Interesting Texts on Child Care that form the basis for the modern State.....

"Obedience is so important to education that all education is nothing other than learning how to obey. It is a generally recognized principle that persons of high estate who are destined to rule whole nations must learn the art of governance by way of first learning obedience. Qui nescit obediere, nescit imperare: the reason for this is that obedience teaches a person to be zealous in observing the law, which is the first quality of a ruler. Thus, after one has driven out willfulness as a result of one’s first labours with children the chief goal of one’s further labours must be obedience. It is not easy, however, to implant obedience in children. It is quite natural for the child’s soul to want to have a will of its own, and things that are not done correctly in the first two years will be difficult to rectify later. One of the advantages of these early years is that force and compulsion can be used. Over the years children forget everything that happened to them in early childhood. If their wills can be broken at this time, they will never remember afterwards that they had a will, and for this very reason the severity that is required will not have any serious consequences."

From : 'An Essay on the Education and Instruction of Children' J. Sulzer 1748

"It is my view that one should never strike a child for offences they commit out of weakness. The only vice deserving of blows is obstinacy. It is wrong therefore to strike children at their lessons, it is wrong to strike them for falling down, it is wrong to strike them for wreaking harm unwittingly, it is wrong to strike them for crying; but it is right and proper to strike them for all of these transgressions and for even more trivial ones if they have committed them out of wickedness. If you son does not want to learn because it is your will, if he cries with the intent of defying you, if he does harm in order to offend you, in short, if he insists in having his own way :

The whip him, well till he cries so
oh no Papa, oh no!

Such disobedience amounts to a declaration of war against you. Your son is trying to usurp your authority, and you are justified in answering force with force in order to insure his respect, without which you will be unable to train him. The blows you administer should not be merely playful ones but should convince him that you are his master. Therefore you must not desist until he does what he previously refused out of wickedness to do."

From : 'Some Thoughts on the Education of Children' : J. Kruger 1752

These are but a few examples of the texts from the 1700s that formed the basis for Compulsory State Education, a project that originated in the Textile Factories of the North of England... as a means of training workers and controlling the masses...

Most Urban workers and managers and all the Elites treated their children in this manner, in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, up to the the present day. Indigenous peoples rarely do, nor do peasants... in general. There are always exceptions, on both sides.

What is terrifying, to me at least, is the understanding or psychological insight that is illustrated in these tomes. THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING. 300 years ago! There are older texts, dating back to Roman and Spartan timers. And they too knew exactly what they were doing.

Driving out willfulness, instilling blind obedience, all through force and compulsion rationalised on the basis that they assumed ALL children were prone to 'wickedness' (a mime of Original Sin), as much as they assumed all peasants, all indigenous peoples were too. The Laws of Europe show this clearly. The Art of colonising harsh lands with petty convicts drawn form the poorest of their societies is part of the same world view.

This world view exists today, though it was only in 1998 that the UK Government banned corporal punishment in all schools. Following on from that testing and exams took a more and more important role in 'conditioning' children, justified as ever by spurious claims about needing to have some kind of way of ensuring that educational targets were being met, with various sanctions for those who fail.... being held back, insulted, humiliated, labelled with 'learning difficulty', the threat of a life of menial work etc etc as much as rewards for those who 'succeed' stars, marks, approval and 'good jobs'..... the psychological abuse taking over from the physical abuse. All of this carefully meditated. And guaranteed by an overarching enforcing bureaucracy.

Teachers are given huge amounts of paper-work to do to fill their time, are dependent upon ensuring children do go through the process for their very jobs and income, and are reduced to policing children through these exams .... simply because they have not and are not given the time to spend with the children that is required for healthy learning and exploration... and the same can be said for most parents today in our cities and towns, with both parents working, spending more of their energy on paying off mortgages than on easy time with their children.

This world view is one that Blair, Brown, Obama and Bush demonstrate in their warmongering. The Policing at G20 is more of the same. The media repeats the message most of the time.

The question raised by all this is not how come so many succumb, but how come so many even today fail to see the damage, how come so many simply accept all this, in the 21st Century ... even some of those who have awakened to their own experiences can rationalise these kinds of behaviours.

And it is the case that these world views are resilient, are internalised by those who survive, and by those who escape, (unconsciously for most - we forget those early years..) and thus they form a large part of our cultures rules and regulations (though enforced mostly against the poorer sections of our society... with the rulers getting away with murder ... De Menzes murder in Stockwell Tube Station is a case in point..Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Columbia? Bolivia?. there are many, many more examples closer to home...- nearly 30 people every year die in Police Custody, yet no police man has EVER been brought to justice for these deaths!)

Every leader over the age of 40 who has been through these kinds of damaging experiences, and is unaware of how deep the damage is, will of course inflict the same on those they 'rule', will obey the Bureaucracy and most are easily corrupted, for the weakness is inherent in someone whose will has been broken.

This is not to let them, or anyone off the hook. This is to say LOOK at these realities. UNDERSTAND what we are dealing with in Politics.

Homeschooling is under severe attack in this country as I write, and all of the above is the real WHY of that attack. The state requires that ALL CHILDREN'S minds be colonised and controlled. To the extent that we as adults seek to 'train' or 'control' our children is the extent to which we have internalised those values. To the extent that we can rationalise violence and coercion is the extent to which we have succumbed to the conditioning.

And only it is we. it is only ourselves that can undo this. That is the deepest ecological act any humane being can do - to reclaim what was lost in the past, to reclaim our true and honest identity and to learn again to think and feel for ourselves and to allow, and to also to encourage that original sensing for the next generation of children.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Unexamined Assumptions regarding Children and Education

After a week of travel in Cornwall and a weekend at Triban’s Beltane Festival I am rested and also ready for the summer. My festie fitness is good, and my ears are fine. My travel pack is sorted, must remember to pack my flip-flops …. Walking around in steel toe capped boots in the sunshine is not the best way to treat my wonderful long enduring feet. I love my feet. They get me places.

One of the common threads in all my conversations with folks as I travel and sing, is the series of unexamined assumptions that we have all been indoctrinated with….

1. Children need an authority over them. (which excludes their own authority … the writing of their own script in the story of their own lives as much as it excludes their respect for competent adults who care for them, a respect for that which is deeper than ‘authority‘ … as in an empathetic moral code)

2. Children need both parents…. (which excludes the fact that a natural child needs an extended family that is merged with community…not to mention nature … nature deficit syndrome)

3. Children need to be taught to read, write and count. (which excludes childrens proven ability to learn these skills when their own motivation impels them to do so….and do this very quickly, 30 hours for reading, 50 for math, similar for writing - and when they do so ,their comprehension exceeds that of standard education on all tests!)

