"good habits" and other worthlessness

[youvebeenthunderstruck]

school, whether they (ie the teachers and administration ie the "higher" powers of school) realize it or not, IS brainwashing. it's clear to say that for something mainstream and enforced this is unacceptable, but that's not what i'm on about today.

school teaches you what they consider to be good habits. if you're going to answer with 'jack', don't just answer with 'jack', say 'jack is the one who fell down the hill with jill'. i don't know to what purpose they do this, but it's a hard habit to break, and they back it up with artificial rules "you get less marks if you just answer jack"

another thing which needs to be abolished is this concept of being polite. unless you've experienced truly terrible things, you're likely to be polite anyway. but if somebody is doing things to you which the teacher doesn't notice, and you respond with 'fuck off', they reprimand you and even punish you. you have the right to be human, it's only because they don't like it

what from school do you actually retain when you leave it? and, mind you, i'm talking about high school and elementary possibly, not college. college is actually a program that you more or less choose yourself, hence you actually care.

so what DO you retain? as a high school graduate, i've, in the strictest sense of the word, graduated, ie i've "met their standards" . and what do i have to show for it? how many times did they pound things into our heads about math, and other things? i don't remember 90% of what i learned in school.

but what about things besides subjects? let's run down the list, shall we?

in school, you aren't allow to wear a cap. this personally annoys me when i'm talking to somebody with a cap on irl, to be honest, but is this enforced? you see people with caps on all the time. if this is allowed to occur, why was it only temporarily disallowed in high school?

you aren't allowed to say 'fuck off'. but a police officer can hear you say 'fuck off' and not do anything. well, unless it's to him, but anyway,

you aren't allowed to wear t-shirts with offensive slogans in it. again, this is still legal outside of school.

those were only 3 things, but it's a long, long list.

my point? anything you do in school is supposed to train you for the "real, scary (as if) world". if there was anything you weren't supposed to do, they'd make it illegal, but they don't, because when you get outside of school nobody minds. school teaches you pointless shit, and we can see it's pointless shit simply from the fact that nobody uses it outside of school.

[Will]

Here's the way I generally summarize what you're explaining: School teaches you how to do everything in some "proper" fashion even though they don't need teach this proper fashion of doing things. The teachers have to realize these methods are stupid and inefficient, but they teach them because they believe that they are supposed to teach them. (I actually think that the strictest teachers are trying to show how stupid these methods are by taking what they have been taught to the extreme and that nobody cares.)

And read this. I just re-read that, and the part about "bad habits" doesn't make sense to me right now. Maybe you should skip it and I should rewrite it.

[Guest]

I don't like the term brainwashing because it almost implies an unwillingness to be molded. Because school starts at such an early age there is no need to force students down the path they want. Students are taught that school is good so even in later years when school can become boring and unhelpful there isn't a recognition that school is the source of the problem. Almost all people are attacking the symptoms of ineffectiveness instead of seeing that the basic structure of current schooling is at fault.

I still like what wsgosset said, school is a behaviour correction facility. The difference between school and jail is what I pointed out before, we are told that it is good at such an early age that we do not see the problem with the basis tenets. The inmates/students that follow the rules, both written and unwritten, are left relatively alone. Those who make trouble are punished directly by guards/teachers, e.g. with detention, and indirectly by inmates/students, e.g. with social distancing.

I completely agree that we are taught stupid habits. Some things we are taught do make sense, e.g. be on time for things, but are grossly over exaggerated, e.g. detention for being a couple minutes late. Other things are really stupid though.

About Jack and Jill: in the Ontario curriculum it's more likely to be Yusuf and Sun Moon. That's the official doctrine of multiculturalism for ya'.

wsgosset Wrote:And read this. I just re-read that, and the part about "bad habits" doesn't make sense to me right now. Maybe you should skip it and I should rewrite it.

I disagree with that article. The simple fact is that we cannot live without habits; we would have to constantly think all of the time, non-stop. Driving on the right side of the road is a habit, writing in grammatically understandable sentences is a habit, just typing is a habit. We need good habits, especially the habit of introspection. The Alexander technique, and other methods, are very useful for establishing alternative and healthier habits.

