Artificial Stupidity (Creating Mindless Followers In Our Public Schools)

Summary: Creating mindless followers is one of the most dangerous things that our public schools are doing.

A recent news story about a teacher who assigned her students to write anti-war letters may have seemed like just an isolated episode, but teachers using students for their own little ego trips is by no means uncommon. Perhaps the worst recent example was a teacher who unleashed her venom on the children of military personnel who had gone off to fight in Iraq.

Just last week I received a bundle of letters from students who have apparently been given an assignment to write to me by a teacher in an English class in Flat Rock High School in Flat Rock, Michigan. This was occasioned by a column of mine that said some things that were not politically correct.

The first of these letters was from a girl who informed me, from her vast store of teenage wisdom, of things that I knew 30 years ago, and closed by telling me that I needed to find out about poverty. Since I spent more years in poverty than she has spent in the world, this would be funny if it were not so sad.

With American students consistently scoring at or near the bottom on international tests, you would think that our schools would have better things to do than tell kids to write letters to strangers, spouting off about things they know little or nothing about.

Flat Rock High School's envelopes, in which the students wrote their assigned letters, have the motto: "Where Tomorrow's Leaders Learn!" Sadly, they are learning not to be leaders but to be sheep-like followers, repeating politically correct notions and reacting with snotty remarks to anyone who contradicts them.

It is bad enough when someone takes the position that he has made up his mind and doesn't want to be confused by the facts. It is worse when someone else makes up his mind for him and then he dismisses any facts to the contrary by attributing bad motives to those who present those facts.

Creating mindless followers is one of the most dangerous things that our public schools are doing. Young people who know only how to vent their emotions, and not how to weigh opposing arguments through logic and evidence, are sitting ducks for the next talented demagogue who comes along in some cult or movement, including movements like those that put the Nazis in power in Germany.

At one time, the educator's creed was: "We are here to teach you how to think, not what to think." Today, schools across the country are teaching students what to think -- whether about the environment, the war, social policy, or whatever.

Even if what they teach were true, that would be of little use to these young people in later life. Issues and conditions change so much over time that even the truth about today's issues becomes irrelevant when confronted with the future's new challenges.

If students haven't been taught to think, then they are at the mercy of events, as well as being at the mercy of those who know how to take advantage of their ignorance and their emotions.

Classroom brainwashing is not new. I wrote about it a decade ago in my book "Inside American Education." Hearings at the Department of Education brought out the same things a decade before that.

When will the voting public get the message? Where are the parents of these children? Do parents in Flat Rock, Michigan, want their children's time in school wasted on their teachers' ideological hobby horses, instead of being used to prepare an intellectual foundation for their further education?

In the long run, the greatest weapon of mass destruction is stupidity. In an age of artificial intelligence, too many of our schools are producing artificial stupidity, in the sense of ideas and attitudes far more foolish than young people would have arrived at on their own. I doubt whether the youngsters in Flat Rock, Michigan, were brought up by their parents to say and do the silly things their teachers have assigned them to do.

Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an avowed enemy can destroy many Americans, but they cannot destroy America, because we are too strong and too capable of counterattack. Only Americans can destroy America. But too many of our schools have for years been quietly undermining the values and abilities that are needed to preserve any society -- and especially a free society.

Thomas Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college.

Public schools are turning boys into girlymen. I love the quote in this article where the author says that boys are acceptable if they act like homosexuals rather than normal boys.

PERSPECTIVE
ADVERSE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT (29)
by JANN FLURY
Appearing Exclusively every Monday

March 24, 2003

It is a fact that men and women, by nature, think differently, and that they often have different interests, sentiments, and priorities. Therefore, it follows that boys and girls also think differently. This fact becomes obvious at school, and it creates unnecessary problems, mostly, because these intrinsic differences in the psyche between the sexes aren't accepted or taken into consideration by the "progressive" educators, bent on creating an egalitarian society of underlings.

Well disciplined children who know their place and are treated fairly are happy students. They contribute to the morale and well-being of the school and form part of the safe learning environment. Misunderstood or treated unfairly, without due consideration or appropriate interpretation of rules of conduct, students become resentful, uncooperative, and jeopardize the safe learning environment. In many schools today the prevalence of unruliness and defiance borders on anarchy, and instances have been reported where teachers actually fear for their own safety.

It is noteworthy that, today, boys have more discipline problems at school than girls. They have more problems academically; they do most of the bullying and fighting; and boys rebel against the politically-correct doctrine promoted by modern schools and drop-out more than girls. Have our schools become an adverse environment for boys through the promotion of rules of conduct that are incompatible with the nature of the developing male psyche? If so, why and how?

