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At what point does someone step in? at the same time when you tell the children that santa is not real. /s this is what school is for. teaching children to be

by em-bee 1y ago

At what point does someone step in? at the same time when you tell the children that santa is not real. /s this is what school is for. teaching children to be critical and investigate claims no matter where they come from. incidentally, this is the reason why homeschooling is outlawed in germany. to prevent parents indoctrinating their children without the children getting a chance to learn about alternatives.

bilekas 1y ago
> this is what school is for. teaching children to be critical and investigate claims no matter where they come from. This is a really nice idea. If only teachers were paid enough to be able to give their care. In any part of the world.
- em-bee 1y ago
  sadly very true. the point that matters here is that the fact that these people believed in these theories is an indication of the failure of our education system.
madaxe_again 1y ago
That is absolutely not what school is for. It would be really nice if it were, but it is not. School is for creating the next generation of obedient workers - the entire modern model of schooling emerged from the Industrial Revolution in order to produce better factory workers. Claims are handed to you at school as truth. Questioning them will get you detention. Ironically, I am homeschooling my daughter because I want her to be a critical thinker who demands hard evidence for anything presented to her - not someone who doesn’t know which century the Second World War happened in, and that it was maybe the Chinese or the Australians who started it, not sure, but they were 100% bad and we were 100% good. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but these are the educational outcomes where we live, where most kids finish school at 13. I could barely pick my jaw up from the floor when witnessing this debate. I had a handful of teachers who encouraged independent thought - the majority however couldn’t explain or justify what they taught except with a meter ruler or a dunce’s cap.
- em-bee 1y ago
  ok, fair point. it depends on the country and the school. i meant to say: "that is what school should be doing". i have been raging many times on HN how school needs to be reformed. most kids finish school at 13 whereabouts are you, if you don't mind sharing? (feel free to send to my email in my profile if you want to keep it private)
seec 1y ago
That's hilarious. Germany has the complete reverse problem; the indoctrination is largely happening at school. It's probably one of the worst countries in the EU on that matter. It's also an extremely stupid and authoritarian law. The number of parents that would homeschool their children is rather low (as long as school is free) and even if they wanted, they probably couldn't because both parents need to work nowadays. Homeschooling is largely a rich people or alternative people affair, pretending that significant indoctrination can happen there is just a nice excuse to better subject children to the state indoctrination. Also, this article is largely proof that public schooling is largely irrelevant when it comes to made up belief. But I guess we are still stuck in the (very wrong) blank state idea around human behavior/learning/growth. It's not going well.
- em-bee 1y ago
  what indoctrination would that be that you get in german schools? homeschooling can be done by groups of friends. you don't need one parent to stay at home for every family. also many immigrant families in germany only have one parent working. so it's absolutely not just a rich peoples affair. and alternative people are exactly the type that do home schooling to isolate themselves from society. unless i don't understand what you mean by alternative people.
  - seec 1y ago
    Maybe that's not the case anymore or it's not everywhere in Germany, but when I was there in my youth, there was a mandatory religion "course" in gymnasium that was solely about Christianity. If that's not a form of indoctrination we need to re-define the word. I didn't say it was only about rich people and we seem to agree on what alternative people mean. The disagreement is that you think it's bad that those people have their freedom and come up with choices that may be sub-optimal (at least in the short run). Yet diversity of behavior and opinions is not only desirable, it is necessary to challenge the status quo and allow an evolution. Germany in general has a big problem with liberty and this is just one more example of it. Then people get shocked when authoritarian ideals take over in Germany (currently happening by the way). This is clearly a culture problem, something that needs to be changed, yet when I describe the problem, you act as if you are in the right and it's everyone else that wants freedom that are in the wrong...

by em-bee 1y ago

bilekas 1y ago

> this is what school is for. teaching children to be critical and investigate claims no matter where they come from. This is a really nice idea. If only teachers were paid enough to be able to give their care. In any part of the world.

em-bee 1y ago
sadly very true. the point that matters here is that the fact that these people believed in these theories is an indication of the failure of our education system.

madaxe_again 1y ago

That is absolutely not what school is for. It would be really nice if it were, but it is not. School is for creating the next generation of obedient workers - the entire modern model of schooling emerged from the Industrial Revolution in order to produce better factory workers. Claims are handed to you at school as truth. Questioning them will get you detention. Ironically, I am homeschooling my daughter because I want her to be a critical thinker who demands hard evidence for anything presented to her - not someone who doesn’t know which century the Second World War happened in, and that it was maybe the Chinese or the Australians who started it, not sure, but they were 100% bad and we were 100% good. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but these are the educational outcomes where we live, where most kids finish school at 13. I could barely pick my jaw up from the floor when witnessing this debate. I had a handful of teachers who encouraged independent thought - the majority however couldn’t explain or justify what they taught except with a meter ruler or a dunce’s cap.

em-bee 1y ago
ok, fair point. it depends on the country and the school. i meant to say: "that is what school should be doing". i have been raging many times on HN how school needs to be reformed. most kids finish school at 13 whereabouts are you, if you don't mind sharing? (feel free to send to my email in my profile if you want to keep it private)

seec 1y ago

That's hilarious. Germany has the complete reverse problem; the indoctrination is largely happening at school. It's probably one of the worst countries in the EU on that matter. It's also an extremely stupid and authoritarian law. The number of parents that would homeschool their children is rather low (as long as school is free) and even if they wanted, they probably couldn't because both parents need to work nowadays. Homeschooling is largely a rich people or alternative people affair, pretending that significant indoctrination can happen there is just a nice excuse to better subject children to the state indoctrination. Also, this article is largely proof that public schooling is largely irrelevant when it comes to made up belief. But I guess we are still stuck in the (very wrong) blank state idea around human behavior/learning/growth. It's not going well.

em-bee 1y ago
what indoctrination would that be that you get in german schools? homeschooling can be done by groups of friends. you don't need one parent to stay at home for every family. also many immigrant families in germany only have one parent working. so it's absolutely not just a rich peoples affair. and alternative people are exactly the type that do home schooling to isolate themselves from society. unless i don't understand what you mean by alternative people.
- seec 1y ago
  Maybe that's not the case anymore or it's not everywhere in Germany, but when I was there in my youth, there was a mandatory religion "course" in gymnasium that was solely about Christianity. If that's not a form of indoctrination we need to re-define the word. I didn't say it was only about rich people and we seem to agree on what alternative people mean. The disagreement is that you think it's bad that those people have their freedom and come up with choices that may be sub-optimal (at least in the short run). Yet diversity of behavior and opinions is not only desirable, it is necessary to challenge the status quo and allow an evolution. Germany in general has a big problem with liberty and this is just one more example of it. Then people get shocked when authoritarian ideals take over in Germany (currently happening by the way). This is clearly a culture problem, something that needs to be changed, yet when I describe the problem, you act as if you are in the right and it's everyone else that wants freedom that are in the wrong...