1. Sit still in your chair and do what you're told.
(This is a remarkably difficult lesson. Particularly since it is utterly unnatural behavior for human beings and most other living things outside the plant kingdom. Thus, most young people are well into college before they are sufficiently suppressed to assume the position.)
2. Different is bad. Same is good.
(Imitation isn't just the greatest form of flattery. It is right behavior. Please make your answers match my answers. Please dress like I dress, talk like I talk, value what I value. Don't excel too much or fail too much. Take no chances. Needless to say, an original idea has about as much chance as a rat in a cat factory.)
3. Look like you're working.
(Since most of the skills and concepts taught through
high school in public education could be mastered by any
reasonably bright and diligent ten year old, appearance is
much more important than substance. In fact, substance
outside of imitation is suspect and most likely subversive.
Most kids learn at two different speeds.
1. Zip: Things they are interested in, and
2. Plod: Things someone else wants them to learn.
The relative velocities of the two are somewhat parallel to
the difference between modern supersonic air travel and
horse drawn wagons...make that mule drawn wagons.)
4. Recess is coming.
(No matter what indignity you have to put up with for the rest of the day, never fear you will have a short prescibed period of time during which with some qualifications, you can actually be alive. aka: Summer vacation, early retirement, spring break, heaven, nirvana etc.
5. The World is Made Up of Winners and Losers.
Mostly losers. There can only be so many cheerleaders, captains of the football team and Senior class presidents. If you don't make it to the top of the opinion poll, you're a loser. In the end, only two types of people are left, those who lose and those who are scared to death of losing.
Now I'm not saying that public education is ineffective. Far from it. If you want proof that the system is working, you can observe adults in any workplace in modern society. You will find them all dressed alike, sitting in chairs, looking like they are working, doing what they are told and waiting for recess. A few carnivorous winners will be scratching and biting their way to the top, never noticing their footprints on the stooped backs, the bleary eyes and balding pates of the vast sea of losers.