Education under Class Division (3rd revision)

[William Prest]

Education under capitalism is all about controlling the masses in an involuntary command and obey exchange. Mass education is also done as cheaply as possible. The masses are given only the education required to best serve their masters at any given time and circumstance and almost none that would allow them to survive on their own without the support of their masters. Despite our human intelligence, this can actually be used against the individual based upon what they are taught in their most formative years where they absorb the most from the "world of experience". Of all the species, very few can self educate from an early age. Cats can do it; it has been observed many times as young cats teach themselves to catch mice and birds to eat, but all too often, people cannot. In fact, this trait seems by and large absent in human babies and children outside of language skills. With young children who grow and develop in isolation from adults, new languages will arise. There are some recorded instances of this phenomenon in history. This alone appears to be what people can self-learn beyond basic motor skills. All else has to be instructed by adults; and here is the rub. Unscrupulois expoiters will teach the young things that are actually detrimental to self survival. Part of the proof also comes from human babies adopted and raised by dogs and pigs of which there are recorded instances in history. These children ended up speaking and behaving like their surrogate animal parents. The story of Tarzan is a myth as a human baby raised by chimps would likely behave and speak as these surrogate parents.

It is known through research and investigation that the most formative years in the learning cycle of any individual, whether animal or human is the period between birth and the onset of adulthood. It is during this period that the young individual must learn to manoeuvre their own body, use the senses effectively and learn how to survive on its/their own. At this stage of development, the individual can be taught anything others of the community decide is worth teaching for a particular end. If that community is divided by class, then the decision on what is worth learning by various classes is made from on high. After the onset of adulthood, the individual should have learned these skills, because in the adult phase of life turns toward obtaining a suitable mate and to reproduction for the next generation. Human beings are no different than other animals in this regard and often have an extended learning cycle, as they don’t reach the age of reproductive capability until about the age of ten years give or take a year. Adult workers not only have to survive but must also look after raising and teaching the new generation of workers. For most people, the job, raising children and surviving in a mostly hostile class divided world is a huge task and a more than full time job. Many complain that they have two jobs, the one for the capitalist, the other raising the children.

In civilization, the reproductive urge is often curtailed until the late teens or early twenties. Learning under class division is extended into this period even though individual biological sexual forces are at their strongest. Needless to say, teens struggle to absorb the required education of the state while under the influence of such strong biological forces. If part of their upbringing in school has been religious, this adds to the pressure to conform to the “will of God.” Within the context of education is the bullying system of compliance enforced by propaganda of a terror deity. Civilization has gone far in subverting the natural learning process and bending it to the purposes of serving the powerful and wealthy elite. We shall examine in turn, the alienation from nature, the subversion of cultures by imperialist conversion and specialization in a mechanized culture of consumerist society. We shall investigate the structure of the educative process and what schooling is all about under capitalism. Finally, we offer what is really needed in education in a materialist context.

Alienation from nature had its inception with the development of civilization and class division. This was a gradual process at first that occurred in discrete jumps with discoveries made from observing nature. In the end, with the development of intensive civilization, there came a complete alienation from nature on the part of its subjects that has important implications. The first such jump was to match seasons with various phenomena such as wild birds laying eggs, the birth of young animals and when fish would run upstream or on shore during high tides to mate. It was also important to time fruition. All of this was important to hunting gathering cultures that were still very much linked with and in tune with nature. This skill closely matches that of other animals that hunt and gather according to the seasons and availability. Shelters were temporary and easily moved to follow the availability of food. Such a life style existed in North America until the advancing settlers drove the plains Indians off their range in the 1860s/70s by killing off the bison. For water hunting, various small boats and floatation devices were developed to assist in the hunt. This one step was one toward civilization. Others were sticks and arrow heads like the Clovis point, thought to be in wide use 14,000 years ago. Evidence exists that early man used rounded stones to fend off predators like the sabre tooth tiger. Throwing such weapons was the origin of stoning.

The next great leap came with the capture and taming of wild animals. It is thought that the dog was the first animal tamed from young wolves. Tamed wolves could be a great asset to hunting. This fact is demonstrated in modern hunting dogs such as pointers, bloodhounds and retrievers, all specifically bred to help in the hunt. This was followed by taming cats, goats, sheep, cattle, chickens and other domestic animals. Some lend themselves better to wandering in the herding lifestyle such as goats, sheep, cattle and horses. Others are more suited to a more sedentary lifestyle such as chickens and pigs.

