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The “I don’t want the government perspective imposed on my children” is so funny to me as a homeschooling argument. Go to schoolboard meetings. Talk to your ki

• MrPatan 3y ago
  What if it's not about missing perspectives, but exposure to infohazards?
  • whynotminot 3y ago
    Explain this more to me. Presumably something so insidious you need to remove your child from even the possibility of being exposed to it. Perhaps, the existence of gay people?
    • mvnuweucxqokii 3y ago
      That's a strawman. The steelman version is something like the following chain of reasoning: (a) gender identity is something that everyone has that is distinct from sex, (b) with enough introspection, everyone can discover their true gender identity, (c) if you don't have a strongly felt gender identity, you need to introspect, (d) if introspection does not yield certainty then this suggests genderfluidity, or even worse that puberty ought be delayed until certainty is achieved. Or how about: an AMAB child playing with a Barbie doll often is strongly suggestive that he might actually be trans. Or how about: values like "being on time" or believing that a math problem has one correct answer are inherently white supremacist and racist. etc.
      • whynotminot 3y ago
        If this is the steel man god help this argument.
        • mvnuweucxqokii 3y ago
          Just to be clear: are you saying the argument is bad because these things are never taught, or are you saying that these things are good to teach actually?
      • 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
        I see your "how about" and raise you a [citation needed].
        • mvnuweucxqokii 3y ago
          That is a fair ask. To be honest, I am unwilling to devote to this discussion the time which would be required to research examples. I will concede that if these things never happened, I personally would find the infohazard argument non-compelling, though others may have their own feared infohazards. On the flip side, if hypothetically these were common ideas animating public school curricula and/or teacher behavior, would you consider that sufficient justification for homeschooling as being discussed here?
          • 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
            When it comes to public policy, I don't find myself particularly animated by hypotheticals. I think we have more than enough on our plate if we just pay attention to things that are actually happening in the large.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • anon84873628 3y ago
        That's not the steel man, that's a straw man where you just flipped the politics of the scenario. Letting kids feel safe to introspect and question their gender expression is a good thing. The implication that kids will be _systematically_ forced to delay puberty or undergo a transition they don't want is absurd and not a valid "chain of reasoning". Yes, I'm sure it has happened and could continue in rare instances because a) there are lots of crazy parents; b) it is a new, trending concept and people like fads. But that is really no different than other types of trauma parents and teachers give to kids across the political spectrum. You're going to have to do a lot more work to prove this is something likely to happen on a broad scale. The fact that gender identity is now something kids are allowed to have means people will interrogate them about it. People may even attempt to coerce them (just like any other beliefs) and kids will likely change their minds over time. The ability to defend their beliefs, resist influence, have role models, receive reliable advice and mentorship, manage their relationships, make serious medical decisions, etc etc is all part of the equation. It's also not that big of a deal or the end of society.
  • kevingadd 3y ago
    As someone who was homeschooled, I'm having a hard time coming up with an "infohazard" I avoided exposure to other than things like "the theory of evolution" or "the concept of sex" or "it turns out 'the slaves were treated quite well' isn't exactly true"
    • MrPatan 3y ago
      My point exactly
    • giantg2 3y ago
      I'd imagine most info hazards come from the other kids and not the curriculum itself. Plenty of crude, incorrect, or even dangerous info coming from the other kids. Not that much different from how Hollywood portrays many topics (drugs, alcohol, sex, legal consequences, etc). So it's likely those ideas would be encountered even when homeschooling, possibly at a lower rate though.
    • rayiner 3y ago
      What about the obsession with sex, sexuality, and dating in American schools, which the adults do nothing to discourage? If I had to identify one reason why poor Asians have vastly higher income mobility than poor white people, that’d be it. We literally have twice the bandwidth to focus on studying.
      • phito 3y ago
        School isn't just about studying?
        • rayiner 3y ago
          That’s where you’re wrong. At least in a capitalistic, credentialist society like America is, school is all about studying, whether you want that to be the case or not: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110505103345.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110505103345.h...
  • unwise-exe 3y ago
    > infohazards That would be, what, harmful social contagions like anorexia? Or dangerous explicit teachings like "the government is your friend"?
• novok 3y ago
  Uh have you even tried that or know anyone who has? If you have issues with the curriculum, its not getting changed. It’s often set at a state or federal level with a lot of committees and politics.
  • whynotminot 3y ago
    I am not suggesting parents change standardized curriculum every time they have a problem.
