Category: education and schooling

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education and schooling

Philosophically Opposed to Home Schooling

An officially proposed law, set to be voted on next year, would outlaw most home-​schooling in Sweden. Government officials in the alleged Scandinavian utopia explain that “there is no need for the law to offer the possibility of homeschooling because of religious or philosophical reasons in the family.” 

Yet increasing numbers of Swedes feel otherwise. The Swedish Association for Home Education, called ROHUS, has appealed to the international community for help in what its members regard as a concerted attack on human rights. The proposed law, according to the group, shows off the country’s “worst totalitarian socialist roots.”

I don’t know much about Sweden’s government-​run schools. My wife and I home-​school our kids here in Virginia. We do this mainly for reasons of security and quality control. 

But this is, nevertheless, a philosophic issue.

Surely parents have the right to resist governments’ efforts to control every aspect of their lives, especially the micromanaging of their kids’ education.

Government schools tend to perform poorly. In America, we have witnessed a degradation in standards. Sweden, apparently, isn’t immune to such trends. One English woman married to a Swede fears that the country’s “’no-​one should aspire to be better’ mentality” pervades the schools; she insists the “no-​grade” system degrades competitive standards.

A reason to home-​school, yes. And a reason to defend a philosophic case for the home-​school option: That option is a human right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense education and schooling U.S. Constitution

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Dear Reader: This “BEST of Common Sense” comment originally aired on October 3, 2005. When I read in the paper about a fifth grade class re-​writing the Constitution, I immediately thought about our judiciary. Then I discovered the whole effort was part of a program mandated by Congress. We should all — freely — read the Constitution. Luckily, it is shorter than most of the bills in Congress. —PJ

James Madison, father of our U.S. Constitution, must be rolling over in his grave. You see, he forgot to put love in it. In the Constitution, that is.

By congressional edict, schools and universities across the nation were recently required to spend some time on or around September 17 teaching about the Constitution. That’s the date our nation’s founding document was ratified back in 1787. 

One institution of higher learning, Irene’s Myomassology Institute in Michigan, was forced to comply because some students training to be tomorrow’s masseuses receive federal money. The Institute gave students a flier. 

Marlboro College in Vermont held a parade featuring professors dressed up as constitutional articles and amendments. 

Virginia’s James Madison University celebrated with a “We the People” cake and a trivia contest.

But you ask: What has love got to do with the Constitution? 

Oh, yes, I almost forgot Sharon Alexander’s fifth-​graders at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. In following the federal order, they did what too many federal judges do: they re-​wrote the Constitution. Actually, just the Preamble. Their new kid-​friendly version states that “kids, pets and adults” are entitled to “electricity, food, water, schools and love.”

Our Constitution doesn’t talk about love. Love isn’t government’s job. That’s ours. Government is power. And our Constitution is all about limiting that power. Read it — and read it to your kids, too, if you love ’em.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling general freedom too much government

No Smiling, No Hugging

Things sure have changed since I was a kid. It used to be okay to smile. Encouraged even. And hugging someone was considered nice, friendly, compassionate.

Today, in my home state of Virginia, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or DMV, is discouraging smiles. No, not just discouraging smiles, wiping them out entirely. 

The DMV is telling people not to smile — or say “cheese” — when getting their photos taken for their drivers’ licenses. If they do smile, the picture cannot go on their license and they have to take another.

And all over the country, public schools are banning hugging.

Why the official suppression of friendliness and good cheer?

Well, in schools the administrators apparently cannot tell a friendly hug from a sexual grope, or a jovial high-​five from a bullying slap.

So they’re outlawing all touching.

When I was in school, I don’t remember any rules against hugging or holding hands or even kissing — unless folks got carried away. And we trusted teachers and principals to make the judgment as to what was going too far.

Now, any touching invites what one administrator calls a “gray area.”

The DMV may have a better excuse to suppress smiles and grins and such: They are developing facial recognition software, and smiles get in the way. It’s all to protect us from identity theft, they say.

And yet isn’t it odd that protecting us makes us less human? Can that really be protection?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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education and schooling

History, Economics, Pizza

The recession deepens and budgets tighten. 

This isn’t news to citizens of Pocatello, Idaho. Students, teachers and administrators of the school district sure feel it. Cuts in state aid are leading to a $10 million shortfall. Citizens voted down a tax increase.

So every light switch has a warning next to it, to save electricity.

More interesting is history and economics teacher Jeb Harrison’s response. He went out shopping for a sponsor, and nearby Molto Caldo Pizzeria agreed to supply Harrison’s class with 10,000 sheets of paper.

Charity?

Community spirit?

No. Advertising.

Every sheet has the imprint of Molto Caldo Pizzeria. For a mere $315 the pizza joint places its name in front of a most promising clientele. With every test, pop quiz, worksheet, and info sheet on the Great Depression, students see the tasteful ad for what I hope is tasty pizza.

Though a schoolboard member gave kudos to Harrison for “creativity,” there are critics. One news report quotes Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist, saying that this “crosses a line.” 

OK … but, just maybe, instead, this sort of classroom advertising should increase. Students in public schools could bring home their report cards printed on on paper with ads from competing private schools.

“Learn more, better, faster — at Joe’s Education Emporium.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling

Educational Snow Flakes

Up north, it snows enough that schools can’t just close every time a few flakes fall. But I live in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, and it doesn’t snow that much here.

Weeks ago it snowed eight inches, a lot for us. The schools in my county — and throughout the region — closed. 

But in Washington, DC, the schools stayed open. And controversy ensued. 

Was opening the schools unsafe? Was it a waste of money, since only a small percentage of students and teachers showed up? Or was a school day too valuable to lose? 

For me, that’s all beside the point. I think a day having fun in the snow is more valuable than a yet another day in class. 

This came to mind again when I listened to President Obama’s recent speech about public education. Obama wants our kids to attend school more days and longer hours. Apparently, children in South Korea go to school more and score better on tests.

Not only am I skeptical about such comparisons, and those tests, I’m totally uninterested in educating my kids to best the Russians or the Germans or the Japanese or anybody else. 

To me, education is all about encouraging my kids to love learning, and then facilitating their very personal pursuit of their own dreams. It’s not an international competition demanding ever-​more hours of drudgery.

So, let it snow. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense education and schooling general freedom

What Leads Us?

There’s a commercial that asks, “What leads us as a society?” And then answers, “Education.” I don’t agree. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against education (who does?), but I’ve always thought that individual freedom leads our society.

Daniel Pink, writing in Reason magazine, makes my point. “Whenever students around the world take those tests that measure which country’s children know the most, American kids invariably score near the bottom,” Pink observes. But he adds, “by almost every measure, the American economy outperforms those very same nations.”

“If we’re so dumb, how come we’re so rich?”

Well I know: it’s because Americans have been more free than other people to dream and to endeavor to make those dreams come true. So we’re more inspired. You didn’t think we were somehow born better than other people, did you?

Pink calls America the “free agent nation.” The richest man in America and the world, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is a college drop-​out. In fact, nearly 10 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans never completed their college education. Four of these multi-​millionaires never finished high school!

Now I have a child of my own starting college next year and I’m sure not suggesting she drop out. But I do think our kids’ futures depend less on some stupid test score, and more on the freedom they have to chase their dreams. And if you need to teach yourself something to chase that dream, you’ll do it even without a professor giving you an assignment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.