Myers 1 Michael Myers Dr.

Thomas Wright Rhetoric and Civic Engagement 5 December 2013 Sharing Education: Reevaluating Intellectual Potential in School The value of education is self-evident. The benefactor of this value however is highly contested. From Adolf Hitlers assertion that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation (Peikoff 13) to Barrack Obamas plea to hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself,(Obama) the subversion of the individual to society is made by repetition and by authority a commonsense proposition which this society continues to consume despite a nagging uncertainty, like a lactose-intolerant that continues to eat ice cream because it looks and tastes like it should be good for him. John Dewey extended the philosophy of the collective need to education more subtly than Hitler. While Hitler believed in the total forced subversion of the individual to the state, Dewey believed it to be more practical to achieve it through trial and error. In stating that The educational process has no end beyond itself; it is its own end, (Flanagan) Dewey dismisses an absolute moral end to existence; the individual, he believes, is a social process refined by education and living, and not an end in himself. When we say then that the value of education is self-evident, it is not intended to mean that education is its own end, but rather that proper education in an individuals life is self-evidently beneficial. Contrary to Dewey, to Hitler, to Obama, to collectivism, the individual is considered here to be the absolute end of education, not the means. For by any other standard the individual is permitted freedom enough only to serve the national or collective need, consigned to support the burden of society not for his own sake or learning, but as a

Myers 2 pack animal to bear the multiform caravan of society while those unable to carry walk alongside. This is the true identity of collectivist ice cream. But as depraved as Nazi Germanys statist regime is now considered, and as vehemently this nation would object to the display of its emblems in the classroom, the de-individualization of American education has, over the machinations of a century of Dewey-esque reform, crept into this social consciousness to reshape the individual into the subject, rather than the object, of his own learning. In other words, modern education is governed by that which accepts the society (or education) as an end in itself, and the individual as only the means to that end. Then surely we must ask if the individual should not be the end, and society the means, of education. For communalism at the expense of individual achievement is the goal apparent in every level of our current education system, evidenced most strongly by the overarching educational principle of sharing, the seedling Dewey-esque collectivism that is corroding the value of American education. This is something that everyone knows but refuses to acknowledge, opting instead to legislate, editorialize, fling water pail by pail from a fastly sinking vessel with an indignant face and a mouth full of ice cream. To grasp the problem, we must first distinguish between the sharing that we truly desire, procedural sharing, and the sharing of motivation resultant from its mongrel antecedent, moral compromise. For the real benefit of the first is the reason we cannot see its current denigration into the second. Moral sharing is the act of making a compromise of values. Consider the purchase of a product. The sellers price is accepted by the buyer (or not) by the availability of the product and the buyers desire for it. Ideally, the buyer would want this product for free, but how can he justify taking that which he has not paid for? Simply for that he wants ita moral compromise. Moral sharing involves one party acceding its values to another for the perceived benefit of restraint (as in the case of a totalitarian

Myers 3 dictatorship, when obedience is rewarded with life) or for the general need (as in a collective when an individual is forced to work for the collective need and not his own). Procedural sharing is entirely different. Haggling over the products price is a legitimate compromise founded on the accepted principles of value trading. The money, of value to the buyer, is compared to the sellers value of the product, while making no compromise in the morality of trade and the ability of each party not to buy or sell if so desired. This is what we seek in fostering sharing in educationthis procedural constancy, whether between toys or ownership of a college projectbut the modern system has combined it with moral sharing, by privileging one side over another. Give so and so a chance might be the anthem of the modern education system. The many are raised above the few. No Child Left Behind has given many a chance at education they might never have received, but for many, many others, education is now so readily available that its worth is steadily declining. And as for the sake of those behind, education as such is sagging in the rut of its own ubiquity; those gifted with education by virtue of their need are no less behind than they ever were. For as more behinds take part in education they could not need or use, the value of that same education is declining. More education is required to become truly educated. But then, the high or ahead will always take care of themselves. For how much easier to teach to the low what the high know already than to accept that some may fall. The high achieving can take care of themselves, we say. By virtue of the windfalls of upbringing and hereditary luck, they will never lag behind. Educational aristocrats design group project initiatives to foster communal potentials, but what teacher may say Choose for your group those who will improve the project instead of Make sure everyone has a partner? The smokescreen of community potential, as a tool for utilizing the highachieving as a resource to bolster the behind, is evident every time modern education asks its students

