Modern Edumecation

     Modern education theory is simply a rationalization that is used to avoid dealing with our real problems

By Selwyn Duke

We’ve all heard about that proverbial portly dieter, the person who puts no-cal sweetener in his coffee and then uses it to wash down a piece of chocolate cake. It’s an eye-rolling image, but it speaks to a frailty of man’s nature. That is, while we occupy an I’m OK-you’re OK culture, we still generally know that our problems are problems, not just “lifestyles.” We also generally find the feeling that we’re doing nothing about them, nothing to better ourselves, depressing; it causes emotional pain. Yet, what happens when we lack the discipline to endure the pain, emotional and/or physical, associated with effecting a true remedy? This is when we use cake-and-coffee coping mechanisms so that we can enjoy the illusion we’re doing something without actually doing anything.

This phenomenon partially explains many of today’s innovations in education. For example, consider the problem of tolerance for poor language skills. Professor Walter Williams addressed this in a recent piece, writing:

Read the rest here.

Comments

[Walt]

I see no way to reform our statist school system, while preserving the state monopoly; the illness has become the host rather then the host having an illness. The only way I can see any future, is in choice and the free market...the thing our nation was founded on. If we decide we must operate as a social collective as a means to fund education, we should at least give each parent an opportunity to choose the school they attend. Private schools and home schoolers consistently out perform the public system on core curriculum. We must ask ourselves, what is the goal? If it is truly education, why not give a voucher to a mother so that she may teach her children at home? Why not give a voucher to a private school parent? At $6000 dollars per student a mother of three could afford to stay home and teach the kids right. Of course some sort of standards testing would be needed but that is too simple. But for some reason I have a hunch education is not really what our public school system is all about.

[Shaun]

"But for some reason I have a hunch education is not really what our public school system is all about."

I would have to agree. On the federal level, bureaucrats who decide school curriculum almost surely place weight in instilling government "values" into children versus creating smart and independent thinkers. I think this is a safe conclusion based on the level of evidence out there. The fact that we have a racial gap in achievement that doesn't go away regardless of how many trillions are thrown at it only agitates the problem.

What this bodes for our society is a luke warm socialized state filled with under achieving lemmings. Of course, good families will raise their kids well and be the "salt" that preserves some small bit of our greatness, but as always I view American future with a healthy dose of pessimism. Its a heartbreaker to live in a country with so much potential but knowing that we are mixing our future with mediocracy.

God Help us all,
Shaun

[yoyo]

Walt, you are assuming that your mother is a) paid less than 18k in her job b) that she has the knowledge and aptitude to teach 3 children comprehensively and well. I thought you people were rabidly against government handouts, yet now you are proposing large handouts based on no merit but procreation with no performance indicators at all.

How would such a racially challenged individuals on this site cope with the muslim mother of 6, or the ultra orthodox mother of 11 who chose to take their 6k per kid and teach them to hate christians. After all if they are home schooled you have no iota of control on what they teach.

[Larrry Rivera]

Is it just me or does anyone else get that Duke spends way too much time thinking about boys, discipline and his old tennis class?

[Walt]

Yes Yoyo, I am against government handouts, but if the government is going to seize the money from the people I would rather it go to a free market alternitive rather than a government program which will always flounder. I just want to offer a free market solution to a socialist problem.

You also said, "How would such a racially challenged individuals on this site cope with the muslim mother of 6, or the ultra orthodox mother of 11 who chose to take their 6k per kid and teach them to hate christians. After all if they are home schooled you have no iota of control on what they teach."

Whether the muslim mom is funded or not she has the right to teach her child what she wishes and will do so regardless of funding...that is a terible example.

[yoyo]

Nice to see a little consistency Walt (altho I have my doubts) You say government education always founders however the majority of the western world since 1850 onwards has been based on government education. Private educate played an improtant role prior and church/charity schools as well but it was the government funded public schools that finally opened education for the majority of the population.

Finally when I look at home schooling I think of the duggans urghh!!!!!

Do you really want your countries intellectual capital and heritage placed in the hands of over breeding, sexist real estate agents?

