As my previous post on education has dropped off the page, I will post this interview with Charlotte Iserbyt, whose book 'The deliberate dumbing down of America' exposes the brain-washing agenda behind the state school system. This may enable my recent interlocutor to continue his attack on the principles of freedom and choice in education.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
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9 comments:
My dear fella,
Whenever I see the words 'freedom' and 'choice' being wielded, I always have to wonder - especially in the context of education.
I don't remember school being anything to do with freedom or choice- do you? Specifically, which 'principles' do you have in mind?
The people who complain most about the brain-washing are the Christian Right wingers, who'd rather keep their kids at home, so they can stuff their heads full of Bronze Age superstition, because evolution and all the terrible things that arise from it are -literally- the devil's work.
I've recently read a book -The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler, which I recommend highly.
It touches on the US public ed system and doesn't have a kind word to say on it. (I can't find a quote right now) but it did say something interesting; that the US system, like so much else over there, is overly reliant on cheap energy. Once that runs out, the system becomes untenable -for all sorts of reasons.
In the future, the system will have to become local and as a result of other, overlapping, exigencies teachers themselves may reacquire a measure of social status in the community, rather in the manner they once enjoyed back in the frontier days. All interesting stuff.
The choice of homeschooling is also a decadent, cheap calorie-reliant option. It presupposed an awful of leisure time on behalf of parents -leisure time afforded by the energy grid and salaries. In the old days much of this energy was provided by your children, livestock -and servants, for the more monied. This is why local teachers may acquire their status again.
He does say that such local systems may arise from local home-schooling groups.
BTW, re: healthcare and 'Obama's supporters..ever less capable of engaging in rational debate'
How you seen what the right wing, pro-insurance crowd have been getting up to?!! Hardly rational debate. 'Death panels'? A threat to Democracy? Communism? come on!
Stepping back a bit: I hardly think Obama at el really have the well-being of the little people at heart. Somewhere within the corridors of power, planners are fearful of letting a 50-million strong (and growing) vector of typical disease fester on their doorstep. They are also fearful of running out of healthy, lower class recruits for their armed forces.
Public health has always -right from the start- been about battle-readiness. That and the comfort of living in one's habitation without fear of the plague breaking out.
enough already
that's tropical - not typical disease!
I have chronic typical disease and I get by.
"...so they can stuff their heads full of Bronze Age superstition"
Cisbio, as someone who recommended Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall' (the Lowe Abridgement that is), which I am now reading and enjoying greatly, I'm surprised that you refer to Christian beliefs as 'Bronze Age'.
In any case, unfortunately for you, those Christian home-schoolers invariably do better academically than those in the state system. Of course strong religious beliefs is a major factor in parents choosing to home-school. The state system is very anti-Christian, indeed if you study the ideas of the early 20th Century 'progressives' such as Bertrand Russell, one of the principle aims of the state school system is to get rid of the religious beliefs of children. This is something you may applaud, but it's not surprising that Christian parents do not want this to happen to their childen, and if a little objectivity were allowed to creep into your atheistic mind, you would see their point. In any case, although you reject their beliefs, you cannot deny their success in educating your children. Besides, the idea that the state should impose a religious belief or a lack thereof is deeply nasty. I do not wish to live in a theocracy, whether that be theistic or atheistic, and you should ponder Voltaire's 'Lettres Philosophiques', himself no friend of religion, who points out that religions thrive on persecution, so you'd be better to leave them be, if you wish to see them wither and die.
As for James Howard Kunstler, I hope he's right. It is evident that a huge proportion of the education budget is not spent on schools, but on pointless quangos and commissions. There is no need for the vast majority of the state school infrastructure. I would build a case for centralised organisational control for, say, the railways, but I see no need when it comes to schools, which are free-standing rather than interdependent organs.
Moving on...
"Have you seen what the right wing, pro-insurance crowd have been getting up to?!!"
I don't get sucked into the fake left/right paradigm. What you should note is that the Obamacare bill was over 1000 pages long, and Congress didn't read it before they voted for it. Is that what you would call responsible? Rather than listen to Palin, you should consider Webster Tarpley's attacks on it, which come from the left, and see the bill as just another corporate looting. Just because Rush Limbaugh doesn't like it, doesn't mean it's good. Whatever the rightwingers are saying, if you read what the guy from Whole Foods said, he's not talking about 'death panels' he's just making sensible-sounding suggestions about removing some of the current problems. If he's wrong he can be refuted with reason, but the reaction of the Obamanoids is to try to hound him into silence. This is not good.
