quote:The states do have a clearly stated list of material that children are expected to have learned at certain ages. It even mentions in the original CSM article that knowledge of reproductive contraception is on Texas' state-required list.
Yes and we're talking about wether they should have that on the state-required list.
We are? No one's mentioned that yet.
It's been said that parents should continue to have the right to pull their children from classes containing such information. Presumably the people here that agree with that would prefer to teach contraceptive information to their children themselves, with the proper emphasis on the attendant moral values important to the parent in question and without whatever bias the teacher might decide to include.
Had you started out with "I don't think parents should be permitted to pull their children from state-approved curriculum" or something I think I'd have had a better oidea of what you meant.
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posted
Thinking what children learn should be somewhat regulated by the government is close to mini-fasiscm?
What children learn is already somewhat regulated by the government. Your position seems to be that the government should take a stronger role in their learning, even in what is taught in the home.
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posted
Hey where have I said what they should be taught at home? If at home parents want to teach their children that contraceptives are evil, the go for it. But the unbiased information of contraception should be mandatory in schools.
quote: We are? No one's mentioned that yet.
It's been said that parents should continue to have the right to pull their children from classes containing such information. Presumably the people here that agree with that would prefer to teach contraceptive information to their children themselves, with the proper emphasis on the attendant moral values important to the parent in question and without whatever bias the teacher might decide to include.
Ah well I assumed if it was on the state-requirement list then the state had to ensure it was being learned.
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posted
Another note, I don't think it should be purely contraception, I think teaching abstinence until one is ready is important too.
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posted
Hey where have I said what they should be taught at home?
See, that's where I got confused when you asked if parents should be allowed to teach their kids that killing blacks was OK. I don't remember seeing that in any recent textbooks (even in Texas) so I assumed you meant at home.
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quote:Thinking what children learn should be somewhat regulated by the government is close to mini-fasiscm?
Only in America.
Seriously, you consider the state's right to decide what a child should learn superior to the parents.
Yes, I'm sure only in America do people object to that.
No one has said the state shouldn't create curriculums for public schools. People are merely wishing to grant parents the right to opt out of those curriculums.
How would you enforce your requirement that children receive "acceptable" amounts and types of contraceptive information if they are homeschooled or in private schools?
Mandatory testing? "Put this condom on Johnny or your parents are going to jail!" Shut down schools that don't violate their basic religious principles by teaching something they consider immortal? Go collect the children not learning about the Pill and make them sit in reeducation centers?
You're not just talking about "regulation." You are mandating the use of the coercive power of the state to force children to learn particular things. Yeah, mini-fascism is appropriate.
Parents who are involved enough in their children's lives are the ones who will either whole-heartedly support a curriculum of either abstinance or safe sex, or will choose to pull their children out of the classes in question.
Those parents, and their children, are not the ones to worry about. Those kids have parents who will engage them about this subject and prepare them for the world, whichever stance the parents choose to take on it.
The parents who could care less, who don't even know which classes their kids are taking, much less whether their kids are even in class... those are the kids that need these classes more than anyone else. They need to be told something, because you can believe that it won't be taught at home. Whether they are taught abstinance or safe sex (or hopefully both), at least they are being taught something.
Folks, it isn't the parents that are concerned about what their children learn that are going to ruin the world. It's the parents who are apathetic to their children's education and development that are causing such great societal problems.
Let the school system have a curriculum, any curriculum, for these kids. And have some faith in the educators, there are many professionals in the field and many, many folks who really care about the future we will all share.
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quote:No one has said the state shouldn't create curriculums for public schools. People are merely wishing to grant parents the right to opt out of those curriculums.
How would you enforce your requirement that children receive "acceptable" amounts and types of contraceptive information if they are homeschooled or in private schools?
Mandatory testing? "Put this condom on Johnny or your parents are going to jail!" Shut down schools that don't violate their basic religious principles by teaching something they consider immortal? Go collect the children not learning about the Pill and make them sit in reeducation centers?