Myers 4 to think of someone beside themselves, of community, or of others, or of the less endowed, or of the lazy. The conclusion is, must be, that these motivations differ. It seems to be the purpose of modern education to instill a belief that the desire of the individual does not improve the lives of others, or of the community, and should therefore practice moral ambivalence in response to the need of those who have not. The present reform is proposed with the intention of relieving this condition in the modern educational system, and instilling an individual-centric system premised on learning for the good of society by the fostering of its individuals. It is impossible in this space, however, to delineate the process by which this nation has become afflicted with its backwards philosophy, or the steps which might holistically repair it. This proposal therefore seeks to advocate the moral constants of its initiatives exemplarily, by the founding of a single school reinvented to support above all the intellectual sovereignty of its individuals. We will begin with accomplishment. Everyone deserves a chance to be educated is not the same as Everyone deserves to be recognized. In education, distinction, as the philosopher Quintilian stated in Book I of the Institutio oratoria, is by far the greatest honor (Murphy 23), the pursuit of repeated contention the healthiest and most advantageous activity of the classroom. No child should be deprived of their own chance for success, but this does not mean that they will not fall behind. Here proposed is a school in which high performance is the only currency. Just as those who are black or white or poor or rich should not be judged according to those descriptors, so those who do not work should not be praised for it. For the point of eliminating racism and prejudice should be to create an objective standard of judgment based on accomplishment, not to create a new standard and imply its lowness by praising it for its need. All minority scholarships are based on this principle.

Myers 5 Grade level then would be restrictive only insofar as the individual student would possess the ability to perform well (or not). For what is the point of standardized testing if those who succeed in it are not able to move on? The proficient remain with everyone, in boredom, slogging through the work they already exceeded with those who failed or did not try. They have not been tested then for their intellect but for their need. For how often is a school granted funds or reorganized for the sake of those who did not pass? This alone is bad enough: restraining those who did achieve in the inanity of the education that results from such reorganization is cruel and stifling. In this new school, when proficiency has been reached, the student will move on. So will fall the hierarchies of age, race, gender, all that which the modern system implicitly supports under the guise of equality, for all the salt it rubs into those wounds in reminding everyone that their appearance matters by paying them for it. Would some students flounder and fail? Would some bound over whole grade levels without thinking? Yes. Situating high performance as the standard of educational value is the only way to ensure that those who can achieve do so unimpeded by the obligation to share their time, talent, and test scores with those who cannot, and that those who do not perform, own that responsibility. This would seem a standard of achievement managed by the mediation of a strict, objective, non-prejudicial teacher. Should it not? Individual sovereignty does not mean do as you please. Modern education has freed the student from the authority of the teacher such that the modern educator is often as impotent to discipline effectively as to justly reward, or as Quintilian stated, to consider how the mind of his pupil is to be managed (Murphy 26). This has not created individuality, but has bound the student to his fellow student. The advocates of statist brotherhood would permit this kind of collective keeping under the guise of intellectual sharing. But is it not the purpose of an educational professional to prevent this kind of sharing? The adjudication of a proper instructor should ensure the individuals ability to succeed or

