thegreekdog wrote:DoomYoshi wrote:Tgd has me sold so far.
My main issue with public education is something I hope you could answer Tgd.
Being that the role of education is to make educated citizens, how can we educate children without indoctrinating them? Especially with teachers being public employees, they are usually brainwashing children to believe in leftist propaganda.
Another form of indoctrination I worry about is religious. Should public education be forcibly universal?
Do all people need education? For example, is it ok if I don't send my child sex slave to school?
These look like three main issues.
(1) Indoctrination
Generally (and I use the term loosely), indoctrination can only really happen in classes like history or politics or social studies. Perhaps English or literature classes. Science and mathematics are not really things where one can get indoctrinated. If we just take the "indoctrinatable (patent pending) classes" (history, social studies) and acknowledge that there is indoctrination happening at public schools, the question I would ask in return is this - why do you care? Parents generally have as much or more control over indoctrinating their children than teachers. I'm not suggesting we ignore the issue, I just think the issue is made way bigger than it is by creationist, revisionist historians, and the like.
(2) Forced Public Education
Public education should not be universally enforcible no. As I indicated in the past, if someone is educated in a Christian school that teaches creationism, for example, and that evolution is false, I would question the ability of that student to succeed in a realm like science. So ultimately, who cares? If your concern is that some people will be religious while others are not, I wonder what the problem is with that? All that being said, there would be a pretty interesting constitutional argument.
However, I think whatever the federal mandated minimum requirements are should be required to be met by home schools and private schools and religious schools. If that means evolution must be taught in schools, so be it. My brother and sister both went to Catholic schools (by far the highest number of private religious schools) and were taught evolution so I don't think that's much of an impediment to free religious practices, but I'm sure there are some that would disagree.
(3) Child Sex Slaves
I'm not addressing this.
I will take this step by step starting with (1)
"Science and Mathematics are not really ... indoctrinated"Oh really? Perhaps it has been a while since you were in public school, but we do these things called Word Problems. Word Problem example: If Johnny makes $280 000 a year, and is supposed to pay 40% income tax, but he only pays 70% of what he is supposed to, how much money has he stolen from the poor and starving, the cute, cuddly animals that are no longer protected by the rangers who he purposely robbed of their jobs and etc. etc.
In Science, indoctrination happens all the time. For example, we were taught over and over and over again that white people and black people are genetically the same, even though this is bullshit, and may be harmful (since the difference is great enough that drugs can effect people of different races preferentially).
"why do you care?" This is a good question. I care because the point of a society is to make sure the members of the society are healthy and productive. Maybe you disagree with this terminology, but we (taxpayers who constitute society) are not paying for public education so that we get anarchists that commit suicide at 16, amirite?
As a society (I know you are American, but you really must believe me that Canada and United States are so similar in respect to what I am talking about that it doesn't matter), we have decided to ban many drugs. Some of these drugs have been proven to be better for people, and for society than alcohol (specifically, MDMA and LSD). However, they continue to be illegal. The effects of drugs are famous because they interact with the prefrontal cortex (actually, most of them non-specifically mess with all neurons, but that's not the point) and this is where addiction happens - at an epigenetic level. You know what else happens in the prefrontal cortex? Everything you know and value. My point is that if we block out bad substances as a society, we should also be able to block out bad ideas.
"I'm not suggesting we ignore the issue, I just think the issue is made way bigger than it is by creationist, revisionist historians, and the like. "That's not entirely my problem, although it is a rather potent example that unfortunately obfuscates the true issue. You may well ask "What indoctrination specifically is Yoshi worried about?". Well, the one I felt most throughout school was definitely the communist one. From a grade 5 class teacher describing the two political parties: "The Liberals want to help people out and the Conservatives don't".
However, the far worse problem is one level up from that. I want to end the indoctrination of American Ideals, specifically the ideal that people can hold whatever thoughts they want. Yes, personal freedom is a lovely concept, but it has a few MAJOR problems.
Case Study One: Polygamous Cults
Pick one, any one. You will find primarily women and children abuse. Yet, this form of living continues to thrive and every year or so I read about another "shocking" revelation of women and children being abused. Why is the right of men to abuse the f*ck out of women (remember, many of the leaders take new "wives" between the ages of 10-13) so protected by this American ideal of personal beliefs?
Case Study Two:Scientology
Case Study Three: Gun Violence
Now this is one that I don't have much evidence for, except for circumstantial. However, I hold it as a self-evident truth that the focus on allowing individuals to have the freedom to think "shooting is a way to get famous" actually encourages people to hold this belief.
(2) Answered the same way as (1)
(3) Intended as a joke.