| Immunizing Young Adults |
About 3% of American children are now being home schooled -which gives them a chance to develop into decent adults with their minds intact and useful. Also, a small percentage of those who are attending tax-financed schools are emerging still rational and decent.
They do so, unfortunately, in spite of the schools rather than because of them - and most of them retain emotional scars from the experience. On the other hand, they have developed some acquired immunity which may serve them well in today's society.
A large percentage of 18-year-olds entering college today have the following superficial and fundamental debilities: They are unable to think analytically; they have very little ability to extract information from books by reading; they have poor study habits; they generally lack a productive work ethic; they have defaced their bodies in various ways as with rings and tattoos; their chances for fulfilling personal lives have been reduced by moral and sexual debasement; they are very profane in speech; and they have little knowledge of or interest in the great legacy of literature, history, and thought that forms the base of our civilization.
In college, they typically find a peer group that reinforces the bad habits they acquired in tax-financed schools and a humanities faculty that encourages and extends these habits. Science faculties, except for the soft sciences which receive lots of tax money, tend to be much
more conservative - both personally and in the content of their courses - but political correctness has made substantial inroads there, too.An astonishing argument often leveled at home schooling is that the children will not develop necessary social skills - like, apparently, nose rings, profanity, dishonesty, and sexual promiscuity. Sending a well-brought-up young person to one of these educational institutions is roughly equivalent to sending him to the zoo.
So, American young people score last on average in the developed world on virtually all academic tests and enter society so morally drained that they think Bill Clinton is a suitable President. The momentum of the accomplishments of previous generations of Americans then feeds, clothes, and houses them as they enter the "work'' force.
I know too much about this now because I have recently released three Robinson children into the American university system and will soon release three more. After a brief period in which they vainly search for evidence of rational human life, each of my students simply reverts to form, goes to work studying, and seeks out those faculty members who are sensible and knowledgeable. Most universities still have some of these, but they are definitively in the minority. The children's most frequent continuing complaint is about the language. In the classrooms and laboratories they are unwillingly immersed in a literal sea of profanity. This is, of course, only a superficial indicator of more serious problems, but, since they see the other students only in the classrooms, they are not fully aware of the rest.
A rough estimate of the percentage of really productive, decent adults emerging from this morass - those who are homeschooled, those who survive the public schools, and those who are whipped into shape by the real world after they emerge from school - might be 20%. That is not high enough to maintain a free society. This is the reason we are in danger of losing ours.
This "educational'' system cannot be fixed. It already includes an astonishing 3 million union member employee force that is entirely entrenched in its ways - led by people who advocate an agenda for the future that is even worse than the present. This force is protected by a credentialing and accreditation system that would prove almost impossible to dismantle. Most importantly, the system is protected by the fact that a large part of the voting public is comprised of its products.
Fortunately, there is a solution. A "disruptive technology'' (see article about Clayton Christensen's book
The Innovator's Dilemma below) has arisen. In its initial form, it has the standard weaknesses of a disruptive technology - while low cost, it lacks many conveniences of the present system and has a small market because most consumers are not aware of its potential. No general market has yet been developed.Electronic education - CD and Internet based - is currently only a niche market, primarily for age 6 to 18 home schooled students and post-graduate continuing education. It is, however, set to explode into the mainstream marketplace.
Regardless of whether or not they recognize the social nightmares present on university campuses, parents and students will enthusiastically buy the idea of university educations at less than one-tenth the current price and without leaving home. Then, as it becomes increasingly obvious that students schooled in this way even before college have a great competitive advantage, the pre-college market will grow so rapidly that, before long, tax-financed "public'' education will die. Too few voters will be making use of it.
If you are responsible for the education of a young American, do him and your country a service. Do not send him to a public school.