Public Education vs. Ignorant Parents

a reply to: tavi45

All right. I am taking responsibility for my son's education. We're beggaring ourselves to put him in a private school of our own choosing where we know the curriculum is not common core but some thing far more strenuous because, frankly, he needs the challenge. Too bad we're gouged for taxes to have to pay for the failing public schools that so many kids are trapped in.

Just think what else we could do to take responsibility for our son if we weren't being forced to provide that farce called common core to ruin other people's kids.

Your first paragraph is spot on.

Most of these parents are deathly afraid of the school system, which will be advocating a non religious nor fundamentalist interpretation of reality, deprogramming the children of exactly those ideologies.

However, your second paragraph isn't entirely accurate. I am an educator. In a democracy, school is NOT just for basic skills. People have to learn history, which can't whitewash nor be based on idealogy, social science, physical sciences, ethics, and so on, so that they can be active and effective citizens. You can't be that nor even vote effectively if you don't know jack about history, other cultures, relevant research, and so on.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: vexati0n

I see, so basically, you don't see public schools as a place where children can actually learn valuable skills to make them productive members of society. Instead, you see schools as places where children can be "de-programmed" from the things you wish they wouldn't learn at home.

It's too bad that's not what a school is supposed to do. It is not a place of social engineering which is what you are advocating. It is a place where a kid is supposed to learn the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic so that he or she can function in society and learn their own way. Social engineering has no place, and today our schools are as awful as they are partially because we are turning the curriculum into social engineering instead of basic knowledge base skills.

Either we are to be a free society where people turn out how they turn out even when it means some of them turn in ways you don't approve of, or it means you basically take all children out of their parents hands in the name of some formless greater good. When the latter happens, we no longer have a free society.

Exactly, the point is that we need citizens that have a grasp of a multitude of subjects, including evidence based history, science, social science, philosophy, etc.

MOST parents themselves are not educated on half of that, if any. And no parent can be an expert on all, even if they have a phd and are an expert in something.

To your next point, I agree 100% with you that it isn't acceptable for anti-science people or those afraid of secular ideas to pretend that all opinions are equal and they as lay people know all about climate change, geology, or a 1000 other topics. It is dangerous for parents or communities, when faced with evidence and curriculum that challenges their traditions or faith, to start saying "schools are trying to brainwash" or "there is a scientific conspiracy," etc.

originally posted by: vexati0n

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: vexati0n

I see, so basically, you don't see public schools as a place where children can actually learn valuable skills to make them productive members of society. Instead, you see schools as places where children can be "de-programmed" from the things you wish they wouldn't learn at home.

It's too bad that's not what a school is supposed to do. It is not a place of social engineering which is what you are advocating. It is a place where a kid is supposed to learn the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic so that he or she can function in society and learn their own way. Social engineering has no place, and today our schools are as awful as they are partially because we are turning the curriculum into social engineering instead of basic knowledge base skills.

Either we are to be a free society where people turn out how they turn out even when it means some of them turn in ways you don't approve of, or it means you basically take all children out of their parents hands in the name of some formless greater good. When the latter happens, we no longer have a free society.

It's a place to learn the basics of reading, writing, and math, and also the basics of critical thinking, scientific investigation, and a historical narrative based on facts where both the good and the bad are presented as equally real. Common Core takes a (somewhat misguided) stab at the first three and almost completely ignores the rest. Indoctrination and social engineering shouldn't be the goal, but the education system should teach people how to protect themselves against such social engineering, especially the sticky kind inflicted at home.

Now, I'm all for freedom of thought and belief, I just don't want to see us living in a world where amateurs and their opinions are regarded as anything like experts with proven and tested facts. People can believe that supply-side economics is a serious theory, or that evolution is a myth, or that politicians turn into lizards when nobody's looking, but they should have a very difficult time convincing their children that these fantasies are based in reality, for the simple reason that they are wrong, and they are undermining effective education with their nonsense.

a reply to: skunkape23

is how to read and to love knowledge.

Amd more importantly to ask the question "why is it so"

a reply to: ketsuko

You could home school him for free.

originally posted by: Cuervo
a reply to: vexati0n

Parents often confuse education with parenting. Many don't want their children educated and consider education to be indoctrination. To them the truth is very biased against their homegrown ignorance that they wish to pass on to their children.

The solution is to push them out of the way and just be blunt with it. Either we teach our next generations about truth or we allow them to continue chains of ignorance. I mean... when an entire demographic of people and political orientations consider the word "intellectual" to be an insult, we have a major problem to be fixed.

I'm with you. Most of these parents themselves are not very educated, and are fighting ideas precisely because they themselves are misinformed. And, a lot of generational baggage and bad ideas are passed on and on due to this.

So you bring up a real and critical question: If we need generations that are all hands on deck, educated in all ways, not just download vesicles for their parents' beliefs, and able to think critically about myriad topics, then is the whole argument "but they are the parents and they have the right to block that" actually viable as a society.

originally posted by: beezzer
a reply to: Cuervo

Do you honestly believe that the public school system is teaching nothing but "facts"?

It's all relative. I was a public school science teacher.

I can tell you that holding all other things constant, public secular schools teaching a range of information from actual scholars and researchers, let's say in science class or history class, are definitely teaching more "facts" and relatively less biased information than some parental ideologue who wants to home school.

