Education and the Culture Wars

26 August 2015

“文化战争”。不仅仅是自由派对保守党,民主党对共和党;世俗主义和宗教主义;进化论者和特创论者;女权主义者和传统主义者;MSNBC和狐狸。乔恩·斯图尔特(Jon Stewart)对比尔·奥莱利(Bill O 'Reilly)——或者就我而言,我的自由主义自我对我深受爱戴、聪明伶俐的自由主义儿子。

在上一季的初选中,我们看到了这些在文化问题上的基本冲突如何转化为在教育问题上的斗争。一些候选人将美国的学校描绘成虚拟的洗脑窝点——自由派教师和教授推动着左翼对同性恋友好、对女权主义者友好、对社会主义友好的议程,因此对另一代选民产生了不应有的影响。

Traditionally, America’s system of free public education has been a source of great pride and an engine of upward social mobility. But now those schools are becoming a hot-bed of controversy. Should they children about sex and birth-control? Is teaching evolution as established scientific fact encroaching the religious neutrality enshrined in the constitution?

That brings us to today’s issue. Who has the right to choose what and how our young people are taught about controversial issues?

答案不是很明显吗?让孩子受教育是父母的责任。公立学校是父母履行责任的一种可选择的、负担得起的方式。

That’s the traditional view. Public schools should be as neutral as possible, and leave the controversy to the dinner table and Sunday School. Parents who want religiously-infused education can send their kids to schools run by churches, synagogues, mosques. Or they can choose private schools that reflect their attitudes. Or if they want, they can teach their children at home.

And that’s the view I favor. To adapt a thought from Churchill’s analysis of democracy, letting parents have the basic say in the education of their children may be a horrible system, fraught with problems. But there isn’t any alternative that isn’t worse.

You might ask: What if they don’t want their children educated at all.

But that’s a red-herring. It’s the parents’ job to provide their children with nutrition. That doesn’t mean they have a right to starve them. Children have a right to be fed, and they have a right to be educated. The community has a right and responsibility to see that parents fulfill their responsibilities. This usually means that attendance at a public school is mandatory, unless some other alternative is provided. Seems reasonable to me.

So, to a considerable extent, I think parents have a right to determine thecontentof their children’s education. But there are limits. If parents teach their kids that two plus two is five, or that English sentences are read from right to left, that’s not education, that’s child-abuse.

But what if they teach that evolution isn’t science, but secular superstition? Or that God insists that women be subservient? Or that the white race is superior?

我认为从父母那里夺走教育孩子的权利的代价超过了危险。在一些国家,在家上学的父母可能会被监禁。我们不希望这样。

I think it's a mistake to suppose that the nonsense our parents teach us leaves us permanently scarred, doomed to lack what is necessary to be effective citizens.

我拒绝了父母告诉我的很多东西。我的孩子们拒绝了我很多自由、世俗、嬉皮士的价值观。

相反的观点是,在像我们这样的民主国家,有效的公民身份需要一定程度的智慧、对观点多样性的欣赏和对普遍人类尊严的承诺。因此,国家有权利和责任向所有公民传授这些和其他知识。当他们成年后,他们可以发展任何他们想要的古怪的信仰。但在他们还没有长大到能够独立思考之前,不应该给他们灌输这些知识。

Ken and I will sort all of this out with our guest, Stanford Political Scientists Rob Reich.


Photo bySharon McCutcheononUnsplash

Comments(20)


MJA's picture

MJA

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

=

=
Truth is All our children need. Sadly though, for many and most, including our parents and teachers, truth can't be taught because it has yet to be defined.
For our children, our future, I will define it or is, empirically or mathematically, right or just here:
平等是正确的。
=

Guest's picture

Guest

Friday, June 14, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

Teaching a child how to ride

Teaching a child how to ride a bicycle can be a pleasant or frustrating experience. It depends on the approach you take.
The pleasant approach is to find a small hill, then have the child coast down it several times without any use of the pedals. As soon as he/she has a confident sense of balance, anything more that he/she needs to learn will be easy.
同样的哲学也适用于所有的教育。首先建立信心和能力。不幸的是,教育系统往往采取相反的做法。它既不涉及学习,甚至也不涉及教学,而是涉及时间表、必须涵盖的课程、行政问题和竞争。很多时候,学生是一个不可避免的麻烦,被操纵,压力和惩罚的失败,而不是充满信心和成就。那么多学生开始讨厌阅读和写作,害怕数字,避免体育活动,这有什么奇怪的吗?
Sure, blame the students, their parents or even grand-parents. Even blame the teachers. But the real problem is the faulty philosophy of the educational system.

