Melissa—you raise legitimate questions. I’d love to see less coercion and a wider variety of education options (including voucher systems, home schooling, and unschooling), with more serious empirical analysis of their relative efficacy for achieving various purposes.
For anybody interested in these issues, I’d recommend the book ‘The case against education’ by economist Bryan Caplan. Empirical studies show that compulsory public education has far less positive impact on long-term learning outcomes than most people realize.
As a parent, and as someone who thinks that ‘rights’ are (important) social constructs rather than things bestowed on humans by gods or by the cosmos, I think it’s prudent for parents to restrict some freedoms of their kids (esp freedom of movement!).
But I take your point that we should view kids as sentient beings in their own right, with their own interests—and not just as raw materials that should be shoveled into government indoctrination camps (aka public schools) against their will.
Melissa—you raise legitimate questions. I’d love to see less coercion and a wider variety of education options (including voucher systems, home schooling, and unschooling), with more serious empirical analysis of their relative efficacy for achieving various purposes.
For anybody interested in these issues, I’d recommend the book ‘The case against education’ by economist Bryan Caplan. Empirical studies show that compulsory public education has far less positive impact on long-term learning outcomes than most people realize.
As a parent, and as someone who thinks that ‘rights’ are (important) social constructs rather than things bestowed on humans by gods or by the cosmos, I think it’s prudent for parents to restrict some freedoms of their kids (esp freedom of movement!).
But I take your point that we should view kids as sentient beings in their own right, with their own interests—and not just as raw materials that should be shoveled into government indoctrination camps (aka public schools) against their will.