Maybe (slightly) Reducing the Consequences of Government Education
Government education generally carries with it certain traits.
- The history books they purchased by the government tend to focus on the government’s history instead of the history of the people.
- They see everything as geography based.
- They introduce jobs that tend to have heavy ties to the government. Ask a group of students in elementary school what they want to be when they grow up and you’ll get a bunch of firemen, police men, teachers, lawyers, astronauts, and doctors. Every one of those industries is heavily involved or subsidized through the government.
I’m probably a little more sensitive to this issue than most parents, but there is a part of what my kids were being exposed to at school that seemed nothing more than a marketing campaign for public sector jobs.
So, I decided to do something about it.
Thankfully at precisely the time that I discovered Erin McKean online he was getting asked what he wanted to be in school. So I trained him that if he ever gets asked that question he should respond with ‘I want to be a Lexicographer.’ Then explain that it’s the person who puts words in the dictionary. I then went the next layer knowing that my son would probably get asked what his favorite word was, I proceeded to teach him the word absquatulate.
Fun adventures have ensued.
We’ve learned that Lexicography will not pay a living wage, but he’s no longer trapped in the firefighter, police officer, teacher paradigm. He wants to be an engineer.