Compulsory Reading
As I was flipping through a book for class, I came across the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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Article 28
1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
(a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;
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For anyone that has never questioned the idea of compulsory education, please read this:
Confederacy of Dunces: The Tyranny of Compulsory Schooling
by John Tayor Gatto
"Compulsory schooling has been, from the beginning, a scheme of indoctrination into the new concept of mass man, an important part of which was the creation of a proletariat." -Gatto
Section IX, in particular, was influential in my decision to become a librarian.
As I was flipping through a book for class, I came across the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child.
-------
Article 28
1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
(a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;
------
For anyone that has never questioned the idea of compulsory education, please read this:
Confederacy of Dunces: The Tyranny of Compulsory Schooling
by John Tayor Gatto
"Compulsory schooling has been, from the beginning, a scheme of indoctrination into the new concept of mass man, an important part of which was the creation of a proletariat." -Gatto
Section IX, in particular, was influential in my decision to become a librarian.
posted by trawlerman at 4:54 PM
8 Comments:
The question is, how does this effect your view of how homeschooling ought to be approached?
But that I mean the recognition that the "compulsory school" world view is not the way to go.
I'll let Gatto answer:
"Don't cooperate with your children's school unless the school has come to you in person to work out a meeting of the minds - on your turf, not theirs. Only a desperado would blindly trust his children to a collection of untested strangers and hope for the best. Parents and school personnel are just plain natural adversaries. One group is trying to make a living; the other is trying to make a work of art called a family. If you allow yourself to be co-opted by flattery, seduced with worthless payoffs such as special classes or programs, intimidated by Alice in Wonderland titles and degrees, you will become the enemy within, the extension of state schooling into your own home. Shame on you if you allow that. Your job is to educate, the schoolteacher's is to school; you work for love, the teacher for money. The interests are radically different, one an individual thing, the other a collective. You can make your own son or daughter one of a kind if you have the time and will to do so; school can only make them part of a hive, a herd, or an anthill."
(italics mine)
The issue is whether or not the State has a right to compel my children to be schooled or educated. I deny that they do.
I do have a Biblical imperative, however, to educate my children. That is my responsibility.
In a sense, my children are compelled to be educated simply by being born in my family and in the Church. That is their responsibility.
John -
I think you missed my real question--a fact which is not surprising I suppose since I was rather terse.
The subject of "education" (however you phrase that general idea) is one I hold near and dear and so one which I can get verbose and heated about. A fact I am reminded of after having read the piece by Gatto. (I'm not even going to look at the UN bit, as anything out of the UN makes my blood pressure spike dangerously)
Anyhow, my initial passing comment was supposed to be a poke to see how much you have really thought about "education" and your world-view regarding it. I shall try in the following to poke you again, whilst desperately trying to avoid disgorging my various and heated opinions.
First, you have my thanks for posting the link to that piece by Gatto. Through that I discovered the Shelter Institute in Bath, Maine online and now must save up my every free penny to attend. It sounds like a fascinating place.
Also, Confederacy of Dunces was a worthwhile read. It is one of those things that I find I can spend large amounts of time dissecting, arguing with, and sometimes agreeing with. Now is not the time to do this, so I will for present only state that Gatto has made a lot of valid criticisms but his world-view is not fundamentally Christian. To a large degree problems that Gatto sees as being born in compulsory school is something I see rising from the sinful heart of man, and of having manifestations before compulsory schooling, and beyond compulsory schooling. Compulsory schooling is only a manifestation of something greater. So, Confederacy of Dunces is a great conversation piece because it has so much lacking.
Tongue somewhat in cheek, I'll accuse you of being a victim of "the non-thought of secondhand ideas." You have chosen "which pre-thought thoughts, which received opinions" you like best. You are partaking of the new dumbness, the "non thought of received ideas" You have clearly become so immersed in school that you have partaken of the cleansing "so comprehensive that original thinking becomes difficult."
Because "Real knowledge has to be earned by hard and painful thinking; it can't be generated in group discussions or group therapies but only in lonely sessions with yourself. Real knowledge is earned only by ceaseless questioning of yourself and others, and by the labor of independent verification" and instead of this you regurgitated Gatto back to me.
The irony.
And then the quoted section didn't even address my question.
All to be finished off with a final paragraph with questionable logical, soteriological, and ecclesiological value.
Oop. We won't go there today. I already know that my differences from you in Christian theology are nearly as great as those between me and Pete . . . and this discussion was supposed to be about education.
