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submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Ills of Compulsory Schooling Continued

January 30, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,019 today. Gold is down to $1,263 per ounce. Oil is still floating around $44 per barrel. Bitcoin is up slightly at $230 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.70% today.

Yesterday we discussed the majesty that is childhood and we opined that compulsory schooling severely curtails the childhood experience and sets children up to struggle in adulthood. Today we will expand upon this and try to present a positive alternative.

First we must ask a question: why do we send our children to school?

Is it because we went to school when we were a child? Is it because we don’t have time to watch them during the day? Is it because we think they won’t learn unless they go to school? Is it because we think they must go to school in order to get into college? Is it because we think they need to go to school to learn social skills? Do we know?

Let’s glance back in time a little bit to the formative years of the modern school system:

“Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.” – William Torrey Harris, United States Commissioner of Education from 1889-1906

“Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished.” – Bertrand Russel, British philosopher

“Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society…” – John Dewey, “father of modern education”

Eww. The school’s history textbooks left those little tidbits out.

We are on the record saying the public school system fails but that’s not entirely true. The public school system certainly fails to foster critical thinking and self-reference but that’s by design. The public school system has actually been wildly successful when judged by its original mission.

What compulsory education really does is prepare our children for an institutionalized life of subordination. We send our children to school not so they can flower into beautiful individuals capable of accessing their infinite potential but rather to mold them into obedient worker bees that will willingly assimilate into the status-quo as maintained by the establishment (governments/central banks/Wall Street/multi-nationals/Big-Agra/Big-Pharma/Big-Insurance/Big-Science/mega non-profits). This is why the public school system exists. As we’ve mentioned many times, this is not an indictment of teachers and local school employees – most of them work diligently to improve their school. But how do you reform an institution that already wildly succeeds at doing what it was created to do?

In school our children learn to hide their true self by putting on a mask and conforming to whatever is popular. They learn to follow arbitrary rules and to unquestioningly obey the “authorities”. They learn to uncritically memorize whatever information is presented to them and to regurgitate that information back in a way that is pleasing to the teacher. They learn that their job is to sit quietly and listen to the teacher without interrupting; anything else requires explicit permission. They learn that grades are the sole measurement of success thus they are conditioned to constantly seek external confirmation. They learn that life is a series of hoops to be struggled through because their educational curriculum consists of a tiered system whereby students advance to the next “grade” year after year. Children are constantly told that getting good grades is necessary to get into a good college so it is implied that the purpose of life is to successfully navigate the current system in order to make it to the next system.

So after they have successfully navigated the public school system for twelve consecutive years our children are told to mindlessly rush off to whatever college will accept them. The school system has taught them absolutely nothing about money and finance but nevertheless our children are told to take on massive student loans to pay for the next step. Some public school guidance offices will even walk children through the student loan application process. “Don’t worry”, they are told, “you won’t have to start making payments until a few years after you graduate.”

So they get to college and most students view it in the same light – as a series of hoops to jump through to get to the next level. Now the goal is to maintain a good G.P.A. so they can get a good job. A few frat parties later they find themselves completing college and going to university sponsored job fairs.

What comes next? The 8-5, new suits, public transportation, parking passes, a promotion, a new car, a mortgage, a promotion, marriage, children, a new mini-van, a promotion, a home equity line to renovate the kitchen and the next thing you know our children are middle aged, stuck in a mindless career, deep in debt, and stressed to the max. They have spent the vast majority of their time working a desk job to pay for their car, their house, their vacations, and their weekend entertainment because that is what they were conditioned to do. Sure, there are plenty of people who have found fulfillment following this path but there are far more who have not.

Suppose we changed the script? What if our children were provided the time and freedom to discover and pursue their passion at a young age? What if they were not herded into school for twelve years but instead spent that time learning about themselves and the world around them? What if they developed useful skills instead of mindless dogma?

What if they then deemed college to be a waste of time and money and instead crafted a superior higher-education curriculum. The possibilities for this are endless!

Maybe they spend one year traveling the world to learn about other cultures first hand. Maybe they find a compelling opportunity during their travels and set up an international business or charity dedicated to meeting real needs and demand. Maybe they come back and seek out an internship with a master in a field they are passionate about. Maybe they skip the internship and start their own business in their chosen field. Maybe they set out to build multiple microbusinesses designed to provide diverse income streams. Maybe they decide to pursue a specialized career and seek out additional education in that field. Maybe they decide to purchase an old neglected farm and spend their days healing the land and producing superior food products.

The point is this script would allow our children to make mindful decisions about how to spend their time free from modern society’s incessant dogma aimed at guilting people into feeling the need to fit in. This script would also allow for much greater flexibility if our children decided to change careers or lifestyles at a later time – which would be extremely common. The notion of working one job for forty years and then retiring is an unnatural New Deal relic that will soon be extinct. This model is simply not viable in any capacity; the economics just do not work.

