How the Education System Brainwashes Children

Dec 09, 2019

"We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better."
-J.K. Rowling

Oppression

In our carnist world, it’s difficult to get away from the influence of nonvegan propaganda. As adults, we have the ability to separate ourselves from that, but children are at the mercy of disturbing marketing techniques and societal groupthink. They don’t understand how cruel the world is, and it is our job to create a safe, educational environment. But first, we must understand how their minds are being infiltrated by the government and their big business allies, as well as their friends and family.

Children are taught a bizarre disconnect as soon as they are born: we give them stuffed animals and decorate their rooms, toys, food, and clothes with cute cartoonish critters. Then, we force-feed them this strange synthesis of the body parts of their furry friends. And if you’re interested in the quality of baby food, let me share with you the words of a slaughterhouse worker documented in Dr. Will Tuttle’s The World Peace Diet:

“I personally have seen rotten meat – you can tell by the odor. This rotten meat is mixed with fresh meat and sold for baby food. We are asked to mix it with the fresh food, and this is the way it is sold. You can see the worms inside the meat.”

Even though that is just one account from one slaughterhouse, it calls into question the quality of food meant for people who aren't able to verbally protest consuming it. What are we really feeding our children, the people most important to us and to the future of the world? And what does this level of disregard, this level of violence and grotesque indifference toward the welfare of infants tell us? How does that impact the children themselves, who are fed the rotted flesh of animals while cuddling teddy bears every night as they fall asleep? They are inculcated with a sick fascination with their victims.

Another Brick in the Pyramid

Once they are old enough, we send them off to schools to get a decent education, hoping they will grow up to be great members of society like us. But there, they are taught and forced to believe that the world functions in a certain way. They are taught to lose their creativity and imagination, to fit in with everyone else. They are taught not to care. We see this manifest in many ways, but none is as colossal a failure as the USDA Dietary Guidelines. The food served in schools is based on these guidelines, which are created by the government, which is funded by animal agriculture.

When I was in school, we had the Food Pyramid up around the halls to remind us of what a healthy diet consisted. The base was grains (which I loved as an avid fan of carbohydrates like pasta), fruits and vegetables were up on the next level (which I did not like, since I was an avid hater of healthy foods), followed by meat and dairy above that, and finally at the very top was the oils and sugars category (which I really didn’t like because I loved those sweet and fatty snacks). Kids almost always had a carton of milk in their hands during lunch, and pizza was a common meal choice.[1] The vegetable was a measly scoop of some disgusting broccoli or green beans, which was usually left untouched. But the best part were all the available snacks; my favorites were the Little Debbie cosmic brownies and, in high school, the very undercooked, almost raw, chocolate chip cookies.

Of course, there was a general understanding that this wasn’t healthy – or even good – food; it was usually greasy and underwhelming. But it was school and we were young, so we could afford to eat some low-quality things there.[2] However, these methods of learning, eating, and thinking about food and diet overflow into how we live our daily lives. And since these foods were high in fats and sugars, we began to crave these more and more. Now, we can see children developing adult diseases, like Type 2 diabetes, becoming obese, and consistently following these unhealthy eating patterns later in life.[3]

Kids Have No Idea

I never questioned the way I ate when I was young, though luckily I always brought my lunch from home instead of buying it at school. It wasn’t until I was confronted with seeing pigs on a slaughter truck when I was ten years old that I realized I was responsible for killing them; so, I stopped eating them. But before then and after, I still didn’t think about most of the other animals I was condemning to death.

I continued like this for a long time. Since I never really had the opportunity to learn about animals, I tried to find my own ways to connect with them. I remember collecting feathers from pillows on my bed or from sofas around the house. Doing so made me feel connected to the birds, the beautiful ducks and geese I admired while on family walks or bike rides through the local park. I was always so excited when we drove out to Ohio to visit my grandmother because I’d get to see fields upon fields of cows. I eagerly gazed out the window, wishing I could graze with them for just a few moments. I desperately wanted to know them, to understand them, to communicate with them. But I always was curious about how wild cows would be milked. Did they even produce milk, since there were no humans there to help them? Surely, nature wouldn’t be so cruel as to cause those wild cows to suffer as their udders painfully filled with milk that they were unable to release from their bodies. But, afraid of sounding foolish, and perhaps afraid of the answer, I kept my questions to myself and continued to wonder for many years to come.

