by Steven David Horwich
At the time Mr. Cooley was teaching, big business was expanding in America as it had nowhere else in all of history. Cooley died the same year (1929) that the infamous stock market crash deflated what had become a monstrously inflated stock market and economy, and which gave birth to the Great Depression. Accordingly, Mr. Cooley managed to avoid the consequences of much of his philosophy.
From the 1880s to 1929, American business expanded at a remarkable rate. The inventiveness and creativity of the times had been given focus and muscle through the growth of scientific knowledge. No less than the invention of the automobile, the phone, the airplane, and electric light all transformed “civilized” existence for hundreds of millions of people in a few quick decades. Suddenly, far was no longer far, and it was possible to control a business that embraced a vast area. Work hours, with the use of electric light and “shifts” within the factory system, could be expanded to 24/7.
Suddenly, big business was the new king of the hill we call civilization. And big business needs cheap labor to keep profits high.
Big business never required many highly educated employees. Education (true education) gives people ideas, makes them think, makes them elevate their own sense of their relative value in the scheme of things. And big business wanted nothing of the sort. Not then…and not today. Oh, each business needs a few “thinkers” on top to organize and run things. Each successful business needs at least one true “dreamer” who will see into potential futures and develop them (for the company, of course).
No, what big business really needs for the most part, as Henry Ford so “astutely” deduced, is easily controlled automatons. This was true in Ford’s 1920s, and it’s all the more true now. Simple machines that are programmed and built to do a single simple job with quiet expertise, that’s what most businesses thrive on below the management level. Whenever possible and for the past several decades, big business has replaced people with exactly the sort of literal, simple machines I’ve just described. Many people have lost their jobs to such machines, as I’m certain you are aware. Where big business cannot use a machine or computer to do a job, they look for the least-expensive, most easily manipulated and controlled employee. Only the very rare business places a premium on creativity and initiative, and generally only at “the top”.
Who decides in what way your children will be educated? Your government. They determine the standards to be used. And who does the government really serve today? I think we all know the general answer. The government exists largely to serve the needs of two large groups; the government, and big business. And to tell it like it is, there’s not much difference between the two groups as the revolving door of personnel between those groups easily demonstrates.
So an organization (government) determines what will be taught, and how it will be taught, certainly in America and other “civilized” nations. And they essentially work for and closely with another organization, big business. This is particularly disastrous in America, where (as President Coolidge said in the 1920s), the business of America IS business, a quote I’m sure that our friend Mr. Cooley approved of with a sage nod. (In the same speech, Coolidge followed with an explanation of why this is wrong, but no one ever quotes the rest of the speech.)
Is it really much of a stretch that education, as it is today designed, is so designed to serve first and foremost the needs of big business? Is this really debatable anymore? And what are the needs of big business? As earlier described – a very small number of creative and organizationally gifted people, and a very large number of cheap laborers or machines to replace them.
If you doubt any of this, take a few hours to find out what was taught to the average student 100 years ago, and compare it to today’s education. Why, President George W. Bush stated it clearly, did he not? Mathematics and science, that’s where the jobs are and those are the areas that America focuses its public education dollars on. Then, why, a person could grow up to be an accountant, or run a cash register, or something like that. They might not have any other real skills, having never been introduced to other options or possibilities. They could no longer read Greek and Latin, as students 100 years ago learned to do. But they could give change at McDonalds.
If you believe that I exaggerate, or that I’m painting a particularly morbid view of the current situation, I would simply ask you to open your eyes and look around.
More to come.
Steven Horwich is an Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning writer/director, who has split his life between the arts and education. A teacher with over 35 years and over 20,000 hours of experience from elementary school through university-level teaching, he started homeschooling his own children in 2002. This led him to author over 300 courses since 2002, a complete curricula (excluding math) for ages 5-adult, called Connect The Thoughts. Over 20,000 people have used CTT since making it available via the Internet in 2007. His curricula is presented at www.connectthethoughts.com. There is over 5 hours of film explaining his courses and approach. He has authored a book about education today, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and a teacher training program to go with it. He currently presents a free webinar about education and homeschooling every third Tuesday.