I'm sure you know as well as I do, that the republican vs democrat debate is totally phoney. Whoever's in the Whitehouse, the policies stay the same. The corporations and the banksters are running America, and Obama doesn't scratch his arse if they don't give him permission.
Anyway, we'll have to settle this over a pint!
Trooper, nice to see me in the post title :D I'm sorry I've been away then busy getting a new job. Excuses aside I would like to point out a couple of things.
1. "attack on principles of freedom and choice in education"
Not quite, I'm completely for freedom as you well know, I am against abuse.. So for example if I oppose child beating does that mean I’m against the parents freedom to beat??? I am merely against child abuse and religious indoctrination is an example of such.
2. You base the whole of your views on home schooling on "My friends and family, the people I know and have known in my life."
This is absolutely not good enough, you are lucky if you have been bought up in such a privileged way. Just take a walk around down the road and have a look at the state of some parents, then tell me it is fair for them to push their ignorance onto their children.
3. "The state system is very anti-Christian..."
I can't believe you said this, when I was a kid I was forced to sit and pray and sing Christian songs. Now you can write in to get your child excused (if you want to make them feel different to their classmates). So either you let them do the Christian thing or you remove them. That is hardly anti-Christian. Surely you know it's in the curriculum that schools have to give worship time of a broadly Christian nature.
4. "In any case, although you reject their beliefs, you cannot deny their success in educating your children"
Denied. For obvious reasons that they believe in angels, demons, talking snakes, 6000 year old earth and a god who's behaviour is no greater than a chimps at best. In any case what are you bench marking their education against? Surely not that they answer more questions correctly in the state run brainwash challenge.
5. "I do not wish to live in a theocracy, whether that be theistic or atheistic"
For someone of your linguistic skills I’m shocked by this sentence. Atheism is a lack of theistic belief so how can it be a theocracy?? I'm puzzled and think you know better. You should want to live in a secular society as does anyone with half a brain, take religion out of everything except if people want to practice in their own time.
"I'm surprised that you refer to Christian beliefs as 'Bronze Age'."
Just out of interest what do you refer to it as?
Cheers Trooper!
"I am merely against child abuse and religious indoctrination is an example of such."
How intolerant you are! And you're exaggerating. Sure, you can go off and find an example of a cranky individual with a religious fixation who kept his children in a basement, and flogged them every night with his leather-bound Geneva Bible, but this is not the usual upbringing for children of religious parents.
"2. You base the whole of your views ...This is absolutely not good enough"
I'm surprised you splutter so much at using personal anecdotal evidence. And what do you do in response? The same:
"Just take a walk around down the road and have a look at the state of some parents"
Well, down my road, the children seem happy enough. The parents seem okay. I see no reason to change my opinion that child-abusing parents are the exception to the rule.
Of course there are bad parents, who let their children down through their own malice, laziness and ignorance.
"you are lucky if you have been bought up in such a privileged way."
It's not privileged at all. It's fortunate, perhaps, but not as rare as you imply, and the egregious examples of abuse we find in the press and tv news usually involve broken homes, poverty, mental illness, drug addiction and other such socially-destructive characteristics. To the extent that this is the case, these cases show a lack of religion not a surfeit.
You also can't believe I said that the state system was anti-Christian. I was thinking of secondary education rather than primary. In the latter, there are many state-funded church schools, which must offend you! This is your problem. You're the one that wants the state to control schools. My view is that the state shouldn't do so. Unfortunately for you, these church-run schools are often the best-performing, in terms of the "state run brainwash challenge". But anyway, secondary schools. I can remember the local vicar speaking to us once in five years. The values that I learned there were not religious.
"For obvious reasons that they believe in angels, demons ... talking snakes"
Do you think a belief in such things makes someone a worse car driver? Or database designer? As for talking snakes, are you gonna ban 'The Jungle Book' too?
There are things that are rational, and there are things outside the scope of reason. Where our differences of opinion flare up into discord is your arrogant presumption to inforce your own view (albeit one shared by other such atheocrats) upon the rest of us, on pain of child forfeiture.
"How intolerant you are! And you're exaggerating."
