Thursday 18 July 2013

End compulsory education

As Mark Twain once observed, he never allowed schooling to get in the way of his education. Sadly, today, he wouldn’t have the choice.

Edward Cline points out that today’s compulsory factory schools are frequently so poor that if the inmates acquire any real-world "smarts" at all,  “it is only after they have left school and escaped the brow-beating cajolings and ministrations of teachers dedicated to indoctrinating students to become selfless, tolerant, non-judgmental, and self-sacrificial ‘good citizens.’”

Yet there is a move to end compulsory state-sanctioned schooling to allow education to happen.

On July 12th, U.S. State Senator Aaron Osmond of Utah called for the end of compulsory [schooling].
    The idea of forcing children to attend school is outdated and should be scrapped in favour of a system that encourages learning by choice, state Sen. Aaron Osmond said in calling for an end to compulsory education in Utah.
    "Some parents act as if the responsibility to educate, and even care for their child, is primarily the responsibility of the public school system," the South Jordan Republican first wrote on a state Senate blog on Friday.
    Moreover, Osmond noted that:
      
"As a result, our teachers and schools have been forced to become surrogate parents, expected to
    do everything from behavioural counselling, to providing adequate nutrition, to teaching sex education,
    as well as ensuring full college and career readiness."
    Opposition to the idea was immediately voiced by a
state educator:
    
   State School Board member Leslie Castle said she agrees that schools have become burdened
    with non-academic responsibilities, like daily nutrition, basic health screenings and behavioural
    counselling. But the reality of Utah's increasingly diverse population is that many children require
    those services….
   
She said because of compulsory education, teachers and educators are typically the first to see evidence of trouble at home, from abuse to malnourishment. Without the requirement to attend school, or if non-academic services were removed from the public education system, it would be necessary for the state to create some other form of publicly funded service to fill that role.
    I had to laugh when I read that "teachers and educators are typically the first to see evidence of trouble at home…."
Trayvon Martin, the "child" shot by George Zimmerman in self-defence, was "trouble" looking for punching bag, preferably a human one. What did his public school or his parents do about his "non-academic" problems? School suspensions, slaps on wrists, behavioural counselling, and impotent finger-wagging.
    Senator Osmond's position on compulsory education is laudable. But it fails to address the issue of why schooling is compulsory. What, after all, is the premise behind the forced [schooling] of children? Are children wards or the responsibility of the state (or of "society"), or are they the responsibility of their parents.
    In short: Who owns them?

On that hinges the real question.

A question that is especially important when the State is about to begin IDing all NZ children

4 comments:

s.visser said...

As a parent it does feel like schools act as though they have the right to know everything that goes on in your home. From what goes into their brain, what they eat to what they wear. Frankly I am tired of the lunch box police dictating not only the type of lunch box they should bring but also what goes in to it, as if we the parents are incapable of making those decisions ourselves My son was coming home telling me he only wanted to eat raw food at one stage! He was worried about the sun burning his skin off and he was telling me how he should be last and others always come before him. He started school a bright eyed inquisitive fellow, by the time we pulled him out he was introverted, afraid of others and disliked school. Since homeschooling him, his confidence is growing exponentially, he asks so many questions with a burning desire to know *Why* and he is loving meeting other people again. So much for a school that seemed to be full of rhetoric and so little action.

s.visser said...

State Identification of our children is abhorrent on so many levels. By making this compulsory the message being sent to parents is that the parent can raise their child under the watchful eye of the government (nanny). Should they fail to adhere to government policies regarding their offspring then they send out the heavies, also known as CYF who can rip your children away from you if *they* deem it fit, according to their criteria. The governments job is to protect us from force, not to dictate. How is labeling all our children going to protect them from 'paedophiles', 'hit and run', kidnappings, murders....the list goes on...instead our money is spent on yet more paper work, just what we all need.
One particular bug bear is "ethnicity", what has that got anything to do with the state or my child? Why can't children simply be individuals. My husband and I refuse to fill out this information. On one occasion it was filled in for us, we then asked them to remove that label. Lets not get into the fun we had with his birth certificate. That is another story.

Dinther said...

I hear ya s.visser. Glad my boy is in the last year of college. It has been a painful process with many run-ins with the schools principal and in particular the head of "Social sciences"

My son is lucky to hear the other side at home and we spend many hours discussing all kinds of topics. I hope the damage might not be too bad.

But school is a spectacular waste of time or in the least a spectacular inefficient use of time.

thor42 said...

A very interesting article.

I agree 100% that state schools are nothing but factories pumping the kids with left-wing PC Treatyist BS.

Good parents will ensure their children become educated, one way or another.
My only concern is - what about the feral no-hoper parents?

Wouldn't a school, as poor as it might be, at least pick up that little Hone is causing problems?

If ferals' children don't have to attend school, where is the "early intervention" to ensure that those kids don't become murderers?