4. Children need school for ‘socialisation’. (see point 2)

5. Teachers are doing their best. Head-teachers are doing their best. (which excludes the activities and intent of Departments of Education Ideological Psychologists and their advisors from philanthropic foundations who pretty much design all the details of tests, texts, lessons and teachers documentation - tracking - of students progress, things which teachers and head teachers have no input into, and which they do not resist.) By NOT examining the foundations of education and by NOT resisting the imposed bureaucracy, teachers fail themselves and the children entrusted into their care.

6. Being a ‘good teacher’ can help children (which excludes that being a ‘good teacher’ in a bad system merely prolongs the bad systems life … in much the same way a ‘good prison guard’ will attempt to help those inmates he or she meets, yet his or her presence as a prison guard supports the toxic system and can be used by it’s originators as a PR tool. “Look at our nice smiling policeman who has helped a cat down from a tree!”) Of course individual teachers CAN and DO help individual children, these instances are in such a minority so as to be worthless. Not recognising and challenging that is a failing, even for 'good' teachers

These 6 unexamined assumptions form the basis of personal understanding of education for most people. The excluded realities are rarely mentioned. (don’t mention the war!).

The fundamental assumption underlying all these is that children are not to be trusted. This appears to me to be insane - we trust the seed to grow, we trust our legs to walk, our eyes to see our lungs to fill with air so why this mistrust of children?

Thus for most folks the constant revision and change appears to be attempting to resolve the ‘problems’ of schooling, whilst in reality it is by design and intent exacerbating those problems.

There are many unexamined assumptions that derive from the process of education, such as the desirability of ‘progress’, the benign intent of Kings and Prime Ministers, the supremacy of Western Industrial Democracy, or of Humankind over Animals, that exams prove the presence of intelligence and knowledge, that men and women are different in their core beings, and so on…..

The existence of Gods, or Aliens, or Demons, or Evil as a solitary force are other unexamined assumptions taken as though they are real …. These ones in particular derive from religious indoctrination.

It’s good practice to explore such assumptions, and to find one’s own intuitions and to then find ways to test those learnings.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Let the will of the State act, then, instead of the will of the indiviual (or community)

Here's a nice quote to illustrate the way in which childrens minds were targetted through compulsory state education, on behalf of the Industrialists who were hell-bent on turning States into representatives of business, and to do that they felt it neccessary to exercise mind-control, to deflect dissent, especially reasoned dissent.

You will recognise the elements, and for sure, each of us has fallen foul of these. I know I have.

Charles Pierce, the eminence grise behind William James and John Dewey, architects of Compulsory State Education in the USA wrote :

“Let the will of the state act, then, instead of the will of the individual. Let an institution be created which shall have for its object to keep correct doctrines before the attention of the people, to reiterate them perpetually, and to teach them to the young, having at the same time power to prevent contrary doctrines from being taught, advocated or expressed.

Let all possible cause of a change of mind be removed from men’s apprehension. Let them be kept ignorant, lest they should learn of some reason to think otherwise than they do. Let their passions be enlisted, so that they may regard … unusual opinions with hatred and horror. Then, let all men who reject the established belief be terrified into silence….

Let a list of opinions be drawn up to which no man of the least independence of thought can assent, and let the faithful be required to accept all these propositions in order to segregate them as radically as possible from the influence of the rest of the world.”

We can see this in operation in the media, and in school text-books. And we can see this in operation in our own minds as we sometimes struggle to grasp the truth of our current situation. Unexamined assumptions are a good guide to those areas of our thinking that have been 'adjusted' to fit into this 'sick society', an adjustment that Martin Luther King made clear was unacceptable.

Here's a few more quotes to flesh this process out a bit.

Woodrow Wilson speaking to an audience of businessmen in New York City in 1909 :

“We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

This is the technology of modern management ……this is the doctrine which drove William James in “Principles of Psychology” (1890), to assign habit-training, not intellectual development, the place of honour in schooling :

“Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, it’s most precious conservative agent. It alone is what … saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor … it alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive (jobs) from being deserted. It holds the miner in his darkness. It keeps different strata of society from mixing.”

All of us who attended state schooling have been exposed to and conditioned to accept the imposed and limited ideas that are taught through that education, reinforced through the media and that underpin the success of marketing.

This is the core technology of psychological state control upon which the likes of Tony Blair, David Cameron and the leaders of Indusrty et al depend upon.

Of course they retain that other oh-so familiar stick, that of poverty, physical violence or imprisonment to curtail those few who escape this conditioning. That’s what the War Against Terror and the consistent attack on civil liberties is all about.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Derrick Jensen on Compulsory Education Systems

Short piece on Education by Derrick Jensen, in which he details the truth about the Education System... He notes that Educations latin root is 'educare' meaning to draw out, and comes from the greek, used to describe the work of a midwive "to be present at the birth of" and compares that with Seduction, which has the latin root of 'seducare' meaning 'to lead astray' or 'to lead away from oneself' - in essence a process of self alienation.



And it is this that teachers, and their Union Leadership, should properly be addressing when drawing attention to their 'stresses' because it is this more than anything else that lies at the root of their stress!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Discipline, the other side of Compliance and Teacher Stress..

Apparently Teachers are stressed. Yet unwilling to analyse in depth the roots of the situations and condition(ings) that are causing them stress. They seem to ignore their willing compliance, their own participation in accepting the stresses imposed upon them and the children they claim to serve. Have they stopped learning, so that they might then help others to learn? - What a farce! A dark farce indeed. The farces of darkness!

Have teachers become so unthinking, so unwilling to study that they cannot SEE the real world and it's history around them? Are they truly unaware of the agenda that underpins compulsory state schooling?

Certainly their Union leadership seems more concerned with the money they can earn, and the 'health and safety' of their members, whilst enforcing the compulsory schooling of the majority of our children, than they are concerned with challenging the basis for the system itself. They are thus like innocent prisoners campaigning for better conditions, and leaving the fact of their imprisonment well alone. THAT is not to be discussed.

All I can say is TOUGH! You morons! Wake up! You are being used to harm children, to make good factory workers, good pen pushers, good soldiers, good policemen, (the likes of which most green activists have met on a regular basis) and you are in denial! You are marketing compliance with a sick and toxic society. Get over it!

Though they are in this somewhat eclipsed by the moronic superstars of Government, Sir Alan Steer, Ed Balls and Gordon Brown.

