Comment by geye1234
4 days ago
Two points here:
1. Government schooling won't force you to confront other beliefs: it will deliver you a particular set of beliefs. Example: sex ed (which must, logically, be delivered from one or another moral perspective; there is no neutrality). Or history, which in many Anglo countries used to whitewash 19th-century crimes, and now goes to the other extreme of ignoring anything good.
Empirically, it is pretty clear that government schools do not produce, and are not designed to produce, children who are capable of examining things from multiple points of view.
2. Ultimately it's a philosophical question: who is ultimately responsible for the child's development? And, therefore, who has the right to make the final decision on this? The parents, or the state? That's obviously a much bigger question, but it will determine one's attitude to homeschooling.
do you see the difference of "government schools" in contrast to curricula elaborated by democratically elected boards? especially in a country with proportional representation, which reflects into said boards?
also the controversy is built into the curricula. "these are the positions, discuss"
and yes my top comment is exactly addressing the top point. and how it may be a good idea to think about how other cultures approach education and why.
> do you see the difference of "government schools" in contrast to curricula elaborated by democratically elected boards? especially in a country with proportional representation, which reflects into said boards?
I don't think it makes much difference. Even if we grant for argument's sake that the people elected to school boards are likely to represent the majority of the people entitled to elect them, why should my children be fed the majority view just because it's the majority?
> also the controversy is built into the curricula. "these are the positions, discuss"
Presumably that doesn't happen with every topic. What is presented as factual, and what is presented as opinion, is significant and necessarily reflects a worldview.
By saying "here is the pro-X argument, here is the anti-X argument, discuss", and then stopping there, you are necessarily teaching that X is something opinion-based and non-factual, or at least too trivial to matter. And I, as a parent, may think that X is factual and important. So somebody's views have to win out - mine or someone else's. There is no neutrality anywhere in reality.