The adults who made discoveries taught other adults of the group or tribe and their children at the earliest age. This fact is demonstrated in modern times where herders in Mongolia teach children as young as two years old how to use a sharp knife for skinning, carving and cutting meat. The hunting and gathering lifestyle demanded a lot of time, except when a major find allowed time for other activities. Hunter-gathers such as the plains Indians lived off and followed the massive herds of Bison. Occasionally, when a hunt was particularly successful, there was much food and free time. Earlier period lifestyles are found in the Australian aboriginal and the Kalahari Desert bushman. They also teach children from an early age. They had to owing to difficult environmental conditions. Also, if something happened to the adults, the kids could fend for themselves without further assistance, which is why early education in survival skills was crucial. That fact is still true, but is lost in class divided capitalist civilization and the general alienation from nature of the working class. Our education is based on other considerations related more to profit making than basic survival.

In the course of nature are times of feast and famine. Like it or not, these cycles exist in small and in large all over the planet. During famine, the need to find water and food became paramount in importance. Some people solved this by living near the oceans and living off sea life. Others migrated, sometimes following wild herds alongside wild dogs and cats. I might well be that such people domesticated the first dogs and cats. Still others would raid other people and take what they had. In the course of human early development all this occurred.

In some areas, such as the Nile Delta, Mesopotamia and Bengal, there was such plenty, people could be more sedentary. Such a place is the example of the Egyptian dynasties. Somewhere in the course of history, there was the development of agriculture and resulting surplus produce. Certainly agriculture was well established in Egypt from earliest history. With agriculture and animal herds and husbandry, there was not as much need for the hunt and gathering wild edibles. But, as wild lands compete with agricultural lands, the wild ones were taken over for agricultural development. Further with surplus production, there was time to develop new skills. But this came with the drawback of losing the original skills, especially for those who specialized in fields such as sky watching, agriculture, the arts and crafts, and military and trades people. These specialized fields required education of children born to parents in these fields. The parents did the teaching in areas of crafts, arts, military and trades. This was the original inheritance. Other children were “adopted” out to learn sky watching and writing.

During the natural development of societies throughout history, there was combined and unequal development of cultures. This means that some cultures advanced to a high degree of sophistication and complexity while others remained in the hunting-gathering level of society simultaneously, though in different regions of the planet. Much of this depended upon the overproduction of good nutritious food. Historically, societies like the Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian, Greek, Roman, Aztec, Mayan and Incan existed alongside of Eskimos, plains Indians, bush-people and aboriginals. The Persians and Babylonians established the knowledge of astronomical cycles which helped immensely in areas like agriculture. So too did the Aztecs, Inca and Maya. The Chinese and Indians developed useful technologies and mathematics for their era. The Greeks developed the military, philosophy and science. The Romans perfected political expression and an organized military state. The bush people, plains Indians, Aboriginals and Eskimos maintained their hunting-gathering cultures for prolonged periods of history and pre-history. All of them had to pass on their knowledge to their children. As often happens, cultures crossed paths and ended up having clashes throughout history. The initial contact between two or more cultures may have resulted from exploration or necessity such as during famine. This point is brought out in David Key's book "catastrophe".

12,500 year ago, almost all the landmass on the planet was connected. Access to all areas was possible by mere walking except for what is now Iceland and small islands that dots the oceans. Though what is now Australia was also separated, it was by a channel narrower than the English Channel. That gap could have been easily traversed via the most primitive means including swimming. Man had access to it all for nearly 90,000 years prior to the great melt down. Culture was likely much more uniform. The, 12,500 years ago, the global temperature soared 20 degrees in 50 years. All coastal areas were inundated by up to 400 feet of water, but not necessarily all at once. There is archaeological evidence that some high civilizations were submerged at that time. With the meltdown came the separation of the super continent into several smaller ones and from that moment, cultures started to diverge ending with what exists today.

