In the late 1700s and early 1800s, between 95 and 99% of our adult population considered itself literate. Keep in mind, “literate” for them meant being able to read and understand a book like, say, the King James Bible or “Last of the Mohicans” (both rated at 12th grade reading difficulty). Parents, rightly, did not want that level of success to be tampered with. However, threats of violence and imprisonment (and imprisonment is still a viable threat in relation to what the government calls truancy) and a now-decades-long history of public education, we have a large majority of people in our country who cannot perceive education as anything except so-called traditional learning. And it has had major unfortunate consequences. In 1941, our literacy rate was approximately 96%. This meant that, in a test designed by the US government to weed out unsuitable military candidates, a full 4% of them could not read well enough to understand basic instructions, particularly life-saving safety instructions. By the beginning of the Korean War, less than a decade later, this 4th grade proficiency test could only be passed by 81% of applicants. By the Vietnam Conflict, approximately a decade after the Korean War, the exact same test was passed by only 73% of test takers.

The Prussian Model of education was designed on purpose to separate children from the religious teachings of their parents (the statement of the time–not my wording) and place them in a situation in which they would learn to be good followers of the state. It was never designed to provide a thorough and comprehensive education. But, with the violence of its implementation in the United States and the continued threat of imprisonment, implementation has been successful and, unfortunately, the model works as designed for most students. And, should you not believe me regarding the threat of imprisonment, look up the compulsory schooling laws for your state. I would imagine that compulsory schooling starts about age 8, earlier if your family is considered low income, and continues until at least age 16. Where I live, a child of a low income family may be required to begin schooling at age 4. Now, I realize that some folks will say that this is because these children have a greater struggle to “catch up with” their peers, but as a former teacher, I can confidently state that the system would is less effective at preparing these kids to learn than creating a situation in which their parents did not have to work 70 hour weeks to make a living wage–thus freeing up some of their time to actually parent.

Ok. Time to step down off the soapbox and let somebody else squawk.

All that’s happened today is lessons have become so surreal, there is no question the j[i]st about the whole “education system” is based on bullshit, at worst, or profiling the mediocre, at best. Though, I fail to find it in Jon’s article, the “shift” – if there is a shift has been to put “reason” on the slippery slope, encouraging students to rely on the system to tell them “how things are”, because the “surreal nature of everything” is “too confusing” for “normal”, “decent”, mediocre people. That, if anything, is all that’s changed.

But have normal people ever been able to “understand” Einstein or his notable predecessors?

That system didn’t work before and it is largely responsible for your ADHD fantasy. All that’s happened is things have moved surreal without allowing artists to prevaricate. We live in the age of mediocrity which is the resolve of disillusioned ignorance and that’s the problem.