“Exactly. You forgot about it for the same reason that you forgot how a bill passes Congress, because you had no use for it in your life. In actual fact, people seldom remember things they have no use for.”
“That’s true.”
“How much do you remember from what you learned in school last year?”
“Almost nothing, I’d say.”
“Do you think you’re different from your classmates in this regard?”
“Not at all.”
“So most of you remember almost nothing from what you learn in school from one year to the next.”
“That’s right. Obviously we all know how to read and write and do simple arithmetic—or most of us do.”
“Which pretty well proves the point, doesn’t it. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are things you actually have use for in your lives.”
“Yes, that’s certainly true.”
“Here’s an interesting question for you, Julie. Do your teachers expect you to remember everything you learned last year?”
“No, I don’t think so. They expect you to remember having heard about it. If the teacher says ‘tidal forces,’ she expects everyone to nod and say, ‘Yeah, we studied those last year.’ ”
“Do you understand the operation of tidal forces, Julie?”
“Well, I know what they are. Why the oceans bulge out on both sides of the earth at the same time makes utterly no sense to me.”
“But you didn’t mention this to your teacher.”
“Of course not. I think I got a 97 on the quiz. I remember the grade better than the subject.”
“But now you’re in a position to understand why you spend literally years of your life in school learning things you instantly forget once you’ve passed the test.”
“I am?”
“You are. Give it a shot.”
I gave it a shot. “They have to give us something to do during the years we’re being kept off the job market. And they’ve got to make it look good. It’s got to look like something r-e-e-e-a-l-l-y useful. They can’t just let us smoke dope and rock ‘n’ roll for twelve years.”
“Why not, Julie?”
“Because it wouldn’t look right. The jig would be up. The secret would be out. Everyone would know we were just there to kill time.”
“When you were listing things that people find wrong with your schools, you noted that they do a poor job of preparing people to get jobs. Why do you think they do such a poor job at this?”
“Why? I don’t know. I’m not sure I even understand the question.”
“I’m inviting you to think about this the way I would.”
“Oh,” I said. That was as far as I got for about three minutes. Then I admitted I didn’t have any idea how to go about thinking about this the way he would.
“What do people think about this failure of the schools, Julie? This will give you a clue as to what Mother Culture teaches.”
“People think the schools are incompetent. That’s what I’d guess people think.”
“Try to give me something you feel more confident in than a guess.”
I worked on it for a while and said, “Kids are lazy, and the schools are incompetent and underfunded.”