Public school is the chief apparatus through which capitalist ideology spreads, taking on the role the Church once held in feudal societies. The audience of the public school includes the totality of children born into capitalist societies, for five days a week, eight hours a day, from ages 6 to 18.
Succeeding in test-centered capitalist schools requires little if any critical thought, but rather discipline, memorization (i.e. tolerance for busywork), and, above all, OBEDIENCE. Those that prove themselves most obedient are allowed to join the children of the bourgeoisie in swallowing the more explicit indoctrination of the universities, where they accumulate the necessary ideology (and debt) to insure their status as loyal servants of imperialism.
The rest seamlessly transition into the workforce, having spent virtually their entire lives adapting to the strictly-regimented, unfulfilling, authoritarian paradigm of the capitalist workplace. They learn through homework--an abomination of capitalist development--that their jobs must come home with them, that they must always be at least "on call" for their employers. They learn through inane group projects that collective action is inferior to individual production. They learn through the lionization of MLK and Ghandi that non-violence is the only legitimate form of protest. They learn that America is not an empire, with school maps quietly omitting America's various non-state "territories" (colonies). They learn that Native Americans were primitive hunter-gatherers. They learn that the civil war was about state's rights. They learn to venerate the genocidal "founding fathers." They read fucking Animal Farm.
Not OP but often group projects are used by teachers to reduce the # of things to grade and ostensibly give students a reason to "learn teamwork" but the projects are increasingly less suited to being group-orientated with the reduction in school funding and increase of class sizes.
For example, i had to do a frog dissection in biology in school, but this was for some reason a group project. Now i don't know if you've seen the size of a frog, but it's really just a 1-person job. And only one set of tools per group. So basically you just have projects where it's 1 person doing all the work and then one person to write it down, then 2-3 others just kinda. Doing nothing. there's a whole subset of memes around group projects.
There's also group papers assigned frequently, which are a fucking nightmare to write. "each person just writes a section" but why? you all have to learn the same material and it's going to make for a less cohesive paper. In the end, it always leads to one person being forced into a leadership role they don't want (the teachers don't pick groups based on who would be a good group or leader, or even say who WILL be the leader) and taking on the slack from people who recognize that it's bullshit make-work that won't teach them anything and exists soley to give the teacher some easy grading days.
Oh yeah also the topics are either assigned (boring) or the groups decide themselves, which, as all of us know, leads to a bunch of fighting and then 3/4 group being disinterested in the outcome outside of their grade. So no one enjoys them, they don't teach you how to work together or actually complete anything interesting unless you get SUPER lucky with the assignment/group.
Literally all of it
Public school is the chief apparatus through which capitalist ideology spreads, taking on the role the Church once held in feudal societies. The audience of the public school includes the totality of children born into capitalist societies, for five days a week, eight hours a day, from ages 6 to 18.
Succeeding in test-centered capitalist schools requires little if any critical thought, but rather discipline, memorization (i.e. tolerance for busywork), and, above all, OBEDIENCE. Those that prove themselves most obedient are allowed to join the children of the bourgeoisie in swallowing the more explicit indoctrination of the universities, where they accumulate the necessary ideology (and debt) to insure their status as loyal servants of imperialism.
The rest seamlessly transition into the workforce, having spent virtually their entire lives adapting to the strictly-regimented, unfulfilling, authoritarian paradigm of the capitalist workplace. They learn through homework--an abomination of capitalist development--that their jobs must come home with them, that they must always be at least "on call" for their employers. They learn through inane group projects that collective action is inferior to individual production. They learn through the lionization of MLK and Ghandi that non-violence is the only legitimate form of protest. They learn that America is not an empire, with school maps quietly omitting America's various non-state "territories" (colonies). They learn that Native Americans were primitive hunter-gatherers. They learn that the civil war was about state's rights. They learn to venerate the genocidal "founding fathers." They read fucking Animal Farm.
So anyway, yeah. Fuck school.
more
Thanks for writing all this so I don't have to. I had one teacher explain to a class that evolution isn't real, so I think that counts.
Not being from the U.S I'd appreciate if you could extend yourself on that point.
Not OP but often group projects are used by teachers to reduce the # of things to grade and ostensibly give students a reason to "learn teamwork" but the projects are increasingly less suited to being group-orientated with the reduction in school funding and increase of class sizes.
For example, i had to do a frog dissection in biology in school, but this was for some reason a group project. Now i don't know if you've seen the size of a frog, but it's really just a 1-person job. And only one set of tools per group. So basically you just have projects where it's 1 person doing all the work and then one person to write it down, then 2-3 others just kinda. Doing nothing. there's a whole subset of memes around group projects.
There's also group papers assigned frequently, which are a fucking nightmare to write. "each person just writes a section" but why? you all have to learn the same material and it's going to make for a less cohesive paper. In the end, it always leads to one person being forced into a leadership role they don't want (the teachers don't pick groups based on who would be a good group or leader, or even say who WILL be the leader) and taking on the slack from people who recognize that it's bullshit make-work that won't teach them anything and exists soley to give the teacher some easy grading days.
Oh yeah also the topics are either assigned (boring) or the groups decide themselves, which, as all of us know, leads to a bunch of fighting and then 3/4 group being disinterested in the outcome outside of their grade. So no one enjoys them, they don't teach you how to work together or actually complete anything interesting unless you get SUPER lucky with the assignment/group.