A common justification for group projects was, "you have to learn how to work with people, even people who will not work." Yeah no, that's not the case. People get filtered through a much finer sieve when they're older.
But that's absolutely the case. You get on a project and someone falls ill or has to take care of someone ill. Or they're shit at their job. Or they're just not as dedicated as you. It doesn't matter if they get fired or accommodated, you have to get it done. You will be punished in some what for not getting it done, whether that is directly or indirectly. Group projects exist in any job with collaboration. You rarely get to choose your group unlike in school and at least proving someone is a slacker has a high chance of impact in school. It's not always the case at all at work.
People discount school rituals, but they happen a lot. Pop quizzes happen all the time within my career. You don't always get to say, "I'll get back to you" as much as we all wish that was true.
(This is kind of a joke, because while the Hengshui school system is much more meritocratic, including in teacher salaries, it's also infamous for a stressful school environment. It's not really a joke though. While there are problems with the long hours, it's definitely better than whatever America has going on.)
> States are saying that schools have to post the 10 commandments
Yeah that definitely seems against the First Amendment (and Texas' equivalent in their Bill of Rights). I feel like the world makes more sense if you read the First Amendment as a treaty between the Christian sects that were executing one another in the colonies for heresy, rather than y'know what it literally says.
> when teachers put up a poster about “everyone is welcomed here” showing kids of different colors it’s “too woke”.
Keep gang signs out of the classroom. In places where university rivalries are high, teachers are also asked to keep ensignia off their doors. It's the same here. "Everyone is welcomed here" (without a cross) is now a callsign for "registered Democrat". Imagine if a teacher put a big "don't trample on me" sign with a snake... I feel like that would send a message other than, "be respectful in class."
> "Everyone is welcome here" is now a callsign for "registered Democrat".
Maybe it's suspicious that this phrase is able to distinguish Republicans from Democrats, but the point isn't the virtue of the parties, it's that it's one of the most common phrases people choose to use to distinguish themselves as Democrats. If you don't want one teacher walking around with a MAGA hat, but don't have the political power to just ban them from schools, you have to make a treaty like, "we'll ban rainbow capes and MAGA hats."
Banning rainbow caps and Pride is completely different than showing kids of different colors playing together holding hands and showing a kid in a wheelchair.
This is the exact poster - even more innocuous than I thought
You have yet to address or even acknowledge the focus of both my comments: this phrase is a common means of signalling party affiliation. I feel like you need to improve in how you approach these kind of discussions, because you're getting nowhere in convincing me when you come across as not even understanding my argument.
If your goal is different, maybe to just socially stigmatize people opposed to worlds you prefer, well I guess you're doing fine with that, but you do see how that's problematic at creating consensus, right? And how, the sane reaction is for me to faux-politely call you a shill or a clown. I don't think this is actually your goal (which is why I deleted my previous reply, it was unnecessarily mean unless this is your goal), I just don't think you've really built up your debate toolbox yet.
Saying we don’t hate people because of the color of their skin was something that conservatives said with Reagan through Bush 2 when he spoke in solidarity with American Muslims after 9/11.
If we ban any symbol that might be used as politics we should ban the American flag in classrooms since that now has become a symbol of the MAGA movement. Defending banning a poster showing hands of people of different colors is just as non sensical - there were no pride colors on the poster, no pro immigration signaling nothing.
I bet you a paycheck they would have banned a multi racial group picture of kids just playing together because it was “too woke”.
In fact, there is a long history of states being triggered showing people of multiple races actually getting along
Talking about the greatness of America has been a theme among Democrats from FDR to JFK, when they spoke about defending and spreading American cultural values like democracy and freedom. It goes back even further to the 1840s with James K. Polk and Manifest Destiny. Banning the MAGA hat in the classroom isn't about political signalling - it's just straight out America hate.
Do you see how silly you sound? Look, here's my issue with you: I've told you my reasons to oppose MAGA hats and welcome posters in the classroom. You refuse to believe those are my reasons. You're calling me a liar, saying I must secretly be withholding some racist motivated reasoning. I get that there are America haters who want to ban MAGA hats, and racists who want to ban these posters. But you're talking to me, not them. If you can only refute people who collectively share two brain cells, then you're probably just wrong on your position.
MAGA was introduced by Trump and is a symbol of Trump. I didn’t argue that they shouldn’t ban “Hope” even though Hope was also something that wasn’t political before Obama. It was clearly partisan for Obama.
MAGA is not speaking to “American greatness”. It’s whining that America isn’t great any more because of among others gays and skinny jeans wearing west coast elite - ie making it great “again”
The idea of America not already being “great” was something that no Democrat could have said. We have been drinking the Kool Aid of American exceptionalism for a century.
If you listen to almost anyone in the MAGA camp, it meant “those evil minorities like the secret Muslim trying to bring Sharia law and those Hatians eating pets took over America and now it’s a crime ridden country infested by immigrants”
You still have yet to actually reply to me and my argument. As I said earlier, you need to improve at this skill if you want to actually convince people their position is wrong.
1. That showing different colored hands raised with a heart in it is “too political” - again they were not holding hands, no Pride symbols (that you brought up)
2. That MAGA isn’t political?
I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m saying that a certain contingent of conservatives have always been triggered about the thought that the US is not just White people and even more triggered with the thought of people of various races getting along. It’s especially prevalent in a post MAGA takeover of the Republican Party.
Neither of those are my position. If you're not trying to convince me I'm wrong, that's fine, just realize that Idaho is a one-party state and the Republican Party has the power there to do what they think is right. The only way to influence that is to convince enough people that banning these posters is not right, which I thought was your goal, but I guess political commentary has its own purpose.
