Homeschooling as the Ultimate Act of Revolution and Societal Preservation, Part I

The Case Against Public Education

Photo Credit: svklimkin

People frequently ask me questions like: “How do I protect my family from indoctrination and government overreach?” “How can I push back against the destructive agendas being forced upon me?” “What can I do to make a real difference in the world and ensure that humanity’s future is better than its present?” While there are many valid answers to these questions, I propose that arguably the greatest act of protest you can perpetuate against diabolical systems of control is not to write angry missives, riot in the streets, or even to vote; it’s to homeschool your children.

Now, some will undoubtedly recoil at this notion. Is public school really that big a threat to an independent, productive society? Well, considering that the most effective way to cripple a society is to hijack the potential of its youth (and thus, that society’s future), I would argue yes.

When evaluating the credentials of public education—and deciding whether it is wise or just to subject our children to it—one must consider its origins and intended purpose.

Why Was the Public Education System Founded and Popularized in the First Place?

In the 19^th century, Horace Mann, widely regarded as the founder of the American Public School System, was deeply inspired by the Prussian education system, which emphasized obedience, discipline, and standardized instruction. In 1837, when Massachusetts established its Board of Education, Mann became its inaugural secretary and used his political influence to convince his fellow statesmen to institute a public school system modeled after the Prussian school system—complete with the goal of molding faithful, compliant citizens.

In 1902, John D. Rockefeller expanded upon Mann’s work and founded the General Education Board, which imposed a standardized model of education across the nation—largely in order to create a workforce that would serve the interests of industrialists like himself, who found themselves in need of an obedient populace that was well-suited to factory work. Sadly though, this emphasis on conformity stifled creativity and critical thinking, severely limiting the potential for independent thought and innovation.

However, this delighted Rockefeller, who is widely quoted to have said, “I don’t want a nation of thinkers; I want a nation of workers.” While there’s no written record of him actually having said this, it’s not a stretch when you consider what his personal advisor, Frederick T. Gates, said about education:

In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.

In addition to perpetuating his soulless, standardized model of education, Rockefeller actively suppressed alternative educational models that posed a threat to the industrialist agenda. He leveraged his wealth and political influence to stifle independent and progressive educational methods that encouraged critical thinking and individualism in favor of a system designed to produce obedient workers.

Clearly, the original intention of creating a public education system was to create a permanent underclass of ignorant, subservient drones who are ready and willing to accept the narratives forced upon them by those in power. This is not freedom; this is slavery.

Brainwashing Begins Early

Unfortunately, very little about standardized education has changed since Rockefeller founded the Board of Education. With few exceptions, nothing about the educational system is designed to actually teach, nurture, or support children in becoming innovative, critical thinkers. Instead, it is an institutionalized environment where “success” is defined by conformity, and control, dependency, and submission are used to extract it.

The destruction of a child’s psyche begins the moment he or she starts school. First, children are not designed to be separated from their parents during critical stages of development, as it negatively affects their emotional, mental, and cognitive growth. When you send a child away to school while they are still developing healthy attachments (i.e., still need to be around mom and dad or other primary caregivers much of the time), it negatively affects their self-esteem, confidence, and emotional regulation—often for the rest of their lives. Since children need and seek attachment, the absence of their primary caregivers also forces them to seek attachment with whatever alternatives are there, like their teachers or peers, instead. Separation from primary caregivers is genuinely traumatic for young children, which is why there are so many tears and tantrums at drop-off; sending them away from their safety zone before they are ready is emotionally damaging and creates vulnerabilities that make them easier targets for abuse down the road.

Second, separating children by age does not serve them or make any logical sense. When children spend many hours a day almost exclusively with people of the same age, who are generally no more mature or civilized than they are, they end up having no confidence in their ability to interact or communicate with humans of any other age group—and essentially end up being raised by their peers. Separating children by age also contributes to bullying and the creation of “cliques” or exclusive social groups where unkindness and disrespectful behavior are often encouraged and perpetuated on younger children.

Third, children are taught from day one to sit still in rows, follow instructions, be quiet, not question authority, do as they’re told, speak when spoken to, and come and go as they are told; in other words, conform, conform, conform. When these lessons are ingrained into a child in their formative years, they are significantly less likely to develop the abilities to think critically, communicate confidently, be creative and innovative, question authority, and stand up for themselves or others in later years, and significantly more likely to become subservient, fearful adults who lack direction and the ability to self-start.

Fourth, public (and most private) schools are actively employing technology to encourage intellectual laziness and hijack human ingenuity and creativity. Students are no longer being taught how to conduct proper research, use a library, write in cursive, craft a compelling argument, speak skillfully in front of a group, or create beautiful art with their hands. Instead, more education happens online, often in the absence of an actual, human teacher. Even worse, far-too-easily-accessible AI is now encouraging academic dishonesty in our children by spoon-feeding them the answers to their questions and composing their papers for them, all without requiring a modicum of critical thought, effort, or actual research.

Back when we were considering enrolling our son in kindergarten, we took a tour of his prospective classroom. Though it was joyfully adorned with colorful posters, festive rugs, and plentiful stuffed animals, I was horrified to see a laptop computer sitting atop each tiny desk. I asked the teacher what they were doing there, as surely, they didn’t intend to put five-year-olds in front of computer screens all day, right? WRONG. The teacher enthusiastically informed me that the entire kindergarten curriculum was now online—as if it was something to be proud of! Needless to say, our son never matriculated.

