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Posted by Kris Krieger on November 18, 2007, 2:39 am
>
>>
>>> "Pat"> wrote
>>>
>>> There's an aspect of homeschooling known as *unschooling* and this
>>> is the process some people go through after leaving the public
>>> prisons, er, schools.
>>
>> Education is not the same thing as the current mess called "the
>> public school system". The current ssytem is a bureaucracy first,
>> and second, and
>> third, and is more of a trianing camp, than an Educational
>> Institution.
>>
>> I've said time and time again that I am willing to pay for children
>> to be *educated* - I am *not* w8illing to pay for them to be merely
>> warehoused for 8 hours and trained to follow orders.
>
> I have to say that learning to follow orders is an important skill.
> In probably 70% of all jobs, that is at least as important as reading,
> math, etc.
Foloowing directions is not the same thing as following orders.
Directions exist for a reason. Orders fome from an assumption of
authority which demands unquestioning obedience.
> For life outside work, one also needs to be able to think
> critically. However, the main purpose of the educational system is to
> create good workers, so training students to take order is a good
> thing.
Education should be about much more than training good workers - it
should help establish a framework one can use to achieve self-
fulfillment, self-actualization. If all you want to do is train workers,
don't bother with education, jsut send the kids to work as soon as they
can do something, like knot carpets.
Oh, but wait, that'd be child labor. Well, if all that matters is "good
workers", why is child labor a bad thing?
> I think the educational system is not perfect by any means,
I think it is a disaster for a great many kids.
> but I think it's a good idea to have the school system at least expose
> children with the ideas of good manners and respect for authority.
A lot of "authority" is false; most people "in authority" are idiots.
What one needs to learn, in the current culture, which I never did BTW
since I lack sufficient social instincts, is how to *suck up to*
authority. Following "authority" blindly is not a good habit - liberty,
freedom, and democracy demand far more than that.
Good manners...? Good manners are rooted in civility, which in turn is
rooted in at least some minimal level of empathy for others. Good
manners are, in essence, not a set of rules, but rather, a way of giving
consideration to, being considerate of, others. Rules change from place
to place, so the rules of one place are irrelevant to the rules of
another - but civility, consideration, allow one to *adapt*, as opposed
to merely memorizing sets of rules.
And *adapting* is the important thing. Obedience does not teach one to
adapt, nor do rules, nor does blind obedience to those who claim
authority.
>
>> Merely being a "good littel worker bee" is not condusive to liberty -
>> but being a GLWB is precisely what the "educational" bureaucracy
>> seeks to "teach".
>
> It's up to parents to teach children when and how to question
> authority. The educational system at its root is to allow the student
> to become employable (and so not starve).
Good little worker bees, unquestioning, comfortable in their assigned
pidgeonholes...
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