bring the noyz

A dear friend in the land of surf and sun picked up on my previous post and there has been some discussion on it at his blog. I wish to share some of that correspondence with you here, my dear reader and to more fully explore and explain my thoughts on the matter.

So let's get into it, shall we?

1. Johnny said,
   10 March 2008 at 20h34

   The state has a compelling interest in ensuring the education of its citizens that outweighs the individual’s right to privacy and self-determination. As always, if you don’t agree with this, you have every right to find a place where you can opt out of society. Western Sahara would be a good start. But what you don’t get is the ability to choose, cafeteria style, which parts of the social contract you will abide by and which you won’t. But I don’t think you are ready to make the leap into total anarchy just yet.

   In the meantime, please spare me a world where each generation is not even smart enough to pass on 90 percent of its own knowledge to its successors. In a few short years, we won’t even be as smart as the monkeys. And your precious novels? Gone and forgotten. Utopia, laddie boy?

To which, I had this to say in response:

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny! This is a shiny red candy like button and you just pushed it.

Oh sweet Johnny, you sir, are dreadfully wrong. While I agree that “The state has a compelling interest in ensuring the education of its citizens” I can not disagree more strongly with your assertion that this interest “outweighs the individual’s right to privacy and self-determination”. While I share your fear that we may be headed towards Idiocracy (by Mike Judge, starring Luke Wilson), that fear does not automatically justify the State’s (with a big ‘S”) usurpation of a parent’s right to educate their children as they see fit. While obviously “yes it does” in cases of abuse/neglect, that is the exception not the rule.

And what most irks me about that whole story is “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation”. Loyalty to the state and nation? Fuck that shit homey! No, no, NO!

If you will please allow me for a moment to speak now as a seasoned veteran public school teacher with 15 years to date in the classroom, never once have I remotely considered the purpose of my job to “train school children”. You train dogs, not kids. Kids you teach to think for themselves to the best of their ability. You teach children, as Whitman said so eloquently:

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem. . . ”

Indoctrination is not an education. Training kids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance everyday means jack shit unless you teach them to truly understand the meaning of “and to the republic for which it stands”.

I’d rant on for a few hours more, but it’s three o’clock in the fucking morning. So good night, and good luck.

Well now it is the next day, and so if you will allow me this indulgence, my dear reader, I shall indeed rant on.

In an era that has seen a most unwelcome government encroachment on our rights and civil liberties (Patriot Act, domestic surveillance, etc.) I fear that we the people are to some extent being conditioned to simply bend over and take it in order to keep us safe from some mythical kalashnikov toting turban wearing creature: a terrorist.

We are a nation of laws, and laws are based on precedent. And this is a precedent that simply must not stand. It must not stand because it is a direct assault on the most basic and sacred institution in our society: your family, my family, our families. It is a sneak blitzkrieg attack on the family, and the basic right of parents to raise their children. It is abhorrent, repellent and quite frankly disgusting.

Judge Croskey's ruling is an inch that takes a mile. It is a precedent that further establishes the principal that the government knows what is best for you and your family. It lays claim to the government's power while stealing yours to dictate the best course of action for you and your family.

This is all fine and good if you love Big Brother and crave for a nanny state. I for one, do not.

And again, I continue to take great umbrage with the whole notion that the primary purpose of education is to "train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation". It insults my soul.

The primary purpose of education in regards to all subject areas, civics and humanities included (although sadly neglected by much of our current system of public education with its ridiculous emphasis on standardized test scores, see here for more), should not be, is not to "train children".

I will repeat myself for emphasis. You train dogs. You teach children.

Education is not simply indoctrinating children with blind loyalty and patriotism to the nation. Hitler tried that. So did Stalin. Look at how that turned out.

Education should provide a cultural and historical framework while teaching children the intellectual skills to use use logic and reason so that they may reach their own inevitable conclusions: that of all the systems of government thus far created in the history of humanity, a representative democracy by and for the people, a government that respects and nourishes the rights of the individual while safeguarding the liberties and meeting the needs of those that cannot provide for themselves, is quite simply the best.

That is education.

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
|