Sir Alan Steers self-satisfied suggestions for enhancing discipline in schools amount to a conditioning process, a sweetened spy-ops behavioural training of children who are crying out for something that they can genuinely respect, who show that need by rejecting (correctly so) what is offered as meaningless.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/23/pupilbehaviour.alansteer

Gordon Brown and Ed Balls are looking to coerce ALL children into community service of some form or other. Look at the legislation that might set that up, and in typical business style, there will be such a multitude of generalisations and vague definitions within it that it will be applicable in many different ways, it will also have sanctions built into it. And I bet that a good percentage of the thinking behind it comes from American think tanks and Foundations. Not that we will ever SEE those inputs. Sensitive Information. State secrets. It stinks. And luckily, there are those who dissent. But are they enough to impede these nefarious schemes? Only time will tell!

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10625

the details behind this 'community service scheme'... from a think tank!

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-gordon-browns-national-service-scheme-1668307.html

- some comments from readers, replete with humour and common sense

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/260939/Gordon-Brown-forces-kids-charity-call-up.html?postingId=269208

- ordinary folk have much to say on this, some foolish, others issuing a warning!

Here's my version of Gordon Browns Article published in The News of The World : my comments in italics.

Young can boost community spirit
By Gordon Brown

EVEN in the face of these difficult economic times, the generosity and community spirit of the British people is humbling.

HUMBLING? You have no right to even utter such words, with your prancing on the G20 stage, your theft of the UKs Gold Reserves, your largesse towards President George W. Bush, notorious war criminal and torturer! You and your ilk IGNORED the people of England and Wales when you, and others like you said that the concepts and proposals for devolving POWER to the grass roots developed by the people of England and Wales and outlined in The Power Inquiry were ‘impractical’. Now you say their sterling effort to shore up the shoddy services your Government provides is ‘humbling’. The nerve!

Whether raising record amounts for Comic Relief or rallying round after disaster struck in the North Sea, we have seen communities across the country draw closer than ever to help and care for each other in times of need.

Only because you and your cronies have all but bankrupted social services or farmed them out to private corporations for profit, you disingenuous twerp!

What is inspirational is the number of young people who are serving their communities in endeavours from charity fundraising to green activism. We want to harness and encourage this community spirit.

Oh yes. We SAW that last week in London, the Governments desire to harness Green Activism, especially the Climate Campers… who just happened to be pointing out how ludicrous you Carbon Trading Taxation Schemes really are…how very inspiring indeed. Batons and shields, dogs and peppers spray, arrests under terrorism laws are deeply inspired, but not by the willingness of young people to engage, rather by the likes of Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mugabe! You’re in good company, Gordon.

Already three million young people give their time to community service each year, usually without recognition or reward, whether by helping in an old age home or tutoring younger pupils, campaigning on local issues or fundraising for global causes, organising community activities or helping deliver environmental projects.

And by ‘conspiring to commit trespass’ in Nottingham!

But (there’s always a butt to kick, isn’t there Gordon?) we can achieve a step change in the participation of young people in community service.

It is my ambition to create a Britain in which there is a clear expectation that all young people will undertake some service to their community, and where community service will become a normal part of growing up.

YOU ARE GOING TO CREATE A BRITAIN? You have such great ambition for us! A nuclear Britain, fighting an unending Bogus War Against Terrorism is what YOU are going to create, by the sounds of things, m8!


Compulsory - no child left behind


That would mean young people being expected to contribute at least 50 hours of community service by the age of 19. This will build on the platform provided by citizenship classes in schools.

Yes, but you won’t be teaching the UN Charter, or The Universal Declaration of Human Rights or The Universal Declaration of Children’s Rights, will you, you ugly fat twat! Which is a legal requirement of countries that have ratified the UN Charter, which the UK has done. Funny omission that one!

As we set out our manifesto for the next Parliament, we will consider the best way of achieving our 50-hour goal. By building from compulsory citizenship studies in the 14-16 curriculum, we can create an expectation of national youth community service.

Create an EXPECTATION? What about our expectation that you and your buddies won’t scam the system, even by legal means? Eh? Eh? What about YOUR responsibilities as a citizen, employed by us, the people, the taxpayers…to be honest, transparent? Your predecessors Tony Blair works part-time for UBS and JP Morgan Chase, both of whom are shedding jobs like an Oak in Autumn.

And we can take immediate steps in the next school year to boost national youth community service. This will give thousands more pupils the opportunity to participate in community service and many more school-leavers the opportunity to undertake full-time and part-time placements.

Martin Luther King once said that everyone could be great because everyone can serve. And with our younger generations more involved in their communities, we can build a stronger, more united Britain.

You take the words of Martin Luther King and mire them with your foulness. You twist his meaning, his image, his soul to suit your insipid greed based banker inspired vision. You, who pay-rolled the slaughter of 360,000 Iraqi children under the age of 15, you who is even now sending troops to Afghanistan, you who is responsible for holding over 2000 children in ‘preventive detention’ in order the stop their parents from ‘vanishing’ into the so-called immigrant communities! You nasty, bloated, gormless bankers friend, YOU WANT TO GIVE more pupils the opportunity to participate in community service? By Compulsion? A compulsion is not an opportunity, and you know it! It’s a sentence!

Well YOU , m8! Are a great ARSE, and you serve none but yourself and those who direct you - the likes of RBS, E-on, UBS, JP Morgan Chase, Bae and the Saudi princes…. You miserable, fat toad.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Teachers, Stress, a good income and compliance!

I woke up this morning with thoughts about the pressures teacher friends of mine had been living with. These thoughts were stimulated by a recent BBC Panorama expose on 'care' for the elderly and infirm, which showed 'carers' as being untrained, under pressure and cutting corners whilst earning just above the minimum wage. I was enraged that they'd continue to work under such circumstances, when they daily witness the distress this causes to their 'clients'. I wondered how they could justify continuing that work in that way. They could of course lay the blame at the foot of the organisations they worked for, but that is simply not good enough.

In the same way, those policemen who assaulted the climate camp bear individual and collective responsibility for the harm they have caused. No-one can argue with that.

And then this report came out in the media today :

More teachers 'suffer breakdowns'

Teachers' mental health is increasingly being put at risk by the pressures heaped on them during school time, union leaders said.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090412/tuk-more-teachers-suffer-breakdowns-6323e80.html

Now given the stresses that teachers experience AND the stresses they observe in the children in their 'care', all they can do is ask for more money? How dumb, how emotionally blind are these people? Why don't they strike to change the system? Do they feel that the income (average £25 grand a year) is worth all that stress, to themselves and the children? How stupid is that? How dumb? Very.

With regard to dumbed down people, one must understand what one is dealing with.