Myers 6 fail unimpeded by others, whatever the students ability. The proper instructor, as Quintilian remarked and as would be regarded in this new school, would have the freedom to observe accurately the difference of ability in those whom he has undertaken to instruct, and to ascertain in what direction the nature of each particularly inclines him (Murphy 116). Whatever his ability does not mean however that anything goes so long as you try, based on Deweys principle of measuring educational growth through the quality of mental processes rather than the production of correct answers. Rather, that each student may take a different path towards achievement, aided by the instructor to do so unimpeded. For in the case of merely trying, what of those with the correct answers? The teacher cannot be prohibited from protecting those with intellectual potential, or those to whom education is valuable. That is why the selection of teachers by the school would be stringent, why their salaries would not depend on the test scores of their students (for who can be expected to always have brilliance to teach, and who not to soften the tests if their job depends on it?), and why their salary itself would reflect the importance of the profession. We have come to funding. The endless snowball of modern educations financial debacle worsens as more students are funneled into the system, discriminated only by need. More education is required for those inclined to learning to actually learn to receive a useful degree, and for those who are not so inclined to acquire enough education to enter the job market. The bachelors degree is the new high school diploma because there are far more who need than there are those who perform at a high level. This will always be true. But selectivity is not the same as prejudice. If education became more selective of those it accepted, a deluge of cries would rock the legislative world for the remuneration of those left behind. But those who were not selected would not be left behind. Funneled through the need-based selection of the current public system, the eventual half-education of the behind is devalued by the allowance that everyone can or should take part in it.

Myers 7 The education that the so-called behind now receive is worth less to them than the state of being uneducated in a more selective system. And those who can achieve have to climb higher in education to find a degree worth having while those who cannot are given no opportunity to exist in society productively. Why advocate such a system? How much easier is logrolling legislation when it can be done for the children? Modern education has become a legislative Ponzi scheme, the end in itself; nothing provides more efficient, more agreeable, or more permanent fuel for a statist regime. This enlightened school would be privately owned and operated, totally severed from federal grants and regulations, selections and entitlements. Would this mean that there would be tuition costs? Certainly, for this school would be run and operated as a business. Businesses care for their employees because they have a stake in their product, which for a school is the achievement of its students. Our modern education system is like a business that cannot, for the sake of its moderated, legislated existence, have a stake in its product. Imagine for example, a successful car company. A system steps in and creates a generalized cap on quality. A standard. The successful company is left alone while all the other companies are aided to reach that standard. No company left behind. This company, now working twice as hard to produce the same car, may remain successful despite the raised standard, but not as successful, comparatively, as when every company was unaided. But then for the sake of humane sharing, of giving so and so a chance, of the keeping of one company by another, the state makes the standard the ideal. The state does more than help others reach the standard, it promotes and rewards it, pays employees and manufacturers based on their adherence to it. While everyone agrees that it sounds fair and appropriate, the successful company is left with two options: accede to the new standard and lower the quality of its product, or accept its own

Myers 8 crucifixion on the bastion of high quality and fizzle out of existence. Regardless, everyone drives a poorer car. The same is happening in education today. All standardized testing allows is the ability to discover which children need help, and tailor to them while simultaneously making them the standard. At the enlightened school the best would be the standard to strive towards. In addition, as funding the creation and maintenance of the school is concerned, the production of high-achievers would be made a standard that individuals and institutes would desire to fund. It has been tried before, on a different scale. Maria Montessori instituted many such schools for infant through pre-grade school children, under a banner of enterprising individuality, regulated procedural sharing, non-restrictive grade level. Notable alumni include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, (CSmonitor.com). All of these Childrens Houses were privately funded, and continue to operate today. In addition, as Hillsdale College in south-eastern Michigan has demonstrated, the funding of a school even on the University level may be accomplished entirely through private endowments, as this proposal intends to acquire. The Cato Institute, among others, has striven to uphold the tenets of an individualist school system through its libertarian mission and publications. The Ayn Rand Institute, which has made public its approval of individualized education institutes, would take interest in such a school as a furtherance of its philosophy. Companies and Universities would desire to have first pick from the graduates of these enlightened grade schools and could purchase shares in the new system, could fund scholarship for desirable individuals, and improve their pool of high-achieving potential employees. For in all the talk of how schools should be funded and how much, in all the legislated, congressionally-budgeted, federally-lobbied educational initiative, how many stop to think whether the government should be funding education at all?

