Education is the key to success, right? What does an "Educated" person even look like anymore?
When most "Educated" people now feel nervous to answer how many genders exist today, how do we raise our children to be intellectually equipped for the future?
Growing up in the halcyon period of the late-90s, the marker of intellectual success was, of course, graduating from college. And if you were a Korean-American kid like I was, going to an Ivy League college served as the pinnacle of scholarly and personal achievement.1 To do so was simple: Ace all your in-class and standardized exams, pursue extra-curriculars that show high intellectual prowess (e.g. Finalist in intel competition) or high socialization (Class president and/or captain of {presumably} a sensible, non-contact sport team). Profit.2
The landscape is different now.
Instead of going through any number of examples of how American “Higher Education” values anything resembling genuine meritocracy or intellectual courage, we can conclude that the system’s (such as it is) chief goal for young people is compliance. How many stories are there of bright, optimistic young minds attending college to then return as resentful, arrogant ideologues who lash out primarily against the familial units that provided them the support structure to attend a private, four-year academic institution in the first place? For reasons both ethical and pragmatic, it is not a path that I want to send my beloved son, especially when the system clearly punishes the traits of a healthy, happy boy at an early age.
First, let’s look at what a “Well Educated Adult” looks like through two paradigms: Woke vs. Awake
Woke : The amount of degrees one has directly correlates with wisdom and intelligence
Awake: Depends on what degree. Physical sciences (Generally speaking) means the person has a firm grasp on reality and adherence to a scholarly coherent discipline. Inversely, the more social sciences degree one has means they’re more likely to be so high in their ivory tower they’re in an oxygen-deprived stratum where they can’t differentiate delusions from reality. Don’t get me started on MDs.
Woke: A four-year college degree from anywhere is better than nothing.
Awake: While I don’t ascribe to the “Just skip college and get a trade” maximalist ideology, blindly going to college without any direction is a recipe for frustration. I have sympathy for my peers who are crushed by the burden of loathsome, government encouraged non-dischargeable debt because common wisdom told them a theater degree would open the same doors as a petroleum engineering degree. However, kids today need to understand that *any* degree won’t open doors for them. They need to pay attention to what people genuinely need.
Woke: The Ivy League - and other schools in that brand stratum - is pinnacle of academic scholarship and early personal achievement.
Awake: Given those academic brands push disposable, weak designer beliefs and constant validation-soothing of their paying customers(i.e. students) at the expense of critical thinking and genuine character examination, it’s more likely that those graduates will demonstrate a higher degree of insufferable moral self-righteousness that conveniently bestows upon them more status and control over those who do not share their in-group ideologies as they progress in their careers.
Woke: College graduates will leave with a better understanding of the world and their place in it.
Awake: In college, students will learn things like gender norms, like wearing dresses, applying makeup, and playing with dolls are indoctrinated by the patriarchy and thus are artificial, oppressive, and must be toppled immediately. At the same time, they are also told that, say, a young boy who likes to wear dresses, apply makeup, and play with dolls is actually in fact *truly* a female and should be encouraged to explore his femininity and eventually explore surgically removing parts of his body and creating permanently opened orifices that *reflect* his *true* gender identity. Colleges will expect students to pay upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars for this valuable enlightenment.
Our ultimate goal for our child is that he is energized, ready, and capable of dealing with the world as it is, and as it will be, when he leaves our supervision. It is clear that trusting the system (such as it is) rewards vacuous, self-serving collectivism in exchange for the flourishing of the human spirit.
Where does that leave a parent in this day and age? The Mrs. and I have concluded that we are going to home school our son. Homeschooling will give us the best chance to ensure he:
Learns substantive topics without an ideological bent.
Won’t be punished simply because he’s being a boy doing what boys do.
Will not be constructively tortured by sitting in a seat for hours. We will focus on instructional class time that is only a few hours a day max (which is still far more time than a single teacher gives a class of 20+ students) with the remainder of the day dedicated to constructive play and exploration.
Our little guy is not yet even preschool-age so we have a little time to organize our thoughts and further research our plans. If you have any feedback on homeschooling, I’d love to hear it below.
And in the cultural context of many Korean American communities, the achievement of a child gaining admission to an Ivy League institution is often perceived by immigrant parents and their social circles as a personal triumph for the parents as well. But I digress.
For the record, dear reader, my top Ivy rejected me for bravely shattering harmful Asian stereotypes by never studying particularly diligently or taking the college admission process seriously.
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