The origin of specialization occurred when surplus agricultural production gave peoples free time to engage in other pursuits. They were freer to explore their world and try new ways of doing things. The role of specialization could develop only because there was community trust. Those who planted and harvested and slaughtered animals depended on the prognostications of the sky watchers who told them when to plant or hunt for greatest success. In payment, the hunters, growers and harvesters provided the sky watchers with food, so they could continue sky watching. This fact is demonstrated today in the Dogon community. This meant that sky watchers were not directly involved with the labour of planting crops and harvesting. Other fields of endeavour emerged, such as boat building, pottery making, weapons manufacture/metallurgy, animal training and food preservation like wine making and meat curing. With all these developments of specialized skills, came the sacrifice of basic survival, growing, hunting and gathering skills. No one can do everything. Should the complex and specialized organization of skills face a calamity, those who were suddenly thrown back into basic survival mode, were incapable of doing so and died in quick order even if surviving the initial calamity. Such a case exists in the example of the history of the collapse of the mighty 4th dynasty of Egypt. During a 200 year long drought where the Nile River dried up, most people in Egypt died. An example closer to us in history is the collapse of Teotihuacán in the decades after 535 AD for similar reasons of prolonged drought.

But, the specialization in education of various skills could work the other way too, i.e., the people who grew things, hunted and gathered could be easily convinced by those of other skills, into believing what they were told due to ignorance in these other specialized fields. This is especially true for those who could read portents from the sky and nature upon whom agricultural people depended. If a sky watcher foretold destruction, people would believe it, especially if they sky watchers had a good record of accuracy. In the case of the Aztecs, the population believing in the return of Quetzalcoatl during Nov. 1519 prepared the road for the fulfilment of the prophecy. In this instance, Cortez who just happened to arrive at that time was seen as the returning of Quetzalcoatl and the empire fell within two years according to the ancient prophecy. This single point is crucial in understanding contemporary education under the bourgeois world order that has spun its own myths in order to preserve their dominance and prepare us for our own sacrifices to the point of a slow agonizing death.

History is recorded by peoples who either were conquered or by the conquerors who invaded the territories of others. Politics is written into these histories. Many cultures were subverted or eliminated by invading cultures via imperialist conquest. History as written in diverse sources from the Bible, to Homer’s Iliad, Josephus, Pliny the elder and Pliny the younger, records the conflicts and conquests of one culture by another. Often the invading civilization destroys the one invaded, taking everything of value and enslaving the people. Many times, the ones invaded, if they survived within the dominating culture, managed to keep alive their traditions and beliefs, oftentimes embellishing them with those of the ruling civilization. At other times, destruction was so complete that the losers were absorbed completely and served in the lesser positions in the dominating society. This is another source of multilayered classes such as we find in India, a culture subdivided into four major classes. When the Aristocracy and later the budding bourgeoisie invaded the Americas, they took what they found by trickery or force. Whole cultures and civilizations were laid to waste without regard except for seizing what was considered of value. Anything conflicting with the invaders ideology was destroyed except for a few examples secreted away by organizations like the Catholic Church. Children were taken by force and re-educated to serve the new masters. They were discouraged from learning the long established hunting-gathering way of life in favour of “jobs” taught to them to serve their new masters. They became a second class or lower class serving population. The result was alienation that had a profound psychological impact upon the conquered that were given menial roles in the new order with no pride of self respect or any way to escape.

Religion as promulgated by the aristocratic and ruling orders was designed to humiliate the conquered into servile submission. Today, the bourgeoisie have taken over this role. Religious ideology as taught to the newly conquered was very alienating from nature and from ones own nature and biology. Free inquiry was discouraged for formalism, dogma and catechism, accepting the ridiculous as real and the real as illusory in a denial of materialist foundations. The workers place was not and is not to ask but to obey without question, to accept what was stated as unquestionable truth. The worker had to take on faith what was taught and given. Free thinking was and is discouraged and those workers who by chance or intellect, teach themselves widely are regarded with suspicion and kept away from other workers who acted according to what they were taught. Carry this a little further and we can see a sex divide in action too. Women in particular were discouraged to pursue free thinking, math, and the sciences and encouraged in areas dealing with the home, like cooking, child rearing and cleaning. The woman’s specific role in class divided society is to raise the next generation of workers and they couldn’t do this if they were in a full time career outside of the home. Traditionally, women were to be in the home, look after and raise children and support the church. Though women have some freedom to a limited extent today, the old prejudices prevail especially to working class women, who, if they work, take low end jobs or are paid less than men for identical work. The women of the ruling class have more freedom, but even here prejudice prevails.