Myers 9 This proposal is the voice for those thoughts, for the initiation of a new, individual-centric, privately funded education system, only the broadest principles of which have been delineated here. The first step is to understand the main distinction made by this proposal: that the achievement of the individual is the best and only proper means to further a society. For in this case we can arrive at a startling spiritual renaissance, where happiness and education coalesce into one motivation. In other words, we strive here to make learnedness a source of joy, and neither an obligation for the low achieving, or a punishment for the high. True, the individual unimpeded by society to pursue his own happiness will not always pursue that which is best for that society, but if society pushes back against his use of others as a means to his own ends, how can we refuse him the freedom to accept responsibility for his work, his thought, his life? How can we ignore this problem? We can, by knowing standardized testing is wrong without discovering the means to improve the system. We can, by allowing legislation to rule the day under the guise of unqualified prohibitions and government-centric initiative. We can, by hating our education system without knowing why and continuing to consume the collectivist ice cream despite its debilitating and corrosive influence on our health. But if we assume, as we must, that there will be individuals whose pursuit of happiness leads them towards achievement, who will say that this, above all, is not for the good of the society? Societies made from this principle are the greatest this world has known, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, from the ingenious to the robust. This countrys current education system does not support this notion. But it must, and will, so long as the belief in the individual as the end, and not the means, of society, is held by those willing to ask if there is another way. When we ask our children to share, we do so unconditionally, as if the sharing itself were a moral constant to be upheld in all situations. Though it

Myers 10 is important to compromise when possible and beneficial to those involved, unconditional moral sharing quickly becomes the sharing of the intellect, which by college leaves students unconfident, unprepared, cognitively stifled, and morally numb. This is the new behind. This country has fought too long against the principles of obligated sharing to celebrate its three-hundredth birthday by resigning to them. The founding of a single school may not seem nationally ameliorating, but a haven for individual achievement, a resource for businesses and institutes, a recourse for teachers too competent for a system that asks them to focus on the needy, may prove to be the example that we need. Universities may see the benefit of such a system, and may reform their own; what is started here may not rightly be called a revolution, but rather, a Renaissance. For this proposal is not a demand, but a signpost, not a prerogative, but delineation. For a new breed of school. A new enlightenment.

Works Cited Anderson, Elizabeth, Anderson,. "Dewey's Moral Philosophy." Stanford University. Stanford University, 20 Jan. 2005. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-moral/>. Enright, Marsha. "Education For A New Enlightenment | The New Individualist | The Atlas Society." The Atlas Society / . N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. <http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/educationnew-enlightenment>. "John Dewey." John Dewey. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.minerva.mic.ul.ie//vol1/dewey.html>. "John Dewey > Quotes." John Dewey Quotes (Author of Art as Experience). N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/42738.John_Dewey>.

Myers 11 Maria Montessori and 10 famous graduates from her schools Google founders Larry page and Sergey Brin CSMonitor.com. The Christian Science Monitor CSMonitor.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http://www.csmonitot.com/Innovation/Tech-Culture/2012/0831/Maria-Montessori-and-10famous-graduates-from-her-schools/Google-founders-Larry-Page-and-Sergey-Brin>. Maria Montessori Institute. Maria Montessori Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct 2013. <http://www.mariamontessori.org/>. Murphy, James Jerome. Quintilian on the teaching of speaking and writing translations from books one, two, and ten of the Institutio oratoria. Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. Print. Obama, Barack. "It's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124930-it-s-only-when-you-hitch-your-wagon-to-somethinglarger>. "On Power: The Independent Institute | H Quotes On Power." On Power: The Independent Institute | H Quotes On Power. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://www.onpower.org/quotes/h.html>. Peikoff, Leonard. The ominous parallels: the end of freedom in America. New York: Stein and Day/Publishers, 1982. Print.