Fascism and Divergent Thinking at Schools

Two links that seem unrelated are infact not.

First there is a great RSA Animate version of a talk on Changing Education Paradigms by Sir Ken Robinson



At about the 4 minute this he states a belief that ADHD is a "fictitious epidemic" and that children who are living in the most intensively stimulating period on earth are being regularly medicated and penalised for being distracted from boring stuff at school. They are being given drugs to get them focussed and settle down. We are getting them through school by anaesthetising them. We should be waking them up. And Sir Robinson notes that much of this drive for conformity is correlated with standardised testing and the way schools are modeled on the industrialisation and the production line mentality.

I could not agree more - and I speak as someone who could have probably benefited from these drugs at school - but just to help me fit in rather than to become a more creative student and be fully alive. It would have contained by ability to think divergently.

The second post is from http://www.ronjoneswriter.com/wave.html, which details a class 'exercise' from 1967 in Palo Alto, where a teacher named Ron Jones, tried to 'simulate what happened in Germany by having his students "basically follow instructions" for a day.'

The results were scary and worth reading. Towards the end, the author quotes Jones

"Fascism is always a possibility because it's so simple and people are frustrated. They lose their jobs, their dignity, their sense of worth, and someone comes along and says, "I've got the answer."

School systems prepare the ground, Jones says by using only standardized tests for success and failing to recognize alternative paths of learning, as well as a wider variety of individual achievements.

Educational institutions weed out troublemakers and those who are difficult to teach, he contends, rewarding placid students who want to succeed at any cost and will accept authority.

"That's the sad thing. Teachers can trigger it by telling students they're special, they're part of a community, that they can do special things. All they have to give is their loyalty," Jones concludes. "It happens every day in school, only the paraphernalia isn't there. Kids aren't learning to ask questions. You create a population where freedom's just a spelling word."

Can you see the connection now?