I spent last week in the North Georgia mountains visiting my parents, siblings and their descendants. I met my brother's one year old son and my sister's five month old grandson, and I declare them to be within the range of normal human variation notwithstanding their dodgy genetic heritages. I enjoyed myself and spent quality time with my kin.
I had an interesting conversation with my siblings in which we all sat around complaining about the massive state and oppressive taxes. We were all of one accord until I piped in about how public schools mean stealing from some folks to propagandize the children of others. My sister, a full time employee of a county school system for about 18 years, looked at me as if I were from another planet. She was articulate and well versed in all the usual apologetics for public schooling. My brother, who will be sending his 6 year old to public school this fall and whose wife also works for a school system, was also skeptical. Schooling is different, said the sibs, because it benefits everybody. I suspect that schooling is different for them because it directly benefits them and that they really don't give a hoot about whether anybody else gets anything out of it.
Now, I'm all for schooling and book learning and such, and I admit that a learned population is more desirable than an ignorant mob from just about any perspective. Where I differ from my siblings and apparently most of my conspecifics is on the matter of who provides this learning and who pays for it. I submit that most of the parents who actually care about their children's education could home school them in a way that would be superior to the public education they might receive. Moreover, these parents would find a way to finance a private education for their children if they did not choose to home school. Finally, I am certain that philanthropists who are concerned about this issue would provide scholarships for deserving children from poor families. The rest of the children, the ones from dysfunctional families and who are either stupid or lazy or both and who cost the most to school, aren't going to get anything out of a public education in any event. (How much book learning does it take to work in the carnival industry, anyway?) So let's save the money we are throwing away on these dead end kids and put it to better use, eg repairing the roof of my house where the capenter ants have been feasting or replacing my about to explode water tank.
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2 comments:
What bothers me is how to best educate others to what is so blindingly clear to some of us, without distancing ourselves in the process (a'la "looked at me as if I were from another planet").
What has been you most successful approach in breaking through? Emotional or logical appeals?
How did this conversation end? Did you just sigh and avoid further conversation?
We kept talking as my sister wanted to satisfy herself that I was not insane. We ended by agreeing that education was good but that there might be other ways of distributing/financing it than the government monopoly. I regard this as a huge concession on my sister's part, and I doubt she ever problematized the issue before in her life. I argued that folks in her position who were good at what they did would prosper in a private education system while the dead weight (she admits there is such a thing) would fail.
One subversive step at a time is my mantra.
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