Generally, there’s no such thing as ‘generally.’
Did you know that public education funding comes directly out of the defense fund? Yep, it is. From the get-go, the average, everyday Joe is carefully molded to become the perfect soldier that does what he’s told; nothing more, nothing less.
Public education goes out of its way to “generally” produce externally motivated personalities with independent, critical thinking all but non existent. With across-the-board prescribed content and reinforced peer pressure, what results is generation after generation of passive sheep, ready and willing to do what they are told, nothing more, nothing less.
The affluent send their kids to private schools where the emphasis is on leadership of the masses – generally. Any school’s biggest threat is the students who fall outside the general norm, such as gifted or challenged learners.
Teachers are taught to teach based on accepted – and generalized – developmental psych theories that work most effectively in producing the non-thinking, passive soldier. The content is tailored to be deposited, spit back out on tests, then forgotten. There is no interaction with the content, no generalization (applicability to other scenarios) that comes from abstract thought, and inherently, very little is learned.
It’s the introverts, the thinkers, that have thrown a wrench into the works. Technology took hold and was socially adopted faster than anything ever has. Within a mere 25 or so years, the widespread use of computers and the Internet have altered social interactions in ways that scientists and psychologists have yet to discover.
Needless to say, with science and psychology falling farther and farther behind, so is education. The ‘perfect soldier’ is no longer the generally produced product of public schools.
The most profound crash is found around expectations. The masses have learned a far different way of building relationships with each other. Though the common man is distanced from each other by learned racism and discrimination and the breakdown of the nuclear family unit, online communication and collaboration has taken its place. Social norms and peer pressure come from around the world instead of the student sitting at the next desk. General expectations are shattered, if not totally non existent.
The altering of expectations is experienced across the life-span, not just during the formative, personality-forming years. The more interconnected we all are, the less we are impacted by regional societal norms. Yet, this greater interconnection with the world, so to speak, has opened the shut doors of individualization and reinforced separation that was necessary for the expansion of the Industrial Era.
What causes the most unease nowadays is exactly those altered, foreign and unique expectations. Interactions with each other can no longer fit into the traditional ‘comfort zone’ and what used to be ‘usual’ isn’t any longer. Life-stage resolutions are no longer common, general, or even normal.
This is the power of today, of the Information Age. How to take advantage of it, to realize this power, will not be taught in public schools. Each person must learn to learn on their own, without the restrictions of out-dated guidance and rules. Each person must become a critically thinking, introverted individual that is fully capable of forming true and lasting personal and interpersonal relationships.
Let self-actualization become the new “generally.” There is beauty in the unexpected potential, just like it is with this flower.
