I saw this article — ‘Holy hell’: WaPo lets education experts explain why parents *don’t* ‘have the right to shape their kids’ curriculum’ — which raises the question, why should parents have a right over their childrens’ education? After all, what do parents know? Why not leave it to the experts?
As I see it, there are two issues here. (1) Who has responsibility for the child? (2) Who knows best?
Which reminds me a little of a conversation I had with crusty old grandma one day. She was raising her grandchildren because the parents were gone. Being a crusty old-timer, she spanked them when they were bad. Some social worker (not sure how she was involved) told grandma she can’t spank the kids, so grandma took the kids to the social worker’s office and dropped them off.
“Here. You raise them. If I can’t raise them the way I think is right, then you do it.”
The social worker didn’t bring it up again because (of course) they didn’t have the resources to take care of those kids. And that was just two kids.
The government absolutely depends on parents to raise children. There is no way the government can raise all the kids.
Some people would like that. They think the world would be better if “scientific” institutions raised children, rather than relying on those horrible unwashed masses who believe all kinds of nonsense and don’t know what they’re doing.
But as with so many appeals to “science,” it’s anti-scientific. Those unwashed masses love their children. They can’t help it. It’s instinctual. While there may be exceptions here or there, a child is far better off with its parents — because parents go to stupidly extreme lengths for their kids. (If you don’t understand that, read Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap.)
This is why parents are responsible for their children, because nobody else loves the kids enough to do the job.
But aren’t most people, including most parents, dumb asses?
Of course they are.
And aren’t there genuine experts out there? Like doctors and dentists and such?
Of course. And parents ought to yield their medical opinions to the doctor. Fortunately, most do, and we have ways of dealing with the few who don’t.
Which brings us to the ugly part of this question, which is whether there is such a thing as an educational expert. Do professional educators know anything of value?
It’s very hard to say that they do.
Everyone knows that education is a major for the people who couldn’t make it in sociology. People who are in danger of failing out of science go into science education. It’s a dumb person’s major. Which is not to say only dumb people go into education. A lot of smart people become teachers. But on average, teachers are not the brightest bulbs.
Look at the chart on the page I linked above, or look at the second chart on this page. Notice all the majors with a higher average IQ than educators. “Art history” beats education by a mile, for crying out loud. Even “Communications” is above Education.
I don’t mean to belittle people who go into these fields. Most of them do it for very altruistic reasons. (It’s certainly not for the pay.) But facts are facts. People who major in education are not the smartest people.
Aside from this somewhat objective measurement, we all know that education in America is a disaster, and that most of the problem comes from the “education establishment.” That is, from the people who are supposed to be the most educated among the educators.
What would you think about going to the doctor if doctors regularly scored among the lowest on a chart like the ones I linked to? Would you still consider them experts?
In addition to all this, when ordinary parents — with no special training — decide to take matters into their own hands and educate their own children, they usually do a better job! There are lots of reasons for that — like small class sizes, individual attention, etc. — but the fact remains that no matter how you cut it, the idea that we should defer to the education establishment sounds really, really dumb.
To sum it up, parents care for their children more than anyone else, and educators have not demonstrated the kind of competence that would lead anyone to defer to their judgment. So yes, parents should have a say in their childrens’ education.
I’d agree with your conclusion. Children’s education shouldn’t be the responsibility of educators. Parents have a greater knowledge of the child over a longer period of time and have a vested interest in their long term success and well being. Had it been left up to a teacher my son would not have participated in honors courses during his first year in a new school. Despite the teacher’s initial opinion, he performed extremely well and surpassed her expectations and school standards.
That said, I’m not sure teacher intelligence is a strong argument against educator ownership . Albeit there’s not an abundance of research in this area, a recent research review indicates there isn’t a strong correlation between teacher intelligence and their effectiveness. An excerpt from the review indicates…
At first glance, the pattern of findings is relatively straightforward, as none of the studies found that higher cognitive abilities in the sense of intelligence make teachers more effective. The analyses by Rockoff et al. (2011) yielded no significant effect of teachers’ fluid intelligence on mathematics achievement gains and teacher effectiveness evaluations by external observers. The same was true of the work by Bieri Buschor and Schuler Braunschweig (2018) examining the relation between student teachers’ fluid intelligence and teacher effectiveness (external observer ratings) in a range of subjects, including mathematics and German. Interestingly, Grönqvist and Vlachos’ (2016) auxiliary analyses, in which the authors investigated subjects separately, indicated a negative statistically significant effect of male teachers’ general intelligence on student achievement in English, and a significantly less negative (i.e., close to zero) effect in mathematics. The other study applying a measure of general intelligence showed a small-to-medium (non-significant) negative relation for mathematics achievement growth and a moderate (non-significant) negative relation for reading achievement growth (Hall, 2010). All in all, half of the studies did not show any statistically significant effect of intelligence, whereas the other half reported negative effects.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X19302714
There’s an important distinction to be kept in mind here. One is the intelligence of the people who design the curriculum. The second is the intelligence of the teacher.
QUOTE: A lot of smart people become teachers. But on average, teachers are not the brightest bulbs.
It appeared that you previously referencing teacher intelligence.
That said, given research seems to indicate teacher intelligence doesn’t necessarily make teachers more effective, do we know if curriculum designer intelligence makes them more effective?
It seems like two very different functions. One follows a procedure. The other designs the procedure.
Generally speaking, you design a procedure to work independent of the intelligence or competence of the person implementing it. “Take this widget and connect it to this widget.” Designing such a procedure seems to require intelligence.
Having said that …. This is a slightly different case. Parents aren’t complaining about basic teaching procedures (give a test once a week, etc.), but about the content of the instruction. So it really has a lot more to do with ideology, and it seems likely that ideology has nothing to do with intelligence.
So maybe the relatively low average intelligence of educators is not that relevant.
QUOTE: So it really has a lot more to do with ideology, and it seems likely that ideology has nothing to do with intelligence.
I’d concur. I suspect that’s why parents from both the left and right are attempting to ban books in schools. The interesting thing, when it’s the opponent doing so it’s considered “cancel culture” but when it’s their side it’s considered a crusade to save the youth.
A Texas lawmaker and candidate for state attorney general has launched an investigation into Texas school districts over the type of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or “make students feel discomfort”. Wait…an elected official is worried about students being “triggered”? Wasn’t that the kind of stuff that prompted conservatives to call liberals “snowflakes”? Could this a “slippery slope” towards government censorship?
Oh and don’t you just love that “Big Bird” is now being “cancelled” and called a communist by some conservatives for announcing that he’s gotten vaccinated for Covid-19.