Monday, 14 September 2020

school is just a place to park your kids

There have been complaints for a long time that parents are 'abdicating their responsibility' to schools:

Parents, not schools, must ultimately be responsible for children – Michigan Education Report ... – Mackinac Center (2001)

Parents 'abdicating responsibility for their children' (2008: paywall)

Have parents abdicated their responsibility? | The New Times | Rwanda (2016: from the NY Times)

It is to some extent a cultural thing:

Some parents are "abdicating" responsibility for bringing up their children by "dumping" youngsters on schools, headteachers have warned.

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, criticised the Government's drive for all schools to offer childcare between the hours of 8am and 6am.

"The vast majority of parents want to see their children after school. (They) echo the shock expressed by some of the eastern European parents that rather than promoting the importance of quality childcare at home, our country advocates a back to work culture that may well prove to be counter-productive."

Parents 'dump' children on schools | UK | News | Express.co.uk (2008)

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Here's a complaint from 2012 that schools 'teach parents incompetence':

PUBLIC SCHOOL IS A BABYSITTING SERVICE

The first news I saw of the Chicago teacher’s strike was a headline on the Chicago Tribune that said, “I’m going to lose my job.” It was not a quote from a teacher. It was a quote from a parent, who was worried about the time she was taking off from work because she had nowhere to send her kid.

This is not an isolated problem. The New York Post reported that Chicago schools and churches were opening doors during school hours so that kids were not left alone in homes. It’s clear that the main function we lose when teachers strike is not learning, because it was already questionable how much learning goes on in Chicago public schools. The loss is childcare. School provides a safe place for kids to be while parents work.

You are telling yourself that your school is not like this. But here’s why your school is the same: Public school is a huge infrastructure set up as a social service program. It is terrible at teaching kids how to be successful adults, but it’s great at providing a safe way to care for kids, no matter what their income level. (The blog Get Rich Slowly enthusiastically estimates that parents save $1000 a month by sending their kids to public school instead of paying for childcare.)

We see this clearly in the Chicago Tribune headline. But also it’s clear when I tell people I homeschool. They say they could never be with their kids all day. School teaches that: schools teach parents learned incompetence that they are not able to be with their kids all day and they require a public babysitting service. But surely, this is not true for you. Or anyone, really.

Public school is a babysitting service | Penelope Trunk Education

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During the last months, however, parents have been forced to look after their children - otherwise known as 'home schooling':

Jay Doubleyou: homeschooling and deschooling

And many parents have found it very difficult:

Home schooling my kids in lockdown has been a horror | Metro News

Coronavirus: Homeschooling 'stressful and challenging' for most parents - BBC News

‘I Feel Like I’m A Crap Mum And Failing My Job’. Parents On The Reality Of Working From Home | HuffPost UK Parents

Parents struggling with homeschooling during coronavirus lockdown share hilarious memes as they battle unruly kids

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But actually, before 'school' existed, children had to adapt to their parents' work rhythms:

Covid-19 lockdown: How parents who are self-employed can homeschool their kids :: Freelance UK

Which was absolutely the norm:

Prior to passage of America's first compulsory schooling statute, in Massachusetts in 1852, it was generally accepted that education was a broad societal good and that there could be many ways to be educated: at home, through one's church, with a tutor, in a class, on your own as an autodidact, as an apprentice in the community – and often all of the above. 

Education Used to Happen Outside of School - Foundation for Economic Education

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And this is the point.

If we see school as simply a matter of 'social control' rather than 'education', then it makes perfect sense to put children into institutions - to learn about how to adapt to the demands of institutions:

Jay Doubleyou: deschooling society

The Pinky Show - Scary School Nightmare - YouTube

If we see school as being about providing human resources for society and the economy, then we need to 'engineer' our children rather than 'educate' them:

Jay Doubleyou: human resources as social engineering

HUMAN RESOURCES Social Engineering In The 20th Century HQ FULL - YouTube

And if we see school as a place where we pacify people rather than 'educate' them, then we need to actively train them to become less competent and more dependent:

Jay Doubleyou: education: dumbing us down

Jay Doubleyou: we are much more than problem-solvers

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This system was first brought about by the Prussians some two hundred years ago:

Jay Doubleyou: the purpose of education: from china to prussia to the united states

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See here:

The 3 Rs of Education: Respect, Reality, Reason: Prussian Education Very American

The 3 Rs of Education: Respect, Reality, Reason: Yep another Copy/Paste no commentary post...

The Purpose of Education: Social Uplift or Social Control? | Coop média de Montréal

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