A question: How many people are so attached to being experts at parenting that they would rather see children jobless, unhappy, or dead than educated by experts in a particular field (whether biology or social studies)? Those are the people I worry about, when I imagine a system in which parents/government could decide all the time what their children learn and from what institution. For every parent or official that changes their religion just to get children into the best schools, willing to give up every alliance just to get the tribe’s offspring a better chance at life, and happy to give up their own authority in the name of a growing child’s happiness, there are many, many more who are not so caring and fair, I fear.
Experts in a field are far more likely to want to educate children better BECAUSE the above attachment to beliefs, politics, and authority is not, in their minds, in competition with their care for the children (or, at least, shouldn’t be, if those same things depend upon their knowledge). So, rather than saying we trust business, government, or one’s genetic donors, shouldn’t we be trying to make it so that the best teachers are trusted, period? Or, am I missing the point?
A question: How many people are so attached to being experts at parenting that they would rather see children jobless, unhappy, or dead than educated by experts in a particular field (whether biology or social studies)?
That’s a very odd question because you’re phrasing it as a hypothetical, thus forcing the logical answer to be “yes, being taught by an expert is better than having the child dead”, but you’re giving no real reason to believe the hypothetical is relevant to the real world. If experts could teleport to the moon, should we replace astronauts with them?
So, rather than saying we trust business, government, or one’s genetic donors, shouldn’t we be trying to make it so that the best teachers are trusted, period?
If you seriously believe what that is implying, that argument wouldn’t just apply to education. Why shouldn’t we just take away all children at birth (or grow them in the wombs of paid volunteers and prohibit all other childbearing) to have them completely raised by experts, not just educated by them?
Would it benefit the children more than being raised by the parents? Then the answer would be “yes.” Many people throughout history attempted to have their children raised by experts alone, so it is not without precedent, for all its strangeness. Nobles in particular entrusted their children to servants, tutors, and warriors, rather than seek to provide everything needed for a healthy (by their standards) childhood themselves. Caring about one’s offspring may include realizing that one needs lots of help.
By the way, I did not intend to cut off an avenue of exploration, here—merely to point out that the selection processes for business, government, and mating do not have anything to do with getting a better teacher or a person good at deciding what should be taught. If that does destroy some potential solution, I hope you forgive me, and would love to hear of that solution so I may change.
A question: How many people are so attached to being experts at parenting that they would rather see children jobless, unhappy, or dead than educated by experts in a particular field (whether biology or social studies)? Those are the people I worry about, when I imagine a system in which parents/government could decide all the time what their children learn and from what institution. For every parent or official that changes their religion just to get children into the best schools, willing to give up every alliance just to get the tribe’s offspring a better chance at life, and happy to give up their own authority in the name of a growing child’s happiness, there are many, many more who are not so caring and fair, I fear.
Experts in a field are far more likely to want to educate children better BECAUSE the above attachment to beliefs, politics, and authority is not, in their minds, in competition with their care for the children (or, at least, shouldn’t be, if those same things depend upon their knowledge). So, rather than saying we trust business, government, or one’s genetic donors, shouldn’t we be trying to make it so that the best teachers are trusted, period? Or, am I missing the point?
That’s a very odd question because you’re phrasing it as a hypothetical, thus forcing the logical answer to be “yes, being taught by an expert is better than having the child dead”, but you’re giving no real reason to believe the hypothetical is relevant to the real world. If experts could teleport to the moon, should we replace astronauts with them?
If you seriously believe what that is implying, that argument wouldn’t just apply to education. Why shouldn’t we just take away all children at birth (or grow them in the wombs of paid volunteers and prohibit all other childbearing) to have them completely raised by experts, not just educated by them?
Would it benefit the children more than being raised by the parents? Then the answer would be “yes.” Many people throughout history attempted to have their children raised by experts alone, so it is not without precedent, for all its strangeness. Nobles in particular entrusted their children to servants, tutors, and warriors, rather than seek to provide everything needed for a healthy (by their standards) childhood themselves. Caring about one’s offspring may include realizing that one needs lots of help.
By the way, I did not intend to cut off an avenue of exploration, here—merely to point out that the selection processes for business, government, and mating do not have anything to do with getting a better teacher or a person good at deciding what should be taught. If that does destroy some potential solution, I hope you forgive me, and would love to hear of that solution so I may change.