You're not just talking about "regulation." You are mandating the use of the coercive power of the state to force children to learn particular things. Yeah, mini-fascism is appropriate.
Hah, I love the way try to phrase it in the most evil manner you can, and associate what I'm saying with fasiscm.
I'm also mandating the coercive power of the state to force children to learn maths, the horror!
For homeschool children or private school children it's simply a matter of having them attend their local public school for one hour a week. I don't imagine there will be that many weeks, surely it can't take that long.
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quote: Shut down schools that don't violate their basic religious principles
Public schools shouldn't have religious principles. Schools should teach everything. Maths, English, Science, Religion, History, Geography, Sex Education... and leave it up to the child what they want to do.
But this is all in an ideal universe. I don't think learning about religion is actually mandatory in public schools.
quote:The question is what you intend to do when parents refuse to comply with your regulations.
The same thing that is done to any parent that tries to stop their child from going to school/being homschooled/educated in whatever form.
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quote:Hah, I love the way try to phrase it in the most evil manner you can, and associate what I'm saying with fasiscm.
I'm phrasing it so that the implications of your preferred policy aren't hidden behind nice little words and extreme examples.
You intend to make this mandatory. That implies some punishment if the requirement is not complied with. The punishment is, by definition, the coercive power of the state.
If you're not going to punish parents who refuse to comply, then you haven't made it mandatory. In which case your preferred policy is the same as mine - non-mandatory curriculums that are the default unless parents take positive steps to avoid them.
If you are making it mandatory and intend to punish parents who don't comply, then I stand by my characterization.
quote:Public schools shouldn't have religious principles. Schools should teach everything. Maths, English, Science, Religion, History, Geography, Sex Education... and leave it up to the child what they want to do.
But this is all in an ideal universe. I don't think learning about religion is actually mandatory in public schools.
Good, avoid the question again. I'm talking about private religious schools. Do you close them down? Do you send in sex educators, mandating the use of private facilities spread a government message the owner of those facilities finds objectionable? Do you forcibly bus the kids elsewhere to make them take the class?
posted
I've tried to be as reasonable as possible in my wording. It is a small amount of control from the government. Try to make it sound evil all you want it won't change that fact.
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quote: Good, avoid the question again. I'm talking about private religious schools. Do you close them down? Do you send in sex educators, mandating the use of private facilities spread a government message the owner of those facilities finds objectionable? Do you forcibly bus the kids elsewhere to make them take the class?
Would you quit with this persuasive language? Can't you talk normally?
Tell the kids they have to show up at [insert whatever their local public school is]. I suppose sending out a bus to pick them up could work, but they could just as easily use public transportation.
You're getting caught in the nitty-gritty to justify your position.
quote: It's a small amount of control about what people say and think.
That's never a small thing.
No. It's education. That gives people the ability to think for themselves. NOT making it mandatory is controlling what children say and think, but you're jsut letting the parents do it.
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quote:Would you quit with this persuasive language? Can't you talk normally?
Tell the kids they have to show up at [insert whatever their local public school is]. I suppose sending out a bus to pick them up could work, but they could just as easily use public transportation.
You're getting caught in the nitty-gritty to justify your position.
I am talking normally. Which words don't you understand? or is it just that you don't like me making my case in a manner I see fit?
I'm attempting to make you face up to what you're mandating. If the kids don't show up, do you take them away from the parents? Do you send in armed guards to take them from the parochial school and cart them off to the acceptable sex education center?
The whole crux of a policy making something mandatory is what happens when people don't comply. Talking about what people will do when they are complying isn't dealing with the mandatory aspect of the policy.
quote:No. It's education. That gives people the ability to think for themselves. NOT making it mandatory is controlling what children say and think, but you're jsut letting the parents do it.
Who should decide what's necessary for these children to be able to think for themselves? If a majority think children need to be taught that homosexuality is "deviant" in order to allow them to think for themselves about the subject, would you want the government mandating that?
