By Mecca Fowler
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinion on ScoonTV.
After careful reflection and research, I’ve come to the conclusion that modern public schooling in the United States has been designed to create a nation of docile workers that do not conceive independent thoughts on their own. The concept of forced government schooling is intricately designed and socially engineered to produce obedient future citizens.
To fit into the particular shape wanted by the elites, students are expected to acquire the acceptable version of reality taught to them. Similar to television, the programming in textbooks and curriculums is made to indoctrinate the masses under the pretense of education.
Regardless of our diversity in personalities and interests, the majority of people attended the same schools as their neighbors and friends. We were divided into age groups, instructed on what they were expected to know, and tested to confirm their understanding. If we did not meet the educational expectations, we were made to feel less than or inadequate.
This is further proven by the history of how a large chunk of our nation was forced into compulsory public education. The American educational system was primarily private and decentralized, and homeschooling was widespread prior to the 1840s.
The formation of mandatory public schooling in America traces its roots to the “An Act Concerning the Attendance of Children at School” signed into law by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1852. This act drew from a previous 1642 law that obligated every statute within Massachusetts to provide primary education, with an emphasis on grammar and fundamental math. Parents who didn’t want to enroll their kids in school were penalized and their kids were apprenticed to other people. The 1852 law was inspired by Horace Mann, the “father of the common school,” who wanted every child to receive a basic education regardless of their background.
The industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries was a key factor in the growth of mandating education through laws. The Industrial Revolution made education available to kids from all socioeconomic levels and established laws making education a legal obligation, among other significant advances in the area of education. Children had sporadic access to schooling prior to the 1800s. Children from wealthy backgrounds frequently had access to school, in contrast to those from poor backgrounds.
The forced schooling system was established at this time to prepare the populace to work for the labor and industry systems to advance the country. Prominent academic innovators who helped shape the introduction of compulsory education sought social control and social engineering techniques rather than ways to encourage creativity.
For example, in the early 1900s, a small group of well-known industrialists and financiers dedicated more time and resources to compulsory education than the federal government did.
John D. Rockefeller and others poured millions into influencing the American school system. The General Education Board was created after Rockefeller donated approximately a million dollars to its creation. In this way, the contemporary educational system was developed away from the general population and its representatives.
I understand that one of the reasons for creating a national school system was to have equal access to education regardless of students’ backgrounds. However, these efforts are not without consequences.
There has been much derision for decades concerning how students’ minds are being affected from public schooling. Just look at how kids are being influenced today in high schools across America. The midterms were handed to the Democrats precisely because of younger voters. It’s not just me saying this either. There’s a long list of artists and thinkers who have decried how schools influence the minds of students.
The goal of education is to produce people who are prepared to give up their autonomy and individuality for the greater good of the group. It teaches uniformity and conformity even though it is evident no two people are the same.
Our country’s culture war within schools will never end until all sides take a sober look at the origins of how our modern school system came to be. Citizens need to make a commitment to being honest and more collaborative about what is right for differing students. Teaching all children the same thing, regardless of their backgrounds, is simply asking for mass conformity of the public without respect for their family’s values and upbringing.
It’s a disregard for the diversity in how children are raised. More so, it encroaches on what certain parents deem to be moral for their children. I think that it is past time to break up the hegemony federalized schooling has on American families on a more detailed level.
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