[Walt]

There you go again yoyo, "Finally when I look at home schooling I think of the duggans" Whoever the duggans are.

Do you have a leftist stereotype for everything? Have you ever thought that just because you think a person or people are weird, that they just might be happy? Do you think it is your prerogative to define the limitations of freedom based upon your notion of what you think normal should be?

As for sexist real estate agents, I think school teachers are in the lead for sexual deviancy these days by listening to the news. I think they may just have even passed Catholic bishops...but that stereotype I am sure will not make your top list because it does not suit your agenda.

[yoyo]

Walt I actually had one year of alternative "hippy style" education, amongst a great range of public schools, my father was in the military so I had alot of different schools. I dont have a problem with home schooling either as long as there is some level of external review to ensure we are not raising a generation of kids who think the world is flat or that chrystal therapy cures cancer.

The Duggans are a multiple breeding bunch of trogladites (I think they have hit 20+ children all with names starting with the letter J). The Duggan's idea of a christian life is endless drugery for the girl children and a "real life" TV program for mum and dad. The reason I raise the Duggans is that a little public education would be a boon for these girls, without that they are being railroaded into the misogynist and cruel Quiverful movement with no CHOICE. If they choose it freely, all power to them, if they never get to see anything different it is footbinding by another name.

The major strength of the public school system IMHO, is that it exposes kids to a variety of differing viewpoints, the muslim girls with overly strict father, gets to sit next to the boy from a single parent family, who does a project with the jewish kid from a huge family etc etc. I find parents who are scared of the impact of a variety of paradigms on their children have no real faith in either their viewpoint or their relationship with their kids.

[Walt]

Oh, you mean the Duggars. They look like a pretty happy family to me. The kids don't appear to be taking crack or exchanging naked pictures via cell phone. Aren't you a little bit narrow on your world view here?

The question boils down to this question- What is the goal of public "education"? Is it education or conditioning? If it is education, like it should be, aren't the ends more important than the means? Functional literacy in all disciplines can be easily measured through testing, and I would strongly encourage that.

Imagine the BILLIONS that would be saved in just the buildings and maintenance alone if the logistics of education were left up to the parents. The way education is executed now is not only ineffective but it is tyrannical.

[yoyo]

Walt, yes education is the end goal but in the process dont we have a responsibility to look out for signs of abuse?
Scott and Andrea Bass, the Arizona couple who locked a fourteen year old girl in a bathroom without running water for two months and tortured her to the point of starvation? (All indications are that they are Quiverfull homeschoolers).. I recognize that it is impossible to generalize that all homeschoolers are Quiverfull fundamentalists, and that there are many viable reasons for homeschooling that have nothing to do with extremist religious ideology. Even though it is well-established that a large percentage of homeschoolers are Christian conservatives (See, for instance, the US Census statistics here), broad strokes about homeschooling are beside the point.

Mostly, I’m wondering about this because the style of “punishment” seems so parallel to so many of the stories of abuse written by ex-Quiverfull women and children. We know from major media outlets that the Bass child was locked in a small bathroom without running water–a small bathroom roughly the shape of a closet. We also know that the Bill Gothard organization–best known for its homeschooling wing, the Advanced Training Institutes of America (ATIA)–routinely generates survivor stories about people who are locked in what followers call the prayer closet. Besides the prayer closet, it’s well-known that Bill Gothard actively promotes other forms of Bible-based child abuse.

When I was thirteen, some family friends dragged me to a Bill Gothard Seminar in Basic Life Principles, and I remember being terrified by the prospect of the “prayer closet.” Given the horrific stories about how it has been used as a mechanism of abuse, I think my terror was fairly well-justified. Further, it would not surprised me if the Bass family conceived of their torture chamber as an amped up sort of prayer closet.

Beyond this, though, the girl says that part of her torture involved beatings with metal rods. Metal rods could not elude Child Protective Serivices, but Christian Fundamentalist literature abounds with tips about how parents may abuse children without being detected by the police.

