How to save the human race
ForrestTheFish
Posts: 11
I feel that it is important to start improving the education at our school. You may be sitting there wondering what I am talking about. After all, OPHS is considered one of the greatest public schools in the United States! However, it's not just OPHS that needs to improve; It is the entire educational system. The type of improvement I am speaking of is change. This article will explain what I am talking about regarding the educational system, as well as dysfunctional families, and why we need to change the way things are. It's an article that also has to do with the OPHS World Issues Campus Club that I have started.
"The World Issues Club is beginning to become more grounded! I am coming up with ways to organize our meetings so that everybody is clear on what is going on at any given moment. We have decided on two focus points for the club's efforts -- Dysfunctional Families and the Educational System. The reason why we chose these is because we believe that they are the root causes of almost all conflict in the world. Here are the general explanations:
Dysfunctional Familes:
Dysfunctional familes can, and often do, raise children who are unhappy, insecure, "selfish," "rude," "arrogant," etc. We understand that dysfunctional familes make up the majority of all the families in the world. The majority of the world's children are growing up without the resources which are needed in order for any given person to find their pathway to happiness and peace. Obviously, because most of the world's children grow like this, there is a lot of conflict in the world. These children become adults, and those adults are still unhappy and choose to bring conflict into every day of their lives without even realizing that they have a choice not to. This leads to what I like to call "Worldwide Human Competition." Almost everything has become a competition in this world.
A more spiritual reason for all conflict in the world is the same philosophy that is contained in the book called "The Celestine Prophecy." There is an unconscious worldwide energy (chi, qi, cosmic energy, etc) war. Many people in the world are "energy vampires," taking energy from other people in order to survive. The cause of this includes dysfunctional families.
One solution to this problem is to educate high school and college students about parenting. If every school in the U.S. implemented a mandatory year-long parenting class, it would inform almost everybody about the effects of abuse and dysfunctional families. This would prevent abuse from happening. We would actually be informing and teaching everybody about family cycles, abuse, dysfunctional families, functional families, and many other things regarding the subject of families and parenting.
Another solution to this is to send articles about abuse and dysfunctional families around the community. Many parents don't even know what abuse is. If they are informed about about what abuse actually is, we would be preventing much of it from happening in the first place.
We can be the start of this change! We can send an article to all the parents of students at OPHS about dysfunctional families and child abuse. We can even write the article ourselves! I would be happy to contribute to writing that. I'm sure that some of the counselors would be as well. We can even get different therapists and psychiatrists around the area to contribute to writing it too!
If we start this, other schools may start to do the same thing. Eventually, the government might even start sending dysfunctional family and abuse articles to all the citizens of the United States. They do this with tax papers - why wouldn't they do it with articles that would change and improve our world?
The Educational System:
We all know that education is something that is absolutely crucial in this world today. Our Educational System was built upon a foundation of wonderful ideas. However, most of us human beings do not see that there is hardly any balance between learning and thinking/self-expression in our educational system. Face it, at this moment in time, the educational system is not giving anybody the resources that are necessary in order for a person to find their path to a happy life. Take a look at this:
98% of what is promoted in school is what we call learning. However, all learning is, is memorizing. By definition, learning is to memorize information that is external to one's self. Remember that key word - EXTERNAL.
2% of what is promoted in school (excluding the arts department) is THINKING. Thinking is a form of self-expression, as is creativity. Thinking and Self-Expression are what the world NEEDS in order for the world to CHANGE. But, why exactly is thinking promoted so little in the educational system? Because ideas are dangerous to society. Society is attached to the way things are now. Our world runs on a system that is based upon fear, and we definitely fear change. I'm not talking about the change that Obama talks about. Obama is uses the game pieces that were already given to him. I am talking about creating new game pieces and implementing them into our society. In order to create these game pieces, we must express ourselves. We must think. THINKING is INTERNAL. Remember that key word -- INTERNAL.
Happiness does not come from external means. True happiness comes internally. As shown above, students involved in the educational system are barely given the resources that are needed in order to find true happiness and inner peace. The reason for this is that they are mostly told to obey and to learn (external), but not to express themselves or think for themselves (internal). A lot of them are just "whipped into shape," and don't even think about questioning their surface and deep beliefs. A lot of them don't even know how to introspect. That is because they weren't given the resources to inform them about introspection.
