Casas 1

Sera Casas

Professor Alanis

English 1

12 April 2024

“The Illusion of Education: Unmasking the American School System”

They call it education, but many are waking up to realize the lie. This American school

system isn’t about making us smarter; it's about making us obedient. These articles, "The High

School/College Writing Classroom Disconnect,” “Don't Blame Students for Using ChatGPT to

Cheat", and "America Ruined My Name for Me", show the truth about the American Education

System – empty lessons, broken dreams, and souls chained to someone else's purpose.

In “Don’t Blame Students for Using ChatGPT to Cheat,” Warner discusses the symptoms

of a bigger issue within the education system. This issue is students depending on AI to complete

their assignments. This fairly new reliance on technology reflects the disconnection and lack of

meaningful learning that had plagued our classrooms for so long. Carroll argues that the use of

AI in academic cheating is a symptom of a larger issue within the transactional nature of

education, where students are conditioned to optimize outcomes rather than engage in genuine

learning. “ChatGPT did not cause our plagiarism problem: It has only automated or deskilled the

essay-mill industry already churning out papers for pay,” Carroll suggests that the problem lies

not with the technology but with the educational environment that drives students towards such

measures. (Carroll)

In the article “The High School/College Writing Classroom Disconnect,” Warner talks

about the gap between high school and college writing expectations and emphasizes the need for

a shift from rigid, rule-based writing to more analytical and argumentative skills that drive
 Casas 2

critical thinking in college. As Warner puts it, “Many students come armed with a series of

writing ‘rules’ that are meant to be followed, or else.” This expectation of obedience is a clear

example of how the system is not designed to make us smarter but instead is meant to keep us in

line. (Warner)

In Bich Nguyen’s paper titled “America Ruined My Name for Me,” she reflects on the

personal impact of cultural assimilation within the American education system. She primarily

focuses on the loss of identity she experienced through the mispronunciation and alteration of her

name stating, “The education system can strip away individual identity, particularly through the

misrepresentation and alteration of cultural names.” This loss of individuality is another way the

system chains our souls to someone else’s purpose. (Nguyen)

Rockefeller the founder of the American education system, flat-out told us before

founding it, "I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers" and so it is. This

notion is the very foundation this entire system is built on – keeping us down and keeping us in

line. They preach about us reaching for the stars, then hand us a shovel to dig our own graves.

This isn’t education, it's a war against our minds.

This thing they call learning, frankly, is no different than being in prison. " The Teacher

talks, you shut up and swallow" – is and always has been the anthem in American classrooms.

They feed us facts and figures but starve us of the truth about ourselves, about the world, and

about how we're just expected to trust them, go figure? This is the very thing that breaks us from

the inside out. Then, college rolls around, and they expect independent and original thoughts on

our papers, but how the hell are we supposed to do that? For years, they have beaten the

questions out of us and made us doubt our own voices. This isn’t just about failing tests, it's

about our souls going numb. They tell us to dream, and they tell us to change the world, but they
 Casas 3

stole the tools we need to make it happen. This machine they built – it spits out copies, not

individuals. "America Ruined My Name for Me" shows that pain, as clear as day. They try to

label us, to fit us into their boxes. But what about the fire inside, the dreams that can't and won't

be tamed? A system that crushes the spirit isn’t just wrong, it's dangerous. We become easy to

control and easy targets to lie to. They keep us divided, fighting over scraps while they feast on

our potential. Eventually, we end up lost, disconnected, pawns in a game we haven't chosen to

play, and given expectations to succeed in a game we’ve never even been given the rules to or

the currency it costs to be a player in the game.

All these articles point to the same sickness. Carroll talks about standardized tests turning

knowledge into nothing but points – that is the poison. They make us chase grades instead of

chasing our own brilliance. This is not about learning, it is about jumping through hoops so they

can decide who deserves a future, and who gets thrown away. For, the real education isn’t in a

classroom. It's in the streets, in the struggle. It is asking questions nobody wants to answer, even

when your voice shakes. It is finding strength in your own story like Nguyen did in “America

Ruined My Name For Me” and refusing to let them erase it. This ChatGPT mumbo jumbo is not

the enemy. It's a symptom of the root cause, what we should really be afraid of. If lessons are so

boring that a machine can do better, isn’t that enough of a wake-up call?