When it comes to child abuse very intolerant. I know you're blind to evidence as are many religious defenders but here's a bit more for your ignore pile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW5SAJkurrM
"I see no reason to change my opinion that child-abusing parents are the exception to the rule. "
The main argument you seem to have is that all of these bad situations I am talking about are the exception. I'm pretty sure they are the exception because of the current system. I know it's not perfect and I don't agree with it in its current form, but the benefits of it such as listening to other peoples point of view and mixing in a diverse environment is stopping these from the increase. Little street level or home level schools where anyone can teach any crap they like will fuel the fire of child abuse. Not necessarily because there will be more abusers but because their reach will be further and harder to spot.
"these cases show a lack of religion not a surfeit."
Which part of Christian religion is it showing a lack of? How about all the times god instructed his tribe to kill every man woman and CHILD in any of the other tribes he decided to take a dislike to.
http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/killer2.htm
This is an insane comment from you, do you not see all the war and destruction caused by religion. The only thing religion guarantees is that from the day you are born you have enemies. Everyone is a Kafir to someone.
"I can remember the local vicar speaking to us once in five years."
AS for this anti-Christian schools, what a joke! Did you get visits from the Muslim, Jewish, scientologist, Buddhist, Olympian or Egyptian religious communities too or just the vicar.. oh it must be anti-Christian then... where’s the logic in that! And you're not going to moan about the primary schools, the religious are happy enough getting them as young and easy to manipulate as they can. The Religious can't deal with people calling them for what they are and instead of making their case with logic and reason resort to saying they are persecuted. It is because they don't want to use their brains as they've never had to before. This makes me sick.
"In the latter, there are many state-funded church schools, which must offend you!"
Indeed thinking I’m footing part of the bill for this poison of both human spirit and progress is enough to send me into a blind rage at any given moment.
"Do you think a belief in such things makes someone a worse car driver? Or database designer? As for talking snakes, are you gonna ban 'The Jungle Book' too?"
Yes, it makes them far worse at everything because they do not understand reality. I don't want to "ban" anything the jungle book is fine in fiction right next to the bible and lord of the rings.
"Where our differences of opinion flare up into discord is your arrogant presumption to inforce your own view (albeit one shared by other such atheocrats) upon the rest of us"
NO trooper this is when I know you don't listen to me. I do not want to inforce my own views, I want every child to have the opportunity to learn FACTS like maths, science, English and PE. Those are not my views, these are universal FACTS.
Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I’m an atheocrat (which I’m unsure is even a word), I could not want any form of government and still be an atheist. This is the usual Christian tactic trying to label atheism as something when it is exactly the inverse of that.
It’s funny how you blame the state system for brainwashing when religion is the biggest brainwasher of all time and you are displaying many a symptom of it.
If I want my child to get a Christian education and you want your child to get an atheist education, only one of us has a problem with that: and that is you, because you have a surety in your rectitude, and believe your views should be imposed on everyone else. This attitude is one of the main criticisms leveled at religion. This attitude is why I can easily make comparison between the atheistic frame of mind that you possess and that of other, religious control-freaks.
I can't really be bothered to argue any further. Your notion that teaching a child to believe in God is 'child abuse' is beyond rational assault. It cannot be disproved, therefore I will not try to do so.
I just want to say this for the record since I think your judgments on me are absurd.
I don't care if anyone teaches their children anything. All I'm saying is they should be taught the facts. This like food I think should be a right to every child in the country. And once again this is NOT my views.. 1+1=2 is a fact not a view, so as much as you want to argue I want my views forced on people it is utter garbage.
"Your notion that teaching a child to believe in God is 'child abuse' is beyond rational assault."
I'm pretty sure I gave you a lot of evidence to show you what type of indoctrination I'm talking about. I'm not against teaching a child to believe in god, but against parents/teachers using it to completely destroy the child. I think homeschooling will increase this. You’re just trying to straw man me here trooper and it’s low.
At least we don't have to talk about this next time we're having a beer now!!! every cloud trooper!
cheers
"1+1=2 is a fact not a view, so as much as you want to argue I want my views forced on people it is utter garbage"
1+1=2 is not in contention. What is in contention is who has the ultimate authority.
I am a libertarian, therefore the individual has a sovereign right to decide for himself what he believes, and a right not to have things imposed upon him against his consent. The state has no right to impose beliefs on the individual.
When it comes to children, beneath a certain age they are not deemed legally capable of giving their consent. Therefore, and this is a fundamental question, who decides for them? Who wields their sovereign rights for them?
My position: the child's parents decide for them. Your position: (as far as I can gather) the state decides.
I'm not talking about exceptions, but the rule, the same as 'innocent until proven guilty'. The rule is that a parent is the best one to decide for a child.
This has nothing to do with any right to abuse. The common law is above us all.
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