The Problem with Public Schools and Education: It Goes Way, Way back
Study the history of public education and you'll have a better idea
Being a child should be fun, but trudging through adolescence has always been challenging. I know it was for me. One of my earliest thoughts was, “How are people so mean to each other?”
I’m not alone in the struggle to grow and wise up. It seems it’s even harder today. Just look around. One of my best friends in private high school went on to become a tenured professor at a prominent, public New England university told me earlier this week, “The new students can’t take notes, or study well. We have to go back to basics.”
Feel free to share your experiences in a constructive comment. Now, let’s figure out what’s going on.
Sitting still was never my nature, thank goodness
I was the kid who “couldn’t sit still, pay attention, or keep quiet.” After all, I was an insatiably curious child who learned by playing. I lived in a surreal realm of make-believe. Sitting in a public school, any school, was always painful for me. Understanding why that is true for almost everyone took me a lifetime.
These were the days long before the “professionals” came up with names centered around “disorder.” The only thing I loved doing as a child was playing. Whatever I loved playing, I learned and became good at. In some cases, like tennis, I became a star who shone bright among my peers. That feeling was exhilarating.
I came across a book titled Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, both professionals who focus on education and learning development. The book's essence is that we're not learning much if we’re not having fun.
My experience as a parent was an eye-opener
Even though I’m not a geneticist, I figured early on, as a father, that our two sons both experienced the same issues I did in school. Most children struggled to “sit still, pay attention, and be quiet.”
That’s the nature of being a child.
After one too many parent-teacher meetings, we were told to see a psychiatrist—the diagnosis for both boys was ADHD. The doctor sought to prescribe drugs. I said, “Doctor, test me. If I turn out to be ADHD, give me the pills and let me experience what it’s like before you start drugging our children.”
I took the pills. They felt like the “speed” I used to cram for exams in college. No matter how hard I resisted and battled drugging our children to help them sit in a box at school learning crap that wasn’t fun or close to relevant, I lost the war. The rest is history, and in the end, our sons are healthy, well-adapted, grown, and learning to parent. However, their success in life had little to do with their public education.
Discovering the root cause of the education problem
It was during those days that I started buying and reading books. After all, I wanted to learn how to help our sons adapt to their schools and be successful. My wife and I poured our hearts, souls, and wallets into counseling, tutoring, and loving them unconditionally to help them navigate the public schools where we live in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Here’s what I learned. In the 1500s and 1600s, only wealthy families and religious groups educated children, primarily boys, and mostly to read spiritual texts like the Bible. Learning was for the elite. Everyone else worked.
There was no such thing as a public school for all. Shocking.
Then came the 1700s and 1800s. Countries like Prussia and modern-day Germany created the first public school systems. They had a clear goal: to produce obedient citizens, good soldiers, and efficient workers. Kids were grouped by age, taught the same lessons, and trained to follow orders. This became known as the Prussian model of education.
The evolution of education in America, or lack thereof
In the 1830s, Horace Mann brought this model to the United States. He believed in free public education for all. But even good intentions can have side effects.
Schools in the U.S. were soon designed more like factories than places of discovery. School bells mimicked factory shift changes. Students sat in rows. Standardized tests and grades were used to sort and rank people. This wasn’t a system built to help each child discover their gifts. It was built to grow the economy and train a reliable labor force.
Obedience was rewarded, not questioning
This partly explains why one of my science teachers saw fit to whack me with his yardstick and threaten to unleash his terrifying pet Iguana on me. If you’re an insatiably curious child and human like me, and question what it is, you know the suffering I’m describing here.
And don’t get me started with my experience in Sunday schools.
Some educators and critics call this the hidden curriculum. It’s the unwritten lesson: sit down, be quiet, and do what you’re told. People like John Taylor Gatto and Ivan Illich believed the system was never meant to raise free thinkers. It was designed to create followers. These people don’t question the system, work hard, and stay in line.
Think about that. These people are like me! No wonder so many of us suffer and struggle through school, not to mention that the “educated elite” have made it so unreasonably expensive to go to private schools. It’s easy to see the consequences of this tragedy. We live in a modern-day Idiocracy.
My parents did their very best
Here’s the good news in my story. My parents saw how I struggled in public school after I had an incident in 8th-grade music class. In short, it was another trip to the principal’s office. Talk about living through hell on earth, but I digress.
So, they borrowed money and started working harder and longer than before to pay for me, my sister, and my brother to attend private high schools. I went on to attend Ohio Wesleyan University from 1979 to 1983. I was the quintessential “C-student” and party boy, having the most fun competing in collegiate tennis and swimming; that was fun, but not as much fun as chasing girls and finding my future wife, who’s been with me for over forty years.
Even though it took me a decade to pay off my student loans, I regret nothing about my past. All the struggles and joys worked out in the long run.
Understanding the disdain for public education
We all love learning what is fun and relevant. Thank goodness there’s far more research today in education and childhood development.
Maybe you never hated learning. Perhaps you hated being boxed in, bored to death, and told to sit down and shut up. I get it.
That system wasn’t built for people like us. But here’s the good news. Our natural curiosity isn’t broken. It’s just been buried under years of factory-model conditioning.
It’s up to us to question everything, learn who we are, and find meaning, joy, and work that nurtures our souls.
The truth is, learning is supposed to feel like play. Like joy. Like life. So if school failed you, that doesn’t mean you failed. It means it’s time to reclaim your love of learning on your terms and help the next generation do the same.
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