So . . . your quote of Gatto seemed to imply that you thought my question was directed to the parent-public school interaction. Actually, my question took as a given that homeschooling was a given and my question was: "Given your anti to the public school methodology, what does this say about your methodology/world-view for schooling/teaching your children.
Gatto addresses what he sees as the failings of the public school system but didn't address as much time to the positive. What is your view of the positive--of how things ought to be done?
The compulsion Gatto rants against is a compulsion to uniformity. Ironically, I see many (most) homeschoolers repeating the mindset of public schooling to a lesser or greater degree. I could quote a lot of what Gatto says in criticizing public schools and point out how the homeschooling "curriculums" foster the very same things. To me reading Gatto was, yes, a condemnation of public schooling, but also a condemnation of how vast amounts of homeschooling is carried out--whether it be Bill Gotheard's speel, the "unschooling" camp, or, ahem, "classical education"
I see far too much homeschooling where the "Kids are set to memorizing [. . .] repeating well-worn procedures certain to work, chanting formulas exactly as they have been indoctrinated to chant"--of the approved and safe and "right" teaching methods. I see so much of "Christian homeschooling" (or what is passed off as such) as being nothing more than indoctrination designed to create "automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom." In this Christian "culture" I see a lot of "mass dumbness" because, "The dumb person is wonderfully flexible clay for psychological shaping by [insert Christian institution here]. The more pre-thought thoughts a person has memorized, the easier it is to predict what choices he or she will make. What dumb people cannot do is think for themselves or ever be alone for very long without feeling crazy. That is the whole point of national forced [home]schooling; we aren't supposed to be able to think for ourselves because independent thinking gets in the way of "professional" think-ing, which is believed to follow rules of ["authority"]." And so I could go on, applying Gatto to condemn homeschooling as I see it so much presented.
I would not say that most parents are aware of this, but unwittingly they partake in making their children spiritual and intellectually "dumb" by training them to be reguratating automations.
So, really, I find public school less incensing than the state of "homeschooling." Who is surprised by the state of the godless? But the Christian home satisfying themselves for the very same (only in a slightly different guise) . . . that gets me heated.
My question to you was, how much do you understand Gatto, and how much do you agree with him? Do you believe the compulsion to uniformity is desirable (and that public school just has the wrong uniformity) or do you agree with Gatto's general premise of the individual and unique, and, if so, what is your specific Christian application to education?
If those were your questions, you should have asked them.
I do feel that I answered your original question. I must have missed your "real" question because you never asked it.
Also, I "regurgitated" Gatto back to you, because I had a sneaking suspicion that you hadn't read his essay at all before leaving your comment. I may be wrong about this, but I have no real way of knowing, since in your original post, you did not interact with Gatto at all. Gatto deals with the compulsory "public" vs. "home" in precisely the section that I quoted.
I briefly treated how homeschooling ought to be "approached" as related to compulsion. Approaching something is different and prior to articulating or acting on that something. Before we talk about how we homeschool, we can talk about how we approach the idea of homeschooling, perhaps specifically in relation to compulsory government schooling. Yes, you should have phrased your question better. What really offends me in your second post is that you act as if I am at fault for not answering what you admit was a very unclear question.
If you had asked me to discuss educational theory or practice up front, I'd have been happy to do so.
Also, perhaps my answer was too brief, but you'll hopefully forgive me for being brief after spending all day, away from home, doing school work.
My school work is a higher priority than this blog. This blog has never been a place where I leave really long posts about how I feel about certain subjects (though, sometimes, against my better judgment, it becomes that, especially in the comments). It is not a journal. It is not about my private life. It is not about my public life. It has always been about pointing people (mostly friends) to things on the Web that I enjoy, maybe with some accompanying, brief comment.
It's funny- if you had first asked the question that you ultimately ask in your second comment (positively stated, how ought things to be done?), I probably would have waited a couple of days to respond and given you a good answer.
Instead, I'm a little bit disgusted by you (your miscommunication and your arrogance) and have no desire to further any conversation.
Blame it on my public schooling if you'd like.
Hmmm.
Apparently I offended you quite severely, and I'm not entirely sure how. Best I can figure out, it was either my use of "regurgitated" or some general tenor? Re-reading it again, the best I can figure out you took the paragraph I began with "Tongue somewhat in cheek . . ." and took it with entire seriousness.
Which, I suppose, is why other people use an excess of smile faces in their on-line writing to avoid such misunderstanding of tone.
To explain:
I thought it was contextually funny (given the content of Gatto's writing) that you simply said "I'll let Gatto answer" because it created an ironic illusion that you were turning around and doing the very thing Gatto professed to be arguing against.
The humor of it, (I thought) was finished off by the fact that the quoted passage didn't even address what my intended question was.