Sorry your Duggars may look happy on their airbrushed "reality" TV show but the parents themselves attest, to biblical discipline and girls being responsible for all the domestic labour.

Leaving aside the role public education has in protecting children from parental abuse, what about the benefit of working together on problems, of discussion, of socialisation. Yep Walt we could save a huge amount of money on roads and public buildings if we all agreed to forgo cities, museums, court houses etc.

[Philip France]

Dearest Yoyo,

As hard as I try to make sense of your postings, I cannot help but think you are "la doné mobile" (a flighty woman). You attempt to support your positions with isolated anecdotes but you seldom support them with quantifiable facts.

Here's a quantifiable fact for you:

I homeshcooled my own son. The last straw (after the attempted indoctrinations into the abhorrent acceptance of homosexuality as "normal" - which it is CLEARLY not, nor ever will be) was the forced and mandatory attendance at a viewing of Fat Al Gorleone's science fiction film "An Inconvenient Truth".

During his senior, homeschooled year, he flourished and thrived. Furthermore, I would pit him up against any publically-educated automaton and revel with parental pride as he leaves your lemmings in speechless and helpless dust.

[Walt]

Yoyo,

I know one of the basic leftist tactics when backed into a corner is to parade out a sensational sob story to distract logic and insert emotion. You come by it naturally and I know all of your heroes do it as well (BHO really well). It is a good tactic and it works on most people but that dog don't hunt here. I could just as easy find a story of a boy that was bullied in a public school, or a girl who was sexually abused by a state paid teacher or counselor. Or I am sure I could come up with a story or two about a girl who was pressured into sex by her peer group and got an STD or got pregnant and had an abortion, for which she had to live with the murder of a child her whole life.

The bottom line is bad things are going to happen. The example you gave is not the norm nor is mine. Your authoritarian state is far more apt to spawn abuse then a free system that puts the power closer to the parents. I have watched many different styles of education. The one I see that works the best (end results) is home schooling with a group of mothers in co-operative until the kids are in 7th grade. At that point the kids are moved to a private Christian school or a charter school because they are so far ahead of the public system. Many charter schools and Christian schools ally themselves with community colleges and a lot of these kids are well into their sophomore year in college when the graduate high school. That recipe works very well but only the "well to do" families can provide their children with that advantage. That sucks since their education costs less actual dollars then the public equivalent. This is just another example of how state authoritarianism promotes equality of mediocrity.

[Walt]

Yoyo,

This article made me think of you

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=615

[Shaun]

Also,

Yoyo, would you wager that homeschooled children are more susceptible to domestic violence/abuse than their public educated counterparts? If so that is quite a claim. I dont have any evidence but I would wager that home schooled children would outperform the public educated counterpart in almost every instance, all other factors being equal. Furthermore, I'd seriously doubt the level of abuse is anywhere near the level of kids who are publicy educated. How does going to a public school protect a child from abuse? I guess I could see how the teachers might be able to spot abuse and thus interact but overall I'd wager the cases you mentioned are rarities. The only major downside to homeschooling is the lack of social immersion, but this can be counteracted by a caring parent who takes the effort to integrate their child in other social functions outside of school. Its a hard call because most parents have to work and many school systems are pretty good places to receive an education. I dont have children yet but when I do Im personally split in this decision. Regardless, Id love the option of vouchers or tax credits if I opted out of public school.

[yoyo (la donna mobile)]

Guys, point taken, I did get a bit side tracked on the rabid fundamentalist homeschoolers but only shaun has mentioned the benefit of social contact. Philip you seem to be arguing that social contact outside a limited circle is in fact a bad thing. Bullying can be a real problem in all schools charter relgious and public, it can also be a problem within families (I think my brother and I came close to killing each other at times LOL). I dont know about your system but if a parent is not satisfied with the school's response to bullying or any other issue there is nothing to stop them changing schools.
Shaun I am not arguing that there is neccessarily a higher level of abuse in homeschooled families (except for the Quiverful/ Dominitionist families but that's a side issue), I am arguing that for many families it is very hard to give their children the breadth of education they need.