At the time Mr. Cooley was teaching, big business was expanding in America as it had nowhere else in all of history. Cooley died the same year (1929) that the infamous stock market crash deflated what had become a monstrously inflated stock market and economy, and which gave birth to the Great Depression. Accordingly, Mr. Cooley managed to avoid the consequences of much of his philosophy.
From the 1880s to 1929, American business expanded at a remarkable rate. The inventiveness and creativity of the times had been given focus and muscle through the growth of scientific knowledge. No less than the invention of the automobile, the phone, the airplane, and electric light all transformed “civilized” existence for hundreds of millions of people in a few quick decades. Suddenly, far was no longer far, and it was possible to control a business that embraced a vast area. Work hours, with the use of electric light and “shifts” within the factory system, could be expanded to 24/7.
Suddenly, big business was the new king of the hill we call civilization. And big business needs cheap labor to keep profits high.
Big business never required many highly educated employees. Education (true education) gives people ideas, makes them think, makes them elevate their own sense of their relative value in the scheme of things. And big business wanted nothing of the sort. Not then…and not today. Oh, each business needs a few “thinkers” on top to organize and run things. Each successful business needs at least one true “dreamer” who will see into potential futures and develop them (for the company, of course).
No, what big business really needs for the most part, as Henry Ford so “astutely” deduced, is easily controlled automatons. This was true in Ford’s 1920s, and it’s all the more true now. Simple machines that are programmed and built to do a single simple job with quiet expertise, that’s what most businesses thrive on below the management level. Whenever possible and for the past several decades, big business has replaced people with exactly the sort of literal, simple machines I’ve just described. Many people have lost their jobs to such machines, as I’m certain you are aware. Where big business cannot use a machine or computer to do a job, they look for the least-expensive, most easily manipulated and controlled employee. Only the very rare business places a premium on creativity and initiative, and generally only at “the top”.
Who decides in what way your children will be educated? Your government. They determine the standards to be used. And who does the government really serve today? I think we all know the general answer. The government exists largely to serve the needs of two large groups; the government, and big business. And to tell it like it is, there’s not much difference between the two groups as the revolving door of personnel between those groups easily demonstrates.
So an organization (government) determines what will be taught, and how it will be taught, certainly in America and other “civilized” nations. And they essentially work for and closely with another organization, big business. This is particularly disastrous in America, where (as President Coolidge said in the 1920s), the business of America IS business, a quote I’m sure that our friend Mr. Cooley approved of with a sage nod. (In the same speech, Coolidge followed with an explanation of why this is wrong, but no one ever quotes the rest of the speech.)
Is it really much of a stretch that education, as it is today designed, is so designed to serve first and foremost the needs of big business? Is this really debatable anymore? And what are the needs of big business? As earlier described – a very small number of creative and organizationally gifted people, and a very large number of cheap laborers or machines to replace them.
If you doubt any of this, take a few hours to find out what was taught to the average student 100 years ago, and compare it to today’s education. Why, President George W. Bush stated it clearly, did he not? Mathematics and science, that’s where the jobs are and those are the areas that America focuses its public education dollars on. Then, why, a person could grow up to be an accountant, or run a cash register, or something like that. They might not have any other real skills, having never been introduced to other options or possibilities. They could no longer read Greek and Latin, as students 100 years ago learned to do. But they could give change at McDonalds.
If you believe that I exaggerate, or that I’m painting a particularly morbid view of the current situation, I would simply ask you to open your eyes and look around.
More to come.
Steven Horwich is an Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning writer/director, who has split his life between the arts and education. A teacher with over 35 years and over 20,000 hours of experience from elementary school through university-level teaching, he started homeschooling his own children in 2002. This led him to author over 300 courses since 2002, a complete curricula (excluding math) for ages 5-adult, called Connect The Thoughts. Over 20,000 people have used CTT since making it available via the Internet in 2007. His curricula is presented at www.connectthethoughts.com. There is over 5 hours of film explaining his courses and approach. He has authored a book about education today, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and a teacher training program to go with it. He currently presents a free webinar about education and homeschooling every third Tuesday.
