Parents & Schooling

Overeducation is a great blog.  So is Eric Mack Online.  But two recent posts from these two great blogs highlight an interesting quesion:  Whose kids are they?

First, Eric.  He and his wife homeschool their four children, and the 5-year-old just graduated from first grade and received a Palm IIIc as a gift from Mom & Dad.  Eric's post is on what she does with it (and a mention of plans to integrate PDA's more into their teaching).  Here's what she does:

• Games
• Handy dandy [digital] notepad
• Flash cards
• Bible & Memory verse flash cards
• Calendar
• Lists of important  things to remember
• Grandma's phone number
• eBooks

Catch that "Bible" stuff stuck in there?  Well, Jonathan Kallay has been thinking about "What are Schools For?"  He writes:

Education, then, is about creating citizens who are fully capable of exercising their right to choose freely and resist coercion. Perhaps ironically, this includes compelling people to attain this freedom.
Interestingly, this calls into question the 'libertarian' viewpoint that insists on parents' rights to decide what is best for their children. Setting aside their capacity to abuse or exploit their children, the parent-child relationship has coercive or choice-inhibiting tendencies; that is, parents are unable to give their children access to a limitless range of choices, because they are limited by their own knowledge and means, and also because they demand more of their children than they would have a right to expect of them merely as fellow citizens. This creates a gap wherein parents lose the moral right to make all choices for their children and yet where these children do not have the full capacity to choose freely for themselves. Schools occupy this gap.
This has some interesting implications, about which I plan to write more. One of these implications is the permissibility of home or private schooling. Children must be sheltered from indoctrination; that is, exposure to one viewpoint to the exclusion of all others. Home schooling sits in very dangerous territory. Another questionable but common practice is the request for permission from parents (or giving parents the right to exclude their children) before exposing students to potentially objectionable material. If education is supposed to be developing students' abilities to choose for themselves, allowing them to opt out would seem to be permitting the abridgement of their freedom.

Schools have a right to make moral choices for students that parents don't?  Parents teaching their religious values is wrong, even dangerous?  I mean, we're talking Soviet Union policies here!  I suspect there are more than a few folks for whom any attempt to enforce a policy based on these ideas would result in the exercise of Second Amendment rights!  I really like John's blog, but how he can seem to accept such wooly-headed, out-of-touch theorizing is just beyond me. 

Comments

[Jonathan]

Thanks, Dave, for the endorsement, and for bringing an army of angry homeschoolers to my front door!

I've written a follow-up, trying to address the outrage and discussing John Taylor Gatto.

[Kay Brooks]

I'm glad to read you calling it 'wooly-headed'. But he's not entirely out of touch.

There are folks out there that truly believe that the state has the mandate to protect children from their parents. We had a very indepth discussion of this at the National Home Education Network (http://nhen.org/forum) and on their e-lists. The primary proponents in those discussions were Mark Apple and Rob Reich.

Here's the URL for the forum discussion which includes dozens of links to additional information and comments: http://nhen.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=614&SearchTerms=apple

[Chris]

If you are interested in the cliff notes version of Gatto I've been reviewing the book chapter by chapter at http://www.odonnellweb.com/mtarchives/cat_the_underground_history_of_american_education.php

[Elizabeth]

Dave -- the second blog from which you quote is down right scary. Have you read either John Taylor Gatto's The Underground HIstory of American Education or Charlotte Iserbyt's book the deliberate dumbing down of america? In both books you learn the history of "publc" school and how and why they were formed. It is straight from Prussia and behavioral psychology. I think you will find both books an interesting read. I have provide links to both books. One can be read on line the other can be purchased as a pdf.

Thanks --

Elizabeth

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/index.html