True Cost- summary

True cost-summary

Generations have been through our education system, including the ones making the decisions for us all. Our schooling allows us all to live in denial about the damage done to our purses, our planet, and society and our children by the industrial process of education.

To survive, we need to question what has been done to us, what we are doing to our children and the lies we are constantly told. O’Sullivan points out that moving from denial we will go through despair, and that this is normal and natural at this time. To move beyond despair we need to grieve for our losses, which include the loss of the myth of eternal consumption. Only when we have allowed ourselves to grieve and feel our pain can we move forward to constructive critique and visions of transformation. (O’Sullivan)

It is to precipitate a letting go of denial that I have written this book. The evidence of our own eyes and ears must be accepted. In October 2008 a news item on Radio 4 news said that scientists are now certain global warming is real, is caused by man and is happening at a greater rate than previously believed as polar ice has melted during winters as well as summers. They fear we may reach a tipping point, where whatever we do, we may not be able to avert chaos and destruction on an immense scale. But we still send our children to school each day to learn nothing about this or to learn that, well, scientists will solve it.

I was browsing through a SATs test book for 14 year olds and came across the following science question:

Q: Coal and natural gas supplies will eventually run out. This should not be a problem with wood.
(I) Why is this?
(ii) Under what conditions could this be a problem?


So, we are telling 14-year-olds its okay to continue to consume, to use power at unsustainable rates, because we can just cut down trees and burn them.

Over and over again, the true cost of schooling looks like being total planetary, social, personal and financial ruin.