I would bet that the majority of home schoolers are not super educated people or evidence based folks, but instead fundamentalists or idealogues.

a reply to: xuenchen

Come on. It is a Republican motto and we both know you're Republican. Just pointing out for those that believe in personal responsibility that no one is forcing you to go to public school. There are privatized and religious options for school. You can also home school.

a reply to: vexati0n

And let’s be honest with ourselves

do not understand science, they refuse to vaccinate their kids,

Ok so you do not have your own agenda in this? How honest are you? Plenty of article about the dangers of vaccinations out there. Or how about fluoridation of water?

and those kids grow up unprepared to deal with a world that behaves according to natural laws

climate change to be questioned in schools

So is allowing theories to be debated going against your "natural law"

Sounds like you had good intentions with your op but your pet beliefs creeped in.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

The best example I've seen of home schooling was a mother and grandmother with English backgrounds. They use tutoring services and resources from libraries and the Internet to supplement their weak points such as in math. They also participate in a group with other gone schoolers where they help each other out by sharing resources and advice.

It's not easy but raising kids shouldn't be easy.

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

I would bet that the majority of home schoolers are not super educated people or evidence based folks, but instead fundamentalists or idealogues.

Source, or your own biased opinion?

a reply to: Metallicus

Well said
After all it was the Rockeffelers who devised modern schooling into the conformist model to prepare the fodder for their factories

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Refusing to vaccinate is never smart. Do you want to bring back diseases like polio?

If you're worried about the use of thimoseral in vaccines then you should be more worried about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industries than anything to do with education. It's incredibly rare that vaccines even come up in k-12 in anything but the simplest of ways. The in depth study of vaccines is college level stuff.

originally posted by: tavi45
a reply to: xuenchen

Come on. It is a Republican motto and we both know you're Republican. Just pointing out for those that believe in personal responsibility that no one is forcing you to go to public school. There are privatized and religious options for school. You can also home school.

Wrong again. Not a Republican.

Failed attempt at deflection.

Rubbish.

The thing is, if a parent is so knowledgeable, which many well educated ones are, they will have a strong idea of what is being taught, the rationale for most of it, and know the system. It isn't some esoteric mystical institution. For example, I worked in education for five years. I know much of the relevant research and history. I taught. I wrote curriculum.

My question is, why do parents that home school think that they are in any way qualified to teach their kid everything for the modern world. You could have a PHD in physics and you wouldn't be.

I have two masters degrees, including one in education. I do not believe that I am qualified to teach my five year old everything for the next 13 years.

There is so much education, expertise, psychology knowledge by age, and so on that one parent can't possibly know.

And, yes, of course schools and society should teach many kinds of education, from book learning to experience to values, etc. However, half of the point of going to a public school or private secular school is that your kid gets to EXPERIENCE interacting with all kinds of diverse people, critical for life in this globalized world. Your kid will be taught about science, history, philosophy WITHOUT some kind of religious lens or the limitations of only hearing from one's family about such topics. From there the child is equipped to have the information from many different places and philosophies to begin constructing the very values that you are talking about.

What many people who seem afraid of secular education appear to be saying is that they want to download those values and interpretations of reality to their kids and they don't want evidence or other systems of thought to deprogram their kids.

My kid's Mom is very religious, whereas I am more spiritual. I had to fight HARD to get him moved from a mediocre local Christian school to the well respected public school district. I did this precisely so my child has balanced input, not just getting the religious fundamentalism that he gets at home, but counter information from other students and teachers.

Counter-information and knowledge about other cultures and ideas is a good thing, something that if people don't have they not only have more biases, stereotypes, and prejudice, but also are not able to form their own views on anything.

originally posted by: funkadeliaaaa
a reply to: Cuervo

Okay, so as a parent you find it perfectly acceptable to send your daughter to an institution you have little knowledge or awareness about until she is at the age you decide to send her there? Really? An institution full of strangers teaching a curriculum based on government approved facts about government approved topics.

Hmm?

The very last thing I fear my daughter getting from school is an evidence-based education.

Evidence based education? Is that the only educational value you wish to pass on to your daughter? Im afraid if that is so you are going to end up with a daughter with a very impoverished mind, like the rest of her clones. What about values based education? Or experience based education?

What about things that can only be taught by the parents?
Surely we are setting a very dangerous precedant by encouraging the state to be the sole bearers of responsibility for the education of our youth. If you disengage parents from education a little, arent you worried it may be disengaging parents entirely?

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: Metallicus

Well said
After all it was the Rockeffelers who devised modern schooling into the conformist model to prepare the fodder for their factories

Before modern education most people were barely literate...

And very very few became some kind of enlightenment philosopher. And very few still do. It is the only truly personally motivated seekers that do.

a reply to: xuenchen

Hehe my apologies. I just see you posting so much anti Democrat pro Republican stuff. My apologies. Are you independent?

What exactly did I deflect? People on here constantly use that term to invalidate things without responding to the point.

Let's abandon the partisan stuff. It's my fault for bringing it up.

Do you disagree with the point on personal responsibility? If so, why?

originally posted by: beezzer

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

I would bet that the majority of home schoolers are not super educated people or evidence based folks, but instead fundamentalists or idealogues.

Source, or your own biased opinion?

Based on my experiences with people in my family who home school AND the fact that I am an education professional. If you are not, I guarantee you have interacted with less education issues, families, students, etc than I have.

I also said most, because I do know of highly educated home schoolers and brilliant home schooled kids.

I think the OP is genuine fo their concern but I get the feeling they see the world as

There are only 2 burger companies..McDonalds or Burger King
2 Car companies GM or FOrd

Everone who doesnt tow the Party line is a Luddite

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

If you don't think you're qualified to develop a curriculum to support your childs education, then that's up to you.

I live in a household where my wife and I both have advanced degrees with a wide range of resources.

To sit back and wax eloquent that so many home school parents are ignorant fundamentalists is arrogant to say the least.