We have to break this system like the system broke us, and not just keep complaining

about it. We learn by doing, by creating, by messing up, and by starting over to fix past mistakes.

Rich kids, poor kids, all of us deserve a place where our differences make us stronger, not

weaker. Where the real history gets taught, and not the whitewashed lies that keep us hating each

other instead of focusing that hate on the ones holding all the power. We require a complete

understanding of the laws in place, and everyone should be well-versed and educated on how to
 Casas 4

go about proposing a change or revision to any part of our government if need be. The

perpetuation of this false notion, that our education system encourages and cultivates thinking

and learning in the students who attend these schools, could not be further from the truth.

The startling reality is, that the founder who created our beloved education system has

been quoted saying, “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers” and what

better way of reducing the likelihood of their opposition fighting back, you ask? Well, by

controlling our present state of consciousness- our children. Children are the embodiment and

representation of the present, we adults are the representation of the past, and their experiences,

their knowledge, and what they learn and how they learn and choose to solve problems and

engage and interact with each other will soon become our future. Their agenda up to this point

has been to divide and conquer us, the people that are not them, those that makeup 99% percent

of America. Mandating attendance at these institutions that don’t even provide any incentives or

benefits for us to attend them perpetuates the current state of demise this nation is currently

under. Profiting off us while programming us to assimilate into their system, a system where we

are not ever going to equally experience opportunities that cultivate growth, as those born in

wealth or born white do is the definition of corruption if you ask me. Secretly and unannounced

to us, schools have taken on a role that is equivalent to the plantations of our past, discreetly

disguised. The chains that bind us to them are camouflaged with distractions. Irrelevant are the

things we are required to learn, and are of no importance to us, but are of great interest to them –

and essentially aid in continuing the status quo.

Convincing us that the laws are made for the people by the people, but those people who

created those laws were not your normal everyday people who exist in society, no, those people

writing up these laws are the same people that are in power today. They speak about knowing
 Casas 5

what’s best for all of us, but what about us who are coming from the bottom and experience the

struggle every day and are conditioned to this being our normal, just getting by to live another

day and repeat it all over again? A life that those in power pretend to understand in order to

convince us they should be granted the authority to offer advice or direction for how people of

our upbringing can progress in today's world. Unfortunately, the current state of our nation

proves that these “paid actors” haven’t ever even seen a roach in real life, or skipped a meal so

that their kids could eat instead and haven’t ever experienced the plague of injustices we have

and therefore cannot offer us advice or the false acclamation that they can.

They try to tell us this disconnect is our fault – that we’re not studying hard enough and

are not grateful enough. Can you believe they have even gone as far as calling my generation, us

millennials lazy?! But that's just more of their poison, they instigate negativity by triggering us to

react the way any normal human being would; by getting angry, defending our points, and

validating our struggles while unaware of the brainwashing my generation was subjected to.

Raping us of our God-given capacity to connect, contemplate, wonder, problem solve, integrate

and transform thru the original technology we have built inside of us, our brains. This fight is

bigger than any one of us. But it starts with us waking up, refusing to be just another brick in

their wall. This isn’t just about fixing schools; it's about fixing the whole damn world. And it

starts with finding that fire inside, knowing our worth, and demanding an education that sets us

free instead of enslaving us.

Work Cited

1. Nguyen, Bich. "America Ruined My Name for Me." The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2021,

www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/america-ruined-my-name-for-me.
 Casas 6

2. Carroll, Jordan S. “Don’t Blame Students for Using ChatGPT to Cheat.’” The Nation, 20

Jan. 2023, www.thenation.com/article/society/chatgpt-plagiarism-ai-university/Links to

an external site..

3. Warner, John. “The High School/College Writing Classroom Disconnect.” Inside Higher

Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs, 30 Nov. 2023,

www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/high-schoolcollege-writing-classroom-

disconnect.