Interesting that this issue turned into a debate about anti-depressants. I for one was placed on Seroquel for awhile when I was suffering from a broken heart and had no one to talk to. No one from my church wanted to help, all they wanted to do was judge me. If I am upset I must deserve it, right?
Anyway, that aside, Seroquel made me feel numb, my parents literally adopted a dog just to cheer me up. I've always wanted a dog, ever since I was a kid. And there I was, sitting next to my first dog in the back seat of our car, and you know what I felt? Nothing. I literally couldn't feel anything in that moment, it is as if the whole entire purpose of Seroquel is to keep people from feeling anything at all. Not happiness, not sadness, just to go through life as a walking zombie.
Eventually I got off of that stuff, it was a struggle since this was an approved drug and when-ever I went through the withdrawal effects I was told that those are the reasons why my body needs this drug. It was basically a reverse drug addiction, where everyone in your family is telling you to take the drug and becoming scared for you when you won't do what the doctor told you to do. No one cared how I felt about it at all.
Since then I've developed a pretty passionate anti-drug bias with regards to psychiatric medication. I don't mind the idea of having a supply of emergency pills, something to help you calm down and get some rest when you're really spiraling, but the idea of being placed permanently on a medicine makes me wonder if this "medicine" will actually heal me or just keep me dependent on the next dose.
Again, this is all from personal experience, not gonna pretend like I've researched the issue with any detail, but my prediction is this, 50 years from now we will look back at the stuff we made our children take and recoil. Much like we look back on lobotomies and old-fashioned shock-therapy with disgust. To learn from history we have to assume that the mistakes of the past may be the strongly held biases of today. Cigarettes were healthy in the 40's after all.
Addressing the bigger issue, Indoctrination; in the positive sense, is when you teach a student something that is true.
2 + 2 = 4
George Washington was our nation's first president.
As long as it is proven to be true then there is nothing wrong with Indoctrination. Education is a bit more broad but I think that a good teacher would welcome challenge and actually encourage their students to ask questions such as "How do we know that George Washington was the first president of America?" So that instead of just having a list of facts in their brain that they can recall at an ever evaporating rate, they can instead learn how to take on and assess the validity of new historical data.
Math is perhaps the best example of a subject which automatically requires Education because if you can't explain why 2+2 = 4 then you won't be able to calculate 3 + 3. If you don't know what numbers mean or how to communicate with them then memorization is a poor substitute for calculation.
Long story short, the Indoctrinated mind, at best, can only tell you what the correct answer is. But an Educated mind can also show you their process for arriving at the correct solution.
When your students know everything about a given topic but cannot tell you how they know that the information is true, you know that their Indoctrination is complete.
Anyway, that aside, Seroquel made me feel numb, my parents literally adopted a dog just to cheer me up. I've always wanted a dog, ever since I was a kid. And there I was, sitting next to my first dog in the back seat of our car, and you know what I felt? Nothing. I literally couldn't feel anything in that moment, it is as if the whole entire purpose of Seroquel is to keep people from feeling anything at all. Not happiness, not sadness, just to go through life as a walking zombie.
Eventually I got off of that stuff, it was a struggle since this was an approved drug and when-ever I went through the withdrawal effects I was told that those are the reasons why my body needs this drug. It was basically a reverse drug addiction, where everyone in your family is telling you to take the drug and becoming scared for you when you won't do what the doctor told you to do. No one cared how I felt about it at all.
Since then I've developed a pretty passionate anti-drug bias with regards to psychiatric medication. I don't mind the idea of having a supply of emergency pills, something to help you calm down and get some rest when you're really spiraling, but the idea of being placed permanently on a medicine makes me wonder if this "medicine" will actually heal me or just keep me dependent on the next dose.
Again, this is all from personal experience, not gonna pretend like I've researched the issue with any detail, but my prediction is this, 50 years from now we will look back at the stuff we made our children take and recoil. Much like we look back on lobotomies and old-fashioned shock-therapy with disgust. To learn from history we have to assume that the mistakes of the past may be the strongly held biases of today. Cigarettes were healthy in the 40's after all.
Addressing the bigger issue, Indoctrination; in the positive sense, is when you teach a student something that is true.
2 + 2 = 4
George Washington was our nation's first president.
As long as it is proven to be true then there is nothing wrong with Indoctrination. Education is a bit more broad but I think that a good teacher would welcome challenge and actually encourage their students to ask questions such as "How do we know that George Washington was the first president of America?" So that instead of just having a list of facts in their brain that they can recall at an ever evaporating rate, they can instead learn how to take on and assess the validity of new historical data.
Math is perhaps the best example of a subject which automatically requires Education because if you can't explain why 2+2 = 4 then you won't be able to calculate 3 + 3. If you don't know what numbers mean or how to communicate with them then memorization is a poor substitute for calculation.
Long story short, the Indoctrinated mind, at best, can only tell you what the correct answer is. But an Educated mind can also show you their process for arriving at the correct solution.
When your students know everything about a given topic but cannot tell you how they know that the information is true, you know that their Indoctrination is complete.
