Education and Conformity

In this video, the Education system is viewed as a tool for governments to brainwash it's populace to become part of their human tax farms. We are merely a resource to be exploited. We are human livestock conditioned through our schools to be exploited by our farmers.

Now watch this video.

This video expresses that education is plagued by ideas that the "only way to learn is to be bored into a fucking coma.... memorising shit that some other asshole figured out". The education system is there to make you "ripe to be enslaved by some corporate establishment". He argues that being a teacher should be a prestigious position but it is plagued by the system it is entrenched it.

Now watch this video.

"I make kid question, I make kids criticise"

This video also expresses public perceptions of teaching as a back up job for university students that would have otherwise dropped out. But it also expresses how prestigious and noble it can be.

Now let me ask you this.

Why do you want to be a teacher?

I have seen far too many university students that are getting into teaching because they believe that it's an easy job. I've seen too many students that aren't succesful in their fields use teaching as a "fall back" option.

Now read this.

Your chances of finding permanent employment right after you get your degree are slim. There is a huge oversupply of teachers in Australia. Some teachers have waited over a decade to find permanent employment. The problem with the education system isn't that we don't have enough teachers. It's that we don't have enough good teachers.

Why do you want to be a teacher?

So you can just add more work drones to a system? So you can force kids to sit down and memorise things they don't care about? To make them conform to society?

Education can be so much more.

Personally I have viewed teaching as one of the most noble callings throughout history. You are furthering the intellectual development of humanity. That is a big deal. I believe that right now, our society is plagued with problems. I also believe I am far too entrenched in the system, to figure out how to fix it all. But hopefully, somewhere down the line, some child I may teach to think for themselves may become smarter than I could ever hope to be and figure out a better way for humans to live. And if not, maybe they'll end up teaching the kid that will.

You shouldn't make kids memorise. You should make kids think. You should make kids question. You should make kids think critically.

This is a key point that Ladson-Billeys (1995) highlights as a part of a culturally relevant pedagogy.

"-Knowledge is not static; it is shared, recycled, and constructed.

 - Knowledge must be viewed critically.

 -Teachers must be passionate about knowledge and learning." 

These conceptions of knowledge can only be "demonstrated in the critical stance the teachers took toward the school curriculum...the teachers helped their students engage in a variety of forms of critical analyses." (Ladson-Billings, 1995 pp.482)

"Several of the teachers actively fought the students' right-answer approach to school tasks without putting the students' down. They provided them with problems and situations and helped the students to say aloud the kinds of questions they had in their minds but had been taught to suppress in most other classrooms. For one teacher, it was the simple requiring of students to always be prepared to ask, "Why?" Thus,when she posed a mathematical word problem, the first question usually went something like this: "Why are we interested in knowing this?" Or, someone would simply ask, "Why are we doing this problem?" The teacher's response was sometimes another question: "Who thinks they can respond to that question?" Other times, the teacher would offer an explanation and then ask, "Are you satisfied with that answer?" If a student said "Yes," she might say, "You shouldn't be. Just because I'm the teacher doesn't mean I'm always right." (Ladson-Billings, 1995 pp.482)


As you can see, Ladsom-Billings (1995) argues that the best teachers and the best students are the ones that are most critical. They are the ones that don’t regurgitate, but question. The ones that actively construct their own knowledge rather than implant someone else’s.

If we only teach students the same things, then we will only have the same outcomes. We will only reproduce society rather than evolve it. If you're a teacher for the right reasons, then please engage your students to become active rather than passive learners. 

For me, the goal of education isn't to make children fit into the hegemonic culture of society. The goal is to make them question it.

So one last time. What is your goal? Why do you want to be a teacher?

Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995).Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 465-490.