I strongly prefer policies that leave as many decisions as possible to individuals' consciences.
quote:I'm attempting to make you face up to what you're mandating. If the kids don't show up, do you take them away from the parents? Do you send in armed guards to take them from the parochial school and cart them off to the acceptable sex education center?
The whole crux of a policy making something mandatory is what happens when people don't comply. Talking about what people will do when they are complying isn't dealing with the mandatory aspect of the policy.
Read above:
quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The question is what you intend to do when parents refuse to comply with your regulations.
The same thing that is done to any parent that tries to stop their child from going to school/being homschooled/educated in whatever form.
You tell me what is done to those parents, you're the lawyer.
quote: Who should decide what's necessary for these children to be able to think for themselves? If a majority think children need to be taught that homosexuality is "deviant" in order to allow them to think for themselves about the subject, would you want the government mandating that?
But that's not leaving them to choose for themselves. That's a bias. Teaching people about homosexuality would involve giving them the facts of what causes homosexuality (If we even knew waht that was) and facts about homosexual life style maybe. THEN the children can decide for themselves wether homosexuals are good or evil.
posted
I'd rather be sure of leaving as much as possible up to the conscience of individuals. And at some point something will be proposed for an official curriculum that you dislike, and you'll be glad this right exists.
posted
I don't think there's any teaching of a subject I would object to as long as it was done in unbiased form. For example I would not accept a religion course that told children religion is definitly the asnwer. I would however support a religion class in which the facts of different religions are presented, outlining the history and ideals of those religions. I wouldn't accept a science call that claimed the theory of evolution was without a doubt what happened. But I would accept one that presents information on the theory of evolution (including the faults in the theory).
quote: I'd rather be sure of leaving as much as possible up to the conscience of individuals.
You mean the conscience of the individual's parents.
posted
I would rather allow for the bias of the parent over the bias of the government any day.
If the parents are biased, that's a small percentage of children that will be taught strange things.
If the government is biased then all the kids learn strange things. And this administration is pushing for more and more abstinence-only sex education, so if the government is permitted to exercise more control over what children are taught you might find that it doesn't agree with your preferences.
I would also like to point out that Dagonnee was in favor of more comprehensive sex ed back on the first page. He's not defending bad choices for parenting, he's defending the rights of the parents to make their own choices, good or bad.
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quote:I would rather allow for the bias of the parent over the bias of the government any day.
If the parents are biased, that's a small percentage of children that will be taught strange things.
If the government is biased then all the kids learn strange things. And this administration is pushing for more and more abstinence-only sex education, so if the government is permitted to exercise more control over what children are taught you might find that it doesn't agree with your preferences.
My point is we need to get rid of bias in education all together. This government isn't doing that.
And I think there would be a larger number of biased children due to their parents then you'd like to admit.
quote:I would also like to point out that Dagonnee was in favor of more comprehensive sex ed back on the first page. He's not defending bad choices for parenting, he's defending the rights of the parents to make their own choices, good or bad.
quote: Yes, since parents are the ones raising the children.
Here we go again:
So?
quote:Assuming the child can't choose for himself, someone has to choose for him. I prefer parents to paternal government.
I'd prefer parents too, if they were unbiased. But ultimately I think the only way to make parents unbiased is to force unbiased education down the younger generations' throats.
quote:I don't think there's any teaching of a subject I would object to as long as it was done in unbiased form.
jebus, the problem I see in your exchange with Dagonee here is that it is not possible to teach very much without any bias at all. We ALL have biases. Our biases are so much ingrained in who we are that for the most part, we don't even think to question them until they are challenged directly.
For example, I'm challenging your biased belief that it is possible to teach complex subjects like religion and history without bias. The question is not really whether or not there is bias -- it's whether the bias fits an acceptable norm. Bias isn't a bad thing necessarily. The real question becomes what is acceptable.
