As you can imagine, Mr. Stickfigure’s abrasively insightful commentary is not palatable to all. I find eighth graders much more receptive to radical education than adults. It’s easier to persuade them of their destiny and divinity than it is to convince their teachers.
A teacher needs to know how the deserts miss the rain. A teacher must bring the oasis.
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Having no recent firsthand knowledge of the school system, I base my opinions on friends that teach, and various headlines, but this is my impression: the some of the most fertile soils are deserts from overfarming.
I hear little murmurs about doing away with more recesses, spreading school across the summer, getting Billy doing those extracurricular activities in the sixth grade so he can go to Yale... It is my impression that people are unconsciously trying to complete the task of the industrial revolution and finally get 100% efficiency out of everyone, including children.
I won't even debate the ethics, or mention any of Mr. Orwell's books. I'll just go ahead and state that it's not going to work. It is not news that the human mind does not become more effective with increased stress, and longer load periods. The harder they try to grip the wet bar of soap the farther it is going to fly.
The children will resist as they have evolved to do - they will perform as long as they are able until something snaps and their body forces them to re-prioritize. The adults need to get their foot off the gas. It's a lot easier to get someone to look at the map when you don't have the pedal to the floor on a winding road.
I'm not advocating that we give every kid a credit card and let them do whatever they want for most of the day. But it is my experience that the power of automation has far eclipsed the power of most people to know what to automate. We need a lot more people that are patient, unhurried, and elegant in their approach to problems. They are the only ones that have any business managing complicated global systems and relationships.
To quote Sun Tzu, management of many is the same as management of the few. You wouldn't get that impression being a student today... the example presented is that management of the many is only accomplished by running your body ragged and making rash, albeit technologically complicated, gambles with no flexibility for failure or discipline for patience.
There is no way for an average person to meet all the specific requirements of being a student, playing the college game, and then playing the career game, without finding themselves up at 3AM writing a very long essay that is total and utter bullshit. To withdraw and reprioritize is to find yourself bounced out on your ass- until we change that, the underlying pressure will continue to be to charge your cavalry headlong into the countryside, balancing the books with plunder.
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