
The existing model for the education systems of the West is the Rockefeller education model. Based around the workings of the General Education Board, a Rockefeller-funded vehicle, it systematically dumbed down education for multitudes of American students, and, through American soft power, for multitudes of non-American students as well.
Rockefeller was not interested in developing the natural capacities of the students. He wanted an education system that pumped out robots to serve an industrial machine. He summarised his aims with the statement “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.” He didn’t want artists and philosophers; he wanted men who could build steam trains, aeroplanes, skyscrapers, artillery pieces, and who could work the machines needed to manufacture and transport goods.
This meant that education lost its classical focus. No more was it considered important to know Greek and Latin; now it was just numbers, mass, quantity, volume, speed, distance. Teaching students to reason through philosophical positions was abandoned in favour of a focus on simple obedience. The end result is today’s Clown World: a population terrified into believing whatever the television tells them, too afraid to read and come to their own conclusions.
Any education system that discourages students from reaching their full potential is cruel. It’s also stupid, because the economic consequences cause everyone in society to suffer a lower standard of living. It’s therefore rejected under the Fourth and Fifth Rejections.
A former teacher, John Taylor Gatto, wrote the book ‘Dumbing Us Down‘ to explain the workings of the American education system. Gatto’s central thesis was that the education system was primarily intended to teach submission and obedience, mostly by breaking the students’ self-esteem and making them psychologically dependent on approval from authority.
Running an education system in this manner is highly orderly, in a sense, because it maintains and solidifies the existing class structure. This approach, however, leads to stagnation.
Alternative centrism recognises that children are created different by Nature, and that the souls placed in them by God are also different. Therefore, justice is the right schooling for the right soul.
This results in different schools for the different grades of soul. For the purposes of the education system, these would be fivefold: clay, iron, copper, silver and gold. Primary schools would be of clay and iron; secondary schools would be of iron, copper and silver; tertiary schools would be of copper, silver and gold.
Clay schools would teach simple trades and arts. Iron schools would teach trades, sports and military science. So the focus for young children would always be on basic trades, life skills and survival skills, but in iron school there would also be a heavy sporting component. This would also exist in clay school, as arts would exist in iron school, but to a lesser extent. There would be no emphasis on forcing hated subjects on students on the grounds it “builds character” or similar. Education must be made to seem a universal public good.
Copper schools would teach arts and commerce. In early years, the commercial focus would be on running small enterprises, and in later years on multinationals and corporates. So the scope of teaching would become more macroeconomical as time progressed. The arts component would be heavy as the copper schools should produce the bulk of the artists, performers and entertainers, i.e. those who don’t need to be grounded in physical reality.
Silver schools would teach business, administration and military science. The business element would overlap with the copper schools to some extent, but in the silver schools the focus would be more on the organisation of human society rather than profit. The graduates of these schools would be expected to become the administrators of the governments of the future.
Gold schools would teach science, philosophy and military science. This would cover the most advanced subjects and be where the majority of society’s original research is generated. If the graduates of the silver schools are to be the managers of the governments of the future, the graduates of the gold schools are to be the leaders. These graduates would be the philosopher-kings of the alternative centrist utopia.
The students would be sorted thusly.
At age five, they would be tested for physical health and strength. Essentially the deciding question would be whether they enjoyed playing sports. They wouldn’t need to be good at sports, but those who enjoyed playing them could be expected to develop the fundamental grounding in reality that is absent in those who are uncomfortable in the physical. Those students are also more likely to be prosocial. So the ones that are good at sports go to iron school, and the ones that are not go to clay school.
At age eleven, the children would be tested again, only this time for intelligence.
The ones of clay, if they prove intelligent, would move to copper school (secondary) for the remaining years until age 17. If unintelligent, they move to clay school (secondary). The ones of iron, if they prove intelligent, would move to silver school (secondary) until age 17. If unintelligent, they move to iron school (secondary).
Then the ones in silver school (secondary), upon reaching age 17, either move to copper school (tertiary), silver school (tertiary), or to gold school, which is only tertiary. The qualification for gold school is that one is interested in taking a transformative dose of a psychedelic, as per the Eleusinian and Elemental Mysteries. Anyone who freaks out upon encountering their own soul is prohibited from attending gold school. This means that spiritual acumen is the major qualification for entrance.
The logic behind this system would be to educate students for the societal niche that they naturally belong to. The fashionable modern idea that any student can be made into anything is utterly rejected. Humans are far from blank slates. Biology and karma both work to limit choice. The most just and least stupid education system would identify the social niche a child belonged to as early as possible, and then tailor the child’s education for success in that niche.
This system would also have the immense benefit of keeping the merchant class out of the ruling elite, thereby resisting much of the degeneracy that has consumed the West.
Not all schools are available to all ages. Thus, the youngest children will end up in either the clay or iron schools, the intermediate ones in the secondary schools and young adults in the tertiary schools. Older adult students could attend any tertiary school they qualified for.
To maximise freedom, it would be possible for students to move to any different school they qualified for, perhaps after special qualifying examinations at the end of each school year.
Teachers in these schools will be graduates of the gold, silver and copper schools. The idea is that they would be the best examples of their metal, paragons that the students could model themselves after. Some of the sporting instructors could be graduates of the iron schools.
As with the other features of school life, discipline would depend on the school and the nature of the students: iron schools could use corporal punishment, copper schools could use social exclusion and shame, silver and gold schools could use reason. Perhaps lead schools could be instituted to deal with the antisocial students.
The underlying logic of this system is a total rejection of the “No Child Left Behind” logic of George W Bush. The end result of the alternative centrist system would be young people able to contribute to their niche in society. Those capable of further education would be able to receive it; those incapable of further education should at least have the base skills to make themselves useful.
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This chapter is from The Alternative Centrist Manifesto, the upcoming work of political philosophy that offers the answers to the political problems of the West.
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