This is a huge problem. Most of the world's education is like this. Most current adults in the world were educated like this, and because the majority of the world is raised like this, there is a lot of conflict in the world. We must find a way to balance thinking/self-expression and learning in the educational system. It shouldn't be too much of either. Learning is important in that we need it in order to think. Thinking/self-expression is important in that we need it to learn. A few ways that we can implement more thinking into our school is by having more introspective essays in English class, allowing more decision making regarding class activities, and by encouraging more creativity and self-expression in all classes. However, I believe that if the English department started encouraging more self-expression, the effects would be greater than if the other academic departments encouraged more self-expression.
There are more reasons why the educational system NEEDS to change. The above is only one of them. Speaking of how it needs to change, it is in fact one of the first things that has to change in order for the entire world to change. If most people in the world are always in conflict and in collusions, the state of the world's well-being will represent that. And honestly, right now, the state of the world's well-being is on a steep decline...But it doesn't have to be. We can turn the entire world around, and Oak Park High School can be the start of it.
Now, I realize that we can't just complain about "problems" in order for them to change them. We need to acknowledge and understand the "problems" as they are, and then use the understanding to change it. So here is how we can change the educational system, dysfunctional families, and eventually the entire world: Change the beliefs and belief systems of the human race. Almost everybody is always trying to change CONDITIONS. But changing conditions is short-term. Since beliefs create conditions, changing the world's beliefs will rid the "bad" conditions forever. Our duty, as the World Issues Club, is to find out exactly what those "detrimental" beliefs are and to change them.
The ultimate goal of the World Issues Club is to transcend Worldwide Human Competition and arrive at a state of Worldwide Human Cooperation.
Changing the world...WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY! We are experiencing the most exciting times in human history!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ONWARD!!!
With sincerity, peace, and love,
- Forrest Leichtberg
"The World Issues Club is beginning to become more grounded! I am coming up with ways to organize our meetings so that everybody is clear on what is going on at any given moment. We have decided on two focus points for the club's efforts -- Dysfunctional Families and the Educational System. The reason why we chose these is because we believe that they are the root causes of almost all conflict in the world. Here are the general explanations:
Dysfunctional Familes:
Dysfunctional familes can, and often do, raise children who are unhappy, insecure, "selfish," "rude," "arrogant," etc. We understand that dysfunctional familes make up the majority of all the families in the world. The majority of the world's children are growing up without the resources which are needed in order for any given person to find their pathway to happiness and peace. Obviously, because most of the world's children grow like this, there is a lot of conflict in the world. These children become adults, and those adults are still unhappy and choose to bring conflict into every day of their lives without even realizing that they have a choice not to. This leads to what I like to call "Worldwide Human Competition." Almost everything has become a competition in this world.
A more spiritual reason for all conflict in the world is the same philosophy that is contained in the book called "The Celestine Prophecy." There is an unconscious worldwide energy (chi, qi, cosmic energy, etc) war. Many people in the world are "energy vampires," taking energy from other people in order to survive. The cause of this includes dysfunctional families.
One solution to this problem is to educate high school and college students about parenting. If every school in the U.S. implemented a mandatory year-long parenting class, it would inform almost everybody about the effects of abuse and dysfunctional families. This would prevent abuse from happening. We would actually be informing and teaching everybody about family cycles, abuse, dysfunctional families, functional families, and many other things regarding the subject of families and parenting.
Another solution to this is to send articles about abuse and dysfunctional families around the community. Many parents don't even know what abuse is. If they are informed about about what abuse actually is, we would be preventing much of it from happening in the first place.
We can be the start of this change! We can send an article to all the parents of students at OPHS about dysfunctional families and child abuse. We can even write the article ourselves! I would be happy to contribute to writing that. I'm sure that some of the counselors would be as well. We can even get different therapists and psychiatrists around the area to contribute to writing it too!
If we start this, other schools may start to do the same thing. Eventually, the government might even start sending dysfunctional family and abuse articles to all the citizens of the United States. They do this with tax papers - why wouldn't they do it with articles that would change and improve our world?
The Educational System:
We all know that education is something that is absolutely crucial in this world today. Our Educational System was built upon a foundation of wonderful ideas. However, most of us human beings do not see that there is hardly any balance between learning and thinking/self-expression in our educational system. Face it, at this moment in time, the educational system is not giving anybody the resources that are necessary in order for a person to find their path to a happy life. Take a look at this:
98% of what is promoted in school is what we call learning. However, all learning is, is memorizing. By definition, learning is to memorize information that is external to one's self. Remember that key word - EXTERNAL.
