I have had a difficult time getting a teaching job since I was in my twenties, despite being one of the few Black graduates originally accepted by the New York City Teaching Fellows. While I never finished that program, even in nontraditional settings, I had a nearly impossible time getting a chance to work with children even though I have wanted to do that for decades. For years, I complained to a friend until she–like the great friend she is–told me to let it go, but I wondered at the difficulty in the back of my mind. After decades of doing a lot of different kinds of work, I finally realized that the kind of teachers that institutions want are not there to teach children, but indoctrinate them to the dominant narrative.
Institutions exist to perpetuate themselves, not change, and the primary goal of the school in this era is to provide propaganda about the dominant narrative. Telling little kids to work harder and enjoy earning less and gaining less is a requirement to keep all these corporations and institutions flowing. Without people believing that everything is on them, none of these processes would remain the same and more people would have higher self-esteem. The dominant narrative depends on people truly believing that ambition and acquisition are the only reasons for staying alive.
Furthermore, schools need teachers to maintain the mythology about the absence of problems, essentially burdening children with the notion that if anything goes wrong, it is their perspective that needs to change. This mindset was provided by multiple older generations–including mine–and it trains people to internalize everything while never holding the actual problems accountable. Teaching children that “energy is matched” and “everyone is only responsible for themselves” distracts people from the true evil that is in the world hoarding resources to the point of demise.
As a result, schools want students to receive preparation for a world that no longer exists, as if the real conversation is college degree vs. trade school, and people actually care about communities and families, and that everyone has a fair shot. In actuality, that world never really existed, but was shown on television and pumped into classrooms for decades, which is why everyone is still talking about “merit” when the homeless population is rising. The belief in raw ambition without barriers is still being pumped into workplaces and schools, which is why for decades and even now, people are wondering why their ambition fails to propel them to the places they want to go. None of this is a mistake, and only now are people starting to realize that beliefs in financing everything, going on vacation, and spending lavishing are all fantasies.
Children and the people who raise them are managing one of the most stressful eras in history, and it is unreasonable to expect them to behave the same way that people in the past have been behaving. Teaching people to perpetuate a status quo that neither reality nor their mental health supports is dangerous. Schools need to start getting teachers who recognize that world has changed, teach different subjects and histories, and train children to self actualize–especially if the markets have all but dissolved.
Chasing A Dying Empire 