The Other Side of Education

Our readers know that tosoc.org does not generally use typical left-wing terminology like "class warfare." We think many of these terms give the wrong impression. Yes, there is a lot of conflict, but it is not "warfare." Very little of it falls into a true life-or-death category. We think it is unfortunate that the natural language of conflict tends to come from our "war" language. We think that can lead to unnecessarily violent thinking and then to unnecessarily violent acts. Even worse, it can lead us to make mistakes. We should be careful how we say things and how we use our internal language to think about things. That is why tosoc.org tries not to use war language for economic and social topics.

Please keep this in mind when we say that the basic tool in conflict is denial of resources. When we talk about putting "the squeeze" on one another, that is what we mean. That is, getting between people and what they need so you can pressure them to do what you want. From an economic standpoint, this means using economic fear. Or using the threat of poverty. Austerity.

At our current worldwide technical level, for example, we could eliminate malnutrition. Enough food could be grown and the distribution systems could be constructed to feed everyone adequately. We can no longer blame mass starvation on natural disaster, lack of transportation, or just ignorance. It is no longer an unfortunate event. It is a choice. In fact, the vast majority of economic disasters today are man-made. They are "denial-of-resources" attacks.

That topic deserves a lot of work by itself, but here it is a lengthy prologue to our comments on education. Looking at it from The Other Side, the U.S. educational system is rife top to bottom with economic fear and denial of resources. Here are some hypothetical points of view to describe the current system.

Child: You have to go to school to pass the tests to get a degree to get a job to make enough money so you can live.

Parent: You have to send your kids to school to have time during the day to work at a job to make enough money so you can support your family.

Ambition: You have to make the best grades to show yourself superior to go to the best college to get the best degree to get the best job to earn the most money to make the best living.

Ambition: You have to get the best job to make the most money to buy the best home to get in the best school district to give your kids the best chances to make the best grades to ... (And so on. See Ambition above.)

School to Child: We stand between you and the job market.

School to Parent: We stand between you and your ability to work.

School to Ambition: We stand between you and success.

Grading Curve to Children: Most of you are second-rate. Or possibly, most of you are losers.

Rich: I am safe.

The basic lessons taught by our school systems have nothing to do with what most people think of as education. The basic lessons are about the fact that the educational system is given the power to assign the young to their places in society, meaning that educational opportunities and resources are distributed according to how well a child does in school, among other things. Except for the rich, of course.

Tosoc.org has a different vision of education. We would rather see a system in which the young actively seek their places in society rather than be assigned to them. We think that schools teach a certain passivity. We also think that the methods used to place students are somewhat artificial and unrealistic. Schools train students to be average students for the most part, not active citizens.

Tosoc.org's vision of education starts with these new hypothetical views.

Child: I am safe.

Parent: I am safe.

Teacher: I am safe.

Rich: I am safe.

This looks to us like the only equality that really matters.

When tosoc.org hears the word "competition," our natural reaction is "markets." Note however that a market is completely different from the idea of competition in nature. A market is a human social phenomenon in which humans can compete without destroying one another. A market is a place where humans can both compete and cooperate. In fact, as soon as humans stop cooperating and start destroying one another, there is no market.

If human competition best takes place in the context of markets, tosoc.org asks whether competition and education best go together, too. If so, then our relatively monolithic educational system is set up the wrong way even in its own terms. If we really want competitive education, then the educational system needs to be organized into a market (or markets). Let the markets place young people based on their performance in free markets, not based on distorted grades, transcripts, and standardized test scores imposed on a distorted market by a monolithic authority.

Tosoc.org however does not believe that education and competition fit together very well. Schools should not teach economic fear or use denial of basic resources for socialization, or justify them as tools that students can learn to use against other people.

In essence we believe that education and competitive social placement should be separate. The first lesson we would teach the young is that their basic needs will be met, but that they should want and work for more than that. Competition in human society should not be a life-or-death issue. Competition should begin at the next level above survival. The competition should be about how far the young can improve themselves and others and about how far they can improve not just their own lives, but also the lives of others.

Education is self-improvement. Thus it is a tool that is used in the competition. But getting an education should not itself be competitive. Making education competitive means that it becomes a resource that can be denied and it will be denied as a result of the conflicts that arise out of the competition. That is how the current educational system works.

Without trying to lay everything out at once, tosoc.org would take the competition out of schools. The primary purpose of schools would be to teach students about human competition and cooperation. (In other words, about free markets and the less-desirable alternatives.) If students understand where human competition fits and how it works hand-in-hand with cooperation, it should be obvioius to them why they need to educate themselves. Their schools are also there to help them accomplish that.

Tosoc.org would move the competition between the young out of schools and into markets. We are already promoting the idea of multiple exclusive currencies and markets, so it is not a stretch to imagine currencies and markets for the young. These markets would be designed to encourage and help students actively find their own places among their peers. The goal is that they will ultimately find their places in the broader society of adults.

Human society should not be a totally dog-eat-dog environment. We need competition to inspire us but we also need safety and cooperation to avoid the reinstitution of slavery and genocide. We need to be educated well enough to understand competition and cooperation. Tosoc.org thinks that the current educational system is really about competition and the use of economic fear in human conflicts. If we could change the system, we would make the educational system just about education and self-improvement, and move the competition into markets. A free market is the best tool to use to get the proper mix of cooperation and competition out of human beings.

The way capitalism should be.

Socialism for the socialists and capitalism for the capitalists.

TheOtherSideOfCapitalism (admin@tosoc.org)

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