this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2021
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Anarchism
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And mandatory primary education in Prussia (which seems to be the more commonly referenced origin of public schools), was largely a reaction to the French revolution and subsequent changes in inter-state warfare.
But I think solely analyzing today's schools under these historical terms falls short, and the description of day-care centers for older kids seems to ring true. I think especially the reaction about school closures during the current pandemic drives the point home that it has become a day-care center mostly (with negative psychological effects on the children being stuck at home being a distant second argument against school closures).
But the position the OP takes is incredibly privileged (probably a well educated significant other staying at home full time taking care and educating the children?) and also not a good way of how the important labor of education should be distributed in a society.
I am happy to be "privileged". My children benefit from that, whatever it is. If you or others hope to shame me into feeling bad about it... the joke's on you. I was the kid on welfare his entire childhood, mercilessly bullied and the public school didn't give a shit about that.
Whatever connections to other people that most have, that they find so important that they'll do anything (hell, in the Middle East they'll murder their own daughters in "honor killings"), well, I don't have those connections. You and I are a different species. I have no connection to you, and I only feel low-intensity satisfaction when you try to shame me.
Definitely! Your children should definitely be herded into a locked room with 25 other same-calendar-age children and a college-of-education flunky so that they can be force-fed indoctrination and the educational equivalent of junk food. Something like 70% of them will get a mediocre education, and the other 30 percent will be on one side of the curve or the other and ruined. Those are good odds.
If education was so important to you, you'd do like I do. Not try to figure out how to get out of personally and to foist it off on a minimum-wage government bureaucrat.
I am not into shaming others, that was simply a neutral observation that many, maybe most, can not afford to educate their children at home (or are even able to do so due to lacking education of their own).
About the second point... yes I agree with you (and I think others in this thead too)... the status quo of public education is atrocious. But there is a wide range of other options between the two extremes you offer here. And monopolizing the education labor on your own children is not a very efficient way to do education in a society.
Honest question: have you considered inviting some less fortunate children to your home to be educated together with your children? Up to a smaller number (5?) that should only marginally effect the educational outcome for your children, while probably massively improve that of the others.
No. While I would consider the children of family (I teach my children that their cousins might as well be brothers and sisters) and close family, none of them are significantly less fortunate. I give when it puts me at no disadvantage, and seeing even the children of strangers do well might make provide some minor satisfaction, the risk that their presence would interfere with my own children's education far outweighs that.
If I have to choose between my children, and some strangers' kid, I will choose my own and not give it a second thought. You're all expendable compared to them.