In my Xanga, I got a well-thought-out comment response from IdiotSavant123. To avoid responding out of context, since this response will be on multiple mirrors of my bloggings (blogger, gaiaonline, livejournal, xanga, and myspace) I will post the entire comment and then respond to the parts that response is needed, since there were some questions.
«Parenting in America is definitely in a fix.
It's true that the reason American teens are immature and rude is because that is what our culture expects of them and so let's them get away with it as normal teen behavior. Just makes you wanna slap 'em, doesn't it? After observing many of my Mom's old clients, I can honestly say that most of the behavioral problems with children these days are caused by their parents' poor parenting.
You mentioned a lot the fact that it's the parents' jobs to teach their children all those things, but you also agreed that the parents aren't parenting (you suggested it's because they're leaving it to the schools). In that case, there are two possible ways to cure childrens' lack of parenting...the person who was writing to you was part of the camp that suggests the government take over from America's seemingly incompetent parents. Now, the last paragraph from the article I link to furthur down is this: "Our society requires massive consumption. Needy, ignorant people consume more goods and services than educated, emotionally stable people do. The quickest way to create needy people is to obliterate the family. The quickest way to create ignorant people is to divorce them from their parents. The mass school is an excellent exercise in creating a market for your goods, whatever they might be." That's why I'm against that idea. I also believe that there's no way mass schools can actually be giving students any kind of quality education...there's just no way. So I'm against having the government take over children's parenting through schools, even though something must be done. Now, you didn't offer a solution that I could tell, but I came up with the second option on my own, and I imagine it's the one you'd support. The second option is to get rid of the schools, which would force the parents to actually parent their kids (gasp!). It would increase stability and probably increase quality of education, just through the comfort factor, individual attention and choices of modality. Studies have shown that even kids homeschooled by parents who didn't go to college do better than average public schoolers. I'm all for homeschooling.
Personally, I agree with the second choice. I think our education system IS SO BROKEN and needs to DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH. The best way to actually do that would be to let the Republicans take over and abolish the Department of Education and underfund the schools, so they just dry up and blow away, but I don't want the Republicans to take over government because the very vocal, extremist group will hijack the moderates and the Republicans are so well organized it'd be impossible for the public to regain control (unless John McCain is elected in 08! W00t!). So...any other ideas on getting rid of public schools?
Once the public schools are gone, homeschooling is the answer to everything. Here's the article I mentioned above. Basically it says that while everyone thinks public schools are the norm, they're a relatively recent invention on the face of the planet, not to mention America. Before then, it was homeschooling, which worked just fine: "Fifth grade basal readers included works from William Shakespeare, Henry Thoreau, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Bunyan, Daniel Webster, Samuel Johnson, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson." Public schooling has been a nice little experiment (and way to create unskilled people who then had to become factory workers, ushering in the industrial revolution as planned), but besides not needing unskilled factory workers now thanks to Bush's stupid immigration policy and the technology revolution, schools are just plain not working as an educational institution. So let's go back to homeschooling until we can think of something better, neh?
I do want to ask you about this, though: "Independent thought is a direct result of being ready for it. An unprepared person forced to think independently will usually end up with flawed ideas or bad results and may never even realize or come to terms with it." True, but in this case, what makes you think most American parents have any kind of independent thought? I'm sure development would come from reading the "basal fifth grade reading list" as mentioned above, but nowadays most kids are not and probably could not learn independent thought from their parents. Of course, if there is any graveyard of independent thought in America, it is for sure the public schools, lordy. I'd take my chances with the parents and the reading list.
I was having that discussion the other day, actually, with a lady who does conflict resolution with African and Asian governments. A key, if not THE key to my independent thought development was my parents pointing out and explaining faulty dilemmas during everyday exposure. That's why we don't have television anymore...commercials really get me PO'd. And it's always, "YELLING! POW! BANG! FLASH! SENSATION!" Even the blooming radio adverts are like that. Anyway, faulty dilemmas are also why I don't like listening to election campaigns or presidential speeches. If you believe what's coming out of a politician's mouth, you don't have independent thought yet. Being able to recognize faulty dilemmas is important to your independent thought development.
By the way, to all American citizens: the advent of the Gameboy and the like have not helped America's parenting problem. Many parents now use the Gameboy in lieu of parenting. And since video games cause brainwave inflexibility and mental ruts, irritability, and a general zombie-like demeanor...it's so sad to watch! Don't use video games to babysit your children, people!»
Now, here is the breakdown of the parts I responded to.
«Personally, I agree with the second choice. I think our education system IS SO BROKEN and needs to DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH. The best way to actually do that would be to let the Republicans take over and abolish the Department of Education and underfund the schools, so they just dry up and blow away, but I don't want the Republicans to take over government because the very vocal, extremist group will hijack the moderates and the Republicans are so well organized it'd be impossible for the public to regain control (unless John McCain is elected in 08! W00t!). So...any other ideas on getting rid of public schools?»