Field Trips

Finally, after months of waiting, I could scratch this itch to know the animals I loved so dearly. Field trips to zoos and aquariums were always my favorite; sure, going to the movies was fun and traveling to historic cities and monuments was interesting, but there weren’t animals there (except for pigeons and squirrels, and I do love pigeons and squirrels). There, I could finally see them up close. I didn’t care so much about the informational plaques; I just had to be near these breathtaking beasts. I never shied away from the creepy crawlies; I could appreciate the beauty of monstrous snakes and poisonous frogs and sneaky spiders from my safety behind the glass.

Even as I aged and became more aware of ethical issues surrounding zoos, I still rationalized that I was there to support their conservation efforts to help certain species and areas in the local environment.[4, 5] Usually, these trips are meant as a way to appease kids and get them away from school for a day. But zoos could be mistakes, a product of our sick society that doesn’t understand that imprisoning nonhuman animals is wrong. However, there is one practice that cannot be overlooked or underappreciated for its barbarity to children and animals...

Young Frankenstein

Dissection, somehow, is still a popular teaching method in schools. For what purpose, who knows? Why would I, a 12-year-old seventh-grader, have any educational need to dissect a frog? If someone could answer me, I’d love to hear it, because in all my years of education, I have never once understood why I had to do that or used that in my ten years of subsequent education.

However, I must admit that I did not object to dissection, not even internally. Though I loved frogs as I loved all animals, I didn’t fully appreciate exactly what it was we were doing with dissections. In fact, and you may be surprised to hear this, I enjoyed the dissecting process. I was absolutely fascinated with the inner workings of the frog, getting to understand how their bodies functioned just like ours. Seeing their minuscule organs and muscles was a profound experience, and it made me feel connected to the amphibian. And though my experience might have felt positive (though that in no way makes this practice acceptable), I can’t imagine how that could be appropriate for other children who may have experienced abuse or felt violent tendencies toward animals or were simply apathetic to the creatures.

Pure Evil

Looking back, I suppose I viewed this situation the same way as I viewed the feathers in my pillows. I had to believe that these frogs were acquired after dying naturally in the wild, or I had to make myself think that. I don’t know what I actually thought at the time, but it was more of an assumption of my innocent mind. Because there was no way humans would breed – or, perhaps even worse, rip them away from their natural environment – and prematurely kill frogs solely for the purpose of children cutting up their tiny, adorable, fragile little bodies; that was a concept, a level of wickedness, beyond the realms of my juvenile comprehension. (You can read more about dissection and animal use in science in “Frankenstein Society.”)

When I was young, technology was far inferior to what it is today (which is saying something because it wasn’t that long ago), but I do hope that these advances will incur change in the education system. And if you are a child or have a child being forced to dissect an animal in school, understand that you have the right, in many states, to refuse to do it and be offered an alternative, cruelty-free assignment.[6]

Big Brother

Though it has been more than half a decade since I was in high school, I also worry about the impact of ever-growing, almost omniscient technology. Though social media has many flaws and impacts on today’s youth, a discussion of its own, I am curious if anyone else has the same experience with YouTube as I’ve had lately. Now that we are given the option to "like" or "dislike" an ad, I’ve taken this as a little form of activism. I always thumbs-down advertisements in which a nonvegan or non-cruelty-free product is shown.

However, oftentimes, I continue to get these ads over and over, despite my clear distaste for them. And the vegan ads that I "like" do not recur more regularly. I know YouTube must have some data-gathering system to record what ads are receiving positive and negative feedback, but this makes me worry more about all the kids that frequent the site. YouTube and other websites are becoming common sources of educational information, both inside and outside the classroom.

If nonvegan adolescents are getting ad after ad after ad promoting animal products, it’s quite possible they are getting no exposure to vegan products. So, in school, children are eating terrible food and learning brutish things and cutting open animals’ bodies. Then, at home, these thoughts and ideas and belief systems are being reinforced through all the advertising thrown at them by shameless, bloodthirsty corporations. It’s terrifying to think about all that goes on that we aren’t aware of when it comes to how these practices are still allowed in regard to children and adolescents.