Independent thinking and education

I came across this rather interesting speech by a high-school valedictorian in the United States, wherein she criticised the system for failing to encourage students to think and for indoctrination. Having occasionally followed developments in the US education system by listening to critiques of it from the perspective of home-schooling advocates there, I am not in the least surprised to hear the charges of indoctrination, and definitely applaud the young girl for such clear thinking.

For many Singaporeans who are so fond of panning our own education system and at the same time sing unreserved praises to 'Western' education, I would suggest looking into the history of education in the West for the past hundred years or so, and look at how Marxist ideology has infiltrated the system from the time of the Frankfurt School in Europe and the subsequent influence of John Dewey in the US.

Now, this is not a defence of our education system. I merely want to point out the contradiction in thinking that many Singaporeans who think that they are 'liberally-minded' have. While they often rail against the lack of political freedom in the country, they also have this tendency to want to outsource education in all aspects, including moral and sex education, to the school system. As the AWARE saga last year showed, outsourcing education will always tempt some groups who want to advance their own agenda to try to capture the curriculum in order to indoctrinate children, via sometimes subtle means, to their way of thinking. Many of us seem unaware that long gone are the days of the Confucianist ideal of education, where the teacher and parents have shared ideals in what is good for the children. Today, it is an ideological battle where our teachers are trained with textbooks by authors who are Marxist/Socialists and who desire nothing more than to shape society by brainwashing our children. And this is not a Singapore-only phenomenon.

The ONLY way to stop such things is not to complain to the government but to take back control over our children's education. Unfortunately, from speaking with teachers who tell me about the demands that parents place on the school system, this outsourcing is not going to reverse any time soon.

To me, freedom comes first from being able to think for yourself, and not to delegate that important task to others such as the media. If you cannot think independently, what real freedom do you think you can achieve in other areas such as politics and human rights?

"The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school." - G. K. Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows.

We have a long way to go in our thinking before there is hope for freedom.