[youvebeenthunderstruck]

Kirby Wrote:I don't like the term brainwashing because it almost implies an unwillingness to be molded.

i don't understand what you mean. of course the students have an unwillingness to be molded

[Will]

wsgosset Wrote:Here's the way I generally summarize what you're explaining: School teaches you how to do everything in some "proper" fashion even though they don't need teach this proper fashion of doing things. The teachers have to realize these methods are stupid and inefficient, but they teach them because they believe that they are supposed to teach them. (I actually think that the strictest teachers are trying to show how stupid these methods are by taking what they have been taught to the extreme and that nobody cares.)

And read this. I just re-read that, and the part about "bad habits" doesn't make sense to me right now. Maybe you should skip it and I should rewrite it.

The terms I used were a bit strong as I wanted to keep this short.

Kirby: You don't have to think for that long about habits to notice them. Take an Alexander lesson if you can.

[Guest]

youvebeenthunderstruck Wrote:i don't understand what you mean. of course the students have an unwillingness to be molded

Not most students. We absorb a lot of what we are taught a young age so if we are taught not to rebel against the system there will be less of it later. We have an unwillingness to be molded but most students do not.

Quote:You don't have to think for that long about habits to notice them. Take an Alexander lesson if you can.

I was talking about living without any habits. You claimed that all habits are bad and I was saying that we must have habits.

[Will]

Kirby Wrote:

youvebeenthunderstruck Wrote:

Quote:You don't have to think for that long about habits to notice them. Take an Alexander lesson if you can.

I was talking about living without any habits. You claimed that all habits are bad and I was saying that we must have habits.

I have a feeling we'll have a really hard time determining whether we need habits at some level and that we'd need some very clear scientific definition of a habit.

But I don't think the side of the street on which you drive needs to be habitual. You don't need to think about the side of the street on which you drive constantly. but should think about which side to drive on when you're just getting on the road.

Also, there's some distinction, somehow, between muscle memory and habit, which explains part of the typing habit you mentioned. Another part of the typing habit is the posture, which is a very common reason for studying the Alexander Technique.

[Guest]

Quote:But I don't think the side of the street on which you drive needs to be habitual. You don't need to think about the side of the street on which you drive constantly. but should think about which side to drive on when you're just getting on the road.

That's basically what I meant. We need the habit of thinking before doing things, i.e. the habit of being rational, but we have to let some things run on auto-pilot or else we couldn't do some basic things.

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

In school, I learnt a lot of things...my experience was far from pleasant, but I gained a lot of knowledge from it. So yeah, here's the list.
-MAD (manipulation and deception, also how people's words can trap themselves)
-prioritizing (figuring out what shit is useful and what isn't)
-how not to care what people think about you
-how to entertain myself for hours
-surviving in a hostile or indifferent environment

hardly anything ideal or what they would've wanted me to learn. In the end, their actions still contradict their words.

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

Quote:I don't like the term brainwashing because it almost implies an unwillingness to be molded. Because school starts at such an early age there is no need to force students down the path they want. Students are taught that school is good so even in later years when school can become boring and unhelpful there isn't a recognition that school is the source of the problem. Almost all people are attacking the symptoms of ineffectiveness instead of seeing that the basic structure of current schooling is at fault.

Agreed. On the other hand we are told jail is bad, and hence aren't school and jail different, since one is "good" and the other is "bad"?? In the end aren't we forcing children into jail for our own convenience?

Quote:I still like what wsgosset said, school is a behaviour correction facility. The difference between school and jail is what I pointed out before, we are told that it is good at such an early age that we do not see the problem with the basis tenets. The inmates/students that follow the rules, both written and unwritten, are left relatively alone. Those who make trouble are punished directly by guards/teachers, e.g. with detention, and indirectly by inmates/students, e.g. with social distancing.

Social distancing would be beneficial in some cases...after all, the people we hang out with still affect us.

Quote:I completely agree that we are taught stupid habits. Some things we are taught do make sense, e.g. be on time for things, but are grossly over exaggerated, e.g. detention for being a couple minutes late. Other things are really stupid though.

Intelligent people usually have a choice in learning or unlearning stupid habits.