[Philip France]

Dearest Yoyo,

Has it not occurred to you that “bullying” is a normal childhood experience? You pay homage to this fact by acknowledging your tete-a-tetes with your brother. While I do not promote nor condone “bullying”, it does inure our young ones to certain facts of life and provides them with an early life-lesson that life simply is not fair, nor can it ever be. The closest you can come to a “fair” life is through leftists-Socialist/Marxist policies in which the majority of individuals share equally in misery. This is the Leftist agenda that you promote and wish to proscribe.

I’ll tell you what: how about you lay off being shamed and ridiculed at Selwyn’s site for a day and instead spend the time researching “the Kansas City Experiment”. The more that national/federal government imposes itself on education the worse the results. Without exception. I DARE you, yea, DOUBLE-DARE you to provide any evidence whatsoever to the contrary.

[yoyo]

Phil, that's a little passive agressive of you, I cant say I feel shamed or ridiculed even by one who calls me dearest. Mind you my head starts to spin given the way you change topics rather than adress the issues, for example bullying was not raised by me, however when i continue the discussion suddenly it's a sign of my communistic atheistic desire to turn children into effete foot soldiers of the marxist homosexual cause lol. When I should be guided by the "what doesn't kill the little buggers makes them stronger" school of thinking (pun intended).

Yes American schools are behind schools in most western countries, I just dont agree that the answer is to build up the barricades, withdraw from schools and keep them at home studying how many dinosaurs fit in a gopherwood ark.

I'm also not convinced that the problem is which government influences education policy, state or federal. Why this obsession with federal vs state? Are you so convinced that all states are 100% on side with your theories/politics. In my country curriculm is set by the states with funding through federal government, in my education I studied in 5 different states and territories, there was precious little difference between them.

[yoyo]

PS if you want State control there's always people like Senator Chris Buttars (R -Utah) who when he's not running a mormon abuse institution called West Ridge Academy (aka Utah Boy's Ranch)licenced by the state of Utah is arguing that the last year of education should be cancelled to save the state $ http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-utah-school15-2010feb15,0,906102.story. Way to go! Between Uta licencing child rape camps for mormons and cancelling the final year of school and Texas trying to ensure textbooks include dinosaur riding biblical humans, sure the states should have a free hand. Who wants to be a knowledge ecconomy anyway?

[Philip France]

And your point is what?

You are cementing your reputation as 'la done mobile'.

How the hell do find obscure articles about fringe groups in Utah when you miss the Marxist elephant in your OWN LIVING ROOM!!!!!

You are a prize. Exhibit "A".

[yoyo]

Darling, thanks for the prize, always willing to get another gong. Phil you and your are arguing that the states would run schools better than the federal government. Beyond fear of the feds I cant see your arguments hold water. At least a proportion of the states have appaling people in charge of education. So unless you believe in throwing those kids to the curb, it is up to you to argue how having morons of the paedophilic or theocratic or just plain stupid running education is not going to damage these children. Fundamentaly (pun intended) if one of the states of my country insisted on teaching kids that dinosaurs were concurrent with humans or that you can treat viral infections with chrystals I would do every thing in my power to a) move state and b) get these fools impeached.

[yoyo]

PS still waiting for the marxist elephant, can i ride it? Hell the majority of my education was under a soft right regime, no communist pachyderms there.

[Walt]

Dejavu?

[yoyo]

PS Walt I did click your link and a wonderful ann randian link it was too. So by their argument I* should hunt around for a fire service once my house was on fire and the market will deliver a wonderful service, unfortunately if my next door neighbour cant afford a privatised fire service my house will probably implode too but hell, that's libertarians for you, a psychotic version of f*k you jack i'm ok.

[Philip France]

Dearest Yoyo.

Can't you hear your chains rattling?

You are so absurd that is hardly worth the energy to respond to you.

Let me break it down for you: EVERY new law and EVERY new government program represents a commensurate loss of your liberty. I esteem your intellect too highly to really belive that you want this, as opposed to your benign desire to "go-alomg-to-get-along". I hesitate to believe that you might really be this stupid.