So my writing from the point of:
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Tongue somewhat in cheek . . .
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to:
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And then the quoted section didn't even address my question.
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Was all meant lightly and in good humor. :)
My tongue was not entirely in my cheek (so to speak) because I was lightly chiding you for the quote-as-an-answer . . . something that most people have a tendency to do, and which I find irritating. (The reason for the quote you have given--but in any case if there were no reason for it at all I still didn't intend my jest and chiding to provoke such a response.)
Beyond that section in which I "accused you" my comments were directed to the homeschooling movement in general (of which you are not even presently a part) so I don't think you (or, I should say I hope you didn't) take them personally.
In any case, I have clearly grievously offended you. However, or for whatever the cause, I am sorry and I sincerely apologize. As this comment thread all too clearly demonstrates I do have a problem with miscommunication . . . and, yes, arrogance. I hope you can forgive me for these faults.
To clear up any further misunderstanding:
Quote:
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Also, I "regurgitated" Gatto back to you, because I had a sneaking suspicion that you hadn't read his essay at all before leaving your comment. I may be wrong about this, but I have no real way of knowing, since in your original post, you did not interact with Gatto at all. Gatto deals with the compulsory "public" vs. "home" in precisely the section that I quoted.
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For the record, I (before my first comment) only glanced over the essay, and in particular the section you stated as influencing your decision to become a librarian. When you responded in the manner you did I read Gatto's essay in detail. However, my quick look at the essay was what prompted my question to you. And, my desire was (and remained) to interact with you, not Gatto. Whether this condemns me is for you to decide.
Quote:
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Yes, you should have phrased your question better. What really offends me in your second post is that you act as if I am at fault for not answering what you admit was a very unclear question.
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I did not mean to (seriously) imply you were at fault and I fully admit the question was unclear.
Quote:
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If you had asked me to discuss educational theory or practice up front, I'd have been happy to do so.
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The question was entirely off-the-cuff; hastily scribbled down in the moment I managed to read your blog entry between tasks. I didn't mean to come across as devious or sneaky.
Quote:
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Also, perhaps my answer was too brief, but you'll hopefully forgive me for being brief after spending all day, away from home, doing school work.
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I wasn't looking for a particular length, and am quite aware that you have many obligations. As is evident from my own writing habits, blogging is far down on my list also. I wouldn't have been offended at all if you had simply not replied, and would have understood completely if you said you couldn't reply. I already knew from Abby's blog that you were in seclusion (and for that reason was actually surprised that you posted) and asked the question simply out of curiosity.
Quote:
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My school work is a higher priority than this blog. This blog has never been a place where I leave really long posts about how I feel about certain subjects (though, sometimes, against my better judgment, it becomes that, especially in the comments). It is not a journal. It is not about my private life. It is not about my public life. It has always been about pointing people (mostly friends) to things on the Web that I enjoy, maybe with some accompanying, brief comment.
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I didn't realize that the doctrinal discussions, etc which have taken place in your comments were against your better judgment. I completely understand this position and will try to keep it in mind before I post any further comments.
Quote:
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It's funny- if you had first asked the question that you ultimately ask in your second comment (positively stated, how ought things to be done?), I probably would have waited a couple of days to respond and given you a good answer.
Instead, I'm a little bit disgusted by you (your miscommunication and your arrogance) and have no desire to further any conversation.
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I hope that after my explanation you can look a little more kindly on what I wrote--it still being a flawed combination of miscommunication, arrogance, youthful rashness, along with an odd sense of humor.
In any case, I hope you managed to finish all your needful school-work and that this exchange has not put you terribly behind.
Rundy
Nah. If I had taken your "tongue somewhat in cheek..." section too seriously, then I probably would have tried to hit you in the jaw so that nasty tongue might get bitten off.
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
(smiley faces to lull you back into false sense of safety and security)
hmmm...
Apparently I have put you on the defensive and you feel the need to apologize. It was either my use of the word "disgusted" or a general tenor? The best I can figure out, it was something between my first sentence and my last sentence. I now feel the need to use bold words. In case of misunderstanding, in a future comment I'll clarify all of the details of my past comment that obviously were too subtle for you to comprehend, for if you had understood them, then you would have never responded as you had.
Um, anyway, we enjoy Gatto as a source for our original thinking on this topic, and are resistant to public-schooling our kids and to putting a classroom in our home.
Our kids are learning too fast without a classroom for us to want to shoehorn them into some desks.
Seems we have some interesting conversations we ought to have sometime, John.
Note the use of the understated italics for this comment. :-) :-)
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