Government Institutions

I never liked school.  In fact, I hated it.  I hated the cinderblock walls and the anesthetic flickering fluorescent lights.  I resented being controlled by bells, marched and herded and prodded, scolded and knuckled by stern-faced old women with harsh, pack-a-day voices.

I thank God my kids do not hate it as much as I did, and I only write this with the confidence that nobody in my family reads this blog.

My new favoritest writer, Rhonda Robinson scores another hit with her funny and true article, Five Ways Public Schools Prepare Us For Prison Life

Here is her list:

Lesson #5. Intimidation and Violence Make You Important
Lesson #4 Powerful Cliques Rule
Lesson #3: Violent Insurrection Is the Only Agent for Change
Lesson #2: Only the Government Can Keep You Safe
Lesson #1 Accept Your Sentence

Public schools are progressive institutions from a progressive era, designed to hammer us all into good little servants of the state. It's time to tear down the Bastille and build a 21st century model.

And this is not an attack on teachers.  Almost every one I've interacted with outside the school environment agrees with me.  They hate the system.   It is sclerotic, over-bureaucratized and hostile to real innovation.  

If we want to compete in the 21st Century, we need to fire the army of desk-sitting, money-sucking educrats, decommission the department of education and let the entrepreneurial young teachers take over.