A fantastic article on education was published by Huffington Post yesterday. (Reminded me a bit of, well, my own post on the same topic) John Whitehead looks at zero-tolerance and discipline policies in modern American schools and makes key insights into how these are influencing the social development of children. The key point is summarized neatly in the last paragraph.
There’s an old axiom that what children learn in school today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow. As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation — one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. In other words, the schools are teaching our young people how to be obedient subjects in a totalitarian society.
I couldn’t have said it better myself…but Maria Montessori came darn close.
Discipline must come through liberty… We do not consider an individual disciplined when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined. ~Maria Montessori
(You can find the full Huffington Post article here.)
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