Life is not a series of rigid systems to struggle through until retirement; it is a robust opportunity for temporal exploration and spiritual growth. It would be a shame to waste such an opportunity.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift underway please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Raising Children in the Modern World

December 17, 2014
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $1,972 today. Gold is back down to $1,198 per ounce. Oil is down to $56 per barrel. Bitcoin is down to $322 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.08% today.

Both oil and the 10-year rate are closing out 2014 at price levels much lower than most analysts anticipated which sets up for an interesting 2015. Will crude prices remain at current levels and put the squeeze on the U.S. Shale revolution? Will interest rates remain low and complicit in enabling the Treasury to service the $18 trillion national debt without much fuss? We shall see.

As for the S&P, it has been 6 and a half years since it experienced a correction of 10% or more. But markets cannot go in one direction forever – that 10% correction is coming. I have seen some predictions of a major 10%-plus correction sometime in the spring of 2015. It may be more like 50% if the correction is coupled with the fiat monetary crisis that is on the horizon but I think we may still be a few years away from that one. Instead, it is more likely that a major stock market correction will spur the Fed into QE4. Either way, it is advisable to be very vigilant if you have money in the equity markets.

Shifting gears, I have been thinking quite a bit about child-rearing given the arrival of Maddie Lynn eight weeks ago. I have come to the conclusion that our culture today has become much too rigid and regimented when it comes to raising children in our fast-paced modern world.

School days have gotten longer, homework loads have increased tremendously, grades are now emphasized heavily, standardized testing has been implemented and enforced across the board, the number of adult-organized activities for kids have exploded and, as a result, childhood stress, worry, and fear have increased dramatically.

Studies conducted by Jean M. Twenge at San Diego State University suggest that youth anxiety and depression have been trending higher rather sharply over the last fifty years. Perhaps more troubling, Twenge’s research suggests a shift in motivation amongst kids from intrinsic to extrinsic values; kids now tend to be more motivated by popularity and money than self-acceptance, moral character, and community.

The reason for this shift is rather clear to me: American childhood is now more about meeting adult expectations and less about personal growth and development. Observe the parents at a youth sporting event and see if this statement isn’t true. Now the parents mean well, don’t get me wrong. But too often they think their child’s future depends exclusively upon performance in school, performance in athletics, performance in extra-curricular activities, or some other external measurement of performance so these things are all pushed on kids to the point where their own interests and talents are subordinated.

Studies by Peter Gray show that childhood free time has been declining steadily since the 1950’s including a decrease in free play as well as time spent talking to others at home. Meanwhile, time spent on homework has increased 145%.

The government school system equates more homework with more learning. In reality, homework serves only to replace students’ individual interests with the Department of Education’s mandated curriculum. At best students memorize the mandated curriculum long enough to pass the standardized test and then they let it go. At worst they think the curriculum is useful and they retain it at the expense of pursuing their own passion. The truth is memorization is not learning; it is a waste of time and energy.

Real learning can only occur when the individual has an interest in the topic and is free to explore that topic in his or her own way. Children need to be free to make mistakes, analyze those mistakes, and then attempt to correct the mistakes. Instead, the current model of education teaches children that they will be judged and punished if they make a mistake so students learn to fear mistakes above all else. This mentality has the potential to set them up for a very restricted adulthood in which they shy away from opportunities for fear of making a mistake.

Ultimately we need to ask ourselves what is truly important for our children. This will be different for each family and that should be embraced, not ridiculed. There is no reason to think everyone must adopt the same parenting style or that every child must receive the same education. In fact, a free society requires diversity and the sharing of unique ideas in order to thrive.

So what’s really important for our children?

Good grades and getting into a good college? This looks like an outdated model to me – it is exclusively designed to produce good employees. But we are moving away from a ‘jobs’ based economy and the availability of traditional full time employment with comprehensive benefit packages will continue to diminish over the coming years and decades.

Becoming a superior athlete? My observations suggest that youth athletics are much more important to the adults – school employees, coaches, parents – than they are to the kids. Too often youth sports are a chore rather than a joy.

Participating in as many extra-curricular activities as possible? Again, these are often more important to the adults than the kids. Children should certainly be free to participate in whatever groups or activities interest them but too often they are pushed in the adult’s favored direction instead of their own.

I am convinced that a childhood free to grow and develop in a unique way is the most important gift parents can give their children. I think children need more guidance and less teaching; they should be encouraged to discover and pursue their own passions and interests without the pressure of forceful expectations. Pair this method with sound financial education and an IBC insurance policy that has been capitalized for 18 years and I think you have the makings of a creative, self-driven adult capable of thriving in a rapidly changing world.

Of course these are just this philosopher’s humble opinions.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the Infinite Banking Concept please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.