The high-tech brain wizards of the psychiatric world put their own spin on the problem. They claim that by looking through their own magic looking-glass, they can actually SEE how the human brain and thought processes work. They claim that men and women use the brain differently to solve any given problem. To us mortals, it is common knowledge that boys behave differently from girls because they think differently, and they think differently because their natural roles in life are meant to be different: "Vive la difference!" These differences are observable from early childhood and become modified as the character develops into adulthood.

Girls instinctively exhibit innate, typically feminine traits from early childhood. Girls are more demure, precocious, circumspect, and adaptable than boys. They like to learn new things and are interested mostly in art related, cerebral, non-physical activities. They are gregarious, like to socialize and play role-games with their peers.

Boys, by nature, are typically physical, boisterous and competitive. They like to lead more than follow and prefer physical or competitive games. They tend to be egocentric and readily resort to physical action when angered or threatened. Boys tend to be critical and idealistic, while girls are more altruistic and realistic.

Today, an overwhelming majority of grade-school teachers are women. Schools no longer have adequate male role models for the boys, and churlish boy-type behaviour is no longer well understood or tolerated. It is now seen as symptomatic of a violent personality or labeled as a learning disability in need of counseling or even psychiatric help. Male values like courage and competitiveness are seen as aggressive qualities that must be subdued and replaced with the more benign and politically acceptable female traits of compassion, tolerance and understanding. Consequently boys find themselves in a hostile, adverse school environment, unable to keep up with the girls in study and the woman teacher's behavioural expectations.

These attempts of behaviour modifications have come at a price. Over recent years, there has been an appalling deterioration in school discipline, accompanied by increased violence, and school dropouts. Through the ages, the natural character differences between men and women have been celebrated, and schools encouraged the development of these differences. Today, however, educators are striving to produce a gender-neutral set of values in students that is biased in favour of the female psyche, and the innate differences are being suppressed or crippled starting right in Kindergarten.

Modern educators tore down the old style school with all its traditions and transformed public education into what they tell us is a kinder, gentler institution. They set out to make school fun and exciting; they liberalized school by relaxing discipline and dress codes; they no longer teach manners or social etiquette and ignore traditional codes of conduct; they encourage students to explore and do their own thing. They promise to cater to the needs of every individual student and promote a nonjudgmental attitude by stating that there is no right or wrong. Progressive educators promote group learning in a modern school that is devoid of values and standards. They claim all students learn at their own pace and cannot be held to a timetable or specific goals of achievement.

To the modern educator the object of public school is to produce a student who is tolerant, nonjudgmental and can work cooperatively with a wide range of people in a global community. The emphasis is on political correctness, not academic achievement. Students must learn to "celebrate diversity," without rancor or prejudice. Many restless boy students cannot identify with such nebulous values, and fail to see any purpose in attending school.

Paradoxically, these liberalized institutions have found it necessary to make a whole new set of extensive rules to enforce their edict for a politically-correct environment. They even have a policy of "zero tolerance" against intolerance and against numerous fabricated petty offences that reflect typically boyish behaviour. Any physical horsing around, skylarking, pushing or shoving is strictly forbidden and is often interpreted as violent behaviour or assault. Even teasing is now a punishable offence and classified as a form of bullying.

It seems that the rules in our public schools today are made by cadre of modern educators largely composed of women unsympathetic to boyish behaviour. Boy behaviour is no longer tolerated. Natural male development is suppressed, crippled, or perverted. It's okay to be or act like a homosexual, but it's not okay to act like a normal boy.

It's bad enough that we have such lopsided rules for behaviour in public schools, but what is worse--even criminal--is how educators have chosen to enforce these lopsided rules. Boys must behave like girls or face psychological scrutiny or suspension if they don't comply with the "zero-tolerance" policy against perceived discrimination, prejudice or violence. Many schools hand out suspensions for minor physical altercations, expulsion for repeat or more serious offences. And, of course, for an in-house remedy we have the ubiquitous school psychologist who is usually all too willing to prescribe harmful mind-altering drugs like Ritalin to make boys more docile and obedient.

All these extreme measures for minor infractions do nothing to alleviate the underlying problem: they exacerbate it. It is like putting a dirty bandage on a festering wound. The developing character of a boy needs to be gently, firmly guided--sublimated--not stifled, crippled, or perverted, by politically-correct poppycock.

The intent to create a kinder, gentler society, shaped according to feminine logic, has neglected the developmental needs of boys. The nonsensical, politically-correct rules for behaviour have spawned an environment of rebellious resentment and loathing: a seething powder-keg ready to explode.

Soon we may reach a point with the school discipline problem where neither security guards, school psychologists, psychiatrists nor "All the Kings Horses and all the King's Men will be able to put Humpty-Dumpty together again."

JANN FLURY
905-571-4811

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