iStateOfMind3
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2015–2022
5:08 · 2.9M views · Jan 29, 2013
A five-minute clip of a George Carlin routine arguing that the education system is designed to produce compliant citizens rather than critical thinkers. It ties schooling to the interests of the people who own the country.
HN links it as a pointed comedic statement of why education is seen as broken and unlikely to be fixed.
4 comments from Hacker News
The Reason Education Sucks: this video Edit: for those wanting something less cynical and more serious, I recommend some John Taylor Gatto: [LINK] [LINK]
This video titled "The Reason Education Sucks" from George Carlin will explain why rent is skyrocketing: this video Here is a quote from that video: "But there's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never gonna get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want: They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical
This whole premise of this story has me wearing a tin foil hat. [tldr] this video Soooo many questions. so few answers. I'll start with my immediate thoughts. High dropouts are not absolutely a bad thing. In fact its pretty normal in all western schools that have zero focus on "how to learn". The "problem" is clearly earlier on in the education system, wherby students are reaching college age not knowing "how to learn", and suddenly finding its important. Next up - the cost of learning/knowledge material. I know of textbooks from the US being priced in the multi thousand dollar range (or simply not available for student purchase). "Teachers/Lecturers" aren't that important (I say that having graduated with a joint 1st from a top UK university having acquired a lot of warnings criticizing me for hardly ever attending lectures, but I wasn't skipping the material, I was skipping lecturers reading from textbooks). All that said, I am left feeling these stories are more about attacking education that provides chances for the lower classes in the US to become middle and upper classes. Nothing about this ITT tech story addresses this one way or the other. Where are the employment stats for those who successfully graduate? Where are the interviews with graduates? I just see a ton of hyperbole he said she said. And whenever I come across that I automatically assume its a political power based decision, rather than a rational "good for everyone" one. I know that all sounds a bit confused
Its not a mystery at all. China has tons of free world class education based purely on academic ability and a couple of billion people educated to a world class standard. The US has virtually no education system, what does exist is expensive and not practically oriented. Basic supply and demand. US has high demand for skills and totally non competitive supply. (even in tech now, which is why they need the H1B visa thing) But dont expect it to get fixed. It's that way on purpose. this video