John Taylor Gattos work "The Underground History of American Education" and "Weapons of Mass Instruction" detail the historical processes behind the imposition of enforced schooling (compulsory state education) as the essential tool for the dumbing down the people, so that the Banking and Industrial owners could direct society and craft a predictable mass of people. His work is illuminating. Gatto went to the Archives of the great foundations and their acolytes and unearthed such pearls as the following :

“The primary purpose for government is to be a vehicle for the rich to get their hands into our pockets” Buckminster Fuller in Grunch of Giants

“The purpose of the foundation was to use the power of money, not to raise the level of education…, as was widely believed at the time, but to influence the direction of that education… The object was to use the classroom to teach attitudes that encourage people to be passive and submissive to their rulers. The goal was – and is – to create citizens who were educated enough for productive work under supervision but not enough to question authority or seek to rise above their class. True education was to be restricted to the sons and daughters if the elite. For the rest, it would be better to produce skilled workers with no particular aspirations other than to enjoy life.” - G Edward Griffin in The Creature from Jekyll Island, on Rockefeller’s General Education Board, founded 1903

“In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our melding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.” - from 1st occasional paper of General Education Board, The Country School of Tomorrow

The City Academies, Blairs baby, the one that cried "Education, Education, Education" is the first stage in handing our children over to private corporate interests, free of democratic or local oversight. For example, AEON, the Pentagons largest buildings management/ facilities contractor is managing 9 of these City Academies in London.

On a deeper psychological and personal level Alice Millers work 'The Roots of Violence in Child Rearing Practices" traces the history of how the elites infected the people with their own child-rearing practices, which were designed to ensure that those children who 'inherited' POWER would wield it without remorse. In essence they needed to ensure a certain level of emotional blindness in their children to ensure they would be as brutal and venally corruptible as they themselves were.

Her work explains why in Nazi Germany many 'good people' complied with the system of brutality and lived in denial of the reality, in much the same way the people of the UK have done with regard to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

And it explains how 'good people' become compliant partners with Government in the dumbing down of our children.

'nuff said!

WAKEY WAKEY TEACHERS!


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Neural pathways, Power and Society

Beliefs and Behaviour Patterns are Neural Pathways that have Become Hardened.

As the brain is growing and forming in the young child, with each new experience a new neural pathway is created, and as those experiences are repeated that pathway or sets of pathways get used repeatedly. Thus certain pathways will become ‘well-worn’ or ‘hardened’.

This is necessary, and is how, for example, learning to ride a bike gets to a point where one does not need to think about it. The thinking during repeated training has formed enough of a pathway series to carry out all the various task required to maintain balance, note direction, read the ground and so on. Without having to think about it, whilst retaining the ability to respond to subtle changes.

Learning

In this way the child learns and stores vital skills, such as control of her/his limbs, balance, co-ordination and so on.

We know that it takes about 10,000 hours of training to become competently fluent on say a given musical instrument so that one is a 'virtuoso', (indeed any particular skill/talent) that is then viewed, in our culture, as ‘pretty damn good’.

This applies to physical action as much as thought processes.

We know that children learn much quicker when their learning is self-directed, and that the enthusiasm of the child is a major factor in driving what they will learn.

We know that infants and very young children learn at rapid rate, way beyond what is learned in later life, at university and as ones ‘career’ develops.

It stands to reason that this learning ability is a biological imperative. The child in nature has much to learn, much that is essential for self-reliance and thus survival or as I like to say ‘thrivival’, and not a huge amount of time to do it in. Can it be that natures learning driver is pleasure, or ease or an aura of empathy?

What is obvious to me, and to many others, is this : this mode of learning cannot be improved in any way by any artifice!

Typically indigenous peoples children are fully competent by age 6.

That is to say they are no longer utterly dependent and are considered an asset to their community. It is common for older children to care for the younger children, and there is much learning that is passed from child to child, rather than from adult to child. That adult to child sharing comes later, as the child approaches young adulthood.

To give you an idea of just how much a typical indigenous person will learn, I have seen estimates of a comparison of the botanical knowledge of a rain forest dweller compared to that of a European university trained botanist. The estimate suggests that the indigenous forest dweller contains the equivalent of 35 botanists with 15 years experience each!

That goes way beyond anything we in the West now consider an ‘expert’ or’ virtuoso’. Who is learning what? What is being taught?

Given this amazing learning ability and the imaginal intentional capacity of the natural human being, what are the implications for the natural child in a typical industrial society school environment?

Immediately arises the question of how much time does a child spend in a school environment as opposed to the real world (which is where the natural child’s learning is logically based)?

What does the loss of that real-world learning mean for the natural child being westernised, industrialised?

Given the general tendency within indigenous peoples to respect the unique personal entity, to embrace diversity and independence along side interdependence, what does the current practice of the 'teaching' of ‘belief systems’ imply for the natural child? And what does that imply for society?

The Roots of Modern Compulsory State Education

To answer these questions, in the context of a western styled education, one has to go to the roots of that system and seek out the inspiration for it. John Taylor Gatto has done that in great detail in his phenomenal work, “The Underground History of American Education”. I will give a brief description here, culled from his book.

The initial inspiration for Western Mass Schooling, or Compulsory State Education, came from observations ,by the British Empire in India, of the Hindi Rote System of education devised for the lower classes within the Hindi system. It was an Anglican Military Chaplain who first observed and understood how this system worked. His name was Andrew Bell.

What he saw and understood was that by gathering the children into large groups, where they had to learn drills by rote, where corporal punishment was widely used, where there was a number of powerful external imperatives to show that one had learned, (could repeat the scriptures, perform the rituals, read the texts, understood one's place in Hindi Society, embodied the concepts of class and so on) the Hindi Caste system had created a psychologically solid state and class structure that had endured for thousands of years, and had resisted the British in spite of the British technological superiority in sea faring and in warfare.

Indeed there was meeting of minds in that the elites of both cultures recognised each other, and thus the British Raj, an accommodation of equals, both ruling their respective masses. The older was to refine the younger. And this was driven largely by commercial interests.

The Hindi Class System

An ancient civilisation, one which had propsered peacefully for millenia, The Political Structure of the Hindi Caste system, at the time of the English invasion of India, looked a bit like this :

Top 5% of three groups : in Order of Power : Brahmin's (priests and the professions), Warriors and Administrators, Merchants and Land Cultivators

Lower 95% of two groups : Menials, and Untouchables.

The Brahmin's ensured that the warriors, administrators and the bulk of the leaderships received a diluted insight into the drivers of this system, so that they alone retained overall control.

The lower 95% received the mass schooling, administered by teachers, who drilled student leaders, who then drilled hundreds of students, in groups of ten or so, all of this in large single rooms. The entire operation of each school was directed by a single Brahmin.

And all this because the belief systems were so entrenched by the time the child was 7 or so, ‘hardwired’ if you will, the overall system of the Hindi centralised power was secure.

“The entire purpose of the Hindu (Western Compulsion) Schooling was to preserve the class system.”

