The Sheep Factory

Few people in America, including teachers, know how our educational system began. Most universities teach about the beginning of schooling without an analysis of what impact those early ideas have had on our present reality.

This, of course, is quite descriptive of our entire system of education. Get to class on time, sit down, shut up, absorb information, go home a practice it, come back to class and regurgitate it, and then forget it.

While that may seem a rather harsh analysis, I dare you to ask students what they see. Think back to your own education. I think you will find education in America has changed little. And that was the point of the founders of the American education system.

In 1806, Napoleon defeated the Prussian army and that embarrassment lead to a reimagining of the Prussian education system.  Their goal was to create a system that would turn out obedient workers and soldiers who didn’t question authority. In fact, they simply wanted citizens who would slide into their spot in the social fabric and be content being part of the machine.  Ultimately they wanted “well disciplined students who would follow orders without questioning authority...Every step in the education process was calculated to offer authority figures the least amount of trouble and consequently train a well disciplined albeit docile citizen.” http://nj.npri.org/nj98/05/prussian.htm

And once this system was up and running, a group of Americans visited Prussia and were highly impressed with the order, obedience, and efficiency

“A small number of passionate ideological leaders visited Prussia in the first half of the 19th Century, fell in love with the order, obedience, and efficiency of its educational system and campaigned relentlessly thereafter to bring the Prussian vision to our shores. To do that, children would have to be removed from their parents and inappropriate cultural influences.”   John Taylor Gatto’s book, “The Underground History of American Education  http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

You can certainly read way more about this history, but the important values of this factory model of schooling have been and continue to be:

• efficiency
• order / conformity
• compliance / obedience / passivity
• uniformity

The entire original purpose of schooling was to create sheep out of people!

This factory model is insideous. It has been absorbed into the very DNA of every part of the educational system. And teachers who are not aware of it, mindlessly play out the plan each day. Just look at most schools.

• Age Batching
• Children literally standing in lines
• Desks in rows
• Districts demanding students be on the same page on the same day district-wide
• Benchmark testing by date. Everyone is expected to be on a page by a given date.
• Teacher instructs, children do type training
• Bells ringing
• Pacing guides
• Mechanistic writing programs that teach compliance to a format
• Kids stopped from moving ahead faster than others
• Tardy detentions
• Detentions and punishments for non-compliance
• Students failing classes for not complying with homework rules even though they demonstrate competency
• Teachers rewarding students for compliance rather than divergent thought
• Teachers restricted from working outside the factory model by colleagues who report divergence to the principal or the union for doing something not approved by a superior.

And the list goes on and on.

An awareness of the degree to which our educational institution is sick has to be our first order of business all the time. When we least expect it, the factory model mindset sneaks in.

We have to stop being sheep. We have to stop creating sheep. The future of our educational system depends on the bravery of people willing to stand up and stop the assembly line for the sake of our kids. We have to stop waiting around for an institution to grant us permission to make changes. It is time to treat students as humans and allow them to think and explore and every teacher has the ability to do this tomorrow! You just have to stop being sheep. Sheep don’t lead.