Fifth, public education generally gives no consideration to how each individual child learns or functions best. Students are at the mercy of their instructors’ preferred methods of teaching, whether or not they are compatible with the student’s method of learning. Even if a particular state or district’s curriculum is exceptional (which I find impossible to fathom, because every example I’ve seen has been astonishingly inadequate), it matters little if it is not delivered in a format or environment that honors the learning styles of each student. Further, some children learn better in groups, while other children prefer to work alone. The system is simply not designed to support individuality, and children who do not fit into the “standardized” model of learning are left doubting their own abilities and resenting school because their needs are not being met.

Sixth, the school lunch program is a notorious disaster. Though children (and all living things) require proper nutrition for growth, good health, mindful behavior, and the ability to study, focus, and retain information, federally-funded food programs are heavily processed and laden with sugar, preservatives, seed oils, and artificial ingredients. Not only are these synthetic substances unappealing and lacking nutrition, but they are quite harmful to a developing body, which recognizes them as invaders—not foods—and produces an inflammatory response that often leads to illness and disease. We also know that poor nutrition causes behavioral problems, including irritability, mood swings, violence, anxiety, hyperactivity, and difficulties with executive functioning. A series of studies found that improving nutrition in juvenile correction facilities reduced incidents of violence and severe antisocial behavior by roughly 40% (and studies have shown similar results in adult prisons). If our educational system actually cared about the healthy mental, physical, and emotional development of the children in their care, they would prioritize proper nutrition.

Seventh, after spending all day sequestered in an institutionalized environment, children are forced to go home and do a second miserable shift in the form of homework. Homework is a wasteful, destructive practice that creates enormous stress and burnout for children (and their families) and offers very little academic or emotional return. It was conceived by German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who had this to say about standardized education:

Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished … When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

Given his perspective about the role of public education in creating thoughtless, directionless drones, is it any wonder that he devised a way to accustom children to being busily bored all day every day, ensuring that they never have time to pursue their own interests, socialize, create, or innovate? Homework is about compliance—not fostering genuine intellectual curiosity. It actively gets in the way of learning and exploration and creates stress and resentment in the process.

Lastly, the lack of integrity, transparency, and respect for the rights of parents in the public education system has created a precarious environment where our children are forced to contend with the darkest elements of society—without a safety net. Sadly, it is now far too common for public school students of all ages to be faced with bullying, violence, substance abuse, sexual assault, medical treatment without parental consent (or even notification), exploitation, and blatant emotional manipulation and agenda-pushing, to name a few. Public school is, quite simply, not a safe place for children.

Some of public schooling’s greatest critics come from within its own ranks. Consider John Taylor Gotto, a retired public school teacher who was named “New York State Teacher of the Year” by the New York State Education Department in 1991, and “New York City Teacher of the Year” in 1989, 1990, and 1991. Given his long career in education, extensive experience, and numerous accolades, it might surprise you to know that he used his 1991 “Teacher of the Year” speech, entitled “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher,” to boldly condemn the system he had been a part of for 30 years.

Here is a summary—in Gotto’s own words—of the seven most profound lessons he learned in his illustrious teaching career:

1. Confusion: “Everything I teach is out of context. I teach the un-relating of everything. I teach disconnections. . .Meaning, not disconnected facts, is what sane human beings seek. In a world where home is only a ghost, because both parents work, or because too many moves or too many job changes or too much ambition, or because something else has left everybody too confused to maintain a family relation, I teach you how to accept confusion as your destiny.”

2. Class Position: “I teach that students must stay in the class where they belong. That’s the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.”

3. Indifference: “I teach children not to care about anything too much. I do it by demanding that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they stop whatever it is that we’ve been working on and proceed quickly to the next work station. They must turn on and off like a light switch. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of. Indeed, the lesson of the bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything?”

4. Emotional dependency: “By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestinated chain of command.”

5. Intellectual dependency: “This is the most important lesson of them all: we must wait for other people better trained than ourselves, to make meanings for our lives… If I’m told that evolution is a fact instead of a theory, I transmit that as ordered, punishing deviants who resist what I have been told to tell them to think… Successful children do the thinking I assign them with a minimum of resistance and a decent show of enthusiasm… Bad kids fight this, of course, even though they lack the concepts to know what they are fighting… Fortunately there are tested procedures to break the will of those who resist.”

6. Provisional self-esteem: “The lesson of report cards and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth.”

7. One can’t hide: “I teach students they are always watched, that each is under constant surveillance by myself and my colleagues.”

As clearly illustrated by an arguably great teacher and champion of children, the result of standardized education in the United States is children who are confused, submissive, apathetic, ignorant, and dependent. The system has succeeded in creating a generation of citizens who are blindly compliant, unable to think critically or solve problems creatively, and are highly dependent on the institution that indoctrinated them. They are unmotivated and lack emotional intelligence and resilience, so are only comfortable being dictated to, as they cannot innovate or self-start. Since the system suppresses individuality, verve, and light, and ultimately provides an unfulfilling experience, its products are often miserable and grow to resent education, avoiding opportunities for future development and growth (how often do you hear a child utter, “I hate school!”). While it is, of course, possible for the rare, particularly self-aware, driven, and intelligent student to emerge from the system with their individuality and critical thinking skills intact, it is certainly the exception—not the rule.

Since public education uses institutionalization, indoctrination, and control as its teachers, the ultimate power move—and the best way to preserve the beauty, individuality, and innate intelligence of your children—is to simply refuse to participate.

In Part II of this piece, we will explore how homeschooling is the antithesis of all this darkness and provides a beautiful solution for families who value integrity, personal responsibility, and the preservation of freedom-based values.