At the time there was no formalised education in the British Empire, apart from the few elite schools and colleges. The peasant yeomanry were to a large degree self educated. Home schooled. The recent move from peasant yeomanry to factory and mine worker had transformed the British Empire, though there was stiff resistance to this move, as the yeomanry/peasant came from a background of liberty and dignity. The Luddites were literate and clearly understood the what the coming factory system implied. The loss of their lands via The Enclosure Acts was a coercive move, designed to drive them into factories. Read E E Thompson's fine work "The Making of The English Working Class" for a detailed look at who, how and why this process developed. One of the most striking aspects of this was the way Methodism dove-tailed with the interests of the factory owners in conditioning compliant factory workers to acceptance of their lot as good!

The first expression of this kind of schooling arose from a complete mis-understanding , and can be found in the Lancaster Schools of England. Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, was inspired by an account written by Bell in 1797 of the Hindi system. Bell had made it clear that such a system was an effective impediment to learning, and created in it’s subjects a docility perfectly suited to mass production labour. Lancaster missed this, and concluded that it would be cheap way to awaken intellect in the lower classes. A classic case of a genuine do-gooder who missed the point completely.

Sparta : The Legend of the 300

The rest as they say is History. The History of Compulsory State Education Systems, … Do not confuse the system with the people on the ground, and their varying motivations. Like all centrally managed industrial processes the Education System depends utterly upon predictability. Predictable processes, predictable results, predictable products. And management ignore the effluent, the waste, they hide it from view, they dump it or they recycle it. They get state subsidies to deal with the waste?

Business psychology. Bullying. Quite not the exciting feel of the 'illuminati' etc etc.... Banal truth.

I would add here that the inspiration for Western Military Training came from the legendary Spartan Culture, and within that the concept of the militarisation of an entire culture was perfected. This was what drove the tiny Prussian State from near collapse, to become one of Europe's most feared fighting machines and thus a mighty Empire. That was where the first 'kindergartens' were crafted. The logic was impeccable. And it was the Prussian system that refined Compulsory State Education as we know it. It was American, French, German and English Coal and Steel Barons, and their paid Educators who were most inspired by the Prussian Military success at Waterloo.

I highly recommend J T Gatto’s work. He unveils much about the history of the project for a world wide state sponsored system of compulsory education for the masses, and it has ever since defined the nature of our society and it’s ills. Gatto's work will both shock and reward the reader many, many times.

Implications

So now that we have looked to the core inspiration, we can ask what are the implications for a natural child in a typical western school environment? Lets take a look at what happens to that child.

1. They are cut off from the real world experience, from the wider community and segregated from their parents.

2. They are forced into un-natural groupings, according to age and ‘ability’ to conform.

3. They are required to ‘learn’ what they are told to learn, which really means to memorise texts provided by the teachers, who have been given these texts by other unseen administrators of the system.

4. Failure to learn leads to punishment.

Early schooling is about learning to respond appropriately to authority. Obedience is inculcated, and becomes hard-wired in the first three years of primary school, as a direct result of' schooling'. Irrespective of how kind the teacher, how colourful the class room, the responses to authority are learned and internalised, and remain throughout the child's 'education' and into adult life. (These days the State wants your children even earlier!)

Thus the child learns that his or her own interests do not matter unless they get approval from the teachers. Their parents, having been through the same process, continue the training at home, unaware of what they are doing, innocently drawn into this process, because they are for the most part unaware of these processes.

Under these circumstances, the child will therefore of course choose an interest to follow within the scope of what is offered, this in order for the psyche to survive, and will become ever more dependent upon external approvals.

The child will have to become devious, self-limiting and reactive to external cue driven stimuli because they are expected to NOT MAKE MISTAKES, (such is the nature of rote learning) and what we know from nature is that making a mistake, observing it and correcting it, (an internal feedback loop) is an essential part of the natural learning process. Once that is disabled, then self motivated learning is all but impossible.

Conditioning and Control

All of this conditions the child in ways that make them ‘ideal’ for working in factories and bureaucracy's. Both are situations that demand a certain 'inhumanity' of the worker or clerk. Boxes must be ticked, time cards stamped, targets met. The stick is the possible loss of one's job... the carrot is 'security'. An ability to shut down key feeling centres is the core ability sought by corporations, military and police forces and bureaucracies.

The childs teachers and the childs parents have all been through and accepted this system, and this further isolates the child, for there is no-one to talk to who understands what is happening.

Those that ‘do not fit in’ or give up are then channelled towards unskilled labour or roles such as the rank and file of the military and the police. The system has a use for all.

And then finally there’s those who rebel, or those who become severely damaged by this system and thus become ‘drop-outs’ , whose chances of getting a ‘good job’ are diminished … they are demonised, and held up as a frightening example to the others.

Of course this process has varying rates of success....

Not everyone is equally effected. Some escape. Officers and Political Leaders, those who do not escape, are most often drawn from the better schools and colleges, or from a carefully screened few who work their way up the ranks, each move up being dependent upon a demonstrable willingness to comply with the directives of the system.

Meaning

In essence this is all about the control of meaning, of replacing inner meaning with received meaning, thus shutting the gate on the possibility of inner meaning arising as a threat to the established meaning. What this means is that the children develop belief systems about their abilities, about their place in society and indeed about their society itself (these beliefs are embedded in the texts of the subjects they are taught/forced to learn in school) by constant repetition. These beliefs become hard wired, neural pathways, and become a sort of ersatz identity, one that is defensive and quite resistant to alteration - held in place by fear.

And that is the nature of belief systems, state and commercial control, in a nut shell.

Protest as A Safety Valve

That is why 20 million taxpaying adults will allow a Government to rip them off, time and time again, to send their sons and daughters to war, to manufacture and then drop bombs on other peoples who have been demonised in media and statements by politicians who know the depth of the conditioning, given their role in that conditioning process, all this in spite of a nagging sense that somehow it’s not right!

This is why some people will read one newspaper and others another, and they will sit in a pub, or on a TV panel, or in a Legislative Assembly and debate the issues, repeating what they have read, thinking all the time that their debates are genuinely based upon their own unique understandings and particular viewpoints, rather than share experienced knowledge culled from the wider world and information they have gleaned for themselves so as to enlighten each other. In debates, the winner takes all!

This is why people with strong beliefs are often impervious to anything that counters the basis for or adherence to those beliefs. This is why so many people fail to engage their hearts and minds with the increasingly urgent issues we are all faced with.

This is why the ‘new age’ leads to ideologues, fantasists and sectarian divides, because of this mode of reading and repeating what one has read. Original thinking is all but obliterated, and where it exists, it is limited to ‘invention’, ‘fashion’, ‘art’ and literature and corralled into a world that is carefully structured by this whole process. Thus the majority of people become mere repositories of belief.