I, for example, don't find it acceptable to leave such touchy subjects as homosexuality and abortion to the public schools. I have my biases, and I feel it is important to stress certain truths to my child that I feel might be glossed over by people with different biases on these topics. But it doesn't even go to that level...I have problems with public school administrative philosophy and the vast, incredible amount of wasted money. My son currently gets a *much* better education in a private school that operates on a budget a tiny fraction of what public schools demand. This example in and of itself is educational -- I appreciate the economic example it represents. I do actually discuss the school budget with my son, since it's public knowledge and I think it's important to learn good spending habits -- plus then he understands how important his education is to us, and that it isn't something to be taken for granted.
See how much bias spawns out of what seems totally inocuous? Public schools have an impossible task -- they must teach a wide variety of topics within an acceptable range of bias, which is challenged by parents with conflicting biases of religion or philosophy, text book companies with avaricious biases, special interest groups with particular biases that they want impressed on a very impressionable market. Etc.
Bottom line is that "information" isn't unbiased. Data occasionally is, but even that can't be relied upon as perfectly unbiased since we don't always know how data was collected. And most children cannot assimilate pure data without interpretation. That's a level of critical thinking that requires quite a lot of maturity. And many topics cannot be viewed as pure data in any case.
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posted
Please understand that I agree in essence with what you're saying. Personally I do think parents should have to pass a good parenting test before they're allowed to breed. I do think schools should present facts in unbiased ways and all children should get complete educations.
However, I also recognize several real world problems with this.
Facts are not biased. The choice of which facts to include, and in what order, and with what emphasis, that is easily open to bias. And humans are prone to bias whether they like to admit it or not.
And you have yet to tell me who decides a fact is unbiased enough. Will we know it when we see it? It might be easy if we were discussing math, but it gets trickier when we discuss biology, trickier still with history, and downright dangerous when we discuss sex ed.
In June, 2001, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office released a report on sexuality that endorsed comprehensive sex education that promotes abstinence but also permits distribution of condoms and other forms of contraception. The White House swiftly dismissed the report and said it "doesn’t reflect the values" of the Bush Administration. In the summer of 2001, the NIH released a report designed to undermine confidence in the effectiveness of condoms in preventing STDs and HIV. Simultaneously, CDC was instructed to remove all references to condom effectiveness from its website.
This administration was just re-elected by a clear majority of Americans. Why, exactly, do you think that the government will choose the facts for our children that you agree with?
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posted
Well this whole argument was sparked by Belle's comment:
quote: I think kids should get information about how their bodies work, and how the bodies of the opposite sex work. I think they should know what causes pregnancy and what can prevent it from happening. And, I think parents that don't want their children taught about birth control should have the opportunity to opt out and keep their kids out of the class that day.
I was arguing wether in this scenarion parents should be allowed to stop their children from learning it.
I suppose I did go too far, though, and slightly lost track of that, heh.
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posted
Geoff, I posted my criticism right away. Reading further, it seemed to me that you disagreed with what you said as much as I did. I'm puzzled as to why you said it then.
There are plenty of things that society can do to encourage good behavior besides punishing people for bad behavior. There were reasons why you didn't do bad things and (in a more neglected area) did good things besides you were afraid of getting caught and punished. Starting a look at ways to have a good society that starts out with saying "The only thing we can do is punish people when they do something wrong" is completely neglectful of these reasons.
There are plenty of things that work that don't at fall into this category. In fact, many of the things that fall into the category of reward/punishment have ironically pretty consistently failed in their object, leaving the people who are committed to them being the only solution to throw up their hands and say "This is just the best we can do. Success if impossible. People are just evil." However, there are other programs and ways of doing things that have shown to be much more successful.
In my experience, bad behavior generally rests on two sources, selfishness and short-sightedness. Punishment rarely effects these things positively. Autocratic externally imposed rewards don't generally do the trick either. But there are ways to decrease these things and increase those forces that oppose them. They are just more complex and require more thinking than the mechanistic reward/punishment style of doing things.
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The question is not really whether or not there is bias -- it's whether the bias fits an acceptable norm. Bias isn't a bad thing necessarily. The real question becomes what is acceptable. 
