philosophy
Posts: 5284
Joined: 2/15/2004 Status: offline
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FR No-one can argue with the idea that schools should, as a bare minimum, give students the skills of reading, writing, basic mathematics. a grounding in science and some sort of history of the culture they inhabit. That's the bare minimum. The question that remains is should they be doing anything else? For myself, the answer is a resounding yes. I've seen families fail their children too many times to feel comfortable elaving everything up to parents. so, what else? I believe they should be given the tools to decide. To decide everything. That isn't a set of data, or even really a body of knowledge. It's something that only comes when a child is encouraged to think rather than accept. To ask a critical question respectfully, rather than stand on an opposite position and shout. Some parents don't like that sort of education because what gets critically thought about by a child is, well, their life. Which means that kids sometimes are lead to question the beliefs that their parents raise them to hold. This is neither a good or a bad thing, because if the parents belief really does stand up to critical thinking it is clearly utilitarian at least. It only becomes a problem when those parents beliefs do not stand up to critical thinking, or the parents themselves are unable to articulate such a defence. In the 60's it was left wing parents who found themselves at odd with the educational system. My mother was called to school once and told that i was a problem because I seemed unwiling to conform. to which my mum replied that she didnt raise me to conform, which put a stop to that. Nowadays, the pendulum has perhaps swung the other way. Non-liberals should remember that it is in living memory that text books, written by conquerors, often failed to tell the whole story. Either way, as long as a child leaves school able to articulate a critical thought, in speech as well as in written form, along with an adequate knowledge of the world around them, then the school has done its job.
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