Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 7:39 pm
[It isn't possible to divorce the academic subjects from human values and social norms. ]
Well, I agree. But therein lies the problem nobody wants to address.
Schools do not create kids that are without discipline, self-restraint or respect of their elders,
Schools don't create anything at all. That's not their function.
The kids come the way they come. The school's response is generally reactive to that, not proactive, because they are not in charge of the kid's home situation, his genetics, or any part of his early upbringing.
Hence the oft-repeated point about education being part of a societal environment. An organ and agency of the state; an interactive component of a community.
They have zero control over his exposure to media, to abuse, to malnutrition or to drug use, or his access to proper medical care.
Of course. But they can - if the community wishes it - intervene on the child's behalf with other government agencies, and, as i also previously pointed out, fill in some gaps in the child's needs that a family or community may be unable or unwilling to satisfy.
All that is done before the kid even arrives. And while nobody sane is in favour of the school taking over the entire custody and nurture of children from cradle to grave, nobody wants to talk about that early home situation either. Nobody wants to admit that what the parents do has far more to do with what that kid will become than the school can ever have; and that everything the school does to try to correct for that will be a struggle upstream.
The malaise and dysfunction of society manifests in all of the society's institutions.
So the upshot is this: schools can only do so much.
Institutions have limits on their power, on their jurisdiction, on their capability, on their mandate. Yes, of course.
People say a lot of dumb things. I don't have the capacity or the desire to respond to all of them.
They can't do everything, and they can't do everything well. They only have the child for perhaps 6 hours a day, of which any single teacher has them for perhaps 4, or in high schools, perhaps as little as 1 or so, and they don't even have the kids all year round. So we have to be realistic about what we ask schools to undertake.
Good idea.
Public schooling is a tightly-controlled zero-sum game;
I don't know what that means in the context.
Put in a meal program, and they can't afford the football team.
That's fine. Growing boys need nutrition more than they need broken bones.
Hire a new psychometrist, and out the window goes the budget for the new computer lab.
It's a fairly up-scale school district has to make that choice. I'm more concenrened with family studies class in the inner city.
The time invested in sex ed has to come from gym class.
No, it doesn't; it's part of health education, which is integral to the curriculum. If you need more time, take it out of pep rallies and patriotic assemblies.
The time spent in religious education has to come out of a fixed pool of time that could otherwise be devoted to science or English or maths...
Religious education belongs in Sunday school, not public school.
Comparative religion is part of a comprehensive social studies program, which includes history, geography and anthropology.
So some economy has to be practiced here.
As everywhere. It's a matter of priorities.
Our expectations of schools are too often utopian and all-demanding...there are not the resources of time, materials and personnel to deliver everything.
And yet, my whole generation graduated high-school with a reasonable education, and without breaking the government.
[the parents who object can withdraw their child from the public system and enroll him in a private institution]
Then who pays?
Usually the parents pay a premium, depending on the private school, but they can usually get a tax benefit. It depends on the legal set-up in their state or province.
Can the parents take their tax money to the new school?
If the Separate School Board has a legal presence in their district, they can indicate school support on their property tax form and the board gets its share of revenues.
If so, you're talking not about public education, but about charter schools or a voucher system.
The institutions already exist. I didn't invent them; I merely listed the available options.
Do the objecting parents have to pay both their taxes on the public schools their child no longer attends AND the fees to keep the private school afloat?
Look up the relevant statutes in your district. I don't have that information ready to hand.
If they do, does that seem equitable to you? Why should they pay twice for something everyone else gets by paying once?
I don't. I've always supported public school and that's where I sent my kids. I have not particularly concerned myself with the objections of religious people, since they have their own resources, their advocacy organizations and their own alternate educational institutions. I'm in favour of public education remaining secular and inclusive.
Besides, your response seems to suggest the parents are radicals or wrong in their objections to what the public system has decided to teach. Is that necessarily true?
Is what you
think my answer
seems to suggest necessarily true? No, I don't see how it could be.
I didn't say they were radicals or wrong. I said they usually object to their child learning something of which they prefer to keep child ignorant. I can't imagine trying to design a fact-based educational program that excludes everything some religious group prefers their child not to know.
Can't the public school system sometimes decide to teach things that are wrong, ideologically-coloured, misguided, inappropriate for some children, or simply legitimate subjects of controversy or doubt?
A public school system can and must institute whatever the normative principles of the governing body dictate. There is always controversy and doubt. There is always argument and debate. There is always change.
Of course, in the previous question, you specified sex and religion, both of which are perennially contentious issues in diverse societies. In the first instance, the objection is usually to students being taught something factual; if this pov prevails, the majority of students are deprived of practical knowledge. In the second, the objection is to students not being taught something anecdotal; if that pov prevails, the majority of students are subjected to one particular dogma.
But if they can, then why would we assume that parents are never justified in objecting to what the bureaucracy has determined to inculcate in their child?
We wouldn't, and I haven't. The first two alternatives I suggested, and you ignored, were advocating and organizing for a change in the program. Sometimes even parents' associations of small minorities accomplish this by convincing the board, or majority parents, of their case. When the board makes very unpopular decisions, a larger number of parents, and sometimes other advocacy groups, come forward to affect a change of policy. A big enough dissenting faction can even affect the change of a good policy to a bad one.
Can't a parent ever have an objection to the public indoctrination decided by the ministry, and that objection be
fair?
Not sure what you're shocked about. Parents have a great deal of input and influence on the schools. Interest groups have, too. They are never, ever denied an opportunity to present their case, whether it's fair, twisted, righteous or bogus.
