"...awakening the natural curiosity of young minds..."

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." - Anatole France, French poet, journalist, and novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain

I like to read. I'll read fantasy or fiction books if they're really good, but mainly I like to read historical books, about soldiers or presidents and about true events which, I believe, are usually better than fiction. I like to write - obviously. I like to discuss and debate, but I like to do research and have facts first. I like history and I like politics, and, quite simply, I really just like to learn. Unfortunately, I'm currently in college, so I don't really have a lot of time for that right now.

No, you read that right - I can't learn as much as I'd like to right now because I'm going to school. Does that seem counterintuitive to you? It sure does to me.

I had a unique high school experience - it was very small, very personal, and very, very intense. I wrote a 18-page long argumentative essay on physician-assisted suicide when I was in 10th grade; I wrote another 20+ page paper on the Spanish Influenza in 1918, the 'forgotten flu,' before I graduated; I picked up a poem I'd never read before, analyzed it for 15 minutes and then gave a 10 minute speech on it. I'm not telling you this to brag about what I considered to be the best education I could have received - I'm telling you so you can see how exponentially high my expectations were for college, because everyone told me my education would only get better.

I don't think they intentionally lied. For most students I've met in the two colleges I've attended, college has been harder than high school. But it's not for me. And I hate that.

There's a long list of things I could rant about, but there's one aspect that I think needs to be discussed and it applies to education at all levels and that is the lack of actual thinking that goes on in schools and the dangers that poses.

What do I mean by the lack of thinking? I mean that students are not taught to question anything. They're given worksheets and sat down in front of a television and told to answer notes. They're told that what they are taught are the only facts there are. And this is dangerous because when they're told that what they're learning is the absolute truth, they eventually start to believe that.

This poses problems in a number of areas - what if scientists didn't question the truths they're given? what if historians just stopped researching the past because everything's already known? what if engineers stopped trying to make new versions of the iPhone? - but I think it poses the biggest danger through the power of indoctrination it gives educators.

Indoctrination - the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.

Isn't that exactly what I just described? Children and young adults being taught things without questioning them and accepting them as the truth?

I'm going to give you some examples of this, ranging for college level educators all the way down to grade school. The examples that I'm giving are personal and if these are the kind of things that I've seen personally, just imagine how much more goes on. (Or don't. It's kind of infuriating.)

College Level Indoctrination

I'm in a class about the Revolutionary War. My professor has openly stated that he doesn't support the American Revolution. I knew he felt this way before he acknowledged it, though, because of the kind of statements he made in class, which I've been writing down.

• "There are two ways to wealth - inheritance and marriage."
• "He exhibited many traits similar to his American colleagues: He was greedy. He exploited power. He was wealthy."
• "[The American Revolution] was contrived, it was wicked, it was....'daring.'"

Earlier this week, I'd had it. He'd finished telling us about an incident of tarring and feathering on a British supporter that had apparently happened for no reason so I looked him up. John Malcolm was his name and the day he was attacked by a mob of colonists, he'd been seen screaming at a boy in the streets and when another man confronted him about it, he'd bashed him in the head with his walking cane so hard the man fell unconscious and had a permanent scar. Now, I'm not advocating for tarring and feathering (though my professor might - he also said that that would be a good solution to all these gun control issues, which he assured us was a joke. I'm still not sure who he was referring to) but the context of that situation was important - it made a difference between the colonists seeming like radical savages to explaining the tensions that were going on at the time - and he left it out and would have left it out unless I hadn't brought it up. And this wasn't the first instance of this happening.

Now, I can deal with this professor's liberal extremism (which he vehemently denies - he refers to himself as a moderate constantly, which is still wrong because he shouldn't bring his politics in at all). I'm smart enough to look beyond what he's saying and realize that he's full of it. But, apparently, some of my classmates aren't. (Case in point: one girl said that she'd always thought that tarring and feathering was just an expression and didn't really exist. People agreed with her.) Today, a different girl said that, before this class, she'd believed the Revolution was an honorable event but this class has showed her how silly and terrible the patriots were. Now, she feels that "It's actually kind of embarrassing." 

The founding of our country. 

This is what is being taught to my generation. And they all believe it. This is how the cycle starts.

Primary School Indoctrination

But we'd be foolish to believe that it didn't begin before college. Children are being indoctrinated with liberal beliefs everyday. 

On President's Day, my former (private) elementary school had an assembly to, one would think, celebrate presidents. "A Prayer for President Barack Obama" (obviously this is a religious school - the word 'prayer' is forbidden in public schools/everyday society) was shown. Please take 4 minutes and 23 seconds to watch the whole thing.


That is not a prayer. This is propaganda. This is a way to mold young, vulnerable minds into believing what liberal teachers want them to believe. Shots of MLK interspersed with BO and 'hope' and 'change' - it's basically a subliminal message. Children seen MLK, who they're taught is good, and know the words 'hope' and, they way they are taught 'change' are good so of course BO is good too! Look how happy all those people are!

The principal apologized. She said most of the kids didn't understand anyway.

OF COURSE THEY DIDN'T! THAT'S THE PROBLEM! These kids see these things, presented by their teachers, whom they trust to teach them what's right and what's wrong, and they accept them and no one ever tells them otherwise because, quite frankly, most of their parents are as brainwashed as they are. This is how liberalism begins.

60% of people ages 18-29 voted Democrat in the 2012 election. That's the largest majority of votes by any age group that either BO or Mitt Romney received. 60%.

60%.

I heard a saying once: If you're not a liberal at 20 you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at 40 you have no brain. That's changing. Too many people don't have brains and they won't until they start getting properly educated - not by teachers, but by people who actually understand this stuff. Instead of fighting, instead of blaming, we need to be educating.

These blogs are the best I do because I'm stuck in college.

God bless America.