From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: Just a few simple questions from a newcomer...
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 05:14:23 GMT

amarcin@athena.mit.edu (Bret Aarden) writes:
>In article <lewchuk.725917952@therien> lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk) writes:
>>Government:
>>2.  Provides basic education and standard of living to children.
>Standard of living, yes, because children are defenseless, but I think
>a strict Objectivist would not necessarily agree that education need
>be provided.

The fundamental principle that "everyone deserves a fair shake to achieve
his/her dreams" also requires that everyone be educated in some way, at
least in terms of social expectations and, to put it bluntly, reality.
History, philosophy, science, and culture are necessary foundations for
any citizen: I fail to see how Objectivism could assume "happy productive
citizens" without at least establishing a foundtaion upon which people can
become happy and productive: education in its broadest sense.  For children
this includes both instruction and "play", since play creates knowledge by
doing and instruction transfers some of the knowledge we have accumulated
over the past few millenia to the student.

>Please don't say that education has only reached its current pinnacle
>because of the valiant struggles of our wonderful government. We're

Actually, I wouldn't have said this.  It's not my opinion.

>only now beginning the long road out of the dark ages of Basal readers
>and neatly arranged rows of docile children in silent classrooms.

That teaching in and of itself undergoes evolution is, well, natural.
Which I think is wonderful.  Also "school" has been reintroduced into the
workplace to increase competition: not only instruction, but seminars,
and teamwork exercise "games".  Personally I think this is a result of our
far better understanding of education today than our understanding of it
(and our social hangups) during the Victorian era.  I still would like to
see schools take such things into account.

>I don't think the distancing of the parents from their children's
>education has done us all that much good.

Nor has distancing teachers and children and establishing an authoritarian
mode of guru-based instruction common to many religions.  But it's the best
we had at the time.  Remember, our educational system comes from times when
the wise ones of the tribe sat down and taught the tribe about their history
and stuff like that.  During the Age of Government (after the Age of Religion,
after the Age of Military Supremacy) it is no wonder that a divisional and
impersonal educational system developed, perpetuated by Government and
Religion.  These two forms had no real reason to make the learning feel
anywhere near equal to an "instructor" since this emphasized hierarchical
power structures which were greatly popular at the time.

>I don't know if we can ever go back; we've been changed quite a bit
>since the late eighteenth-century. But all economic considerations
>aside (people are already addressing it tangentially in this group), I
>think that forcing parents to take an interest in the education of
>their children by having for them pay for it could not help but
>improve the system.  >-Bret Aarden.

Um, they DO pay for it.  Isn't that what taxes are for?  I fail to see how
actually making them pay directly for education will forceably improve their
awareness of the educational system.

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism