Give me a public school brain, please.
Principled Discovery quotes a Palm Beach writer who says homeschooling is “a safety net for the intolerant,” and replies, “The public school has its own worldview and it is not neutral.”
As a former substitute teacher who has taught every grade, and a former public school student (every grade but 7th and 8th), I can concur. The purpose of public school is to make sure as many children as possible will grow up thinking alike.
The problem with the mind-molding powers-that-are is that they don’t know, or won’t admit, that they are not neutral. Increasingly, they do admit it. They admit that they run schools and become teachers because they want to mold the minds of children.
But I don’t think there are any documented studies that show that spending billions of dollars to incarcerate millions of children in front of brown desks has made our country a better place. Education is great. Parents who don’t want to teach their own children should feel free to let someone else teach them instead. But I’m not.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:47 pm
John Taylor Gatto wrote a great book called “Dumbing Us Down”.
He talks a lot about some of the things you mentioned, and was also a Public School teacher for many years.
You can do a search and find info on it.
When it comes right down to it, no matter who is teaching my kids, I am ultimately responsible for what they learn.