Three Key Paradoxes behind our Failing Education

What often seems to be a solution today can create bigger problems later. How do these ‘unintended consequences’ occur?  As illustrated with this polluted river (Russian), the entitlement of the communist mindset indicates a culture where the individual needs exceed strategic reasoning, and entitlement leaves little consideration for others. It leads to ruin. The reasons behind this require that you understand the concepts of both paradox and principle. Paradoxes tend to fool us in that they produce the opposite output that we would expect.

In an effort to increase our education performance, the Federal Government decided that they should have ‘standards’. (Perhaps it was more a ruse to indoctrinate our children). The problem with these standards is that they cannot be too high, as this leads to political unpopularity, so the bar is lowered and the goal thus lost from the start.  Political involvement is always a slippery slope, as popularity overrules wisdom as it moves towards self-indulgence. Rule by the common denominator with a largely uneducated base lends its bias towards egalitarianism and socialism. It is thus imperative to understand ‘Who is John Galt?”

There are 3 paradoxes and lack of principles that have driven our education down.

  1. An egalitarian (Communist) approach believes that it is better to set up a structure based on a one-size fits all, yet our highest cost per student education structure has left us as the worst performing first world PISA country. Typical of this ‘control’ ideology, the individual has less freedom and even fewer options, even though that was not the supposed intention. The principle is that people need meaning and recognition, and must be held accountable. This cannot be delivered en masse, where:
    • All students are assumed to have the same learning styles and preferences, and
    • Their curriculum is virtually the same, independent of their career goals.
    • In order to increase performance, the mantra is ‘more of the same’. This 1920’s ‘production mentality’ has led to low motivation, mass mental health issues and an even lower skills output.
  2. With forced integration of races, gender and nationality, loneliness, mental health and aggression has become a dominating social factor. An estimated 42.6 million Americans over the age of 45 suffer from chronic loneliness, and census data reveals more than 25 percent of the U.S. population live alone. Homicides are at their highest level since 1971. The forgotten principle here is that people like to associate with their own.
    • In addition to this, politics ruled that education must be regulated to minimize discrimination based on anything. The result has been to drive children together who have different backgrounds and cultures to show ‘fairplay’. The paradox is that no one benefits. Some 40 years later there appears to be more racial tension than ever before. Cultures, which mainly stem from religious beliefs or nationalities are lost. This detracts from the child’s sense of belonging, meaning, and learning from their cultural base.
    • Co-education has led to a decline in male performance. Girls are outperforming boys although there is no ‘scientific’ reason. However the crux is that girls mature faster than boys and are more focused. Boys on the other hand are highly sensitive to female company in their teens (and perhaps the rest of their life). Girls are a huge distraction for them. Also they do not value women as they should when growing up in this debilitating environment, and so depreciation and resentment builds up rather than aspiration. Again the differences between the sexes has never been more stressed than in our times.
    • The focus on equal rights and the ‘happiness’ of the student has given rise to a selfish, self centered and overconfident youth. This has increased deviancy and unhappiness, and worsened performance.
  3. Centrally controlled curriculum and policies has lead to more chaos and decreased performance. The principle is that localized leadership of smaller groups offers optimum performance. (Tom Peters)
    • The political correctness of excluding any religious instruction at schools (because people are not allowed to share the same religion or form schools of the same religion. So much for the 1st Amendment!) has led to a lack of strong values, the foundation of morals and the coherence of society. The lack of any real discipline in the schools has led to a rebellious youth who become self-centered and are more open to a host of problems. This prime element is missing in our ‘education’.
    • By eliminating school uniforms, (which creates a sense of belonging and pride, a tacit submission to school rules or culture, and actually eliminates many ‘differences’), this policy has only created a distraction from school, and increased rule breaking.
    • Liberal (entitled) education, based on sympathy, (designed to increase empathy) has been shown to produce a ‘fixed’ mindset, which garners a blame mentality and decreases performance (Dweck).

The principle that has been forgotten is that the micro becomes the macro, not the other way around. Political ideologies thus never work (but indoctrination can). And so we end up with unintended consequences, like poor performance, a lack of values, and a sense of meaninglessness within the child’s mind. As with all communistic intentions, they have proven to be detrimental and have only added to a fixed mindset where entitlement is fostered, but the individual needs of others are marginalized. No increase in empathy here!

So, in our ‘political correctness’ we have forgotten these principles. In order to foster better understanding we need to educate our values and identity at an individual level first, and then reconcile any differences as we go about living life. We are all different, but find meaning in association with our own! This is true on all levels, whether deaf, Chinese, gay or Christian, Jew or Muslim, or just neighbors. Without meaning and a common 1st Quadrant we are lost. Our society is now a reflection of our schooling system – the output as it were. Increasing over the past 30 years, we, the USA, have now managed to achieve the highest divorce rate, the highest level of single-parenting and the highest levels of child abuse in the world, not to mention the high levels of deviant behavior, rampant sex addiction, abortions, drug addiction, and family crimes. It’s pathetic for a country of this stature and privilege.

The paradox of deception, as used and defined by our intelligence agencies, states that in order to find the truth you must ignore it. In decision-making, a similar principle is to ask disconfirming questions. It appears that we are not looking at these deplorable statistics, all in the name of a now disproved political sympathetic ideology! Talk about groupthink! Thanks to our corrupt and/or senseless media, we are our own ‘boiled frogs’. We have to look strategically at what is happening and understand the fundamentals that are driving it. It’s time to connect the dots!

So, my question to you is: Do you see the garbage in the water? If we continue to ‘kick the can down the road’, this is what happens.

‘MEganize‘ explains this all and how you can develop your child with the best probability of a happy and successful life. Visit the online homeschool portal here.

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