The role of religion, mysticism and obscurantism has had a profound impact upon humanity especially when the people so educated in their formative years have become alienated from all direct contact with nature. Religion itself was born from nature, from observing the sky and the uncontrollable forces of nature. Even today, under our high civilization, we are utterly helpless in the face of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, big freezes, heat waves, droughts, floods and other forces. The original gods were all forces of nature, personified by the observers and writers. Solar and Lunar eclipses that could be predicted early in civilized history were used to inspire compliance when the “gods” showed signs. These gods were joined by other planetary deities, sea gods, wind gods, earth gods and such. This does not lessen the impact of raw forces. When these forces were personalized as deities, then the unscrupulous were able to bend the will of the toiling people to their desired end, even to the point of human sacrifice to appease the gods or in wars of conquest. Great calamities are terror inspiring when they occur. They induce psychic shock as observed in the victims of the Malaysian tsunami of Dec. 24th, 2004 and the victims of hurricane Katrina in Aug. 2005 in New Orleans. Unscrupulous people take advantage of this and can make people do what they command, even though the demands are counter to their survival or the survival of others. It can also be highly profitable to enrich ones self from the misery of others. A new form of capitalism has arisen called disaster capitalism.

During the invasion of the Americas by various aristocratic and then bourgeois imperialists, Indian children were deliberately taken by the invaders are re-educated under the aegis of the Catholic Church. Former ways were discouraged or ended when the parents were executed by engineered famine, germ warfare or by superior weaponry. The children were taught skills utterly useless to them in basic survival, taught instead to be compliant to the invading imperialist order and accepting whatever was dished out whether reservation, mass slaughter, the Trail of Tears, welfare, prison, alcoholism, drug and substance abuse and chronic unemployment under a xenophobic order. Modern America was built on a genocide that Hitler could only dream of. Indian children exist on the fringes of bourgeois society as outcasts in their own former territory. Prior to the invasion, the Indians developed their own resilient cultures and some high standing civilizations. Places like Teotihuacán, Copan, Tikal, Machu Pichu and many others dot the whole of the Americas.

Do the children of the invaders fare ant better? Only marginally! With growing homelessness in the ranks of the working class young, even this is doubtful. What skills do these people have to survive on their own? None! They have been educated; or should it be said, mis-educated with useless skill sets that apply to nothing concrete. They do not know how to hunt and gather or grow food plants and animals, nor even have legal provision or permission to do so. They are entirely dependant on the undependable bourgeois system that cares nothing about them whatsoever. In lieu of knowing any survival skills, working class children are taught basic skills that often don’t even apply to the job market. These skills are often taught by the job market itself. Some limited exceptions do apply, such as trades training in schools, but even that is inadequate. Post school trades and job training is required, often at high cost in time and finances. The competition between the old religious parochialism and contemporary science creates confusion especially with scandals in both fields. But religious education taught from an early age is meant to keep people compliant to the wishes of a terror god and that god's representatives in society. The ones who teach this are the “representatives” of this deity and best express the deity’s wishes as the true representatives according to what they teach. The real gods of the world are the self made ones, as has often happened in history. Young children not knowing any better, absorb this information as readily as bush peoples children absorb survival skills early in life. In a calamitous situation, the bush person’s child will fare the best. Misinformation parading as truth, even as high science is something taught, re-taught and reinforced through early and teen life.

Each and every one of us is born entirely dependant on parents, society and ultimately upon nature. We absorb everything around us, the earliest years being the most formative and impressionable. Knowing this, the rulers takes successive generations of working class children and educate them in the fundamental arts of compliance, i.e., the respect of authority from parents to God, the regimentation of work life, competition within the education to the failure complex, individual limits and boundaries and a servile attitude. The bourgeoisie, who once fought against aristocracy and theocracy with the help of the lower classes, now employ a type of aristocracy and use theocracy to rule the masses. Once an educated working class was desirable but now it is not. So a great dumbing down is afoot, just as it was when Indian children were re-educated in parochial schools. The bourgeoisie and fundamentalist leaders are cultivating an attitude of faith in a system not worthy of trust by its multitude of scandals and massive thefts. They are cultivating intolerance against minorities in a divide and conquer strategy. After hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, several facts emerged. The bourgeois state did not assist in a timely manner prior to, during and after the event. The people who were victims were utterly helpless, as a babe in arms with no survival skills of any appreciable type. Many people died horribly and needlessly, some deliberately murdered for convenience. Many people relied on prayer as a means of help, which utterly failed during and after the event. Many believe even now that “God visited sinners with a disaster.” A color divide became plain during and after the disaster, which is still in place and was in place prior to it. Assistance when it did come was not to the most religious, but to the wealthy and greediest. Religious intolerance was fanned, especially against gay people and other revellers. Nothing of course as said about the luxuriating and indolence of the bourgeoisie. This whole catastrophe could have been prevented if people were taught what they really need to know instead of fantasies and xenophobia as living skills. Perhaps the best summery of the modern education system was summed up in a song by Trinidadian Calypso King, song writer and performer, the Mighty Sparrow who stated “What they taught me in school made me a block headed mule.” The song goes on to state some of the nonsense taught that has no practical use other than enforcing command and obey. This has a parallel in religious upbringing that heavily influences education where people are taught to believe in the ridiculous and ignore the obvious. Obey the commands of God as interpreted by the pope or televangelist as “God’s representative and spokes person.” Dogmatism is preferred to genuine inquiry. Even many on the left fall prey to dogmatism. This is not to knock genuine religious spirit that builds community and seeks revolutionary solutions to social issues as in Liberation Theology, but this part is ignored in favour of blaming and the fantasy-land brand pushed by church, state and bourgeoisie.