2% of what is promoted in school (excluding the arts department) is THINKING. Thinking is a form of self-expression, as is creativity. Thinking and Self-Expression are what the world NEEDS in order for the world to CHANGE. But, why exactly is thinking promoted so little in the educational system? Because ideas are dangerous to society. Society is attached to the way things are now. Our world runs on a system that is based upon fear, and we definitely fear change. I'm not talking about the change that Obama talks about. Obama is uses the game pieces that were already given to him. I am talking about creating new game pieces and implementing them into our society. In order to create these game pieces, we must express ourselves. We must think. THINKING is INTERNAL. Remember that key word -- INTERNAL.
Happiness does not come from external means. True happiness comes internally. As shown above, students involved in the educational system are barely given the resources that are needed in order to find true happiness and inner peace. The reason for this is that they are mostly told to obey and to learn (external), but not to express themselves or think for themselves (internal). A lot of them are just "whipped into shape," and don't even think about questioning their surface and deep beliefs. A lot of them don't even know how to introspect. That is because they weren't given the resources to inform them about introspection.
This is a huge problem. Most of the world's education is like this. Most current adults in the world were educated like this, and because the majority of the world is raised like this, there is a lot of conflict in the world. We must find a way to balance thinking/self-expression and learning in the educational system. It shouldn't be too much of either. Learning is important in that we need it in order to think. Thinking/self-expression is important in that we need it to learn. A few ways that we can implement more thinking into our school is by having more introspective essays in English class, allowing more decision making regarding class activities, and by encouraging more creativity and self-expression in all classes. However, I believe that if the English department started encouraging more self-expression, the effects would be greater than if the other academic departments encouraged more self-expression.
There are more reasons why the educational system NEEDS to change. The above is only one of them. Speaking of how it needs to change, it is in fact one of the first things that has to change in order for the entire world to change. If most people in the world are always in conflict and in collusions, the state of the world's well-being will represent that. And honestly, right now, the state of the world's well-being is on a steep decline...But it doesn't have to be. We can turn the entire world around, and Oak Park High School can be the start of it.
Now, I realize that we can't just complain about "problems" in order for them to change them. We need to acknowledge and understand the "problems" as they are, and then use the understanding to change it. So here is how we can change the educational system, dysfunctional families, and eventually the entire world: Change the beliefs and belief systems of the human race. Almost everybody is always trying to change CONDITIONS. But changing conditions is short-term. Since beliefs create conditions, changing the world's beliefs will rid the "bad" conditions forever. Our duty, as the World Issues Club, is to find out exactly what those "detrimental" beliefs are and to change them.
The ultimate goal of the World Issues Club is to transcend Worldwide Human Competition and arrive at a state of Worldwide Human Cooperation.
Changing the world...WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY! We are experiencing the most exciting times in human history!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ONWARD!!!
With sincerity, peace, and love,
- Forrest Leichtberg
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Parenting class in high school.
More introspective essays in English.
More student influence in schools.
That about right?
I dont really see the game-changing potential for this, although the intentions are good, and I can't see that it would hurt. (Though I am picturing the war of the minds over what actually to teach in "parenting class")
The article seems to assume a bit too much that all we learn, we learn in school, and we aren't taught to think there, we will never be able to. Kids spend 6-8 hours in schools every day. The rest of the time, they learn from their surroundings, their peers, parents whathaveyou. It also seems to assume that if people only are told they are wrong, they'll all go "Oh, I see. I better do what you say then". The article concludes that we must change all humans' beliefs, no less. Well, that may be so, but I dont think some controversial parenting class (and it would be, which is why schools in most places don't) and more introspective essays in English will do the trick. (And wouldn't the schools telling kids what to do on one more area of life only lead to less independent thinking about it? Following the logic of the argument...)
So, to sum up, I appreciate the sentiment, and the things actually proposed I dont see as doing any harm. I dont see how they would alter things much though. It sounds like an honourable attempt to save the world through English classes. Sorry to rain all over this, but the language and rhetoric really rubbed me the wrong way.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Thanks for the feedback, it really means a lot to me. Now, I will go ahead and change the way this was written.
I total
..thank you...
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis