Another Problem with Education

I've been musing a lot about the problem with contemporary education, but I'm a little stuck.  On the one hand, maybe it is that education and bureaucracy are like oil and water - they just don't mix.  After all, educators are in the people business and bureaucracies, perforce, deny any humanity (individuality) to their clients.  You go to the DMV and you are a number.  You go to the IRS and you are a number.  If you go to a school and all you are is a number to them, I'd suggest getting the fuck out.  Schools are communities.  Bureaucracies are anti-life, anti-human, anti-creativity.

And with that, I start thinking that public education, something I've championed for the last 15 years because I think public education is about all that's left that has the potential to bring us together as a nation (good thing), is actually bad for kids.

But, on the other hand, maybe it's not the bureaucracy, but rather that the bureaucracy is broken.  Whenever I hear people complain about bureaucracy, I think of the one, extraordinarily effective, and efficient bureaucracy that I know of.  The military.  I know this is going to sound fucked up, but hear me out here.

The military does attempt to strip you of your individuality and remake you in their image.  But on the other hand, the US military anyway, also trains you to think for yourself.  It's like they need to create a sense of community before they allow people to be individuals.  It makes sense, and I think it makes sense for schools as well.  Instead, we just throw people together in a building and expect things to just magically work.  People don't worry about systems and efficiency and effectiveness because, all too often, they have personal projects or issues or power that they need to pursue.  And the schools often (not always) fail.

I've been thinking about the people I've looked up to and/or idolized and so many of them have had experience in the military, and I'm beginning to wonder if this is a significant common denominator.

Short list from off the top of my head:

Che Guevara (ok, not US, but still . . .)

My Grandpa

Bobby Seale

My professor

JFK

So, maybe the military isn't such a bad bureaucratic structure to follow.  And it clearly works pretty damn well, whatever you think of the morality of being able to take over entire nations with a handful of soldiers.

Ergo, the problem for education isn't the bureaucracy, per se, but rather that the bureaucracy is inefficient, unaccountable and ineffective.  If we concentrated on competence and structures of accountability and systems for accomplishing mundane tasks (and left the art of teaching in the hands of the competent artists we've hired) then maybe our educational system wouldn't be a total shambles.  Unfortunately, it seems that we are willing to give jobs to and promote any sucker with a degree and a desire to "help kids" whatever the hell that means.