Education is everything
[Rod Dreher  03/17 08:38 AM]

Jason from Florida writes:

I'm a little disappointed with how the Education discussion is shaping up on the Crunchy Con blog.

I think education is at the heart of the maladies described in Crunchy Cons. Hyper-consumerism, libertinism, environmental degradation, poor stewardship of the animal world, urban sprawl, aesthetically unpleasant architecture: all these problem can be blamed in part on (A) there being simply too many people in the world and (B) that so many people are ignorant and not virtuous.

Public schools don't teach sudents to think critically and they certainly don't teach wisdom. They're not even good for teaching basic algebra (http://www.nationalreview.com/seipp/seipp200602130809.asp). They are pretty good, however, at turning youth into obedient conformists and teaching them to reject the values of their parents at the same time. As H.L. Mencken said, "The aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States and that is its aim everywhere else." I don't want to go into the specific problems of public education, but I think it's easy to see why our society is plagued with crises when public schools churn out young adults who lack moral character, common knowledge, and the ability to think critically. Should the architecture of urban sprawl surprise us when we send kids to school for 12 years in buildings that look and function like prisons? Is it shocking that kids are easy prey for marketers when the real public school curriculum is about teaching students to be good little worker-bees and good consumers?

On the Crunchy Con blog, however, there seems to be an underlying sentiment that public schools aren?t bad per se; it?s just that the culture is so immoral today that many don?t want their kids exposed to it. Your reader from Utah speaks up for public schools saying, "In small towns across America, the local high school is the community. It's the glue that holds the town together."

There's some truth to that, but it hasn't always been the case.

Public education in America didn't become universal until the first decade of the twentieth century. I would argue instead that the advent of mandatory public schooling has been destructive to family and community life in America. Besides that, America was somehow able to produce men of formidable intellect and character without the benefit of public schools. Franklin, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, etc. Furthermore, does anyone honestly think the average 18 year-old in 1830s America was not better prepared for citizenship and to meet the challenges of life than the average 18 year-old today or even of the 1950s?

Dave from Georgia wrote, "School is a community thing ? it makes us. My Dad had as much fun going to my Mom's high school reunions in Michigan as he did going to his own in Pennsylvania. I share a common ground with everyone who graduated from high school in 1973." Umm, so what? Everyone looks back on his youth with nostalgia. But, excepting elementary school students, almost no one stuck in the cycle of 4-6 classes a day, 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year for 12 years actually speaks positively of the experience...not at least until he/she looks back on it with 10 years or more distance.

I would say for anyone who cares about his children and his community, the best thing to do for both is to pursue home schooling.