TV and Advertising work because of this very fact.

Processed and less than optimum foods don’t help matters either.

A Violent System

What has to be understood is that this system was imposed, is still imposing itself and is inherently violent - as is the nature of the city state and industrialism as we know them. The natural child is robbed of his or her innate sensory acuity, and is practically blinded by this process, made emotionally blind because the child has to suppress his or her natural anger at this imposition in order to survive.

On top of this, parenting practices handed down over the years, from the elites, have made violence an acceptable mode of training. As Alice Miller points out a child who has been beaten or humiliated all the while being told by those they are dependent upon, those whose love they require for their own psychic development,’that this is for your own good’ must believe that admonishment, and will in turn do the same to their own children.

It was in 1998 that corporal punishment was outlawed in English Schools. At the same time, to counter that, increased testing was introduced - and we know that this increased testing has not led to an increased intellectual ability in our children. Schools were driven to meet targets in order to secure funding, and so the teachers role become that of a trainer for testing, rather than an educator. The system is designed so that tinkering with it appears to bring novel change, yet the core underlying dynamics remain in place and the power structures retain their over arching power.

This is what the various mainstream movements for peace, for liberty, for ecologically sound cultures have failed to grasp - that this conditioning permeates our society, creates a mass emotional blindness, and is the basis for all the violence of states, corporations, warlords, wifebeaters, thugs and bullies. and the tacit compliance of ordinary people. And unless unravelling this conditioning process is included in the work of these movements, up front and in yer face, it is unlikely that they will be successful.

The issues are all encapsulated in this : that the adult world manipulates the minds and hearts of children for their desires and wants, irrespective of the inherent, natural and essential psychic needs of the child.

End that condtioning, and much of the violence of states etc will vanish, as people grow up with their empathy intact, as people refuse to comply, refuse to accept the justifications and adverse behaviour of Governments, of the Military Industrial Complex, of the Establishment. End that conditioning, let the children learn as naturally as they can, and they will find the solutions - as Einstein noted "“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”" and "Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death”

Yes we can, and only we can do it!

If all this seems a bit too much or unlikely, than don't take my word for it. Explore the issues I have highlighted, do your own research, check in with your own experiences and inner sensing, and decide for yourself.



A spontaneous perfomance that attempts to frame some of these ideas for an audience





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

The Keys

I went out this morning to get some keys cut. The keycutter and shoe repair kiosk is just outside the tube station. 200 yards from my front door.

Across a busy road. It was cold. I had forgot my hat. I walked quickly, and swept into the kiosk, to se mr. (smily )keymaker, who hails from Pakistan, was listening to a tallish, 50s Caucasian man of the street, holding forth with some heat.

Mr. "I stayed"( I will call him this throughout) " here in England throughout 3 recessions, and I still have my job. I've worked bloody hard for what I have." he said. I sat down.

Silence. I looked up and there he was.Facing me. Cloth cap.Short grey needing a cut wiry hair. Bottle eye glasses, black bomber jacket, Mr. Istayed appeared to be agitated. His face had the appearance of being somewhat 'scrunched'....

I turned and looked around to my right and I observed my neighbour, sat opposite me ,so that we three made a triangle in the front of the kiosk, Mr.Keymaker behind the counter. I smiled. My neighbour smiled back. A gentle nod of the head. Silence...

"AND when EVER it gets tough over there, they ALL come over here! When Pakistan was in trouble, they all came over here. When Iran was in trouble they all came over here. When Somalia was in trouble, with terrorists, they all came over here. Bloody coming over here and settling in and doing well. Why can't they do as I, and bloody stay there and work it through?! Not run off to a welfare country!"

A moments silence.

I couldn't help myself.

"Yet THAT's not necessarily the full story, is it?" I said. "Can I get these keys cut, please?" to Mr.Keymaker, smiling. I handed over the keys. Mr.Keyman hovered near his key machine in the recess. Whirring. Grinding. Sparks.

I turned to Istayed, and continued to share my opinion..I raised my voice above the din of new keys being cut.

"I mean to say, with regard to Sudan, for example : we know that the US facilitated the arming of the violent paramilitary 'rebels' by providing weapons, cash, training and other aid to the countries contingent. Eritrea, Rwanda, Ethiopia. Those Governments passed arms to 'militia' that 'opposed' the Democratic muslim moderate social development administration in place. Those movements of social development models for economies, environment etc etc were seen as a threat by US and UK BUsiness Corporations. And thats why the wars happen- because we want to sell weapons as a business, Private Enterpise."

Mr. Istayed looked a bit confused. Mr Keymaker knew exactly what I was saying. Smily neighbour continued to smile and indicated comprehension. After a short pause, Istayeds confusion turned to resolution, smile smiled and I was addressed thus :

"You KNOW what the real problem is, don't ya?!" said my new Friend, he of tenacious spirit and patriotic fervour. Apparently he had decided to act is if I had indeed stayed mute, and said nothing. It didn't happen. Typical behaviour of a gainfully if mindmongingly educated and now successfully 'employed person'.

Not a scrounger nor a complainer. Not he.

I said "Well, if you ask me, and you have, our society is.....-" Istayed chugged. He had the answer.

I looked to my sudden friend, and stood up to brace myself for the soon to be revealed glistening pearl of wisdom. It came.

"We haven't had a proper war in 60 years. What we need is a real world war!" Said with the passion of a CEO selling aspartame to children, bereft in elegance, eloquently blunt, unable to hide behind artifice, devoid of spin.

"We've had no war on these islands for a long time, yes you can say that.... and - at the same time there's been non stop war since WWII. The west and china and others have all been supporting violent non-Democratic regimes for political and for business purposes for ages. Everyone knows that!"

"Well, nothing like the carpet bombing of Vietnam. That's war. Nothing like that" Mr. Istayed huffed dismissively.

"IRAQ! For SURE THEY'VE BOMBED IRAQ!" I squealed almost in delight!

"Well they used cruise missiles, direct to their targets, very little collateral damage, precision bombs." this whilst making his hand spear the air like a .... rocket. He stayed. sigh!

"Well they haven't being carpet bombing in Iraq!" added Mr. Keymaker, helpfully. Moving the conversation along is a skill he has to use from time to time in his profession capacity.

"They've been using planes to bomb in Iraq since 1991..... that's absurd" I retorted. Assertive, and polite, of course.

"Oh it is true,my friend, I assure you it is true! No B52 Carpet bombing in Iraq. Gunships, fighters and missiles - no B52 Bombers at all! Afghanistan, yes! Iraq - no!" He uttered these words with a certainty that was all but convincing.....

The new keys slammed to the counter surface. "CLACK!!"