Public and parochial education thus is about building and enforcing compliance to the exploiters in capitalist society today. It ignores the real needs of individual and real human society. It builds the idea of keeping timely schedules and to take the job home with you after work. Your time and by implication therefore, your life is not your own, but a commodity expropriated by the bourgeoisies in order for you to fulfill your responsibility to market, state, king/president, church and God. Bourgeois education teaches almost nothing about fundamental survival skills. Very little is taught regarding agricultural skills and animal husbandry. Most of it does not teach any trade unless you take construction shops and auto mechanics. One learns basic skills like reading (to follow the boss’s instructions), writing (to communicate to a potential employer by way of resume and cover letters) and arithmetic/modern math (to do your tax return, use a credit card, pay the rent and balance a cheque book). Most school graduates wind up on assembly lines, warehouses, fast food/burger flipping, as cashiers, security guards, the military or working in fishing, mines and timber. Even those who don’t complete basic school wind up in such work due to on the job training. One does not learn about the trickery of the capitalist system on all levels. Much of that is reserved for specialists trained in university, college and various trade schools to be completed after basic education. A person can spend easily a third of their life span in school and often accrue a debt that takes the rest of the life to pay off. Job training occurs after basic schooling is done for and prior to getting some jobs. Other job situations rely upon on the job training to bring the employee up to speed. Most important within the capitalist school, is to train the student to the consumerist life style. Consumerism after all is one of the most important generators of profit. Consumerism is even touted as a way to survive in preparation and during a disaster. However, if the supplier of consumer goods collapses and ceases to exist, the consumer is left stranded without skills to deal with a new reality. There are many avenues whereby a supplier can collapse, so it is not necessarily caused by a natural catastrophe. A war or a market collapse under capitalist market anarchy will do the same thing.

We have in the developed world, something of a misnomer; a huge throng of adults who are as developed as new born babes when it comes to basic survival as an individual in an environment devoid of civilized influence. When the lights go out, many don’t know how to start a fire. When the taps stop running, they don’t know where to get drinkable water. When refrigeration ceases, they don’t know how to jerk, dry and smoke meat. When the food runs out, they have nothing but their witlessness to help them survive. When nature encroaches, they are unprepared to live any life beyond the artificially taught one of consumerist capitalist civilization. How does doing the same weld on the same spot on an assembly line day in and out for decades put food on the table when one can no longer weld? What good is your car without gas? The unemployed and the homeless teach us every day the value of our education when civilization is no longer supportive whether by engineered design or catastrophe. They too were taught as all captives and wage slaves were and are taught. They end up begging for help from other still working wage slaves or from church and state. The church and state are reluctant to help and seek ways to not help. Little or no attempt is made to teach alternatives beyond begging, welfarism, dumpster diving, recycling and so forth. Some in desperation turn to small crime. Big crime is left to the state in waiting; organized criminals. The chief criminals are the ones in power that are not recognized as criminal, yet they gun run, run casinos and drugs like the ones in waiting. Too bad the wage slaves are not so well organized. This is where the left has failed miserably of late. As Leon Trotsky once stated, "There has been a failure of leadership."

