Education System Has Become Too Boxed In

Re “Why Isn’t ‘Just Thinking’ Rewarded?” by Daniel Arnold, Voices, Nov. 27: Thinking isn’t rewarded because it isn’t wanted. The idea of creating the need to gain admission to an elite university is to make sure bright students channel their energies in approved ways, leaving as little time as possible for independent study and thinking. And the same thing will happen at university.

The need for people who actually use physics and calculus in any significant way is very small. Yet elite school applicants must study these subjects and get A’s.

So obviously their study is just a test of ambition, endurance and intelligence. If a student puts up with such study, he is hooked and will do whatever it takes to get ahead.

The expected result of such Pavlovian training is the ideal corporate, government or university employee. One who will automatically think only along approved lines, going along with whatever is demanded of him to get along.

Raymond J. Rostan

Santa Ana

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Thinking is an endangered activity. The fact is President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law discourages thinking. It is all about test scores, Stepford-childlike school behaviors and controlling the curriculum (a.k.a. setting standards).

The law forces public schools to cram concept after new concept into our children, overload them with homework, take away their childhoods, their imaginations and their thoughts and then, under the guise of standards, remove time for synthesis and reflection, the foundation of learning, and instead measure learning by a test score.

“They” want our children to grow up to be robots, not thinking, questioning beings; it makes them easier to control. It’s just so much easier to goose-step our way into a theocracy if no one asks questions.

Diane Kroker

Anaheim Hills