Mr. Keymaker then chimed in with what I felt was the most surreal comment yet.

"What we need .......... is the Atom Bomb, thats what stopped the wars!" he said.

"Blow up Baghdad. Blow up Tehran. Blow up Afghanistan. Atomic bombs! destroy them all and they will surrender! All over! No more war!" He enthused!

Mr. Istayed heartily agreed with this, his demeanour relaxing a bit, perhaps relieved a little to be part of a team, to sense the reinforcements again, and unfortunately Mr. Smiley smiled his indicative smile, also in apparent agreement. He might have been smiling ironically, drawing the best out of the situation, with the delicacy of a laughing Buddha.....

At this I contemplated throwing all caution to the wind. And all too soon, Mr. Istayed, noting my accent deriving from this my nationality/ethnic back ground, said "You know what the problem is with the Irish? You do. Don't you?!" Loudly delivered and for all to hear.

to which I responded quite quickly that I felt that

"The Irish are, as a nation, a community of traumatised people, survivors of a a trauma that lasted many years, and whose resolution lies deep in the memories to heal, a people who have not been allowed to heal the wound.. but hey! are allowed to shop!"

"Nah!" Snorted Mr Istayed. "It's alcohol....."

he pauses.

".....and religion! Two greatest problems the Irish have, m8!"

I laughed. What could I possibly say?

I offered to pay for the keys. "2 keys, £6.50!" - I handed over the money, pocketing the keys. Satisfied with the transaction. I had bought keys here before and they always worked straight up!"

Jokingly I chided my limpet Englishman, and said "Now mate, that's all just plain silly! You're just repeating what you've read in the Daily Mail, the media - that's all propaganda!"

"Surely everyone knows that the authority of government to cause so much suffering is not invested by anyone else than our good selves? Willingly compliant?" I huffed.

"Do YOU trust the authority of the state?" I enquired.

"Of course I do!" he said. " I'm living in it, I am part of it!"

I had a set of keys, yet not THE KEY. Frustration. I braced myself.

"I do not!" I said

and I hurriedly left the kiosk and left behind that unresolved,surreal and somehow callous conversation and returned to the cold November air. I felt welcome in the wind. The day was early yet!

my song : The Heart Song : listen now

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

The Ballad of John Taylor Gatto

NEW!

LIVE VIDEO OF CORNEILIUS! NEW! SHARE IT!

A live take of a set I did at the Conscious Cabaret in Brighton on 16th June 2008!

This one's about John Taylor Gattos expose of the hidden agenda of COMPULSORY STATE EDUCATION...

The chorus line is

"All children are intelligent,
All children are beautiful,
All children are creators this we know!"

Sing it with gusto!



Mark Hellewell shot the video, I did an edit or two and the good folk of Brighton provided the spiritual support! Bless!

Pass this on, if you please, along with the following :

Carnegie and Rockefeller, as late as 1915, were spending more themselves. In this laissez-faire fashion a system of modern schooling was constructed without public participation. The motives for this are undoubtedly mixed, but it will be useful for you to hear a few excerpts from the first mission statement of Rockefeller's General Education Board as they occur in a document called Occasional Letter Number One (1906):

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

This mission statement will reward multiple rereadings.

From : http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2i.htm

Also check this out on the utility of creating of self-alienation in children as a method of control.

From : http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/5k.htm


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Does Education Kill Creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than ... all » undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

The Function of Education : why we failed to stop the English Government prosecuting the Iraq War

As I edit this in England in 2021 and I observe head teachers and teachers willingly exposing the children in their care to a dangerous pathogen, after 20 months of pandemic, with no end in sight, with layers of command responsibility and culpability going all the way up to Parliament as a whole body, and the Government and 'Opposition' within it, all of them educated in their own time by the compulsion methodology and ideology, this rather badly typed (in the original form, when I was still dealing with serious issues within myself, or rather barely coping to be more honest) short piece is germaine.

"free yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds" ~ Bob Marley

"Education! Education! Education!" ~ Tony Blair

Why was it that millions upon millions of English people were unable to stop a few thousand English Ruling Class from initiating and persecuting an amoral, illegal war? 

I think it all boils down the the function of Compulsory State Education.

Below is an excerpt from an article that explores what is most likely the hidden agenda of Compulsory (note that word) State Education (no child left behind) - its utility as a political inhibitor, designed to thwart emergent democratic organisation that might dislodge the established power groups from their dominating positions.

Compulsory - coerced education - is not what we are led to believe...

 from : http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm 

"The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. 

William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch’s 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann’s "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here.

That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington’s aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. 

But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens in order to render the populace "manageable." 

 It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. 

Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. 

Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant’s 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modem schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. 

A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis’s 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary." 

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. 

Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole. Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier: 

  1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can’t test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things. 

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force. 

  3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one. 

  4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best. 

  5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin’s theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That’s what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain. 

  6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor. 

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. 

And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. 

Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. 

In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. "

These words were written by John Taylor Gatto. They are accurate. They describe a fundamental reality that exists underneath and in spite of the many reforms in education, year after year,

Now you know why 30 million adults cannot stop a few thousand launching a war. 

Question is what can we do about it? 

Kindest regards 

Corneilius 

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Free Will and Indoctrination

Free Will and Indoctrination

Two concepts at odds with each other. One much vaunted, by those who gloat over their ability to control others whom they indoctrinate, above all else. The other seen, rightfully so, as a threat by those who value their integrity as humane beings.

Children sense that threat, though being small and vulnerable, they must acquiesce, in order to survive. It is unfortunate for so many that they forget this acquiescence.

Those that organise the indoctrination of others rely upon that forgetting for the only source of their power, and thus those who recall the resignation of their acquiescence, and recover their free will, are the ones who will no longer comply with those who indoctrinate.

As it is with taxation, under current circumstances, so terribly demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan. So many horrors, daily fare for those we have abandoned. Can you imagine the pain, the terror, the wounds those people must live with?

As it ever has been, since the city states first formed and centralised governance based upon might, a governance that feeds upon the forced labours of people, that exercises the supreme ’right’ to kill, to imprison, to torture and to bomb, and so darkened the lives of human beings, and of natural creation

The tide must turn.

Will you turn it? Will you be of the rocks, the beaches, the cliffs that repel that tide, so that your children, and theirs, may walk freely upon this Earth? Will you recover your free will? Will you reclaim your soul? Will you refuse to comply with the indoctrinated systems of fear and retribution, the powers of the wrathful state, the folly of the consumer capitalist dance of death?

For that is the first step in the rebellion that must take place if we are to truly honour the miracle of our children. Parents who have reclaimed their souls, who have seen the truth of the indoctrination will know at their very core the base crime it is to indoctrinate, and will not do so.