I don't know about the Republican conspiracy theory part, but getting rid of the Department of Education is a great start. The next step after that is removing the departments at the state and local level. The biggest difficulty is the sheer amount of property owned by the schools and the schooling systems. Even in a small town like I live in, the school has a big football complex, three huge buildings, and an office in what used to be a single-residence home. And that doesn't even address assets like buses, furniture, school libraries, textbooks, computers, and television sets. Liquidating the infrastructure is the biggest hurdle once the dismantling begins. School Districts are distinctly separate entities from cities, circumventing public-property laws in some rather devious ways that upon researching them actually struck me as rather unconstitutional.
«Once the public schools are gone, homeschooling is the answer to everything. Here's the article I mentioned above. Basically it says that while everyone thinks public schools are the norm, they're a relatively recent invention on the face of the planet, not to mention America. Before then, it was homeschooling, which worked just fine: "Fifth grade basal readers included works from William Shakespeare, Henry Thoreau, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Bunyan, Daniel Webster, Samuel Johnson, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson." Public schooling has been a nice little experiment (and way to create unskilled people who then had to become factory workers, ushering in the industrial revolution as planned), but besides not needing unskilled factory workers now thanks to Bush's stupid immigration policy and the technology revolution, schools are just plain not working as an educational institution. So let's go back to homeschooling until we can think of something better, neh?»
Indeed. I am for private alternatives existing, though I would prefer not to have my children in them. However, the government really has no business being in the education business. We have seen time and time again just how dangerous allowing governments to "educate" is.
That said, though, we do need to crack down on immigration. That and education are my biggest problems with his policy. To quote Ronald Reagan:
«[I]f you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer.»
I have no idea exactly what he thought was the answer in regards to that quote, but as far as the quote goes, he is dead on.
«I do want to ask you about this, though: "Independent thought is a direct result of being ready for it. An unprepared person forced to think independently will usually end up with flawed ideas or bad results and may never even realize or come to terms with it." True, but in this case, what makes you think most American parents have any kind of independent thought? I'm sure development would come from reading the "basal fifth grade reading list" as mentioned above, but nowadays most kids are not and probably could not learn independent thought from their parents. Of course, if there is any graveyard of independent thought in America, it is for sure the public schools, lordy. I'd take my chances with the parents and the reading list.»
I am not convinced that independent thought can be taught. It has generally been my opinion that contrary to the status quo, it is not the job of educators to teach what a student should think, but rather how to go about the act of thinking. Which basically is the 3 R's. Reading, including works of wisdom and of history, and hopefully in more than one language. Get 'em while they are young enough to absorb it. wRiting, preferrably in multiple languages again, and aRithmetic, which is self-explanatory.
I think that in the process of these three basics, a person will hopefully do two things. First, they will thirst for knowledge. Yes, that's right. Thirst for it. Schools these days teach many children to hate learning, and to hate reading. This is because they are being presented with mind-numbing assignments rather than ones that challenge them. Second, they will learn to think, and benefit from the additional interaction that comes with parental involvement. Riddles like "Who was buried in Grant's Tomb" and "If a plane crashes on the US-Canadian border, where are the survivors buried?" were commonplace at the after-dinner table in my home, and this kind of two-on-five (I am the oldest of five) session was great because it made us all think, and want to think faster than our siblings, whom most people are predisposed to compete with anyhow, even in a friendly context. This actually falls under the reading and writing elements, since it is based in linguistics and makes the person solving the riddle think about the words that were spoken. Even simple things like this can expand the basic concepts into things like a grasp of logic.
«I was having that discussion the other day, actually, with a lady who does conflict resolution with African and Asian governments. A key, if not THE key to my independent thought development was my parents pointing out and explaining faulty dilemmas during everyday exposure. That's why we don't have television anymore...commercials really get me PO'd. And it's always, "YELLING! POW! BANG! FLASH! SENSATION!" Even the blooming radio adverts are like that. Anyway, faulty dilemmas are also why I don't like listening to election campaigns or presidential speeches. If you believe what's coming out of a politician's mouth, you don't have independent thought yet. Being able to recognize faulty dilemmas is important to your independent thought development.»
That is true in most politicians' cases. I have actually seen a few that were not that way, but they were either retiring or were unfortunately not in my district. I generally don't opt to watch much TV.
«By the way, to all American citizens: the advent of the Gameboy and the like have not helped America's parenting problem. Many parents now use the Gameboy in lieu of parenting. And since video games cause brainwave inflexibility and mental ruts, irritability, and a general zombie-like demeanor...it's so sad to watch! Don't use video games to babysit your children, people!»
I got my first game boy (a game boy advance) at the age of 22. When I was a kid, there was a rather strict 1 hour limit on video games per day, and using it was optional. Most of the time I didn't even get around to it, since I had better things to do.
As an ex-game developer, I can confirm that the last thing I would want to do is sit my kid in front of a video game all the time, It was mind-numbing enough when I was in the industry, even moreso for people who aren't constantly accomplishing something by using the game, such as software development.
That said, there are certain games that are good logic-and-thought games. Almost nobody makes them anymore, unfortunately.
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