A SUMMARY OF OUR CURRENT EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
When we are born, we are mentally blank and we have to be filled. Its like a “sick” body needing proper care because in both cases, growth is the rightful health is needed. So we are born and then its decided that we all go to school and our mind be filled and as sick people our health grows so as we are not “illiterate and retarded”. All people were not born to be the same thing just like all patient do not have the same diseases. So all of us with different capabilities and needs in life are given a same curriculum until a certain level so that after passing it we may choose what we want to be in life. This is like giving the same diagnosis to all patients of different diseases for a certain period before you decide for them their actual medication. You decide that all their bodies is acidic and you will have to alkalize it before treatment begins. In fact, if you tried this in the medical fraternity, your license will be revoked because it is a remedy for catastrophe but this is what the educational system does to us and if you fail the first stage then you will never pursue your dream and even the society calls you a failure, uneducated or even illiterate. A carpenter, mechanic, doctor, tailor, plumber are put on same curriculum for a period of 11 years before being given a chance to be their talent, skill or profession and if they fail their elementary education then they will never fulfil their ambitions because they wont get a chance to have a degree to get the contracts that are awarded by the governments. Remember we are all sick, and so it’s like a cancer, typhoid, autism and diabetes patients are put on the same prescription to alkalize their body in readiness for medication and if they fail this initial stage, it may be concluded that they were too sinful to survive and live. This is the diagnosis of our educational system to our condition.
Children should not be long confined within doors, nor should they be required to apply themselves closely to study until a good foundation has been laid for physical development. For the first eight or ten years of a child’s life the field or garden is the best schoolroom, the mother the best teacher, nature the best lesson book. Even when the child is old enough to attend school, his health should be regarded as of greater importance than a knowledge of books. He should be surrounded with the conditions most favorable to both physical and mental growth. The little ones should be educated in childlike simplicity. They should be trained to be content with the small, helpful duties and the pleasures and experiences natural to their years. Childhood answers to the blade in the parable, and the blade has a beauty peculiarly its own. Children should not be forced into a precocious maturity, but as long as possible should retain the freshness and grace of their early years. The more quiet and simple the life of the child–the more free from artificial excitement and the more in harmony with nature–the more favorable it is to physical and mental vigor and to spiritual strength.
Now, if you refuse to go to school because you are convicted this is not the right process of doing things, the government “enforces” this to happen. So the government becomes the prosecutor, the schools the prisons, the classes the prison cells, the curriculum the diet, teachers the security guards and the students the prisoners. What then is the agenda? Feed the mind by accumulation of books from 7am-6pm. Then homework from 8pm-10pm. This is the overworking the brain at the expense of the physical and spiritual. True education is the harmonious development of the physical, mental and spiritual.
Am not telling anyone to stop going to school, let everyone be schooled but there is to be no change in the general features of our work. It is to stand as clear and distinct as night and day. I would rather that children grow up in an ignorance of school education as it is today, and employ some other means to teach them. Now, as never before, we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). If this is the price of heaven, shall not our education be conducted on these lines? Is obedience to all the commandments of God taught the children in their very first lesson? Is sin represented as an offense toward God? The only education worthy of the name is that which leads young men and young women to be Christlike, which fits them to bear life’s responsibilities, fits them to stand at the head of their families. Such an education is not to be acquired by a study of heathen classics.
What is offered by our education system is a proper diet of malnourishment. And now, the governments have seen the need of the people for everyone to get an education and they have decided to offer free education, free of education indeed. Because it’s not a harmonious education, then its diet is a meal devoid of nutrients for sure and so the current education as it’s conducted is an instrument of death. Am so grateful that God made circumstances that I didn’t continue this education beyond 8th grade of elementary education.
