<p><img src="https://thefreethoughtproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/school-education-696x366.jpg" width="696" height="366"/>&nbsp;</p>
<p>While the annoying cultural cliche suggests that our years in school &nbsp;should be the best times of our lives, for many of us it is actually a &nbsp;traumatizing experience that has lifelong consequences for our mental &nbsp;health. After graduation, many of us are left to work through issues &nbsp;such as anxiety, depression, low-self esteem, dependence on authority, &nbsp;need for external validation and a long list of mental health problems &nbsp;that can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, antisocial behavior, or worse. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people over the age &nbsp;of 15, and the third-leading cause for those over 10.&nbsp;</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/19/teen-suicide-soaring-do-spotty-mental-health-and-addiction-treatment-share-blame/428148002/">statistics</a> &nbsp;from the CDC, over the past 10 years, the suicide rate for White &nbsp;children and teens between the ages of 10 and 17 was up 70 percent, and &nbsp;up 77 percent among African-American children. Since mental health is &nbsp;such a serious problem among teens, it is time to start examining the &nbsp;place where they spend the vast majority of their time. Peter Gray of Psychology Today and The Foundation for Economic Education has <a href="https://fee.org/articles/children-s-and-teens-suicides-related-to-the-school-calendar/">pointed out</a> that <strong>suicide rates among teens actually increase during the school year</strong>, citing numerous studies. During extensive research on the subject, Gray found this correlation &nbsp;in data that was recorded of children’s emergency psychiatric visits at &nbsp;Connecticut Children’s Mental Center in Hartford.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The data shows an &nbsp;obvious decline in teenage psychiatric visits during the summer months, &nbsp;which is somewhat of a statistical anomaly considering the fact that &nbsp;students have more time to themselves during the summer, and emergency &nbsp;visits, in general, rise drastically during the summer, <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Emergency-room-visits-rise-in-summer-4577428.php">according to the CDC.</a> Between the years of 2011 and 2013, Connecticut Children’s Mental &nbsp;Center would typically have anywhere between roughly 120 to 180 &nbsp;psychiatric visits per month when school was in sessions, but dropped &nbsp;below 70 in the middle of the summer, and stayed around 100 in the &nbsp;months surrounding summer.&nbsp;</p>
<p>More recently, in 2015, a study led by psychiatrist Collin Lueck from &nbsp;the University of Southern California found similar results when &nbsp;looking through the books of a large pediatric emergency mental health &nbsp;center in Los Angeles. In this study, the data was a bit more specific, &nbsp;and researchers were able to compare emergency visits on weeks when &nbsp;school was in session, against weeks where students were on break.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In &nbsp;this data, researchers found that the rates of emergency visits were <strong>118 percent higher</strong> on weeks when school was in session. Just this year, another study led by Dr. Gregory Plemmons of Vanderbilt University confirmed these previous findings.&nbsp;<em>“When &nbsp;we looked at hospitalizations for suicidal ideation and suicidal &nbsp;encounters over the last decade, essentially 2008 to 2015, we found that &nbsp;the rates doubled among children that were hospitalized for suicidal &nbsp;thoughts or activity,</em>” he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/more-kids-especially-girls-are-attempting-suicide-it-s-not-n874481">told</a> NBC.&nbsp;</p>
<p>With the extreme stress and pressure that children are put through in &nbsp;school, it should be obvious that it is going to have an adverse effect &nbsp;on their mental health.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Although this data was briefly mentioned in the NBC report where &nbsp;Plemmons was interviewed, the piece seemed to miss the root cause of &nbsp;this problem, and instead blamed social media. While it is true that &nbsp;there are many problems with social media, and that many teenage &nbsp;hardships are exacerbated by these websites, it is also true that school &nbsp;has been driving children to suicide since well before Steve Jobs &nbsp;invented the iPhone.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In 2011, Professors Benjamin Hansen and Matthew Lang published a &nbsp;study that examined rates of suicide, accidents, and homicides among &nbsp;American teenagers dating all the way back to the 1980s. The data &nbsp;spanned between 1980 and 2004 and found that suicide rates were always &nbsp;much higher during the school year.&nbsp;</p>
<p>This study also recorded the rates &nbsp;for girls and boys separately, showing that the suicide rate for boys &nbsp;rose 95 percent during the school year, but only 33 percent for girls, &nbsp;which seems to go along with the generalization that girls tend to &nbsp;adjust to school better than boys do. This blatantly obvious correlation continues to be ignored because it &nbsp;brings into question one of the primary sacred cows of American &nbsp;culture—formal public education.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It is a widely held belief that people &nbsp;would not be able to read, write or understand basic math without 12 &nbsp;years of formal government education, but this idea is false, especially &nbsp;in the age of the internet. Most of the information that children &nbsp;receive in public school is obsolete by the time they graduate, and they &nbsp;often learn things that are counter-productive or flat out wrong. Government schools as an institution were not created to empower the &nbsp;lower and middle class but were in fact designed to keep us in our &nbsp;place.&nbsp;</p>
<p>This is not hyperbole or conspiracy theory, but verifiable &nbsp;history that can be traced back to the Prussian model of education, &nbsp;which is the basis of modern schooling. Early promoters of the Prussian &nbsp;model like Edward Thorndike, John Dewey, Horace Mann and the Rockefeller &nbsp;family were blatant in their writings that they wanted to create &nbsp;institutions that would turn the unwashed masses into obedient workers &nbsp;and soldiers. According to the language of their own programs, they are grooming &nbsp;the youth of the country for a tightly controlled “worker bee” &nbsp;lifestyle.&nbsp;</p>
<p>This system was being designed specifically to create factory &nbsp;workers and crush creativity. This all makes sense when you notice that &nbsp;awards are not given out in school for creativity and self-expression, &nbsp;but for perfect attendance and obedience.&nbsp;</p>
<p>This is the same reason why &nbsp;the school bells between classes are reminiscent of the early factory &nbsp;bells and whistles that would separate shifts in the sweatshops of the &nbsp;industrial age. The overall curriculum and structure in public schools have remained &nbsp;the same from the original Prussian model, all the way to present day. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Critical thinking is not only suppressed but it is almost completely &nbsp;condemned within school walls. Students who exhibit signs of creativity &nbsp;are often times singled out by teachers as troublemakers because they &nbsp;are typically more resistant to authority and more independent. &nbsp;Sometimes when a student’s creativity cannot be broken they are forced &nbsp;to take mind-numbing psychoactive drugs like Ritalin or Adderall. Repetitious training exercises are also hidden within the basic &nbsp;structure of a school day. In America, children are forced to “pledge &nbsp;allegiance” to the flag every single day, this exercise is designed to &nbsp;implant nationalistic tendencies into the conscious mind of the student. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Demanding students to walk in a straight line or ask before going to &nbsp;the bathroom is a more subtle form of training, however, it also sets &nbsp;them up to “fall in line” when they graduate school and move on with &nbsp;their lives.&nbsp;</p>
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
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<p>My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Timeless-Renaissance-John-Vibes/dp/1518828612">Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance</a>, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : <a href="http://theconsciousresistance.com/reflections-on-anarchy-and-spirituality/"><em>The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality</em></a>, <a href="http://theconsciousresistance.com/finding-freedom-age-confusion/"><em>Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion</em></a> and <a href="http://theconsciousresistance.com/manifesto-of-the-free-humans/"><em>Manifesto of the Free Humans</em></a></p>
<p>I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Johnvibes">podcast on Patreon.&nbsp;</a></p>