I’m the last person to try to convince racists not to be racists (referring to Idaho politicians - not you). I’ve lived an entire life ignoring them and living my best life. That’s a lost cause.
That’s like trying to convince people that a man didn’t rise from the dead after three days and the only way that he will come back to take them to heaven is if the government protects Isreal - yea that is what evangelicals think.
Hell I had a house built in an infamous “sundown town” (where the outskirts were still conservative but more traditional conservative)
Why? How does this benefit the students, except in understanding allusions in books and poetry? Or is that the goal, in which case, sure, but I think Eastern mythologies should be included too.
Same reason for studying literature, in addition to understanding the pervasive allusions and effects throughout society. And yes, of course; that list was an example, not a comprehensive list.
My father has a PhD in physics and couldn't really teach me math past seventh grade. On the other hand, my father has a PhD in physics and ran out of math to teach me around seventh grade.
I think quality over quantity matters. There was no one at my academic level at the public school, but two lived at my house. If you're worried about social skills, why do you expect an open admissions school to be able to train your children better than a more curated social group? You could say, "I don't trust parents to actually give their children experiences that would be beneficial, because maybe the parents are bigots or something," which like, sure is true. Lots of parents are like that. But they already pretty much have free reign to put their child in the local Bible Bootcamp instead of the public high school, so you're not really preventing this bad thing from happening, but you are preventing a lot of parents who would give their children a better experience than the local vaudeville show.
Yeah, I routinely took classes with students 3–8 years older than me before going to college. "Age peers" are an illusion. However:
1. I mostly only cared about school w.r.t learning. For most kids, school is primarily a place to socialize.
2. If it took you two years to achieve the same level as what took someone else ten years (going with the 2nd vs. 10th grade example from a few comments up), I don't think you're going to get an appropriate pacing by just moving into the same class as them...
I think a solution to fix this moral hazard is to take children away from their parents when the subsidies become too much. But for lots of reasons, society really doesn't want that to happen.
I think that gets difficult when we talk about incidental causes of needing support.
Like let's say there's two parents, the primary income earner dies, there's not enough in savings, so single parent now needs support. I don't think that's anyone's "fault".
On the other hand, we could look at a case where there's a family who's never made enough money to support their kids and keeps having more. You can take away the kids and fine the parents for fraud. (Obviously should issue a warning before this)
But I think that for some parts of this, tying the benefits to the child just reduces the opportunities for abuse. Medical care for children is a pretty straight forward one. You make it universal and the taxes are progressive such that you make it a wash for middle or upper middle income families and a loss for upper income families. So everyone gets the benefits but that creates an efficient system where we don't really need to do means testing on the child at time of their medical checkup. Same thing for something like food programs. Both of these can even utilize the existing schools so we don't need to build new facilities. For food, you just make it so access to the cafeteria is free. Provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Will people abuse the program? Absolutely. Nothing is 100% bulletproof. Will the cost of abuse outweigh the costs needed to avoid the abuse? Probably not. Will the costs of avoiding the abuse outweigh the costs of a child going hungry? Absolutely not.
I think this last part is important to note because frequently the complaints about these systems leverage the fact that the system is imperfect. We then spend years arguing about how to make it perfect (which is literally an impossible task) and meanwhile we leave the most important part of the problem unsolved, causing damage. If we are unable to recognize that perfection is impossible then our conversations just become silly as we love to "play devil's advocate" or "steelman" arguments. That adversarial nature is a very helpful tool for refinement, but it also can't serve as a complete blocker either.
Parents as a group have lobbied to pretty much own their children. It's hard to justify that ownership if the state is constantly intervening for basic things like healthcare, food, and education.
I disagree with this ownership, as it's pretty bad or at least not as good as what the children could have. Think about how few children received an education before the state took ownership. This doesn't mean I don't understand why it is the way it is. A large part of it in America is for religious reasons: "don't teach my children your Satanic ways." But even without religion, most people have ideas about how their children should grow up and don't trust other people to raise them better than themselves. Even if someone is a shitty parent and recognizes it, they still might prefer more control over less control because they care more about being a parent than their children.
I think, moving back to the topic of the state providing childcare, there's also two more reasons this can be bad. Too often, child support payments end up being misused to fund the parent's lifestyle and leaving the children without basic necessities. You can instead just give the children food/clothing/shelter directly, but you kind of have to provide the bigger, stronger adults in their lives the same things. This creates a perverse incentive for neglectful people to have children. They don't care about the children, just the ticket to free food/housing. Second, people who grow up poor have a lot of disadvantages in their future. Do we want to be creating a financial incentive so that a greater fraction of our population grow up disadvantaged? If the state is not cool with eugenics or taking away children from poor people, then poorer people who would otherwise choose not to have children will suddenly find it more financially feasible. Because the tax dollars came from a richer couple, maybe that richer couple now do not feel they can maintain their lifestyle with another child. Of course, you probably end up with more total children, but the balance has shifted and more people in your society will end up in the lower classes.
America has universal public education because it started with the “Old Deluder Act”: the state wanted people to be literate so they could read the Bible.
The exact opposite of your allegation above: “Think about how few children received an education before the state took ownership. This doesn’t mean I don’t understand why it is the way it is. A large part of it in America is for religious reasons: ‘don’t teach my children your Satanic ways.’”
Maybe I'm too tired to write clearly. I meant, the reason parents have ownership over their children (at least in America) is primarily for ideological indoctrination.
There is a presumption at law, however, that parents generally want what is best for their children, and the state has a certain standard it must prove if it wants to claim otherwise. So if parents want to teach their children a certain ideology, that is assumed to be in the children's best interest, unless the state can prove otherwise.
Overall, I'd say most parents want what is best for their children and do their best to provide that.
