B
bizorky
Guest
Education is politics. I think it was Plato who first suggested this. He would be considered a pretty conservative educator by today's standards.
Let's stick to math, science, physical education and history. Sure, so easy to say. This approach itself is based upon a set of causual ideals and beliefs about education formed on the basis of past "social engineering" activities. After all, why should there be a category called "childhood" or "youth" for educational activity in the first place? these categories of life are just a product of social engineering, after all. They were invented. Why should adulthood begin at age eighteen; why not say that adult life begins at first ejaculation or menstruation?
Then again, rather than wasting time learning awful social values, maybe children should be in factories working, like in the good old days, when everything was so much clearer. That's not happening because of more interfering social engineering.
Getting back to what is covered in schools, consider mathematics: do we dare to touch on the philosophy of mathematics. No easy answers here; we can't indoctrinate anything specific to this debate easily, so we educate for consumers of mathematics, not to educate for an appreciation or deeper meaning of this activity.
If you even casually follow the disputes in the United States, then you would be aware that for many religious people, Darwin (and science) is considered to be an attack on their version of the "truth." Science is a rather recent appearance within organized education. Also, science isn't just a list of facts, nor is it one single process. It can it be viewed accurately as a belief. Rather, it is a set of practices that are quite diverse depending on the inquiry. The practices of science require both imagination and skepticism. There is also a demand for critical questioning within science. The questioning of facts and their value (values) is crucial to inquiry. If you start asking questions about one thing, then you may find yourself questioning all the other things you've been told to believe. Not good for the traditionalist.
Music? Do a quick survey of history of education and you will discover that this subject has been attacked at different times for instilling poor values in the minds of children. Playing music? How unproductive!
English? Sure, But what do we read? Since the purpose of language is to communicate, this would include communicating exchanges on those pesky ideas, values and interpretations that many people find offending and wish to see banned. There are still lists of books banned from school libraries - no doubt in an effort to protect students from having an open mind. They might, after all, pose questions to mommy and daddy that mommy and daddy find offensive or annoying, or can't answer.
History is always open to interpretation. Artifacts and actual physical products of the past are less open to interpretation than the motivations or meanings of a given time. What people today refer to as the "political correctness" are typically unaware of is the political correctness of the past - meaning that there ought to be standard and accepted values associated with historical events related to your country, etc. On another thread, I raised the issue that the First World War was a clash of colonial nations. The idea of fighting for freedom, which is so often associated with the cause of this war, is a contemporary product. Nations seeking or maintaining empires are not in the business of distributing liberty or self-determination. But these are tough questions to address, and lively debate ensued. Collectively, we arrived at no absolute answers. For those demanding the teaching of unquestioned facts in history, the danger of having an open mind and an open forum for questioning can be viewed as an attck on values. I can't see how a closed-minded attitude would be better.
As for talking about same sex couples in school, what is the risk to children? How could they be impaired by being introduced to the idea that one family can be different from another? They probably see that in the families of their friends already. So what is the issue to children? My guess is that there is no issue to children, but there are many mommies and daddies who have come to confuse what they consider their own unquestioned moral beliefs with some etched-in-stone version of truth or correctness. They want their version of political-social-moral correctness to go unquestioned; they want to preserve their right to condemn on the basis of their own beliefs. They want to do the social engineering they accuse others of.
The notion that education is just the three R's is nothing more than a misspelling. And as for education being the pursuit of common sense, it was Einstein who pointed out that common sense is the accumulated prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Let's stick to math, science, physical education and history. Sure, so easy to say. This approach itself is based upon a set of causual ideals and beliefs about education formed on the basis of past "social engineering" activities. After all, why should there be a category called "childhood" or "youth" for educational activity in the first place? these categories of life are just a product of social engineering, after all. They were invented. Why should adulthood begin at age eighteen; why not say that adult life begins at first ejaculation or menstruation?
Then again, rather than wasting time learning awful social values, maybe children should be in factories working, like in the good old days, when everything was so much clearer. That's not happening because of more interfering social engineering.
Getting back to what is covered in schools, consider mathematics: do we dare to touch on the philosophy of mathematics. No easy answers here; we can't indoctrinate anything specific to this debate easily, so we educate for consumers of mathematics, not to educate for an appreciation or deeper meaning of this activity.
If you even casually follow the disputes in the United States, then you would be aware that for many religious people, Darwin (and science) is considered to be an attack on their version of the "truth." Science is a rather recent appearance within organized education. Also, science isn't just a list of facts, nor is it one single process. It can it be viewed accurately as a belief. Rather, it is a set of practices that are quite diverse depending on the inquiry. The practices of science require both imagination and skepticism. There is also a demand for critical questioning within science. The questioning of facts and their value (values) is crucial to inquiry. If you start asking questions about one thing, then you may find yourself questioning all the other things you've been told to believe. Not good for the traditionalist.
Music? Do a quick survey of history of education and you will discover that this subject has been attacked at different times for instilling poor values in the minds of children. Playing music? How unproductive!
English? Sure, But what do we read? Since the purpose of language is to communicate, this would include communicating exchanges on those pesky ideas, values and interpretations that many people find offending and wish to see banned. There are still lists of books banned from school libraries - no doubt in an effort to protect students from having an open mind. They might, after all, pose questions to mommy and daddy that mommy and daddy find offensive or annoying, or can't answer.
History is always open to interpretation. Artifacts and actual physical products of the past are less open to interpretation than the motivations or meanings of a given time. What people today refer to as the "political correctness" are typically unaware of is the political correctness of the past - meaning that there ought to be standard and accepted values associated with historical events related to your country, etc. On another thread, I raised the issue that the First World War was a clash of colonial nations. The idea of fighting for freedom, which is so often associated with the cause of this war, is a contemporary product. Nations seeking or maintaining empires are not in the business of distributing liberty or self-determination. But these are tough questions to address, and lively debate ensued. Collectively, we arrived at no absolute answers. For those demanding the teaching of unquestioned facts in history, the danger of having an open mind and an open forum for questioning can be viewed as an attck on values. I can't see how a closed-minded attitude would be better.
As for talking about same sex couples in school, what is the risk to children? How could they be impaired by being introduced to the idea that one family can be different from another? They probably see that in the families of their friends already. So what is the issue to children? My guess is that there is no issue to children, but there are many mommies and daddies who have come to confuse what they consider their own unquestioned moral beliefs with some etched-in-stone version of truth or correctness. They want their version of political-social-moral correctness to go unquestioned; they want to preserve their right to condemn on the basis of their own beliefs. They want to do the social engineering they accuse others of.
The notion that education is just the three R's is nothing more than a misspelling. And as for education being the pursuit of common sense, it was Einstein who pointed out that common sense is the accumulated prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
