Education for anarcho-capitalists

hmkpoker · #1 01-17-2006, 06:44 PM

How do you feel about compulsory education? (K-8)

Borodog · #2 01-17-2006, 06:47 PM

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How do you feel about compulsory [insert anything here]?

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It's wrong. Not only is it morally wrong, our current system is terrible.

Borodog · #3 01-17-2006, 06:59 PM

I ran across this fellow in the dangerous ideas thread in SMP, and he thinks much the way that I do on the subject.

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ROGER C. SCHANK
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No More Teacher's Dirty Looks
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After a natural disaster, the newscasters eventually excitedly announce that school is finally open so no matter what else is terrible where they live, the kids are going to school. I always feel sorry for the poor kids.
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My dangerous idea is one that most people immediately reject without giving it serious thought: school is bad for kids — it makes them unhappy and as tests show — they don't learn much.
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When you listen to children talk about school you easily discover what they are thinking about in school: who likes them, who is being mean to them, how to improve their social ranking, how to get the teacher to treat them well and give them good grades.
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Schools are structured today in much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. And for hundreds of years philosophers and others have pointed out that school is really a bad idea:
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We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly full of words and do not know a thing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde
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Schools should simply cease to exist as we know them. The Government needs to get out of the education business and stop thinking it knows what children should know and then testing them constantly to see if they regurgitate whatever they have just been spoon fed.
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The Government is and always has been the problem in education:
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If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. — JS Mill
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First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards. — Mark Twain
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Schools need to be replaced by safe places where children can go to learn how to do things that they are interested in learning how to do. Their interests should guide their learning. The government's role should be to create places that are attractive to children and would cause them to want to go there.
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Whence it comes to pass, that for not having chosen the right course, we often take very great pains, and consume a good part of our time in training up children to things, for which, by their natural constitution, they are totally unfit. — Montaigne
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We had a President many years ago who understood what education is really for. Nowadays we have ones that make speeches about the Pythagorean Theorem when we are quite sure they don't know anything about any theorem.
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There are two types of education. . . One should teach us how to make a living, And the other how to live. — John Adams
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Over a million students have opted out of the existing school system and are now being home schooled. The problem is that the states regulate home schooling and home schooling still looks an awful lot like school.
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We need to stop producing a nation of stressed out students who learn how to please the teacher instead of pleasing themselves. We need to produce adults who love learning, not adults who avoid all learning because it reminds them of the horrors of school. We need to stop thinking that all children need to learn the same stuff. We need to create adults who can think for themselves and are not convinced about how to understand complex situations in simplistic terms that can be rendered in a sound bite.
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Just call school off. Turn them all into apartment houses.

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vulturesrow · #4 01-18-2006, 10:36 AM

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How do you feel about compulsory education? (K-8)

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I dont subscribe to the full AC view of things, but I have much in common with some of their beliefs. As I said in my post on the 20/20 special in education, in theory I like the idea of public education. To expand on that, I think that it is in the best interests of our society to make sure children get educated to the full extent of their abilities, in harmony with their interests. The only thing I think should be required for all students is some heavy learning on American History and Government, and a solid baseline of the 3 Rs. Beyond that, a parent should be able to choose a school that provides an education suitable to their children. However, as Boro ably pointed out, the current system is terrible, and needs a radical overhaul. So on the education issue, I suspect I am fully in agreement with the AC proponents.

PS I should add a solid grounding in Science is important as well.

Il_Mostro · #5 01-18-2006, 11:18 AM

Is it the parents that shall have total control over whether their children get any education?
And on a larger scale, what rights should children have? A person below 18 is completely under the rule of their parents?

WillMagic · #6 01-18-2006, 11:55 AM

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Is it the parents that shall have total control over whether their children get any education?

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Up to a point, yes. However, if a parent refused to educate his child when the child legitimately wanted an education, the child could emancipate him/herself and then apply for charity to go to school...a rare situation no doubt, but a situation that will probably occur.

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And on a larger scale, what rights should children have? A person below 18 is completely under the rule of their parents?

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Partially answered this previously...children will be under the control of their parents until they choose to emancipate themselves.

Will

Riddick · #7 01-18-2006, 12:14 PM

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children will be under the control of their parents until they choose to emancipate themselves.

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This is ridiculous.

Do you know how many times I wanted to run away when I was 13/14? Probably a similar number of times every thirteen or fourteen year old wants to run away.

This is another wacky spinoff of AC theory - but in reality, this alone simply leaves droves of children sticking it to Mom and Dad and entering the inevitable welfare state.

Family is the backbone of society and is how human's have best learned to survive until the welfare state came along - AC doesn't change that.

WillMagic · #8 01-18-2006, 12:48 PM

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children will be under the control of their parents until they choose to emancipate themselves.

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This is ridiculous.

Do you know how many times I wanted to run away when I was 13/14? Probably a similar number of times every thirteen or fourteen year old wants to run away.

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No doubt. And they might run away for a few days and then realize, after sleeping on the streets for a night, that they were a ton better off with their parents, so they'll go back.

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This is another wacky spinoff of AC theory - but in reality, this alone simply leaves droves of children sticking it to Mom and Dad and entering the inevitable welfare state.

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Um...AC doesn't have a welfare state...it seems like you are kinda mixing and matching governments here. If the kid emancipates himself he's got to either a) provide for himself or b) convince someone else to provide for him. Option A will be nearly impossible for most kids....but if the kid can, why is it anyone else's business? Option B will be plausible if the kid can show that his parents were mediocre/abusive/druggies/whatever and can convince another family to take him in.

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Family is the backbone of society and is how human's have best learned to survive until the welfare state came along - AC doesn't change that.

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Um...I agree. Your point is?

Will

Borodog · #9 01-18-2006, 12:56 PM

Waiting for him to mention "warlords" in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .

QuadsOverQuads · #10 01-18-2006, 04:55 PM

They hate it. Ignorance and irrationality are two of their greatest sales tools.

(Plus, academics are all communists and marxists and union members anyway. The American Enterprise Institute told me so, and why would they lie?).

q/q