all taught from an English perspective.

Even in RE Protestantism was presented as reasonable, moderate and acceptable with every other religion taught in a derogatory manner.

What has changed (slightly) is that there's less sex separation, when I was at school certain subjects were only open to certain sexes dependent on the subject, so home economics, needlework, childcare were only open to girls after 3rd year, metalwork, woodwork, mechanics and technical drawing were only open to boys.

While they don't get away with it as blatantly as they did in the 80's it's still a case of girls being encouraged to take certain options and boys others, girls expected not to do well in stem subjects, boys are expected to and expected to choose them rather than MFL or humanities.

The subject availability now is very poor with anything "non academic" being discouraged and presented as having little to no value beyond providing personal pleasure, subjects like art, drama, music, home economics, technical drawing

When actually if taught fully and correctly these subjects contribute a great deal to society and help pupils to understand other academic subjects in a more nuanced and rounded way.

I think it's also very telling that the discouraged non academic subjects tend to be those that encourage creativity, individuality and expression.

"The vast majority of people who I see spouting this are the ones whose little darlings have got into trouble for not following rules on uniform/hairstyles etc rather than questioning anything they are learning." Er no! I have a very conservative something of a Luddite of a dd who was very well behaved throughout school and left with good exam results. But as I say the scots system seems very different. Not as draconian on rules especially regarding uniform (though personally I disagree with uniform altogether), teaches a broader range of subjects in a way that welcomes and encourages critical thinking and questioning.

SavingSpaces2019 loved your post at 1356 I totally agree.

As a Catholic being taught "the Irish question" and even the wars of the roses, Tudor history, even Stuart history we were "taught" appalling bullshit frankly as if "the Irish" were "uncivilised natives" who needed English rule to organise and "better" them.

It wasn't until after I left school that I experienced English educators with knowledge and respect for Irish writers, artists, scientists, inventors, explorers... To the point that even now I know few people educated in the English system who can name more than a few! I certainly know people who mistakenly think the more famous ones are actually English!

The same applies to Welsh and a slightly lesser extent scots writers, scientists etc

And I'm certainly aware of your experience as a "bystander" via the experiences of friends who are not of white English descent/origin. One had been raised in the Caribbean until her family moved when she was 13, we were being taught about wealth accumulation during the time of sugar plantations being a major source of profit and the teacher was getting several facts wrong and BARELY touching on slavery! Her parents at one point were helping her with some homework regarding this and upon reading not only her exercise books but checking by reading the textbooks (as they thought perhaps she'd misunderstood) picked up on these mistakes and the lack of information on the less than pleasant aspects of sugar production then and went into the school.

The really sad thing is that it made no bloody difference! That was how the powers that be deemed the subject be taught, that was the approved textbooks and that was an end to the debate!

Her parents endeavoured to correct such mistakes at home from that point but unfortunately felt they had to direct her to "toe the line" at school. They were aware that not doing so would disadvantage her even further.

Disgraceful!

And it's still happening!

"You do know that the curriculum changes each year" how unbelievably patronising and condescending!

Oliversmumsarmy
You've massively missed the point! The curriculum changes in terms of what is taught but HOW it's taught doesn't change.

"I didn’t do Science but did Maths which involved things like how to calculate the area of a circle.
I don’t see how teaching about the people who came up with these calculations is praising Colonialism especially when most of the calculations came from Ancient Greek
Mathematicians" wow! You've just SPECTACULARLY proven savingspaces point while trying to do the opposite!

"The curriculum may change but it's still taught with the bias of white, colonial privilege" put far more succinctly than I did!

And apologies for that twat Ferguson too.

Mathematicians and scientists from outside europe have also greatly contributed to our knowledge going back MILLENIA did you really not know this?!!

"Kids will either be politically engaged or not and I think that comes more from home and social media than it does from school."

I'd argue here in Scotland where they are taught a subject called "modern studies" which is (to explain to those with more experience with the English system) a combination of sociology, politics, law, citizenry, history, geography, social issues. It's hard to describe. Plus within subjects like English, history, geography, even MFL themes relating to culture and politics are included does mean scots are more politically engaged than the English, certainly at a younger age.

I remember when Indyref was happening and the voting age for that was 16+ many of my friends discussed this with me in relation to how they felt their children would feel and would be capable of voting at that age.

I was really shocked (having been distanced from the English culture and education system for some time at that point) that many of them were saying they didn't think their kids would understand enough to be able to differentiate between the sides of the debate and the nuances involved. This was mainly being discussed on Facebook. Many said that their kids didn't even understand how parliament worked! (That led to sometimes heated discussions on why THEY hadn't taught their children this - not just from me but other English parents, and perhaps even more shockingly often the reason was that the parents themselves didn't understand - if that's not an example of poor education I don't know what is!)

But even under the English system I think it depends on the teachers too. I had a few teachers who were very much politically engaged and encouraged me to read certain books, to look at other sources outside school textbooks, but they were sadly rare and I think they would be criticised for this now.

"In Scotland non-denominational schools are actually Church of Scotland schools and any child who wants to opt out also is forced to opt out of cultural celebrations. If you don't want your child to attend the Christmas church service your child will not be allowed to participate in the Christmas concert or party." Not been my experience in Scotland AT ALL. Dd has attended 3 schools in Scotland, 2 primary and a high school. None of them did this. My dns gave attended 2 different schools and the same applies to them.