Those who continue into higher education do so as an investment in capitalism and by capitalism. Not everyone is welcome or qualifies to enter the university and college circuit. Those who go will take positions of support within the bourgeois superstructure upon successful graduation. Some take on revolutionary garb, but this often translates to a sell out ticket to shut up and assume a counter position in society and as a spy on dissenters. The best universities, colleges and seminaries are reserved for those chosen by the bourgeoisie or by inheritance, to be the replacement bourgeoisie when the elders die off. These places represent places of high investment and are much better equipped for teaching than public or parochial schools. These education centers have billion dollar equipment in science, communication, medical and computing departments to assist those trainees who will some day be our new exploiter generation. In the best military colleges, students learn to use the most advanced weaponry and tactical equipment. Often there is substantial post graduate and post degree learning. All of this is incumbent upon the everlasting hope of the continuation of the way things are. But dialectics of history tell us that nothing is permanent beyond change and the idea expressed in the permanent revolution. Even capitalism will go the way of the dinosaur! It is inevitable, one way or another.

Humanity under bourgeois capitalist civilization has reached a desperate state. Solutions short and long term are needed, especially when that fragile thing collapses from one cause or another, whether by nature, our own hand through war, by ruining the environment, or the economy or by revolution. It is necessary for people to educate themselves if necessary and prepare to survive in the absence of civilization. People need to educate themselves and their children honestly about nature and how to live completely in that context. They need to learn respect for everyone and everything. This will give them a type of strength that is absent under capitalist education. This need not be a full time job, especially if still working for a living. People need to know the fundamentals of growing their own food and “waste” places in cities should be set aside for cultivation. They should also learn how to raise and care for chickens, goats, sheep, cattle and horses. All of this can be learned alongside civilized tasks. This has been proven to be effective in Cuba. People need to be taught the truth. Then, if capitalist civilization collapses, or if support is completely removed, people won’t have to dig through garbage scavenging for a living on bourgeoisie's throw outs. We need not fall into the life style of the impoverished in the third world, which has already come home to roost in the developed world. In the beginning, humanity lived completely in the context of nature. We need that skill now as a fall back position until we have a fully functioning planned economy. Even in that context, with the threat of uncontrolled natural disaster, people need a basic survival set of knowledge to tide them over till help comes from other sectors in a planned socialist economy, something almost completely lacking in the wage slave of the capitalist world order.

The need for revolution is more urgent than ever, owing to increasing desperation among the masses and capitalist ruination of the planet. Part of the revolutionary’s duty is re-education, away from capitalist centered points of view and also to teach basic survival and agricultural skills. It must be done of a willing mind and not by coercion as under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge scheme in Cambodia to turn a whole country into agrarian reform. No one should have to die learning to survive, which is a contradiction in terms. In humanity’s early beginnings, great pains were taken to prevent needless death, especially of the children. There are ways to attract people to learning these things and the best time is during the childhood formative years from two to ten. Many adults are attracted to camping, but under capitalist ways, this often translates into a deep woods drunk in a bid to “get away from it all” in the capitalist rat race. Everyone converges, usually in the summer in parks to camp and cook in a natural setting in mobile homes, trailers and tents. Some go fishing and a few go hunting. Few forage for wild edibles like berries in season. Even in cities, wild food is available for the picking, emphasizing the point that it is available equally for all, but few there are that use it. Not even the homeless use this resource to full extent. This is the appalling reality of our educated ignorance. Indeed, we are taught to be wary of these things in case of inadvertently eating something poisonous or diseased. This is terror dressed in educated garb.

Often during the pre-revolution period when the insurrection has yet to happen, great revolutionary leaders were thrown into situations where they had to rely on their wits to survive within the wilds of the deep forest or mountains. Although sympathizers often lent support, sometimes living from nature was necessary. Education is a good thing if used properly for people instead of profit. One of the tasks of the revolutionary vanguard is to restructure education to encompass all the needs of the individual and of collective society in a planned economy.

Education under a planned economy should use natural talents in children as they become apparent. Under capitalism, this fact is ignored. In fact, natural talent is discouraged and those who show any are criticized into obedience, not to do what is natural. An education under a planned economy seeks to develop the best in all individual expression. Further, in the early years, there should be education in fundamental skills like how to survive within nature, how to grow food, find or make pure drinking water, how to make impromptu shelters and survive a disaster. Education should emphasize team work and encourage the best in people. There should be an active and useful physical culture to encourage agility and strength. These activities should be integrated with life, such as swimming, rock climbing, and interaction with animals, dexterity and balance such as learned in yoga, Ti Chi and martial arts. Teamwork as opposed to competition should be stressed, to develop a strong sense of community. After the basics, then those skills most useful for society should be taught. Free inquiry needs to be encouraged for these are the shoulders on which advancement stands. Those who have advanced skills need to pass them on. The whole of education needs to be completely changed and this can only occur when humanity goes through the quickening transforming process of revolution. It will not occur otherwise!