Post class rant
I'm incensed by some statements made by some of my classmates and since I can't go rounds with them in class I'm venting here. You may wish to ignore this, it's long, annoyed and potentially controversial. Oh, and I don't exactly like the word indoctrination but it's been thrown around willy-nilly by people who don't seem to understand that it has more then a colloquial meaning.
Indoctrination is defined as follows:
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.
2. to teach or inculcate.
3. to imbue with learning
I am swiftly tiring of being told how aweful it is to "indoctrinate" children. News flash my darlings, parenting requires quite a bit of indoctrination. Maybe socialization sounds better but strip off the playground brights and it's pretty much indoctrination and it's the way we raise kids. We're all biased and we pass those biases on to our progeny. Are some of those biases stupid, badly thought out or downright harmful? Sure. Should some go the way of the dodo and do I wish some people were not in charge of shaping young minds? You better believe it. But the conceit that somehow a child can be raised without some definites and that those definites will be provided by their parents is not just silly but willfully ignorant. You don't have to believe in a deity, you don't have to go to church and you have every right to be offended when some idiot tries to scare your child with visions of hellfire because they aren't acting as that person would like. But keep a couple points in mind.
1. Religion is not any more inherently evil then atheism or agnosticism. Winston Churchill defined a fanatic as one who can't change their mind and won't change the subject. That goes for anybody.
2. Whether you teach you teach your children about heaven, nothingness, reincarnation or whatever you think the afterlife to be, you are teaching them your biases. You don't know. At least not in a way that can be verified beyond argument, doubt or just plain onry disbelief.
I am sick to death of the idea that children are little autonomous beings capable of making the same decisions about life, the universe and everything that adults are. They are smart and they are observant and yes, children can be quite insightful. But they require a firm framework, some way to organize their thoughts. Anyone who hopes to be a parent or wants to criticize the parenting of others should resign themselves to the fact that a four year old is not going to be able to handle the full range of ethical, social and personal choices that an adult can, nor should they be expected to. Free choice means something different at four then it does at twenty-four. By the latter age one has had the opportunity to synthesize personal views, experience and gather evidence, something you're hard pressed to do in pre-school.
You can raise an open minded child while still providing them a base with which to judge their experiences. But let's face it, you'll want your kid to judge their experiences in a way that you would agree with or at least understand. No one I can think of would raise their kids the polar opposite of their own views, whatever those views might be. Scratch that, I can think of a couple cases. But even then it's fair to assume that biases will still bleed through. When children ask questions, something almost all of them do, it's not incorrect to present your world view as the most correct of the lot. I would prefer that respect be given to other views and I intend to do so as much as I can but the views I give even passing credence to will be dictated by what I think to be so. In time my kids may disagree with me, as is their right. But it will be because they feel it is time to question, because they perceive issues with my arguments. It will not be because they are unsure of my views or because I have failed to provide them with a stable environment. Stability is crucial to human advancement period but it is of particular importance to the young.
K, I'm done.
Indoctrination is defined as follows:
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.
2. to teach or inculcate.
3. to imbue with learning
I am swiftly tiring of being told how aweful it is to "indoctrinate" children. News flash my darlings, parenting requires quite a bit of indoctrination. Maybe socialization sounds better but strip off the playground brights and it's pretty much indoctrination and it's the way we raise kids. We're all biased and we pass those biases on to our progeny. Are some of those biases stupid, badly thought out or downright harmful? Sure. Should some go the way of the dodo and do I wish some people were not in charge of shaping young minds? You better believe it. But the conceit that somehow a child can be raised without some definites and that those definites will be provided by their parents is not just silly but willfully ignorant. You don't have to believe in a deity, you don't have to go to church and you have every right to be offended when some idiot tries to scare your child with visions of hellfire because they aren't acting as that person would like. But keep a couple points in mind.
1. Religion is not any more inherently evil then atheism or agnosticism. Winston Churchill defined a fanatic as one who can't change their mind and won't change the subject. That goes for anybody.
2. Whether you teach you teach your children about heaven, nothingness, reincarnation or whatever you think the afterlife to be, you are teaching them your biases. You don't know. At least not in a way that can be verified beyond argument, doubt or just plain onry disbelief.
I am sick to death of the idea that children are little autonomous beings capable of making the same decisions about life, the universe and everything that adults are. They are smart and they are observant and yes, children can be quite insightful. But they require a firm framework, some way to organize their thoughts. Anyone who hopes to be a parent or wants to criticize the parenting of others should resign themselves to the fact that a four year old is not going to be able to handle the full range of ethical, social and personal choices that an adult can, nor should they be expected to. Free choice means something different at four then it does at twenty-four. By the latter age one has had the opportunity to synthesize personal views, experience and gather evidence, something you're hard pressed to do in pre-school.
You can raise an open minded child while still providing them a base with which to judge their experiences. But let's face it, you'll want your kid to judge their experiences in a way that you would agree with or at least understand. No one I can think of would raise their kids the polar opposite of their own views, whatever those views might be. Scratch that, I can think of a couple cases. But even then it's fair to assume that biases will still bleed through. When children ask questions, something almost all of them do, it's not incorrect to present your world view as the most correct of the lot. I would prefer that respect be given to other views and I intend to do so as much as I can but the views I give even passing credence to will be dictated by what I think to be so. In time my kids may disagree with me, as is their right. But it will be because they feel it is time to question, because they perceive issues with my arguments. It will not be because they are unsure of my views or because I have failed to provide them with a stable environment. Stability is crucial to human advancement period but it is of particular importance to the young.
K, I'm done.