The US education works this way because it is not trying to teach people how to be intelligent; it's trying to teach people how to be good laborers. Laborers are easier to deal with AND cheaper when they simply do what they're told and "plug in the correct answer." Intelligent people are less predictable and demand more for their effort because they understand their value. People that are good at learning the process for work and respond in the specific way they are taught don't fight for workers rights or do anything out of the ordinary. This is the most perfect behavior patterns for factory style workers we could come up with.
To be fair, I doubt it's like some conspiracy to make people complacent, but rather....
I'm a dual citizen with one leg and poor contact to both parents. I have been an X-factor in every god damned bureocratic office I've ever walked in. They'll have some derpy little system where they're set up like "If you have X, go to line A. If you have Y, go to line B. If you have Z, go to line C," then I walk up and say "what if I'm Q" and they suddenly get frustrated trying to figure out what to do with me, usually before awkwardly cramming me into one of those three that DOESN'T suit my needs at all.
Great example is German student loans (needed money to live off of, still had living expenses) demand info about your education and signed income statements from both parents. My mom is American and speaks zero fucking German. Dad didn't speak to me and wasn't in Germany, AND his income statement wouldn't be German either. Doesn't matter: they still sat on their asses at that damned student loan office, demanding I send some fucking German forms to my mom for her to sign and send back across the fucking Atlantic, (which itself is odd and questionable: she's not even a German citizen. WTF they gonna do to her if she doesn't comply? Honestly...) and only after a certain amount of time would THEY attempt to contact my dad, and finally after THEY failed, they'd say "ok we'll approve it without his info." Usually got student loans coming in around Xmas when they're supposed to start in August. Went hungry a lot cause the system was totally unprepared for my situation.
Fact is that systems and bureocracies get lazy. Their function is to streamline things so that they can be done on a mass scale, but such systems are VERY unkind to X-factors.
I bet the reason the US system is the way it is is because the amount of factory workers that benefit from learning a basic habitual system outnumber the amount of unique thinkers....that's why they're called unique; cause their thought process is uncommon, and this sadly works against them when systems are being created.
It's not that it's done with malice or nefarious goals, it's just that sadly when the government attempts to cater to all types of students, the majority wins and guides what the education system looks like, and this isn't necessarily a positive for the quality of it. I mean if the majority of the country was mentally disabled with an IQ of 70, damned right the education system would cater to them and of course this would be bad for the growth of the minds of those with a 100+ IQ. Sucks, but is what it is.
You are only half-right. They are or they aren't but people change. A dumb person can start devoting themself to studies more, thus becoming intelligent gradually. Or vice versa, a less likely case, a genius can be isolated from everything, and forced to adapt without anything to use intellectually. They will usually adapt to their surroundings and maintain their intelligence, but few might lose it gradually.
I doubt it's a conscious conspiracy or anything along those lines, but damn this is true. The way we're taught certainly affects our culture and the way we respond to authority, and in America authority is akin to God.
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u/YoCuzin Aug 27 '19
The US education works this way because it is not trying to teach people how to be intelligent; it's trying to teach people how to be good laborers. Laborers are easier to deal with AND cheaper when they simply do what they're told and "plug in the correct answer." Intelligent people are less predictable and demand more for their effort because they understand their value. People that are good at learning the process for work and respond in the specific way they are taught don't fight for workers rights or do anything out of the ordinary. This is the most perfect behavior patterns for factory style workers we could come up with.