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, June 17, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

But what if they teach that

但如果他们教的是进化不是呢?这是科学,但世俗的迷信?或者上帝坚持女人要顺服?还是白人更优越?
Unfortunately, although these questions are very reasonale to you and I , many people do not agree with your preface that these teachings are wrong in the first place.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, June 22, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

As to the point raised by

至于Walter Messenger提出的观点,在我看来没有什么可担心的。孩子们在任何地方学习:在家里,在操场上,在学校。他们所学的不一定是他们想学的。他们不断地被不同的、相互矛盾的信息轰炸。哪一个影响他们?我想这又回到了先天和后天的争论。
"The function of education in a democracy is ... to liberate the mind, strengthen its critical powers, inform it with knowledge and the capacity for independent inquiry, engage its human sympathies, and illuminate its moral and practical choices." (Israel Scheffler, 1972)

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, June 22, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

I enjoyed this conversation.

I enjoyed this conversation. I am a homeschool teacher, and from my personal experience, the fears about parents indoctrinating their children into some anti-civic mentality or failing to teach them basic skills are largely hypothetical and unrepresentative. I am sure there are homeschools in this country for whom this may be a concern, but the overwhelming majority of homeschool teachers I know are extremely conscientious, capable and resourceful. And honestly, public schools are not fairing much better. The very reason we homeschool is to give our children a better education than the failing public schools in our community. The homeschool students I know are head and shoulders above their public school peers. They are interested, interesting people for whom the world is their classroom. While the state continues to fail to educate its citizens through a broken public school system, why they would ever bother to try to regulate us? What has happened in the homeschool community is that we have become self-regulating, with organizations, curriculum providers forums, etc. to support what is a challenging, but fruitful enterprise. Less state involvement is better for business, why not for education, as well?

Guest's picture

Guest

Friday, July 19, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

If we reduced the noise to a

If we reduced the noise to a signal*, culture war would be resolved through education. But things are never that simple. Are they?
(*取消任何非新闻的媒体传播;取消重复上述媒体传播的“娱乐”广播——伪装成新闻;并忽略那些没有才华的小人物(例如,胡说之类的)想要获得关注的所有尝试。)
That said, I might watch television again. Naaah---probably not.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Friday, August 28, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

Some fact that seem to get

Some fact that seem to get forgotten in these discussions:
在肯尼迪总统任期内,法院裁决指示各州将各种各样的残疾人“纳入主流”,包括精神疾病、学习障碍以及吸毒者。全国各地的州开始了拆除大型集中设施的漫长过程,但既没有给当地社区以满足需求的指示,也没有提供支持。一些“中途”住房开放了,但当地社区反对。于是,瘾君子和精神病患者大量无家可归的时代接踵而至。但是,当地的学校尽其所能地关注残疾人和学习障碍者的需求。这导致了公立学校费用的突然增加,以及随之而来的财产税的增加,使得整个国家都在反抗政府要求他们自己承担费用的要求。然后,罗伊诉韦德案激发了长期被政治行动的亵渎所压制的宗教右翼,从反对离婚到反对堕胎(这是一个以前从未出现过的问题)做出了战术上的改变。那时候离婚是注定要失败的。从那时起,他们就能够发起激烈的反对,奇怪地呼吁赋予他们在其他领域一直容忍侵犯的生命权。随着黑豹党(Black Panthers)坚持他们携带武器的权利,全国步枪协会(NRA)的地位逐渐上升,武器的疯狂扩散和对政府任何提议的极端反对(除了降低税收和向富人发放救济金)。 And then a stream of immigration swelled our schools with speakers of languages other than English (and by no means only Spanish, which, by the way, has been a language spoken in American, by many Americans, since the Mexican War). This sets the context of the "moral" and "cultural" theme of this discussion. the tensions are more social than cultural, more fiscal than moral. One more thing, Home-schooling and charter schools are largely protected by a taboo against critical review, and where they are looked at more critically a scandalous disregard for objective standards, and for the needs of children who might threaten to dispel the myth, reveals itself. And, lastly, the First Amendment protects a right to religious liberty, not religious authority. It does not even protect the ability of religious leaders to impose their doctrines upon their own membership, let alone others outside the faith, even if they are in some other way, as employees patients or applicants for services (like gay marriage) under their authority.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Friday, August 28, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

