Evaluating Education Systems Using My Astrology Experiences

March 6, 2025 – Eli Gomez

I was inspired to write this article based on a phenomenon that occurred recently in a science course of mine.

Here is the scenario: The course is an undergraduate requirement. The course has a total of 92 students. Significantly more than half were caught plagiarizing a virtual lab assignment. The professor was shocked.

When the professor acknowledged what had happened, most students simply did not have any reaction at all, including myself. We honestly did not really care. This wasn’t a shock to us, even to those who were not involved in the situation at all.

Now, I can hear you readers saying to yourself, “WHY WOULDN’T YOU CARE! THIS IS A BIG DEAL!” and you are right. This is a big deal but only because of the system of education that we have established, particularly in the United States.

Before I get any further with my thoughts and theories, I want to establish three main points:

It is not my intention to justify or excuse plagiarism.
The purpose of me writing this article is to expose the flawed paradigms in our education systems that no longer serve students or educators.
This and related phenomena that we see in education is a microcosm of our larger societies that can serve as pointer signals as to where we need to evolve.

First, let’s talk about the phenomenon that is mass plagiarism. I went to a virtual high school, Stride (originally K12). I saw mass plagiarism go down all the time, almost daily. Because the course curriculums were so standardized by company, state, and national requirements, to the point where a student in a Stride school in California will be taking the same Biology 1.12 Quiz on the same Thursday as me in Arkansas, Quizlet or Brainly was a hub of sharing answers and thoughts. I only had two teachers that sought to get approval to customize the quizzes and/or assignments instead of the pre-programmed automated Stride lesson plans and units. As you can imagine, those two teachers were my favorites. Also, those two teachers had discussion-based learning, meaning that there were not too many quizzes or exams, if any.

These two teachers of mine went the extra mile to fight plagiarism because they knew that mass plagiarism was rampant in Stride schools because of the pre-programmed and hyper-standardization of courses. Even though their intentions were to fight plagiarism, their solutions ended up being for the betterment of the students and themselves because students enjoyed class sessions more, created stronger bonds, and were less likely to share answers on individual activities. Also, most of these students still hold relationships with these teachers post-graduation as compared to the other teachers. It is disconcerting to me, however, that it took fighting plagiarism for teachers to realize that students and teachers deserve better and customizable education suiting the individual interests and educational aspirations of students.

For those of you who know about me and what I stand for, it will not come as a surprise that I am an outspoken critic of education systems as well as government systems. I make myself very clear that I am against letter and percentage grading and for an alternative approach, specification grading. Specification grading is a grading system which focuses less on the grading aspect itself and more on the actual mastery of skills. Laurie Rivers, my astrology mentor uses specification grading in her Align Network International program (also known as the Mystery School). The “grade” you get is the mastery of those skills, and that’s really all there is to it. You keep going until you have mastered the concepts and skills. Schedler Honors College, which I am a student of, also uses specification grading. You only receive a zero on an assignment that you do not do, A 4/5 does not mean an 80%, and you get an A in the course if you meat the specification requirements such as writing your course essays, participating in class, and demonstrating that you are mastering the concepts and skills learned through in-class discussions and conversations with professors. This is what education should be like universally as compared to the hyper-standardized, quiz and exam, single age-group design we see in the States currently.

You could say that I am for a Montessori-style education system that encourages people to explore their individual interests versus what they are told to learn by some governing body or set of standards. It upsets me that at least in Arkansas, we only really have Montessori-style schools for elementary and younger. Why is that? My theory is because there is a stigma that Montessori education is lazy and not disciplined. As a person who was not educated in a Montessori school and instead was a product of public schools, I can say that that is extremely untrue. Montessori education encourages students to form their own disciplines and not have to have an authority to tell them what and how to do things every step of the way every day and all the time. There is guidance and facilitation at the beginning of a process, but the ultimate goal is to create independent individual thinkers.

I like to think that Schedler Honors College is what Montessori education would be like on a university level. It is a successful model and I truly wish that all university classes function and run that way instead of our current system. Most people who I know are a part of the Schedler Honors College would for the most part agree that this is how college should be universally. This raises the question, why is it not? After all, mass plagiarism isn’t a thing in the Honors College, there isn’t really any cheating, students tend to have a higher morale. This is not because of higher GPAs because Grade Point Averages are not a main qualifier for the Honors College as to demonstrating through a selection process of the intense desire to learn and better communities.

My theory is that this is because our education system is a product of the larger society in which we live. America’s pro-corporate culture and obsession with wealth and money creates systems in which the education systems become hijacked by money and corporations, therefore leaving education as a side-effect of a larger business model. We see this in healthcare too with insurance companies: the only healthcare that is covered by insurance companies is what the insurance companies think they can profit off of, even if that means leaving people to die in debt to cover their behinds. The DSM is a product of this as well. It tells people if symptoms are problems even if it is already very clear that there is a problem and the DSM may not acknowledge it.

What is the obvious pattern here? American society uses standards to make and secure money come hell or high water or screwing people over. Insurance companies have standards (explanation of benefits or policies based on actuarial data, not based on genuine humanitarian paradigms that would actually better communities). Psychology has standards (DSM which is out of touch with true psychological phenomena due to its use by insurance companies). And then there is education which has standards set by the Department of Education both state and federal (for accreditation of universities or curriculums for K-12 education). I am not arguing against personalized standards, also known as educational goals set by an instructor and/or student, because there has to be some sort of structure for a quality education, however what I am arguing against are these mass structural standards that are out of touch with the personalized educational aspirations of individuals.

Case in point would be my astrology education with Laurie Rivers. I could argue, and have done so before, that my astrology education with Laurie is more personally rigorous than what my university could ever accomplish due to our current system. Why is it that my education with Laurie, despite it being more informal, would not be accredited compared to my university education even though I am clearly learning a whole lot more through Laurie than what I am through college courses? Why is it that my personal educational aspirations are not accredited by a governing body even though I have proven time and time again the benefits I have gained through my astrology education compared to college education?

This, my dear readers, is exactly why people plagiarize. They do not actually care about the course or assignment itself. They are simply seeking to check off that standard to qualify them for approval by a governing body, thereby sacrificing their confidence in the education system and their personal educational work. This is a sad truth that is covered up by universities and schools because it would be exposing the fact that it is a fault of the system and not solely on the individual. After all, the individual would not plagiarize if they were truly passionate in what they are learning or if they feel confident that they can be a productive member of society by doing what they are passionate about and identifying in what they do.

When people plagiarize, I do not blame them 100%. There is always a legitimate and valid reason why and it most certainly is not laziness (in fact, I would even go as far to say that true laziness does not exist). That does not mean I agree or support the action itself. I place more value in the deeper reason why people feel compelled to make that decision instead of the act of trying to stop an inevitable truth from emerging.

Because I like to leave my articles off with a zinger to get people thinking, I want to address a common counter argument that I have heard from people who overly-identify themselves with our current systems: “Plagiarism cheapens a degree or education.” Well, my lovely readers, I would like to argue that degrees and education are already cheapened in America (but not monetarily) because of our current systems of checking boxes for credentials that society tells us will get us ahead, thereby devaluing the actual process and zeal of learning. We are simply fighting for two bread crumbs instead of one.