In an increasingly deceptive world....

One of the reasons that education requires more time, more drills, more testing and just seems to be more difficult than in the past is that schools have to teach students more material than before. At least, that's what they would have us believe. The phrase "increasingly complex world" is trotted out to justify new math and science requirements, or to make the claim that we now require longer school years or universal preschool. There's just more we have to learn, because our world has become so technological and complex.

When I look around I don't see that everyday life is any more complex than it used to be. You don't need trig to operate a cell phone. It's easier to microwave Lean Cuisine than to cook meals from scratch. It's easier to shop for clothes online than to buy patterns and hem and sew. Cars are not much more complicated (and the new technologies like OnStar might actually give you directions, so in that sense things are easier). Americans would benefit from much more understanding of personal finance and economics, but the schools don't teach that.

What I see changing in our everyday lives is that we are being manipulated and lied to with increasing intensity. Advertising is increasing, and it's increasingly hard to spot, as well. Many news stories were literally written by corporate PR departments and get passed off as journalism because it's cheaper than actual journalism. People get paid to spread "word of mouth" advertising in public places.

Another change is that information is more readily available, but one needs to be able to filter out the dubious info and to consolidate information from all over the Internet. People need to be familiar with conflicts of interest, with the fact that yes, even people who speak calmly and seem to be experts and wear suits and show up on TV will still look you right in the eye and lie to you. They do it all the time.

Instead of exposing kids to a range of sources of information, and helping them to think critically about what they are reading, schools actually do the opposite. There is one textbook per class, and there is one teacher who typically never contradicts the textbook.

Instead of teaching kids how advertising works and helping them to understand its pernicious effects, schools increase the advertising which students are exposed to, through ads on buses and in hallways or through Channel One "news" television. In many cases, as with vending machines selling pop and chips, the school's contract with the vendor involves a quota of minimum sales which must be met or the school gets no money at all. Thus the administrators and teachers become the allies of the corporations.

Government / civics class, when I took it anyway, was a dry memorization of governmental structures and Congressional procedure. We memorized some definition of "lobbyist" but gained no actual idea of corporate influence in politics. Nor did we study any political scandals or discuss campaign contributions, political ads, or vote suppression (which didn't die with the 60's). We learned nothing about the manipulation of politicians or politicians' conflicts of interest. We got the straight "You vote for them, they represent you" story.

It's quite fun to analyze ads. My mom used ad analysis as a writing exercise when she was teaching some years back, and it was very popular with the students (mostly college freshmen). My response to catalogs in the mail that look alluring (e.g. Pottery Barn) is to sit down and really look at the photos and imagine how they've manipulated everything. Pottery Barn is a fun one, because they photoshop the wall paint to perfectly match the color in, say, some sheets or a duvet cover. They photoshop the windows, giving the hazy, sunny outdoors either a bluish or yellowish hue depending on what's in the room. In most photos you can't see the outdoors, it's just a foggy sunny haze, which gives the rooms a dreamlike quality that real-life rooms are never going to attain. You also start to notice how, for instance, the candles and the apples in a bowl are the exact shade of green featured in those drapes on the wall. So, to attain Pottery Barn decor in your own home you'd have to spend hours scouring stores for candles and run to the grocery store every week in search of the ideal Granny Smiths. The Pottery Barn folks have it easier, they just photoshop said candles and apples and voila, perfect match. Pretty soon you start thinking, "Give me a freakin' break!" and throw the thing in the trash. This is the kind of skill that really is useful in real life. The typical kid sees 50,000 TV commercials per year, I read somewhere.

Needless to say, teaching kids how to think critically and protect themselves from advertising does not serve those in power... and that's why the schools don't teach this.