Chapter 12: God Doesn’t Create Stupid People – Our Educational System Does
1. The
schools operate under the law of averages (bell curve) or “survival of the
fittest” – dividing the population up between winners and losers. Those
students that can’t get good grades are labeled as “stupid” or “slow” – and are
often humiliated in front of the classmates.
2. In
other words, the educational system continues to weed out the best and the
brightest in the areas it judges are important – math, science and English.
However, it also excludes others that can’t get good grades. The excluded
students suffer emotionally, knowing that they have been excluded because the
system has determined that they are inferior. Their self-esteem plummets and if
they stay in school they tend to become behavioral problems, distracting other
students and driving teachers half crazy.
3. It
is however important to understand that children progress according to how they
see themselves and how the teacher perceives their abilities. Particularly in
our early lives we will rise no higher than what others expect of us. If we are
being labeled as being below average, we may integrate such “prophecy” into our
own thinking and allow it to determine how hard we try, how weak or strong we
are in self-motivational skills, and where we place ourselves in the hierarchy
of our peers.
4. Such
game of winners and losers produces countless millions of people who lack
self-esteem, who are terrified of making mistakes and who lead lives of
mediocrity because they were conditioned to believe that they weren’t as smart
as their classmates.
5. Tragically,
it also produces people who are cruel and inhumane – as competition rather than
cooperation, widening the gap between “smart” and “stupid”, rich and poor,
winners and losers. They believe that there is something inherently wrong with
helping others or receiving help, producing lonely people who don’t understand
why they can’t get along with other people.
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