Liberal arts
Mark Ravenhill on the brewing culture wars. I sympathise somewhat with Ravenhill's views, but I don't think that "liberal values" demand that everyone join in with the arsefucking.There is a clear difference between saying we ought to tolerate whatever and saying we ought to witness it or partake in it. I am not sure that signing up to a uni course means signing up for whatever Ravenhill considers should be part of it. If your values do not permit taking part in a play that, rightly or wrongly, contravenes the mores of most people in the UK, I don't think you are doing anything wrong not to take part.
Ravenhill is right on the whole though. Liberal values are nothing more than an outcome of an education and a vague concern for others. Universities are bound to uphold them. Conservatism feeds on ignorance, and "conservative university" is an oxymoron. It's not a coincidence that the educated tend to tolerance. It's hard to hate things that you can understand.
I'm uncomfortable though with the new notion that everyone must join in. There's a strand of thought that outsiders to a culture must "assimilate". I think that in so far as that means "get on with us", it's okay. But if it starts to mean, "be like us", I'm not so sure. I'm not saying the notion is wholly wrong. If people remain completely alien to the people around them, there is not much prospect of their having any sense of community with the latter. Whether that's important is another issue, and my doubts that it is are what make me uncertain.
posted by Dr Zen @ 10:12 am
16 Comments:
Not only is it hard to hate something you do understand, it's also hard to hate something when you admit to yourself that you don't understand it. You have to feel you know something deeply before you can hate it, which is what makes most anti-Islamic discourse just laughable. And as research has shown, the more stupid a person is, the more he thinks he's got everything down. A sure-fire sign of intelligence is the admission that you basically know half of fuck-all, and even that's only sketchy. So hatred is a product not only of ignorance, of which we all partake, but more importantly of stupidity.
Very true, although I've never thought of it that way. I think that the ignoranti generally feel they know *all they need to know* and are therefore entitled to hatred.
We allow people to homeschool here and teach their children all manner of creationist drivel, which seems wrong, and yet having some busybody from the gov't march in to oversee it seems worse. I guess. It's all very slippery. I don't know about college classes either. It seems tolerant to let people opt out, and yet...
I think homeschooling is a Bad Thing. Regulation seems to me to be one way that the government protects the rights of the child (in this case to be properly educated) from possible infringement by parents. In general, that the state protects a child from harm done by its parents is a good thing, but I wouldn't disagree that the state's basis for thinking it knows better than a mother or father is not always very strong, given that it is often based on prejudice or received ideas, rather than evidence.
Why do you think that homeschooling is a bad thing? Not all homeschoolers are teaching "creationist drivel" and, in fact, some of the curriculum packages that are available now are better than what kids are getting in public schools. They also have the added advantage of being able to explore when they're particularly interested in something because they don't have to keep up or be held back by the rest of the class. I have read that studies have shown that homeschooled kids tend to do better on entrance exams for college and are more socially adjusted. They didn't go through all the crap that screws most of us up, and therefore are comfortable in their skin and their abilities once grown. They're not as easily peer pressured into things and can think for themselves. I have observed this on a small scale among homeschooled students(and one unschooled young man), but I can't cite any definitive research.
Here in Florida you have to register your child with the state as being homeschooled and you have to have your child tested at the end of each school year to show that they are on target. If not, you have one more year to try and if the child is still below grade level, you can no longer homeschool. I think that's just the right involvement of the state. As for whatever the parents are teaching the children about any particular worldview, well, that's going to happen no matter where the child is educated.
"I have read that studies have shown that homeschooled kids tend to do better on entrance exams for college and are more socially adjusted."
You've read that on prohomeschooling sites that invented the studies.
You've read that on prohomeschooling sites that invented the studies.
Okay, that's a challenge. We'll see. It's not like I'm unused to be being wrong where you're concerned, but enough is enough already.
:-)
What do I get if I'm right? What do you get if I'm wrong?
You have no prospect of being right and can simply apologise when you find out you are wrong.
What do I get if you're wrong?
You get the satisfaction of proving that circles are square.
I don't think you've really thought this issue through thoroughly.
My rebuttal.
Get fucked. Your "rebuttal" was a couple of articles I've already read, which misuse "studies" done by partisans.
This is hilarious though:
"Also, results from the Iowa Test of
Basic Skills, Spring 1994 test (as cited in Ohio Department of Education, 1998) showed 80% of
homeschooled children across all age groups achieved individual scores above the national
average, compared to 50% of the conventional school population"
Leaving aside questions of the validity of tests that are not centrally administered (so are not properly invigilated) or used as a standard (so are not used across all in the study group), that the author does not know what an average is made me laugh.
Homeschoolers should have improved results, but in fact don't.
They do not adapt better socially because they "meet a wider range of people". That's generally wishful thinking because the reason for homeschooling is often to prevent their being exposed to the full range of peers and others.
Well, Zen, perhaps you can provide some citations, because as much as I've tried for the last two hours, literally, where I've been searching for any studies, whitepapers, whatever, that I could find linked online, I can only find supportive studies and statistics.
I managed to find two articles critical of homeschooling, and they were pathetic. The one statistic the first was able to come up with was that ten years ago, the majority of Americans were against it. The second was worse, a diatribe really, guessing that the largest impact of homeschooling is in fostering child killing parents like Andrea Yates. The whole child abuse angle is spurious, akin to saying that we shouldn't allow anyone to have kids because a few of them abuse their kids. I'm afraid an article by a guy who complains about people not wanting to participate in his homosexual-themed plays just doesn't amount to proof of any kind.
Anyway, the main problem I see with the "pro" studies is that there is no way to determine what the success rates would have been for those kids in a public school setting.
We have our kids in public school now. Until we moved to our current community we had them in a private school (them... one, the others were still too young.) Our reasons for keeping them in public school are, in a way, a little pedestrian, but we feel it has more to do with the child and the parents than having the absolute very best top notch academics or the most control over the input. They'll be in the same environment with their peers, and that is, overall, a good thing.
However, the only studies I've seen cited of adults who were homeschooled indicates that the criticism about homeschooled kids being socially stunted is spurious, or at least unsubstantiated.
It's the opposite of what you would expect, in this case. Usually an organization like the NEA will pull out all the stops and have stacks of studies showing how evil homeschooling is, and how insular, prejudicial, and incapable the kids become when they grow up. It just doesn't seem to be there. The grousing seems to be all about one side kvetching that all kids aren't being indoctrinated in a particular worldview, as though only aspects of one should be taught, and that anything else should be treated as an aberration.
One final note, a study in 2004 indicated that over 50% of homeschooling parents do so not because of any worldview issues, but because they feel that the quality of academics and school environment are much poorer than can be provided at home. 38% did indicate that the issue was worldview, no small segment, surely.
Anyway, eviscerate away... better yet, if you do have access to some solid, scientific studies that expose the problems with homeschooling, I'd like to see them.
I am closing this thread. I don't have the time to bicker about this with partisans of a movement that is all about fucking up kids, and on my blog, I don't have to provide citations to every ideologue who demands them. Yes, I know that the only studies you've seen are supportive, Anthony. That's because you see what you look for. Thread closed.
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