I forgot bussing, how did I

I forgot bussing, how did I do that?! It's importance, of course, is that it's occasioning "culture wars" is powerful evidence that, as usual, the real motive of the Right is not as stated. Remember what Kennedy said so famously?: "Ask not what your country can do for you....", this should have been instantly recognized as a promise to the southern states he would not mess with Jim Crow.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Monday, August 31, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

Let me put it this way, there

Let me put it this way, there is a public responsibility to see to it that every child has a right to an education free from private, or public, indoctrination. This is not a culture war, it is a war between private privilege and public responsibility.

Sofi Gray's picture

Sofi Gray

Sunday, September 6, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

Suppose most of our nation's

Suppose most of our nation's schools, through some unknown mechanism, decided to stop teaching history and literature. Suppose our educators went along with this practice because it was so widely accepted, and so far advanced, that no one person could stop it. Individual teachers might still be allowed to make their idiosyncratic decisions about what to teach.

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Wednesday, September 9, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

There were many things

在1956-1966年间,我接受的公共教育遗漏了很多东西。我在美国中西部长大,在非保守主义的监视下长大,没有意识到有多少合理化;遗漏;半真半假和彻头彻尾的谎言,我至少在30年后才摆脱。我之所以说三十年,是因为这个认识是逐渐积累起来的,而且,我自己选择的东西读得越多,我不知道的东西就知道得越多。幸运的是,我最终以一种哲学的态度接受了我成长的命运,并继续接受自我教育的任务。在公元21世纪,人们做出了大量的决定,采取了大量的行动,其中许多让我们百思不得其解。美国最高法院已经远远超出了其权限范围,从而促成了正在讨论的那些文化战争。大约八年前,退休后不久,我向一些同事提出了一个关于社交媒体现象的看法。我说这将成为一场社交噩梦。 Aforementioned associates, at the time, laughed at the notion. They are not laughing now.
我们的孩子们正被为了成功而进行的疯狂激烈的竞争逼得自杀。随着今天教育的节奏,他们几乎没有时间成为孩子,他们被迫(也许太早)成为成年人。然而,我们在这里——在一列快速加速的子弹头列车上。为了证实本博客提出的另一个问题:科学已经取代了哲学,而且,成功的竞赛正在超越人类。
Seems to me,
Neuman.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Thursday, September 10, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

Piaget showed us that

Piaget showed us that children reach milestones in development before which it is impossible to get an idea across to them or to teach them to achieve it. You can't make a baby walk as long as its legs are made of rubbery cartilage only. To try to push a child when it is not ready instills only trauma. American childhood is trauma. Just think of how many small children are allowed to "cry themselves to sleep". In most cultures this would be considered abuse. In my schooling, bullying was actually relied upon as part of the disciplinary system. Like the Spartan model of throwing them to the dogs and seeing which one thrives, as a dog, I suppose. It doesn't toughen, it barbarizes.

alberteinstine's picture

alberteinstine

Sunday, September 13, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

Culturalism has been involved

Culturalism has been involved in education to create a societal conflict so that people remain involved in those conflicts. If you go through the research papers of professionals of Write Me an Essay in they have mentioned how education has been politically developed, you will surely get shocked.

serinalevis9's picture

serinalevis9

Sunday, October 11, 2015 -- 5:00 PM

Are you referring to

Are you referring to education in the US, Europe or SE Asia? In that respect are several great movies on this theme in the English culture, besides lots of books on this subject.
When studying the culture/education before the WW2 or in the interbellic period there are so many elements to take into consideration. You need to structure your essay or come back on this board with more inside information. Assignment-Doer Uk

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