Above: The Department of Education, following my proposed reformsImagine a group of people going to a restaurant. For some reason, the decision is made not only to split the bill equally, but that everyone must eat the same meal. The following chain of events will probably ensue:
A potentially pleasant evening will become riven with disputes. The most forthright members of the group will attempt to persuade a majority of the rest that their particular choice is the best. Other people's choices will perforce be denigrated. Whatever choice is decided upon will not be able to please everyone. Perhaps a compromise will be reached that pleases no one. Some will go hungry, and be forced to pay for something they don't touch and pay again somewhere else. The risk will be run that if the one choice is bad, everyone will suffer.
There is a better way. Each person chooses what they want. Some will fare better than others, but if someone makes a really bad choice, one of the others will probably help them out by sharing some of theirs.
This analogy springs to mind whenever I see the state school system being debated. My own view of what makes for a good education is most likely very different from the next person's. In a free market, this wouldn't matter any more than if the person next to me in a restaurant was a vegetarian and I wanted to eat steak. We could agree to differ, and go away friends. I don't have to force him to partake and he doesn't need to convince me that meat is murder.
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A potentially pleasant evening will become riven with disputes. The most forthright members of the group will attempt to persuade a majority of the rest that their particular choice is the best. Other people's choices will perforce be denigrated. Whatever choice is decided upon will not be able to please everyone. Perhaps a compromise will be reached that pleases no one. Some will go hungry, and be forced to pay for something they don't touch and pay again somewhere else. The risk will be run that if the one choice is bad, everyone will suffer.
There is a better way. Each person chooses what they want. Some will fare better than others, but if someone makes a really bad choice, one of the others will probably help them out by sharing some of theirs.
This analogy springs to mind whenever I see the state school system being debated. My own view of what makes for a good education is most likely very different from the next person's. In a free market, this wouldn't matter any more than if the person next to me in a restaurant was a vegetarian and I wanted to eat steak. We could agree to differ, and go away friends. I don't have to force him to partake and he doesn't need to convince me that meat is murder.
Pic
12 comments:
Not sure this analogy works trooper because it's not you eating the meal it's your kid. So I'd look at it as the menu varies from healthy meals to some very unhealthy meals. now the kids parents choose for them what to eat. Some kids are going to get stuff they don't want, some are going to get unhealthy food, some are going to be given too much, some kids are going to wonder why they're so much fatter then the others and at best a fraction will be forced to eat shit in the toilets. If you let the restaurant recommend based on the correct nutrients for a healthy balanced meal for children of their age, all the children are going to be well fed, given equal footing and can decide if they want to eat shit when they're older.
That's how i see you're analogy anyways. nice one for the food for thought :)
What is your problem with parents deciding for their children?
They do it every day from the day they're born.
The question is; who decides for the child, the parent or the state?
For me there is only one correct answer, and you can guess what it is.
this is my problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACyLTsH4ac
yeah i think it should be the state on matters of Maths, science, PE and English minimum. without at least that and some kind of control on pseudoscience being taught as fact i think the class gap will widen.
What's it got to do with class? Are you suggesting that the underclass are being kept down by Bible-thumpers?
"yeah i think it should be the state on matters of Maths, science, PE and English minimum."
Because they're so good at it? The state control of schools is what screws working class and middle class children, not overly religious parents.
You may find "Jesus Camp" appalling, but it's not representative of a great deal. If you wish to oppose such things, why don't you, rather than calling in the state to impose your subjective views on other people?
I don't wish to impose any subjective views on anyone. That's why I suggested the subjects I did as they deal with facts. I think a fair and equal representation of them should be available to everyone. If not you're not giving equal footing to the children, then think how those children will bring up theirs and so on.
"Are you suggesting that the underclass are being kept down by Bible-thumpers? " - yes.. they love you to be poor and stupid, givng them your money and teaching you rubbish. Why do you think many bright minds ran into so much trouble with the church in the past?
Reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw:
Don't pray in my school and i won't think in your church!
"yes.. they love you to be poor and stupid, givng them your money and teaching you rubbish."
I don't think this is the case. You will more likely find that religious people are better with money, because they have a 'self-help' (referring to the book) attitude, and they don't spend much on dissipation. Of course members of a church will be prevailed upon to dip into their pockets, as members of all clubs and societies are.
"If not you're not giving equal footing to the children, then think how those children will bring up theirs and so on"
Under present circumstances, some kids get a reasonable education and others do not. If the state school system was smashed into a thousand pieces, as I wish it was, you would also find some kids getting a reasonable education and others not, and I believe there would be more of the first and less of the second.
You do share my trust of parents.
I do not share your trust in the state to do the task of educating the youth well. Indeed I believe the system, founded on the Prussian model and driven by a fabian ideology, to be toxic to the mind of children.
"self help" - Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for life. Give a man a religion and he will starve to death praying for a fish.