A generation of children allowed to grow naturally, to express their true identity, to read with their own innate intelligence, the world around them, will naturally resolve the issues we are all faced with.

They will also inspire their parents in ways that their parents, and their wider community and extended family cannot but be grateful for.

The real battle is won internally, without recourse to violent confrontation, in the reclaiming of our free will, our very soul, our ability to love unconditionally. This battle is the one those that seek to control us fear the most. That is why the weapons of mass distraction are so sophisticated, so relentless.


That is why the internet is feared, that is why there are attempts to enclose the web, to integrate censorship, to flood it with banal distraction and pornography, as it is where free will may reign, it is where conversations may take place that can assist in the internal battle, for we soul seekers in the west are beginning to realise that we are not alone, we are not isolated and that we are not mad.

As we reclaim our souls, as we release ourselves from the bondage, from the mental slavery, from the fear, as we reach nirvana, as we assume our birthright of enlightenment, we will then have the sweet question of what to do with that free will.

The further work will be strenuous, will tax us to our limits at times and yet is underpinned by the true essence of nature, our own nature, the very spirit of life. It is not to be taken too lightly, though it must be taken with delight. It is a work that is a mirror of natures amazing ability to feed and nurture all living beings that exist.

One must be happy to assume this work. Proud, determined, convinced and at ease with the role we must, each of us, play. Each of us the saviour. If we so chose.

Free will.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Behaviourally Modified Organisms

The Real Legacy of Education in the 21st Century or The Death of The Species!

Creature abuse for cash!

Over the past decade or so much has been written in the media and elsewhere about the issue of genetically modified organisms. And of course it’s a vital issue to get to grips with. The idea of tinkering with the core of any naturally evolved creature merely for profit is both repulsive and ignoble.

What have we done to our children?

However there is a far more dangerous practice underway, one that has state and societal sanction and has been happening for centuries. This practice is at the root of the causes of disease, war, greed, psychological insecurity, racism, sexism and much more besides.

I speak of the process of behaviourally modifying organisms, specifically, children.

Most of us are well aware of the religious inspired dictum “give me a child before the age of 7, and I will give you the man.” That this is now being done by the state is probably no surprise. We have, most of us, been to school. Sat exams. Failed or succeeded. We have been judged.

That it is now mostly being done by the state at the behest of Industry, an is not primarily for the welfare of the child, may come as a shock. That it is hardly ever clearly articulated, though current politicians and educationalists are quite brazen about this, as in describing education as a way of training a work-force, but is couched in terms of ‘opportunity‘ and ‘equality‘ is plain to all!

Work, as we all know, is well trodden path route towards opportunity.

That parents willingly submit their children to this process is, initially, far more difficult to understand. Though of course those parents themselves have been behaviourally modified, and having been told for many generations that it is for their own good, they concur. Swimming against the torrent is somewhat difficult. Ask any conscientious objector in Americas Armed Forces!

And these are the facts. Parents do send their children to be behaviourally modified by the state, primarily for the pecuniary benefit of rich industrialists, those who own the means of production of goods, be it steel or plastic, dull or colourful, toxic or otherwise.

And we all know that this incessant production of goods is causing damage to our environment in such ways that it’s very ability to support us is seriously threatened.

We know too from history that those who exercise power over others will not desist, that they are struck with a congenital madness that precludes change. There are the victims of their own behavioural programming. They are stuck.

And while we may appear to be stuck, that is not necessarily the case.

I don’t want to appear to trivialise the ‘achievements of civilisation’ or the ’sacrifice of past generations’, nonetheless it cannot be said that the rampant unhappiness of peoples in industrialised and developed nations is a form of thriving. It is more like mere survival. With abstract distractions a plenty to take one’s mind off the matter.

Entertainment, as the Roman Emperors well knew, has it’s value in an Imperial Society!

Nonetheless, like the so called weeds, we, the people, the plebeian masses, the proletariat, the consumers, require constant ‘pruning’ so that we do not thrive, other than in prescribed ways that serve the Empire.

That is so, and from the pint of view of Empire, must be so, because it is our very nature, as human beings, as natural creatures, to thrive upon this Earth. Empire knows this! Entertainment serves to distract our attention from that various pruning’s that occur.

Investigate your educational experience.

Look carefully at the literature you were exposed to at the various stages of your education. Look carefully at how you were made to feel about yourself, in comparison with what was presented as the ideal.

And whilst doing so, bear in mind the following quotes, from those that founded the education that you and I underwent. And that our children will undergo. If we allow it to happen!

What they wrote about us!

Excerpts from the first mission statement of Rockefeller's General Education Board as they occur in a document called Occasional Letter Number One (1906):

"In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way."

In a speech he gave before businessmen prior to the First World War, Woodrow Wilson made this unabashed disclosure:

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

From John Taylor Gatto :

If you have a hard time believing this revolution in the contract ordinary Americans (and Europeans) had with their political State was intentionally provoked, it's time to meet William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906. Nobody else who rose out of the ranks of professional pedagogues, other than Cubberley, ever had the influence Harris did. Harris standardized our schools and Germanized them. Listen as he speaks in 1906:

Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.

-The Philosophy of Education (1906)..

Listen again to Harris, giant of American schooling, leading scholar of German philosophy in the Western hemisphere, editor/publisher of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy which trained a generation of American intellectuals in the ideas of the Prussian thinkers Kant and Hegel, the man who gave America scientifically age-graded classrooms to replace successful mixed-age school practice:

The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places.... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.

-The Philosophy of Education (1906)..

Nearly a hundred years ago, this schoolman thought that self-alienation was the secret to successful industrial society. Surely he was right. When you stand at a machine or sit at a computer, you require an ability to withdraw from life, to alienate yourself without a supervisor. How else could that be tolerated unless prepared in advance by simulated Birkenhead drills? School, thought Harris, was sensible preparation for a life of alienation.

Can you say he was wrong?

That was from John Taylor Gatto's essay.

These brazen statements of the hiddden agenda of Education belie the stated ‘commitment’ of the State and of many others, to the child’s welfare. Rest assured that nothing of this has fundamentally changed in the intervening years, the agenda is till firmly in place. Witness the charade of elections in the USA, the horror of wars in worldwide which we fund with our labour and taxes and the blood of our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, be they civlians or military. Observe the destruction of the environment. Join the dots!

Now, do the work, free your mind from all mental, psychologicl and emtional slavery. And do the real work of Revolution. Start with yourself and the rest is assured!

For inspiration I reccommend, if I may be so bold, my song about education.

Children are intelligent, Children are beautiful, Children are creators

Robust Version

recorded, at home, with Ableton Live

Hippy version

recorded around a fire, at a festival, by Tribal Voices.......



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe