If you’ve been reading this blog any length of time, you know that:

1. …my father, and both of my maternal grandparents, were teachers, as is my little sister (occasionally). All of them taught/teach/will teach soon in one public school system or another.
2. I have two kids (and spent the better part of a decade helping raise another kid, my stepson)
3. This past two years has seen my ex-wife and I pull both of our kids out of the public school system, after a decade-and-a-half long growing realization on my part that not only does the whole system, despite the best efforts of a lot of very good people, put education behind ideology, but that the very pedagogical model used in public (and most private and parochial) schools functions primarily to teach children that learning is a wretched chore.

Well, school’s started again. And Elder refers us to a piece by Tony Woodlief in Opinion Journal that I agree with as fiercely as I reject it.

Confused? Me too.

Another school year has sprung itself upon us, which is always an occasion for my wife, a former Detroit public-school teacher, and me to remind ourselves why we home-school. Part of the reason, in addition to my wife’s expertise in this area, can be found in Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions,” published 20 years ago. Mr. Sowell contrasted the “unconstrained vision” of utopians, who want to radically improve humankind, with the “constrained vision” of realists, who begin with the proposition that man is inherently self-interested, and not moldable into whatever form the high-minded types have in store for us once they get their itchy fingers on the levers of power. Mr. Sowell’s book has been influential among conservatives for its compelling explanation of the divide between people who want to reshape us–often via large intrusions on liberty–and those who believe that the purpose of government is to protect institutions (like markets and families) that channel our inherent selfishness into productive behavior. It is also a handy guide for parenting.

Parenting.  Yes, indeed.

Schooling?  Maybe not so much.

While some mothers and fathers stubbornly cling to the utopian beliefs of their childless years, the vision of humans as inherently sinful and selfish resonates with many of us who are parents. Nobody who’s stood between a toddler and the last cookie should still harbor a belief in the inherent virtue of mankind. An afternoon at the playground is apt to make one toss out the idealist Rousseau (“man is a compassionate and sensible being”) in favor of the more realistic Hobbes (“all mankind [is in] a perpetual and restless desire for power”). As a father of four sons, I’ve signed on to Mr. Sowell’s summation of a parent’s duty: “Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”

Right. 

But that’s the parent’s job. 

Not the schools’. 

The constrained vision indicates that world harmony and universal satisfaction are mirages. People are innately selfish, and they’ll always desire more goodies. …While the unconstrained worldview teaches that traditions and customs are to be distrusted as holdovers from benighted generations, those of us with the constrained view believe it’s good to make our children address their elders properly, refrain from belching at the table and wear clothes that actually cover them. Mr. Sowell noted that some benefits from evolved societal rules can’t be articulated, because they’ve developed through trial and error over centuries. This reveals the sublime wisdom in that time-honored parental rejoinder: “Because I said so.”

It’s not surprising, then, to see Mr. Sowell approvingly cite Edmund Burke’s observation that traditions provide “wisdom without reflection.” This is lived out in our house by the dictum that parents are to be obeyed first, and politely questioned later.

Fair enough, so far.  It’s something toward which many of us strive… 

That seems oppressive to parents with the unconstrained worldview, who want to nurture Junior’s sense of autonomy and broad-minded reasoning. It’s awfully useful, however, when Junior is about to ride his bike into the path of an oncoming car. Obedience may be a dirty word in progressive schools and enlightened parenting circles, but it saves lives.

In the hands of a parent, authority and tradition are good things.

But when you turn the corner into insisting the schools should have that same authority – and that families and students owe the same kind of “obedience” to the school (and I’m not talking about behavior; I’m talking about blind obeisance to the current system of education), we wheel into the weeds.

Perhaps the fundamental purpose of schooling should be to liberate parents from the necessity of supporting our kids well past our retirement years. But regardless, this notion that humans are inherently angelic, and that it is society that corrupts them, is at the heart of much bad parenting, as well as inept schooling. Rather than help our children develop internal constraints that channel their energy and passion into productive enterprises, we end up teaching them that limits and discipline are for chumps.

Indeed.

But someone please show me, empirically, how the “sit your ass in a chair and learn what you’re told, when you’re told to learn it” model of education benefits anyone but that thin little film of children who, for whatever reason, are wired that way?

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 4:49 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.