tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post113744525493241944..comments2024-02-09T19:44:17.241+00:00Comments on AngloAustria: Hullo Clouds Hullo SkyJack Maturinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00903651577858853608noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137596650753790442006-01-18T15:04:00.000+00:002006-01-18T15:04:00.000+00:00"is it Ok for you to inflict your own views upon y..."is it Ok for you to inflict your own views upon your children?"<BR/><BR/>I don't see it as "inflicting views". I see it as teaching the truth, which must always be acceptable (assuming they are old enough to cope with the truth, emotionally)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137591631122855292006-01-18T13:40:00.000+00:002006-01-18T13:40:00.000+00:00our experience has been that home-educating parent...<I>our experience has been that home-educating parents in London are almost invariably green-left-statist types. </I><BR/><BR/>Hmmm. That's a shame.<BR/><BR/>The law of unintended consequences strikes again, at least in your part of London. Which is why I would never presume to force an educational plan onto anyone's children but my own.<BR/><BR/>Well, hopefully their children will at least be able to think more independently than they otherwise would have. And <I>hopefully</I> then being able to think more independently, they would be more likely to see through the banalities of leftism when they left home. We shall see.<BR/><BR/>I'll just have to hope that UK home schooling seriously undermines the state system education then, which is my number one target.<BR/><BR/>And as long as these parents aren't inflicting their leftism on other people's children, and only on their own, this is a slight step forward. Which I suppose gives us another question, is it Ok for you to inflict your own views upon your children? Who owns children? But I don't think I've read enough to tackle that one, just at the moment.Jack Maturinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903651577858853608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137590985011670292006-01-18T13:29:00.000+00:002006-01-18T13:29:00.000+00:00Au contraire. I take every opportunity to indoctri...<I>Au contraire. I take every opportunity to indoctrinate our home-educated children into the virtues of libertarianism and the evils of the State</I><BR/><BR/>Touché! :-)Jack Maturinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903651577858853608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137589330591789802006-01-18T13:02:00.000+00:002006-01-18T13:02:00.000+00:00"Home schooled children are, I predict, much more ..."Home schooled children are, I predict, much more likely to become libertarians than 'ordinary' school children."<BR/><BR/>I used to think the same but our experience has been that home-educating parents in London are almost invariably green-left-statist types. Whether their children will turn out differently remains to be seen, but sadly I have my doubts. <BR/><BR/>It may be, however, that things are different in the U.S.A. because of the link between home education and religiousity in that country (I tend to think that christian fundamentalist home educators, though misguided in their beliefs, are likely to tend towards the anti-statist side of the spectrum).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137589012280490292006-01-18T12:56:00.000+00:002006-01-18T12:56:00.000+00:00"Parents are able to control the curriculum and av..."Parents are able to control the curriculum and avoid political indoctrination"<BR/><BR/>Au contraire. I take every opportunity to indoctrinate our home-educated children into the virtues of libertarianism and the evils of the StateAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137503103750975602006-01-17T13:05:00.000+00:002006-01-17T13:05:00.000+00:00As I said in the post, I think there's a chance th...As I said in the post, I think there's a chance they'll ban it, and you're probably right, it's probably a <I>good</I> chance. Already, I believe, there are laws in place to fine parents for the non-school attendance of their children. It would only take an extension of this to nail it home, or a court defence based on 'Sean wasn't skipping school, m'lud, he was home schooling a research trip on commerce in the Shopping Mall' to seal it.<BR/><BR/>But look at that number: 150,000 children, and rising. This is easing the numbers pressure on state schools. Imagine the sudden shock to the system if all 150,000 were compsulsorily frog-marched into institutional schools.<BR/><BR/>Some, let's guess 75,000, would attempt to get places in private schools, thus ramping up the costs in this area for all the other private school parents, which would cause a political backlash from people like Labour-lovies Lenny Henry and Dawn French, who send their children to private schools. The other 75,000 would be crammed into the state system, already falling around our ears. This process would hence accelerate.<BR/><BR/>I think the law of unintended consequences could help us here. Home schooled children are, I predict, much more likely to become libertarians than 'ordinary' school children. Hence I would like to see more home schooling. But if they do clamp down on it, this will help accelerate the demise of the state school, due to pressure of numbers and budget overspend and borrowing pressure at the Treasury.<BR/><BR/>Whichever way it goes, it is less good for the state.<BR/><BR/>Aside from the possibility of a FrankenReich ban, my guess is they'll let it ride until it becomes so big they can't stop it. <BR/><BR/>The wisest thing for them to do would be to accelerate a plan for school vouchers, and release some of the restrictions on opening private schools. Lots of new private schools would open, based on government voucher cash, the state schools would be privatized, to also exist on voucher cash, and many of the home schooler parents would move their children back into the school system.<BR/><BR/>The government could then later use voucher cash to introduce tighter controls into private schools. A mass of tax cash would be released from the end of the directly state-controlled system. Children would be better educated and therefore able to generate more tax revenues as adults, and because of voucher control the same brainwashing on the need for the state would still be in place.<BR/><BR/>This would be the smart Machiavellian thing to do. Watch this space and wait for David Cameron to announce the beginnings of such a plan, particularly <I>after</I> the next election if he wins it.<BR/><BR/>But this is all too neat. No doubt the government will cock all this up in some way and make the situation worse for themselves and better for us. Or at least that's my hope. I have great faith in the teacher unions to really make a big mess, as most of their otherwise unemployable members will be out on their ears if the voucher-controlled system was instituted.<BR/><BR/>The current state system may be many things but it is <B>very good</B> at pumping collectivist propaganda into the delicate minds of children. A voucher-driven control of an otherwise private system would lead to much more individualist teaching. So although the current private schools would have less freedom, under vouchers, than they currently have, a fully privatized but voucher-controlled system would create a greater <I>general</I> level of freedom. It would then be up to us to leverage this to help create the libertarian intellectual class that is required to shred Marxist ideology in the general population, and then bring down the state.<BR/><BR/>What's the betting? I think you've hit the future course. It will be a Frankenreich ban, which their lackeys in Westminster will institute without thinking through. The unintended consequence effect will then take over, taking us who knows where, but in a hopefully better direction for us than the state. It certainly couldn't get much worse.<BR/><BR/>With <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/811832.stm" REL="nofollow">one in five UK adults illiterate</A>, I think the time the state's control of education is definitely slipping. We were probably doing better in the 1880s before the introduction of state education. It's time is nearly up.Jack Maturinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903651577858853608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19769829.post-1137497345209611272006-01-17T11:29:00.000+00:002006-01-17T11:29:00.000+00:00I am pretty sure (that's code for "too lazy to che...I am pretty sure (that's code for "too lazy to check just now) that Home Schooling is illegal in certain parts of the Frankenreich (EU to you, perhaps), and I fear that this anomaly will be noticed before long by the powers that be.<BR/><BR/>The anomaly being, of course, that in the UK it's legal to educate your children at home, rather than have them indoctrinated in state-approved institutions.<BR/><BR/>Expect an EU regulation some time soon making home schooling illegal everywhere in the empire. Perhaps it will be framed as a Health-and-Safety measure, to avoid the need for discussion in parliaments, etc.<BR/><BR/>But whatever method is chosen, it will probably happen. Will Blair resist it? What do you think?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com