What is now Bangladesh was one of the richest parts of the world before the British arrived and deliberately destroyed its cotton industry. Four million died in the avoidable Bengal famine of 1943 - there have been no such famines since independence. In late 19th-century and early 20th-century India up to 30 million died in famines, as British administrators insisted on the export of grain (as they had done during the Irish famine of the 1840s) and courts ordered 80,000 floggings a year. Some empire apologists claim that, however brutal the first phase might have been, the 19th- and 20th-century story was one of liberty and economic progress. As the Cambridge historian Richard Drayton puts it: “We hear a lot about the rule of law, incorruptible government and economic progress - the reality was tyranny, oppression, poverty and the unnecessary deaths of countless millions of human beings”. "Britain’s empire was in reality built on genocide, vast ethnic cleansing, slavery, rigorously enforced racial hierarchy and merciless exploitation. Stop pretending that “being prepared for jobs” is a GOOD thing to do to CHILDREN. After you’ve spent thirteen formative years of your life in a call center, after all, what more could you possibly want out of life?Įducation, arts, independent thinking: those things are for rich children. They’re becoming increasingly popular because they do exactly what the old industrial schools did: they create a workforce. How do parents feel about their children being so excellently prepared for the current job market? See for yourself. These schools prey upon low-income communities, especially in areas with high populations. This is an example of a Rocketship school, charter schools that target “primarily low-income students in neighborhoods where access to excellent schools is limited.” You want to know what kind of school you get when you apply that thinking to the modern workplace? Capitalists watched socialism rising up across the world and they designed American schools to ensure it would not happen here. It was designed to repress individual thinking and to increase dependence. It was designed by factory owners with the express purpose of quelling working class revolt before it happened. It was designed to indoctrinate children so that they would not complain about the dangerous, monotonous industrial work ahead of them. The American school system wasn’t designed to prepare young adults to enter the work force as free and independent agents. I keep seeing this reblogged as if that system were ever a good and positive thing for children. The problem with American schools is that they’re preparing us for jobs that no longer exist. The problem with American schools is not that they’re not like Finnish schools. What’s wrong with American schools is that they’re an outdated relic of the early 20th century, where the object was to train a child to have the mindset required to work in a factory job long hours of the day, as at the time that mandatory public school was instituted, that was the main expectation of children.Īs the industrial age faded and the US entered the era of private sector jobs, the education system failed to reflect that change, and they’re still training us to have the mindset for an industrial job, not a job in today’s job market. What’s actually wrong with American schools is not that they’re not like Finnish schools. It’s also because all teachers there have masters’ degrees, and teaching is seen as a prestigious profession like medicine or law. It looks like in Finland they’re treated like actual humans. Instead of treating kids like machines in a factory, being created into obedient workers. We won’t learn, because our education system sucks
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