Comments on: US08: Homeschooling a lesson in post-modernity

By: mike smith

mike smith — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

You’ve got to look at schooling as teaching you basic academic content necessary to function in society, and social content. Home schooling might do the former, which is dependent on the parents knowhow, but is going to fail dismally in the second. Public schools, OTOH, may fail in the former for some students, but usually succeed in the latter. The answer is probably a mix of both, parents that are actively interested in assisting their kids (no, I don’t mean cheating, more tutoring) span the gaps that public education leaves. Basic arithmetic springs to mind almost immediately. The school I went to didn’t seem to think having multiplication table hardwired into your brain was useful. It bl**dy well is.

By: darsh

darsh — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Rundle is right, school is about building social connections, but particular kinds of social connections based on coercion and control. Powerful individuals (teachers and education managers) inflict their will over less powerful individuals (students and, Rundle would have it, parents.) It’s okay, I guess, if students and parents want to be a part of that arrangement, but if they don’t, they should not be forced into it. America and Australia are a tad more diverse than ancient Sumeria; we have moved on a bit. Call it postmodern or whatever, we are not one mass of people constructing a simple mass identity anymore. I am not a Christian conservative, but I would defend the freedom of those people to create a lifestyle, however stupid I might judge it, of their choice because I want that freedom for myself, and my kids.

By: dermot mcguire

dermot mcguire — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

“Alone among developed nations, America’s churches have declined to develop their own low-fee independent school system”. Guy the US has low cost catholic parochial schools just like Australia.