DEVALUING THE CURRENCY OF ACHIEVEMENT
OR
‘WHEN EVERYONE IS SOMEBODY, THEN NO ONE’S ANYBODY’(Gilbert and Sullivan: The Gondoliers)
1st + 2nd + 3rd + 4th + . . . nth= 1st
Once our education system becomes based on the principles of Psychology as Religion, then statements like: 'Never Say No to a Child', ‘Tell that nasty man to go away’, or 'When I use a word, it means just what I want it to mean', become like the dogma of a religious faith. One result of this that no child must be faced with any reality that it does not like. If one child can run faster than another, or one child is better at maths than another, the education system has to play these facts down, or even hide them away. Words like 'winner', 'success', or 'achievement' have to be bent and applied in a way that makes everyone a winner, no one a loser and everyone equal.
Now that last assertion is absolutely right. If we belief that all human beings, and therefore all children, are of equal value; then each child is entitled to as much educational support as any other; but Psychology as Religion perverts the truth of equal value by twisting it to mean that everyone is the same or that everyone should be the same.
Once again, this is an example of how Psychology as Religion increases its power by lying. Instead of children learning that life can sometimes be challenging, unpleasant, or unfair; they are seduced into believing that they aren't forced to do, or put up with, anything they don't like. In other words, they are deceived by false freedom. Sooner or later, truth intrudes into this falsely cosy world. At that point many will have to learn to deal with the realities of life in a hard way for which they have been ill-