EDUCATION DEBATE:
TEBYE VS. TOBIN
By Ronald C. Tobin, Editor & Publisher
As I guess that there are some topics worth repeating from time to time, I have decided to go one more round with Mr. Tebye on a topic that has probably consistently brought more debate into my life than has anarchism. That topic being: public education. I hope that this exchange will clear up any misconceptions some may still have regarding my position on this topic. As for Mr. Tebye, he can certainly speak for himself. On to the debate at hand:
EDUCATION: PRO AND CON
By Julian Tebye
E-Mail: [email protected]
Dear Ron:
Increasingly, parents are educating their children at home. With the advent of the Personal Computer, vast avenues of educational material are easily accessible to children. The studies I have read indicate that the home-educated child knows as much as--often more than--the private school educated and public school educated child.
All well and good--but: Parents educating their children at home are invariably themselves well educated. Those children whose parents are not well educated have the same needs as those who come from affluent and/or intellectually rich families. If you abolish public education, where are these needy children going to obtain mastery of at least the basics?
I can well understand your wish to find a different, more egalitarian, method of financing public education, but I insist that abolition is not the answer. Likewise, I can understand your being very critical of the seriously deficient level of teaching. These are severe faults. But, they are reformable. After all, we claim to be trying to create a better society--not destroy it. In all my life, I have met only a single person in this country who could neither read nor write. Abolish public education, and we are very liable to have thousands--even millions--of such illiterates.
It seems to me that it is our duty to ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to gain as good an education as is possible. And, when I write all, I refer to all the children in the world--not just this country.
By the way, the fellow who repaired my computer was very proud of the fact that his three-year-old son already has learned the alphabet, thanks to his computer. I suspect that this child will obtain the greater part of his education at home--on the computer.
IMPROVE EDUCATION: ABOLISH GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
By Ronald C. Tobin
E-Mail: [email protected]
Mr. Tebye, it turns out, has labored under a gross misconception regarding my disdain towards the government schools (which some still choose to call public education. This thread started in the Summer of 2000, when I denounced the .6% Education Sales Extortion Fee (some call it taxation) that the Governor had brought before the voters. Well, that is certainly not so.
The truth is, my disdain towards the 'public' schools took hold while I was in my senior year of high school back in 1979. By that point I had come to realize that public schools were basically places to warehouse children. Very little REAL learning was taking place, most teachers catered to the lowest common denominator. Fortunately I had a view willing to do more, and I know I learned more away from school than I ever did within its walls. My parents challenged me, and I truly did enjoy learning.
Sometime late in 1981 or early on in 1982 I became a public school abolitionist. Two reasons why: 1) I became utterly convinced that government had no business in the education of our youth, therefore it could not justify using extorted ?tax? money to fund them, because since taxation is an involuntary taking, it is truly theft. In 1983, a time in which I was a doctrinaire Objectivist and a very hard line atheist, I told a group of people (I believe it was a Toastmasters gathering) at Arizona State Prison in Florence that I would like to see all the public schools shut down, even if it meant sending children to schools run by churches. As I told one attendee, it is easier by far to deal with the religious hogwash than it is to deal with the mind-numbing barrage of State propaganda.
I have indeed changed my mind over the years on a handful of issues. Politically, I went from being a Republican to a partyarch Libertarian to being a free-market anarchist, to a brief stint as a libertarian royalist and back into anarchism. I used to be in favor of capital punishment, now you would be hard pressed to find someone more opposed to State murder (which is all an execution is) than I am.
Tebye brings up the archaic notion of 'duty.' Quite frankly, this is a word that all freedom loving individuals, from Objectivists to partyarch Libertarians to anarchists of all types should simply take out of their vocabulary. A 'duty' is an act required or expected of you on moral or legal grounds. So, if Tebye believes that is our duty to educate all the world's children, well then we have failed miserably. I say we have no such 'duty' to anyone or anything. Now if, out of compassion, one wishes to make that a goal, I truly have no problem with that, so long as all funding is private, and not from extorted tax dollars.
So, once again, I will outline the educational system that I believe would come to exist in the stateless society. Mind you, this is entirely based on what I believe would transpire. Sometimes, reality has a way of putting a spin on things that would not have normally occurred. I am not attempting to predict future events or cover all possibilities. That said, I would foresee in the stateless society a growth in home schooling. In poorer areas, I would not be surprised to see these home schools become group home schools, where one or more of the parents would teach and the others would buy supplies as needed. I also believe there would be growth in the schools run by churches. That would be a mixed bag, but it certainly can be dealt with. I would also expect that businesses, wanting trained employees for their facilities, would help fund charity schools in the poor areas. Educational trusts (some of these exist now) will become more prevalent, and will help build and run schools across the economic spectrum. For middle class neighborhoods, I think you would see several former public schools become owned and run by the homeowners association. People living in such areas could agree to pay a yearly flat fee to fund the school, or they could be entirely paid for by tuition. The wealthy, such as what would remain of them after the collapse of their precious State, would still have the exclusive schools they always have had available to them. I do not lose sleep over those guys, not at all.
Will there be inequality in education access and quality in a stateless society? Of course there will be. There is no 'fair' way to level the playing field. However, I am convinced that most people have enough interest and would help to see to it that all who WANT an education will be able to get one. I am a staunch supporter of educational trusts, and I like the results I have seen come out of home schooling. Education will take many paths and schools will really become institutions of learning, rather than mind-numbing places where children are taught to NOT think for themselves, to NEVER question authority, and to actually believe the Police State called USA is actually a free country with leaders that deserve our respect. THAT is a system you wish to reform, Mr. Tebye? Sorry, that is simply not good enough, nor is the stealing used to fund it justified in any way, shape or form.
To me, the bottom line is if you REALLY want to learn, you will find a way to make it happen. Education must NOT be compulsory: teachers will tell you that there is nothing worse than trying to teach students who DO want to learn because there are a few there only attending class because the 'law' says that they must.
No, I can not promise a perfect world. I'm only going to say that a world without the State would be a very good one, no doubt with several different communities of interest of different types of anarchists, in fact there would likely be a handful of what are now called micronations. Choice and no more government extortion - sounds quite nice to me! How about you?
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