Anarchy 43/High School U.S.A.

268

High School
U.S.A.

JANICE GREER and PEG BLOSSOM

It is time for us to come to grips with the fact that we are the ones re­spons­ible for creating the viol­ence that is present in our so­ciety, and that we can do some­thing about it by real­is­ing what we’re doing. Psychi­atry has laid bare the fact that we af­fect the child in in­fancy and child­hood. But once we put the child in the schools we stop prob­ing. Can’t we con­tinue the search and find out what con­di­tion­ing in the schools fosters so much hatred in adults? The very methods we are so virtu­ous about in the schools are not giving the re­sults we think they are, but are creat­ing an anger and re­sent­ment that lasts the whole of our lives. At the High School level this con­di­tion­ing reaches its peak. The fol­low­ing reaches its peak. The fol­low­ing notes on High Schools are the re­sult of dis­cus­sions between con­cerned parents.

  Schools create life and death pres­sure to suc­ceed, but to suc­ceed into what. High schools pres­sure kids at a Col­lege level for the school’s glory, and parents sit on the side lines and root them on. We take ad­vantage of the fact the chil­dren want to please the parents and teach­ers. They do a lot against their own grain for the parent’s ap­proval (love). The parents ex­ploit this. The stu­dents should please them­selves. High School should be a time for self dis­covery, and for sampling at the student’s own speed. In­stead they are taught tech­niques, not how to think. The students should please them­selves. High School should be a time for self dis­covery, and for sampling at the stu­dent’s own speed. In­stead they are taught tech­niques, not how to think. The stu­dents are inter­ested in know­ing where they will fit, what they would be good at, but in­stead are driven for ex­cel­lence in sub­jects that have no mean­ing to them at this time.

  We dull them in an in­cuba­tion period so they won’t know what the world is really about. They get reward for false­ness in test­ing in­stead of truth. The truth of the matter is they really don’t under­stand, can’t pos­sibly under­stand most of what they are writing and read­ing, or get­ting tested on. But they have to find tricks for study­ing to get a good grade. To get a good grade things have to be done super­fi­cially so every­thing that is re­quired can be fin­ished on time. A trick for doing things you don’t like to do as well as what you do like thereby dulling your true feel­ings. There is no energy left for what you really want to do there­fore set­ting a pat­tern for all your life. It leads to a subtle feel­ing of guilt if you’re really having a good time at some­thing.

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  We don’t let stu­dents start at their own level. We set up stand­ards for them. They should be al­lowed to start at a begin­ning level, even if garish, whetehr in clothes, music, art history, ideas, any­thing. We don’t let them begin at the bottom and work up to the level they are able to reach. Only through a long slow pro­cess of free­dom of choice, and plenty of trial and error, plenty of errors, can a person de­velop any au­thor­ity on his own. We would then be able to break through the me­diocrity of our culture, and wouldn’t rely on fashion or critics to judge for us. We must have the judge­ment to act on our own in­sight and de­ci­sion., and not from the mere wish to copy con­ven­tion.

  Another de­struct­ive aspect of the grad­ing system is the em­phasis put on each stu­dent for self-at­tain­ment and the con­tinual com­pet­i­tion fostered between each child.