Now Observe is whining about how parents have no say in their children
education… but of course, he fails to ask the right question…
what is the point of education? Why do we educate children?
what is the value of education?
let us begin at the top and state for the record, I am a father,
I sent my daughter to the American educational system…
so already I am unlike Observe (who isn’t even an American)
and like most of the people here, aren’t married with children…
(it would be an interesting poll question… who is married with children on ILP)
I had a friend who would rail against the American education system
and all its failures, but and this is important, he wasn’t married nor
did he have children in the American educational system…he was
talking, at best, with second hand knowledge about what did or didn’t happen
in the American educational system…
as does Observe and a great many posters here, talking about things they
have no direct knowledge about…the American educational system…
but they never faced up to the really important question of education,
what is the point of being educated?
on the face of it, education is simply a means to impart facts to children…
the American Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776…
this is a fact taught to all children at some point in their educational
process…and the children get tested on their knowledge of these facts,
but the real question is this, the Declaration was signed on the fourth of July,
so what? what does it matter if the declaration was signed on the fourth
or the third or in September or in March? it is not enough to teach that
certain events occurred on certain days…
the question really is, why does the declaration matter? It isn’t the when,
but the why that matters in discussing the declaration…
Why is declaration so important? not when or where was it signed…
but what does it mean? How does that impact our lives today?
what lessons can we learn from the why of the declaration of Independence?
the point of the declaration, at least from the framers standpoint, was
to create a mission statement about why we should break free from
England… and create our own nation, with its own laws and rules…
but from the very start, conservatives have done battle with that mission
statement… the most important line in the declaration is this:
“that all men are created equal”…
and that simple statement goes against everything a conservative believes in…
that god is above humans and that Angels are also above humans, but we humans
are above ants or cows… and within that hierarchy, men are above women,
and whites are above blacks or anyone of color…that is what conservatives
believe in…
that institutional racism is baked into the American system is quite clear…
from the very start…note the “three-fifths compromise” reached during
the 1787 constitutional convention…slaves were counted as 3/5 of each
slave state population for seats in the house of Representative and for
taxes purposes…but should we note this clearly racists notion?
not according to conservatives who hold against the CRT theory which talks
about such systematic racism that had been instituted in America…
but according to the conservatives, we should not be teaching this to children,
and once again I ask, why not? why not teach or educate children
as to this clear and obvious point of American history…our systemic
racism that was baked into our laws, history, education and daily life…
so, I will return shortly to detail this more clearly…
Kropotkin