  • heavyset_go 3y ago
    States set guidelines but Boards of Education choose curricula for their districts.
    • whatshisface 3y ago
      Given how deeply some of those guidelines reach into what's on each test, the curricula are often distinguished by how they describe the same things.
• pfannkuchen 3y ago
  Are you suggesting that a single parent can meaningfully influence a public school curriculum? That is a ridiculous notion as far as I’m aware.
  • whynotminot 3y ago
    I’m saying you as a parent can talk to your kids and provide the missing perspective. I do not endorse the parents of todays worlds almost continuous crusade to change school curriculum in the face of things they disagree with. Provide context or alternative views to your kids where you feel is appropriate. Let them make their own choices.
    • pfannkuchen 3y ago
      Thanks for clarifying. One problem with this approach is that it is purely additive. What if people want to avoid something being taught? Prior to a certain age, children don’t really understand things in a cold and analytic way. The things they are told shape their moral beliefs and personality (which is why religions are always very controlling of schooling). So, they aren’t really “choosing” in the adult sense, it becomes more of a RNG for whether they will pick up the state selected value system or yours. Of course once a person is old enough they can and should be exposed to everything, to build context.
    • rayiner 3y ago
      You can’t raise children as if they’re little adults. They don’t have fully developed frontal cortexes until their late 20s: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-... (“The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions.”). This is science. The very nature of the human animal is that children must be socialized, rather than merely presented information and allowed to make up their own minds: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Y8R8Lo/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Y8R8Lo/
  • 3y ago
• giantg2 3y ago
  "The “I don’t want the government perspective imposed on my children” is so funny to me as a homeschooling argument." I think it's more the bureaucracy (which is a form of government perspective), and in some cases the lack of quality.
• LudwigNagasena 3y ago
  Does that line of thinking only apply to American public schools that teach values you like or would you suggest the same to Chinese, Russian and Iranian parents?
• Spooky23 3y ago
  The point is that there’s no reasonable - folks doing this have deeply expressed beliefs and if you disagree you’re evil. They only sound reasonable when speaking in general terms. I was a school board president of a catholic school that for the most part aligns with state and professional standards and added faith and cultural material not appropriate in a secular school. The kids get a solid education - We got “invaded” by some extremely conservative folks, funded by some organization who sought to move to a curriculum derived from a homeschool program where books centered (exclusively) around classic western texts. In the K-12 curriculum kids weren’t taught about Asia until WW2. Africa and India do not exist. They were also concerned with “woke” issues, like girls being allowed to wear pants. We were able to “beat” them, but it damaged the institution.
  • whynotminot 3y ago
    > The point is that there’s no reasonable - folks doing this have deeply expressed beliefs and if you disagree you’re evil. They only sound reasonable when speaking in general terms. This is such good point about why this conversation is so frustrating. Because in the abstract, if good faith could be assumed, there's a discussion to be had here. GP responded to me here being like "well what if they were Russian or Chinese schools" -- which does make you have to acknowledge "ok fine, if my kid were in North Korea maybe I would be really worried about what the local public school was teaching." And so you get duped into engaging on the merits. And then you dig just a tad deeper and find out that it's never a high-minded debate about pedagogy or state imposed perspective on like the role of the Federal Reserve or treatment of the Native Americans, it's always bat-shit stupid stuff about Creationism, banning woke books, and demagoguing over gays and trans people. It's so depressing.
    • Spooky23 3y ago
      You’re right. Right wing mass movements are never about high minded anything. It’s all lizard brain stuff. Get people angry about blather and they don’t notice their pockets getting picked. The good news is that there’s a history of these type of trends through history, and these movements burn out.
• rayiner 3y ago
  This overestimates the degree to which (1) children are rational beings; and (2) parental influence determines children’s outcomes. In fact, the biggest influence comes from a child’s peers: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/a-matter-of-personality/202301/who-influences-teens-more-peers-or-family https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/a-matter-of-person... That’s why families who can afford it send their kids to private school, where their children’s peers are carefully curated. If you can’t afford that, homeschool is a compelling alternative.
• ddj231 3y ago
  This is far more nuance than I remember in public schools. At a young age there is quite a bit of rote memorization of facts. Sure parents can supplement their child’s education, but at the end of the day the child will be forced to adopt the schools viewpoint on certain perspective as the “correct” answer — or suffer in their grades
• Zetice 3y ago
  Try looking at this through the lens of a Native American parent circa 1880, and you may understand a bit better how these people feel. They’re wrong, but we can have sympathy for them, at least.