Education. A philosophical or political issue ?

Education is an art. The curricula and methodologies should be determined by educators (and a good educator will work closely with the local community).

Politics should stay out of education.

That might be idealistic. If the local community were say mostly fundamentalist Christians, would that not lead to an examination of your phrase "work closely" ?

fresco, are we talking about public schools or all educational factions?

By considering "the bulk" of education we are talking about public schools in the US (state schools in UK). However there are political arguments around private education (certainly in the UK) which we might consider as bound up with the politics surrounding publc education.

Just to expand an example of my last point....those in the Labour Government who are against private education on "egalitarian grounds" have pressurized some Universities (notably Oxford and Cambridge) to positively discriminate in favour of state school applicants with respect to their admissions procedure.

No. I meant what I said.

A good educator in a community of mostly fundamentalist Christians will work closely with the community. An adversarial relationship between educators is not good for students (or parents or teachers).

Working together would mean keeping an open dialog and listening to concerns of parents. Of course the teacher will ultimately decide how to deal with controversial issues in the classroom-- but why shouldn't a teacher listen to parents and work with them to give students the best possible education.

I would also point out that kids in different communities have different needs that only local educators can address. Good education in an urban school is quite different than good education in a rural schools for the simple reason that the kids come with vastly different experiences.

An adversarial relationship between educators and parents and communities is not a good thing for anyone involved.

Okay, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here but what do you mean by "the best possible education" ? Would that mean in the hypothetical case, no Darwin, no sex education, no mention of gays etc ? (Note that UK schools have been recently instructed to provide literature on "same sex partners" for infant readers).

The best possible education should defined by educators, parents and their community (do you see a trend to my argument).

Sure there is a balancing act between local culture and values, and the culture and values of the greater nation or region. However an educators first responsibility is to the students. As the students are part of a local community working closely with the local community is essential.

....and if the local community is parochial in its values to the extent of impeding a child's aspirations (I'm thinking particularly of girls from certain cultures) should the educator raise false hopes ?

In this case (where the educator is part of a local community that is parochial to the extent of impeding a child's aspiration) I would say the education should work with the local community to act in the interest of the children (I feel like I have to keep repeating myself here).

I like the phrase "work with the community" more each time I repeat it. It means first, respecting the parents and acknowledging their role in the upbringing of their children. It means listening to the concerns and goals of the community for its children. Then it means coming up with a program that meets these goals.

Sure there are times when an educator-- or the society at large, will disagree with the parents or local community on what is best for the children. Even in these times I think listening first, then understanding and then working with the community to best meet the needs of the students is the only way forward.

If there are serious issues of disagreement, then you need a respectful dialog which ends with a way forward that is sensitive to the needs, beliefs and culture that the kids are a part of.

Let me turn this around-- in the hypothetical situations you are raising, what do you think a good educator would do? Are you really suggesting that teachers should fight with parents and local communities over cultural issues?

I am suggesting that the "educator" you describe is politically naive . Consider the local community be that of Nazi Germany or the Gaza Strip. I doubt whether your essentially circular argument would be valid unless you are prepared to argue that particular ideology or conditioning are of no concern to the educator. In essence, that would mean either denying a "leadership role", or interpreting that role as that of a disseminator of the pervading political climate.

I am sorry, you are going to have to explain you point more clearly. Your last post really confuses me.

Presumably in your "fundamentalist" Christian example you were implying (and correct me if I am wrong) that the teacher should teach according to national values. If the values or beliefs of the local population strayed from the national party line, the teacher should ignore local values for our shared values as a nation. Do I have your argument correctly?

But than I don't understand why you bring up the Nazis-- which it seems to me is the exact opposite case. In this case I assume you would have the teacher stray from the national party line. Of course, if she did this she would need to support of her local community or her career would come to a quick and tragic end.

And then you bring up Gaza-- and I really don't understand what this example illustrates. It seems to me that in this case where you have a population under extreme stress, cooperation between educators and communities is more important than ever. If the local community doesn't impact the education of their children, who do you propose should?

I am not sure if this type of argument by extreme examples is ever useful. In this case it is downright confusing.

I believe yes, since in democracies a population needs a certain level of education to cast an intelligent vote, so goes the argument.

Foofie, the terms "education" and "intelligent vote" are problematic. It seems to me that even within our current modern democracy in the US, different groups would have quite different ways to define each of these terms.

It seems to me that you are avoiding the issue that you take to be axiomatic...that education is about equiping a child to fit into its particular community. Since "communities" are defined by their shared norms, this involves the concepts of "belief" and "ideology". So the political issue for the educator involves whether he/she shares those norms or not since self integrity in the case of dissent implies that decisions must be made whether to attempt to undermine those norms, or whether to decline a particular job. In either case I would term the decision a "political" one. The extreme situations I raised merely served to highlight the issue.

The above argument pertains to the activity of "educating"with respect to the status quo. But governments have the responsibility of setting educational policy with "national interests". One only needs to consider attempt by government to provide numbers for occupational slots (as in "Brave New World"), or to cultivate "national allegience" to appreciate the politics involved at the macro-level.

My position remains the same. The interests and needs of the local community are more important than the shared values of the nation.

The most interesting case is the first one you raised-- a community of "fundamentalist" Christians in a secular society. This kids have some needs that are distinctly different than kids from a largely non-religious society-- specifically (unless you think that a goal of education is to change a kids religion/culture) you are going to need to give these kids the ability to live as religious citizens in a secular society.

First... you still haven't given me a case where working with local parents and community members is a bad thing. Working with means first listening, then discussing any controversial issues. This discussion should be a dialog, with the understanding that everyone the kids best interests in mind.

The case of evolution is the the obvious example. When I was studying for my education degree-- I had the interesting experience of visiting the Navajo reservation in Arizona. The community leaders in this case were concerned that "Anglo" culture had already drowned out their own culture so much... and now even science educators were imposing more values to replace tradition cultural ideas about creation.

In this case, it seems to me that a teacher who came in with a curriculum already set up-- deaf to the concerns of the parents, would be both irresponsible and ineffective. A teacher who comes in with the message that their parents are ignorant and backwards isn't doing any benefit to kids.

What is wrong in these cases with sitting down with parents and community leaders to come up with lesson plans that met both the need for the importance our country places on secular science while being sensitive to local culture and values?

I am advocating for open dialog.

The solution in many of these cases is for science teachers to teach the science with sensitivity. The kids need to understand the processes and arguments for evolution, no one demands that they reject their parents beliefs or their local culture. There are many great teachers who do just that.

The key for an educator is respect for the community you are serving, and the willingness to listen to and hold respectful discussions with the parents and community leaders.

It is a very bad thing for educators to be in conflict with the other institutions responsible for bringing up children in the community.

Okay, but what I am interested in here is whether...

..is a philosophical position or a political one.

It is a political position.

Yes, I think that is correct, with the proviso that certain ethical value judgements are involved concerning "the good" of individuals and groups.