Grievances

To the public school system and all its supporters, we, the members and supporters of the Education Liberation Front (ELF) give this list of grievances and demand they be resolved. The public school system is a catastrophe. It is less an actual program of education than a nightmarish dystopia, and, factoring out future opportunities provided, it does more towards hindering the learning process than helping it. We of the Education Liberation Front are of the belief that school should not be a trial to be endured for the sake of higher education. We believe that it can, should, and will be made useful in and of itself.

First, the needless waste of time. It is not an uncommon practice to give out homework for its own sake, because students are supposed to have so much homework every day. In any give persons life, there are at least a dozen problems needing solving, and many of them can and should be solved through academic means. Beyond these personal problems are an army of problems plaguing the community, nation, and world, the solution to which every person can contribute to. There are problems enough to be solved. We do not need you to make up more for us.

Second, the stock nature of the education provided. Graduation requirements are geared towards a cookie-cutter education that provides every student with needlessly over-specialized information. I am not referring here to information that is widely applicable and simply not necesarry for every single job in the workforce, but to information which can be applied in so few situations that it ought not be taught to every student. You will be hard pressed to convince me that the bulk of students taking an Algebra II class will one day find the ability to calculate projectile motion on Pluto to be useful.

Third, the destruction of free speech. If a student speaks an opinion against a teacher or other authority figure, he or she will be lucky to get sympathetic apathy, and will quite possibly be rebuked for it. Any attempt to press the authority figures will most likely end in punishment for the student. There is no magic moment on ones eighteenth birthday when one spontaneously becomes worthy of free speech. The first amendment applies to everyone.

Fourth, the dehumanization of students. Any teenager who does anything noteworthy at all is considered a genius, a prodigy, and with the school system to struggle against, maybe that student is a genius. But the notion that teenagers are incapable of accomplishing anything is an utter falsehood. The People's Republic of North Korea has produced few innovators, but that is not because the Koreans are unintelligent. It is because they are not given the time or resources to innovate, to follow their own ambitions. Their will is usurped by the state. The same has happened in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and to the students of the public school system. I am not happy to see the future of America prepared for the real world in a dystopia.

Fifth, the breeding of ill feelings between students, intentional or otherwise. By crushing the students freedoms and will, the school system has left them with only one real resource to barter between them. Status. And many of them cherish this status and fight for it with vicious fury. It is because of the dehumanization of students that they fight each other so savagely for this one source of power left to them. Distant promises of future wealth and security offered by grades can never hope to compete with the immediate power granted by popularity. Given the ability to work towards a meaningful goal, students will be only as jealous of one anothers status as are adults.

Sixth, the destruction of the spirit. Students have had it drilled into their skulls that there are two roads in life, the road of blind submission to the state for the sake of a college education, and the road of crime, drug use, and despair. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps, without a High School Diploma, or at least a GED, only the truly brilliant can make something of themselves. But just because something is true doesn't mean it should be. Students are capable of giving back to the community now, can be useful now, if only people would give them the chance, and if people would stop drilling into them that they can't. They're much more competent than you think, and much more competent than most of them think.

I am not advocating that the public school system be destroyed. I am advocating heavy reform, an education that plays to the strengths of the individual students instead of offering a stock education. A student has no use for knowledge he despises. I am advocating an education that offers students the opportunity to prove what they have learned by actively applying it and making the world a better place, instead of mindlessly regurgitating facts which they will forget the moment the test is passed. I am advocating a system that will waste less time, providing more competent people to the corporations and government of the nation. I am advocating a system that will allow students to actively pursue their ambitions, a system that will give purpose to their lives, and so make them better people. I am not under the delusional impression that every person in America will use this system to its fullest, but perfection is impossible and the system we have in place now is both inefficient and malignant to those subject to it, and any system that removes these factors must be an improvement.

The students of America are awake now, and will not easily be put back to sleep.

-Ashen

ELF

What is the Education Liberation Front? Simple. We're an organization dedicated to education reform. I'm certain the world has enough of these already, but ELF is different. We're not interested in pumping higher test scores out of students. We're not concerned with how our stats compare to those in Europe or Asia. What we care about is actually improving the education system. Making it more efficient in accomplishing its purpose, which is not to produce high test scores but to teach students valuable skills that they can use later in life.

The current system is not very good at this. It teaches students exactly what they need to know, students learn it, pass the test, and immediately forget it all. While they will, likely, retain some slight knowledge of what they learned, it is not nearly worth the massive time investment. It is inefficient. It is repressive and dehumanizing. It is in heavy need of meaningful reform.

The objective of ELF is to bring about this reform. We intend to turn High School from what it is now, a series of obstacles on the way to a meaningful existence, into a meaningful existence in and of itself which will properly prepare students for the real world. A ruthless dictatorship does not prepare students for life in a democracy. Teenagers are capable of much more than people think they are. They respond to a dystopia the same way everyone else does, however, and have been convinced of their own incompetence and, in some cases, convinced of their own inhumanity. By toppling the dystopia that is the American public school system and setting up a better system, we believe that the teenagers of America will be given the chance to be meaningful members of society while still in High School.

For an exact list of everything we intend to resolve, see the next post, the list of grievances.

-Ashen