It's the beginning of the school year here in the Americas. My baby cousin started high school in Ohio, and my two little nephews went off to college in New York. That means summer is officially winding down.
I loved school, and everything I am can be traced back to school and education. I almost didn’t go to school because of the environment I found myself in during the early days of my life. But God being so good, I found my way to school. I am happy I did. If nothing else, the ability to express myself in speech and writing is a great gift to me. I like education so much that I wish I could spend my whole life just learning and studying everything every day.
That said, I have also looked at the structure of modern society and the way education has been shaped, and it gives me many questions with few answers. Some of my reading has led me to the following observations.
Throughout history, societies have used schools not only to educate but also to shape the way people think. In ancient Sparta, children were taken from their families and raised by the state to become warriors. Discipline, obedience, and loyalty to the city-state mattered more than family bonds. Similarly, in Prussia, a culture of strict military training and order turned schools into preparation grounds for war, giving the nation one of the greatest armies of its time. Even the lesser-known Astac shared in this pattern: war and militarism were considered natural, and education served that purpose.
In every case, schools were not neutral. They were systems designed to prepare the young for what the state needed most: obedience, labor, and war.
Just this week, news has it that the Trump administration has deployed 4000 soldiers to Venezuela which to many is an act of war. This was directly thought out by people in the administration tasked with war making, and subtle engineering of regime change overseas. The results? Deaths of countless civilians and permanent destruction of those societies. And then these people go home at the end of the day to hug and kiss their wives and children. That's how service to one's country looks like.
The pattern continues in modern institutions. Yale, Harvard, and West Point Academy stand as examples of schools designed not just to teach knowledge but to train elites, soldiers, and leaders who serve the interests of their nation. A common thread runs through them: the separation of the child from the parent. Once under the authority of the institution, the child is shaped by the values, history, and worldview chosen by others.
And yet, there is an alternative. True mastery does not always require school. If a child spends ten years following an expert, whether in craft, trade, or knowledge, that child will, without question, become an expert too. The apprenticeship model shows that human beings learn best by living and doing, not just by memorizing and repeating.
But the structure most of us inherit is different:
Go to school.
Get into debt.
Find a job.
And then live the rest of your life within that cycle.
And the sad thing is that most of us, even though conscientious about this are paralyzed by this setup and are unable to break free it. If you dare, you are called all kinds of names.
School also implants ideas about the nation-state, a relatively modern invention. By shaping memory, rewriting history, and presenting one version of loyalty, it ensures that the individual identifies with a flag before they even know who they are. Take for example "I'm an American" or "I'm Russian". Most people have no idea what that truly means.
True education should liberate the mind. Too often, it has been used to confine it. To many of us who have been through the system, that is considered a failure of our humanity. Life lived without freedom of the mind is not life at all.
So my dear friends and young people going to school, those are my observations and I hope this can get you pondering about education, too.
I will never promote stupidity. I love education but I also believe in self education backed by critical inquiries.
God bless you, and
Keep learning,
-Pal Ronnie-
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