Faith in education

The received wisdom says that with proper education you can make a person better, and that if everyone is given the proper education the whole society will be good. It might take a generation or two to weed out the bad thoughts and bad influences, but the world will be good and people will do the right things and the useful things. That may seem an extreme example, but the basic ideas are very similar.

I strongly suspect that those most devoted to this belief have not raised many children. For instance, take something as simple and non-threatening as asking the kids to read a specific book (when they reached the same age, of course). Remember how that turned out?

Revelation 20 speaks of a thousand year rule by the holy. At the end of it, the bulk of the people turn evil again. I dunno about how symbolic or literal that is, but the principle seems perfectly accurate: the best government and the best education and the best environment in the world (like a Garden of Eden, maybe) won’t fix what ails us.

And, of course, who promises us that the educators have their heads on straight? Some materials I've seen are OK, and some convey anti-information.