Anyway my main argument is not about religion it's about factions of crazy that would spring up from a less centralised schooling model (which would be anything from holocaust deniers to black supremacy). The reason we are as advanced as we have become is thanks only to science and scientists who are standing on the shoulders of giants. To give everyone this chance can only be done well if we agree on what should be taught. I fear breaking this so people can teach whatever they like will set us back many years. The only way the human race will ever reach its peak is through unity, not creating a safe haven for crack pot ideas.
I trust parents to teach what they are best at which is a good moral way to be. not with what children should learn... i had a conversation with my mum about stars she was suprised they are not star shaped. She should not be making any calls on what I should learn in that area. We should be thankful for our specialists.
I'm not saying state schools are perfect by any means. but i think they are far better for children then any home schooling and most definitley in the areas I've stated.
Even if this will be a minority, a minority with a strong and dedicated delusion can be extremely dangerous. It only takes a few people to strap bombs to themselves (which makes sense to them based on the crazy they've been taught) and go into a tube station to affect millions of lives.
The giants whose shoulders these scientists stand on never spent one minute of one day in a state-run school. Indeed the purpose of state school is to ensure that original thinkers are hammered into conformity, so they do not produce too many giants. To do so would be failure.
Your argument is essentially 'we can't allow freedom in education, because of the risk that such freedom will lead to anarchy and homeschooled kids suicide bombing'.
This is nonsense. Do you really think this state-run system is as good as it gets?
My argument is not they will be suicide bombing. I used that to show a minority can affect the many. I'm probably not making my argument clear, hopefully this will clarify:
My argument is that the state does need to play a part in ensuring children are given a chance to learn facts so their parents can't monopolise their opinions. I think this only need be a few subjects.
Why I think we can't totally remove state run education - unfortunately the human race is a superstitious people who look for patterns even when there are none and form packs even when it's to the detriment of others. It means to move forward we NEED a central base of fact, a central rock to steady the way and this should be mandatory for all children to learn, taught to them by people well educated in that area.
Maybe it should be something like 3 days a week at state schools which only teach factual subjects, have no ranking system, outlawed in teaching religions or ideologies. Then schooling any which way the parents like for the other days of the week. I think that would be brilliant actually.
You are right on the fact something needs to be changed, at the moment they can fill a childs head with any nonsense they like. There's just parts worth keeping.
Cheers Trooper
I understand what you're saying, but I totally reject it! I see no reason at all to trust the state in the manner that you are willing to do.
"unfortunately the human race is a superstitious people who look for patterns even when there are none and form packs even when it's to the detriment of others."
This may be the case, but you are a member of the human race and as such your opinion is subject to the same weaknesses as the rest of us, and so are those of the educationists who run the state school system.
Therefore, power should be diffused as widely as possible, so that the error of one does not nor cannot become the error of all. What you suggest is to give the basket with all your eggs into the hands of the state, which has already proven itself incapable of holding the basket.
In principal it is correct that power should be diffused as widely as possible, but in practice that is never going to happen. There are leaders and those who will be led and it is the latter which is the majority.
Differing schools of thought are incapable of holding anything other than a sword for its enemy (the enemy being anything not it) never mind a basket of eggs.
At least a state run system has to pay lip service to running an education system that is to the benefit of all. The fact that it has to acknowledge this puts it far ahead of any smaller unregulated factions of education, which would only educate the students into how to line their teachers pockets. We should take this acknowledgement and press the matter to make it actually happen, in a system that works. It’s not a case of it doesn’t work destroy it but to guide it to a better place.
I would love to believe individually we are responsible enough to do what is morally best for our children. Unfortunately historical and present day evidence points to humans being too greedy, too stupid and too self important for that to happen. You might trust parents to do this but I question what evidence you base that trust on. I can list you a number of differing schools of thought that are out to destroy others, to benefit only their own pockets, which offer nothing in terms of scientific and technological progress, celebrate death and ignorance and have been taken up wilfully by the masses on the promise they are as important as they hoped. All of this would be avoided if people had a better understanding of their fragile place within this universe and everyone should have the right to be taught it.
Divide and conquer trooper that is all that will happen, the state will have us kicking the crap out of each other too busy to notice how much their control and power has grown.
"The fact that it has to acknowledge this puts it far ahead of any smaller unregulated factions of education"
In what sense ahead? Check the A level results, the private schools do better than the state schools, and home schooled kids also do better on average than state school kids. You might think this is purely down to resources, to which I would point out the private schools and the home schoolers don't spend most of their money on agencies, commissions, quangos and the million other bureaucratic functions of a centralised state system.
"There are leaders and those who will be led and it is the latter which is the majority. "
That is true, but history teaches us that we must resist the excessive concentration of power.
"I would love to believe individually we are responsible enough to do what is morally best for our children."
The flaws in human nature are also present in those that are empowered to run a state school system. When they fuck up, it affects everyone.
"You might trust parents to do this but I question what evidence you base that trust on"
My friends and family, the people I know and have known in my life.
"All of this would be avoided if people had a better understanding of their fragile place within this universe and everyone should have the right to be taught it."
Under my system you could have such a school. Under the state system, you will never have this. To return to the original post, it ain't on the menu!
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