Gary North writes a lot about trends that are due to the decentralized web of communication that is the Internet. One of these is the death of traditional newspapers. Today he discusses schooling in Public Education Is Going Down.
One theme in North's article is that the web provides a wealth of tutors for the home-educated child; tutors who are free and who "make house calls". The model of transporting students to tax-supported institutions is now out-dated, and home-schooling is a trend on the rise. North writes:
When you can buy from anywhere, local monopolies die. That happened to medieval urban guilds. It is happening to education. The local tax-funded school cannot deliver the goods. Today, it offers babysitting. It offers sports. It offers a central market where drugs are available. It offers opportunities for teenagers to hook up, which does not mean what it did in my day. It offers economies of scale in those features of education that are either peripheral or objectionable.
We should cheer the process of schools dying, even if it produces a period of painful adjustment for those attached to the system. I am optimistic along with North, but there is also a lot of intertia in the school system, and bureaucrats who wield political power will not graciously let it go.
Many parents also do not have the confidence in themselves to pull their children out of the government schools. They remember all of the classes and grade levels, the sheer volume of material to master (or more correctly, temporarily remember), and the enormous cumulative preparation which all of that must entail.
But it is not necessary for parents to recapitulate all of the work that culminates in an elementary school lecture. First, I think we ought to question the traditional curriculum model that was, as John Taylor Gatto has written about, historically developed for the shaping of obedient factory workers. But even if we think the school's model roughly "gets it right", there is no need to source this work out to a school. The materials are available for anyone, and their costs are decreasing.
Showing posts with label government school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government school. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Gatto on the Lessons Taught in School
This may be the best article I've read about what schools really teach children:
The Six-Lession Schoolteacher
There's a tendency to downplay the evil he discusses because "well, I went through the system and I turned out okay" or "I know a schoolteacher, and he/she says ..."
The "turning out okay" comment reminds me of the poor father in Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron", who endures a shock every time he starts thinking too hard. In his regular state of mind, he must have a vague sense that there could have been something better, that maybe he is not living to his full potential. However, if someone complained to him about all these damn handicaps and the system that put them on everyone, he'd probably tell the person that he doesn't see the big deal because he "turned out okay".
And with respect to schoolteachers: of course there are individuals within the school system that actually care and make an effort. Some may even inspire a few students. But despite the best individual efforts of any number of teachers, the system itself enforces the lessons Gatto describes. Schoolteachers are almost all going to think the answer for improvement is some tinkering, or curriculum change, or policy changes by the administration; if they saw things as Gatto does, why would they work for the system?
Real improvement is possible when you withdraw your support from the school system. You may be forced to pay taxes to support the system, but you are free to withdraw your children and let them have a real education. Without handicaps.
The Six-Lession Schoolteacher
There's a tendency to downplay the evil he discusses because "well, I went through the system and I turned out okay" or "I know a schoolteacher, and he/she says ..."
The "turning out okay" comment reminds me of the poor father in Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron", who endures a shock every time he starts thinking too hard. In his regular state of mind, he must have a vague sense that there could have been something better, that maybe he is not living to his full potential. However, if someone complained to him about all these damn handicaps and the system that put them on everyone, he'd probably tell the person that he doesn't see the big deal because he "turned out okay".
And with respect to schoolteachers: of course there are individuals within the school system that actually care and make an effort. Some may even inspire a few students. But despite the best individual efforts of any number of teachers, the system itself enforces the lessons Gatto describes. Schoolteachers are almost all going to think the answer for improvement is some tinkering, or curriculum change, or policy changes by the administration; if they saw things as Gatto does, why would they work for the system?
Real improvement is possible when you withdraw your support from the school system. You may be forced to pay taxes to support the system, but you are free to withdraw your children and let them have a real education. Without handicaps.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Who Killed Phoebe Prince?
A couple of days ago I became aware of the tragic case of Phoebe Prince, an Irish immigrant who was a freshman in South Hadley, MA. She committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied.
One knee-jerk public response is to bully the bulliers, as various spurious charges are being filed against nine students involved in the bullying. Politicians, smelling blood, are speechifying and passing laws saying not to bully. Theatre.
People are also angry at the school administration and teachers for not stepping in, even though it was open knowledge that Phoebe was being harassed.
Everyone at that school must bear some responsibility for Phoebe's death. How many students participated in the harassment in order to gain social status with their peers? How many watched in silence, for fear of becoming the next victim? How many teachers looked the other way, not wanting to get involved? Many of these individuals will be wrestling with their consciences for a long time.
But the responsibility for Phoebe's death goes well beyond the particular individuals involved at South Hadley High School. While it may be rare for such harassment to drive one to commit suicide, bullying and harassment in government schools is commonplace.
This is what I fear that few people understand, that it was not just those particular bullies and onlookers who drove Phoebe Prince to an early death; it was the backward socialization scheme of government schools. Those looking for a root cause ought to look there.
One irony for parents of home-schoolers is that the primary question raised about the desirability of home-schooling is the "socialization". As if natural socialization is for a child to interact only with other children of the exact same age, and then grouping thirty of these children together for one adult supervisor. As if natural socialization is a highly regimented, command and control environment where children cannot use a restroom without an authority's permission, and yet that authority figure is often absent or ineffective.
South Hadley High School is not unique. Turning over a few teachers, administrators, and bureaucrats will solve nothing. The root problem is the system where the center of a child's existence lay not with the family or larger community but with the social pressure of other children. Here, a child learns warped priorities and pecking order survival techniques. This environment will always produce the Mean Girls and other social elements that made Phoebe's life unbearable. All of us who contribute to and create that environment killed Phoebe Prince.
Parents, it is within our power to pull support from the toxic government school environment. It does not require politicking or letter-writing, or any other mass campaign. It requires only direct action: pull your kids out of the government school system now!
One knee-jerk public response is to bully the bulliers, as various spurious charges are being filed against nine students involved in the bullying. Politicians, smelling blood, are speechifying and passing laws saying not to bully. Theatre.
People are also angry at the school administration and teachers for not stepping in, even though it was open knowledge that Phoebe was being harassed.
Everyone at that school must bear some responsibility for Phoebe's death. How many students participated in the harassment in order to gain social status with their peers? How many watched in silence, for fear of becoming the next victim? How many teachers looked the other way, not wanting to get involved? Many of these individuals will be wrestling with their consciences for a long time.
But the responsibility for Phoebe's death goes well beyond the particular individuals involved at South Hadley High School. While it may be rare for such harassment to drive one to commit suicide, bullying and harassment in government schools is commonplace.
This is what I fear that few people understand, that it was not just those particular bullies and onlookers who drove Phoebe Prince to an early death; it was the backward socialization scheme of government schools. Those looking for a root cause ought to look there.
One irony for parents of home-schoolers is that the primary question raised about the desirability of home-schooling is the "socialization". As if natural socialization is for a child to interact only with other children of the exact same age, and then grouping thirty of these children together for one adult supervisor. As if natural socialization is a highly regimented, command and control environment where children cannot use a restroom without an authority's permission, and yet that authority figure is often absent or ineffective.
South Hadley High School is not unique. Turning over a few teachers, administrators, and bureaucrats will solve nothing. The root problem is the system where the center of a child's existence lay not with the family or larger community but with the social pressure of other children. Here, a child learns warped priorities and pecking order survival techniques. This environment will always produce the Mean Girls and other social elements that made Phoebe's life unbearable. All of us who contribute to and create that environment killed Phoebe Prince.
Parents, it is within our power to pull support from the toxic government school environment. It does not require politicking or letter-writing, or any other mass campaign. It requires only direct action: pull your kids out of the government school system now!
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