The situation re the purpose of "education" was summed up in the 1962/3 song by Malvina Reynolds titled Little Boxes.

Squeers:

...That’s all a little “gloomy” old bean! Your view indicates to me a lack of attachment to the present. It all becomes well and good to criticise the education system as inapplicable to life outside the confines of work, (fostered by the ethic of competition); but when has education ever been in a state otherwise, pray-tell?

...Where I agree with you Squeers, is in your de-briefing episodes: But de-briefing which may effectively be re-indoctrinating the same children (being saved), with adult hang-ups, is also equally unfair to the child; and counter-intuitive, I would suggest.

...And to go to extremes, as is the admission of POIROT, is simply elitist. What Poirot! is your child of such a superior importance, that mixing in the common world of mass education is to be deemed a contaminating hazard to be avoided; and why? Surely isolating children from the real world, as you casually admitted to doing, is not a positive influence for your child at all, irrespective of the added peace they may have enjoyed.

...What right has a child to that peace? Surely, the rough and tumble of a community school yard, as a major component of the rounded education of a child, is a superior choice, irrespective of curriculum taught in the community school.

diver dan,

On the contrary, what's elitist about allowing my son the opportunity for an education outside of school. He's the one who is experiencing "the real world" not segregated from it inside an institution 30 odd hours a week.

You're not capable of thinking outside the square, just as most people are trained to think. My son enjoys the rough and tumble of boyhood in the company of his friends, but he's not pressed into a one-size-fits-all generic "education" system - good for him!

Poirot, on this issue as you've described, you have my full support and agreement. Your son will indeed grow into an adult confident in his own abilities.

It worked with our family and son. Good luck and stick to your guns. At the very least your son will be one of the lucky few to escape the detrimental institutional brainwashing called education today. He will have the capacity to be a free and individual thinker - something which brings derision, rejection and scorn within the current education system, where non-compliance is the ultimate sin.

diver dan,

I’m with Squeers, Daffy, Poirot, voxUnius and Hasbeen on this.

We seem to confuse information with knowledge, intelligence with education and then try to bury this confusion under ideological indoctrination. This “education system” that best represents our toxic society is no place for young and vulnerable minds. Best to do whatever you can for as long as you can to prepare them.

Australian of the Year winner 2003, Professor Fiona Stanley describes our “toxic society”.

“In Australia, almost 30% of school children between the ages of 8 to 14 are on prescribed hard drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin and other “Speed” derivatives”!

“Nearly 20 percent of Australian teenagers now have mental health problems. Nearly a quarter of all families now rely on welfare. Suicides among 15-19 year old males have quadrupled since the 1970s. Obesity has increased in teenagers from around 10 percent in 1985 to nearly 25 percent today. A quarter of all children aged four and five are now overweight for their height. The number of people aged 12 to 18 who are homeless on any given night has increased dramatically to 26,000 last year. Documented increases are evidenced in substance abuse, child abuse, binge drinking, teenage pregnancy, eating disorders, juvenile crime, juvenile diabetes, low-birth weight babies, Neuro developmental complications, asthma, serious behavioral problems and autism. Twelve year old children are having mental health problems, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, schizophrenia, right through to violent behavior towards teachers”.

“Eleven year olds are presenting to NSW Government with problems not encountered before. Some of them are so violent they are unable to be fostered, educated or controlled”.

More disturbing still is the data from the WA Education Department. “……they have seen a trebling almost every five years of children with quite significant behavioral problems; they have to be taken out of the classroom. These children are severely disruptive, very angry”. This report is referring to FIVE YEAR OLDS!!

Why would any parent rush to expose kids to this before they are capable of “synthesizing” the reality of our toxic society without the attendant problems described by Professor Stanley?

Ted began his essay with reference to the work of Illich, Reimer and Friere. I would also add Paul Goodman via his book Growing Up Absurd.

I remember that B A Santamaria used to fulminate against what Illich had to say and was calling for.

Of course the right-wing had their own extremely toxic school which they used with murderous effect to terminate anyone who dared to try and exercise what Illich and Freire were teaching - teaching and empowering people to control their own lives in cooperation with others.

It was called the "school" of the America's: see http://www.soaw.org

And of course the historical extension of the SOA world-view was the Chicago School of economics and "culture" as inspired by Milton Friedman (the Chicago boyz) They went on to use much of the world as an applied laboratory for their theories. The actions and the results of which are described in The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.