Week 2- Michelle Perng A02

Theme: Debunking Myths about Asian Americans and Higher Education and Introduction to Social Engineering Theory

Reading: The Untold History of Modern US Education

This article provided interesting insight into how people dominated the education system.  Before taking this course and reading this week's articles, I noticed a while back that large businesses and powerful families hold majority of societal authority with arms extending into politics, education, and formations of social class and structure without the public knowing.  Most people blame teachers, staff, and schools for the educational failures, not realizing the limited influence they have in their field, which the article notes that "material the educators can teach and how they must instruct to achieve standardized national test scoring is tied to the schools receiving critical funding each and every year." Although not common knowledge, and considered "untold history of modern US education," more people have been speaking up against the current education system.  I have seen multiple accounts (ie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8) discussing the issues of education, mainly focusing on the lack of reform and development within the department and a call for change; however, considering my acknowledgment of corporate control, I knew simply recognizing the stagnate education system and calling the organization out wouldn't change much because the people at the top wouldn't give up what they've built so easily.  I don't blame foundations like Rockefellers, Carnegie, Mellon for doing so because I probably would have done the same.  At a young age, I told myself the most brilliant crime would be regulating education with puppets without exposed one's self as the mastermind.  Any public disgruntlement would be directed towards the disposable puppet that appears to be the head of education, whom could be changed at any moment, and give the public hope and relief for a while.  It would take a proud but humble person to take on such a role, as the person would need to be ambitious for power, but not be recognized his or her achievements.  Later I realized that this system wouldn't work in the long run as countries compete against each other.  If one country consisted of human-robots doing the biddings of a few people, the lack of new ideas and creation would cause the country to collapse or fall in the hands of another country.  And, in an idealistic world with international peace between countries, a group of dominating businesses would be able to achieve anything they wanted.  As the article describes the range of Rockefeller's influence on education and quotes his desire for one world, then I understand where he comes from. 

Question: One interesting remark the article makes surrounds the idea that alcohol prohibition resulted from Rockefeller and Joseph Kennedy's plot to make oil the only source of energy for cars to run on, while allowing the public to believe the ban was simply a social issue.  As plausible (and slick) as this seems, the claim had no source, causing me to wonder if there is any evidence backing the idea aside from the original Ford design that allowed alcohol to be a fuel. 



Work Cited:

Lee, Jamie (January 28, 2014). THE UNTOLD HISTORY OF MODERN U.S. EDUCATION: THE FOUNDING FATHERS. Retrieved from Waking Times https://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/01/28/untold-history-modern-u-s-education-founding-fathers/

Williams, Richards (Sep 26, 2016). I JUST SUED THE SCHOOL SYSTEM !!!. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8