Hypothetical Situation: Homeschool

**Feliks** · February 20, 2007, 07:17 PM

A minority family moved to a small, primarily white, community and enrolled their three children in the local public school. Shortly afterward a couple removed their 10 year old son from that school, vowing to raise their child at home. Both father and mother are well educated and qualified to teach their son all that the curriculum requires up through the high school level, but both are also out-spoken white supremacists who in no means seek to make their views private. That said, they have never acted violently on those ideas and promise to give their son a "fair and balanced" education.

You are a member of the town's school board, you fear that the child will be raised to hate without anyone else's views to balance out his education, but you are also aware that the parents have some rights over their son's future. What do you do?

**~~Cassy~~** · February 20, 2007, 07:27 PM

The child has greater rights to his future, and must be exposed to all arguments and more importantly, facts. The child should not be home-schooled.

**Feliks** · February 20, 2007, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by Cassy

The child has greater rights to his future, and must be exposed to all arguments and more importantly, facts. The child should not be home-schooled.

But wouldn't that be discriminatory too? Unless you're proposing a ban on all homeschooling, the parents have promised to provide a balanced education, are you ready to judge that they are incapable to do so because of their social views?

I stand, Advocate of the Devil.

**~~Cassy~~** · February 20, 2007, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Feliks

But wouldn't that be discriminatory too? Unless you're proposing a ban on all homeschooling, the parents have promised to provide a balanced education, are you ready to judge that they are incapable to do so because of their social views?

I stand, Advocate of the Devil.

No, it's not discriminatory, quite the opposite. Obviously if home-schooled the child would only be taught racist views. However, if forced to go to school the child would be exposed to other more respectable views, and then the parents can teach him their warped ones, and the child will unfortunately have to battle over it in his head.

**Feliks** · February 20, 2007, 07:58 PM

Originally Posted by Cassy

No, it's not discriminatory, quite the opposite. Obviously if home-schooled the child would only be taught racist views. However, if forced to go to school the child would be exposed to other more respectable views, and then the parents can teach him their warped ones, and the child will unfortunately have to battle over it in his head.

But you are drawing the line on what are "warped" views, you are sitting in judgment of all the reasons why a parent might wish to home school their kids and deciding which are valid, you are declaring which types of people are capable of raising their own children.

Honestly, I would have to agree with you. But there's something about either alternative that I find unacceptable.

**~~Cassy~~** · February 20, 2007, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by Feliks

But you are drawing the line on what are "warped" views, you are sitting in judgment of all the reasons why a parent might wish to home school their kids and deciding which are valid, you are declaring which types of people are capable of raising their own children.

Honestly, I would have to agree with you. But there's something about either alternative that I find unacceptable.

That's my opinion, yes, but you can't say it's discriminatory. But sending the children to school the children can still be taught their parents views, but these need not be the only ones they know, stunting their growth as people.

**Shaun** · February 20, 2007, 07:31 PM

Well, the parents would have to prove 100% that they would not subject the child to injust hatred, or any white supremacist idea's as that significantly increases the risk that the child will become one. ON the other hand, the parents have rights, so does the child. At 10, you can almost guarantee that the child will have been partially brainwashed, so will choose the parents of the school with the [insert racist word here]. Really, if the child wishes it, and the parents wish it, then we would have to let it be so, unfortunetly.

**Gwendylyn** · February 20, 2007, 07:46 PM

For a large portion of the US, atheists are just as bad as white supremecists. Homeschooling would certainly be my favored method of teaching my children. Quite unfortunate that I'm an atheist, eh?

If a school board decided that a family would not present their child every viewpoint based on their religion, with the vast majority of homeschooled kids in the US being for religious reasons, what kind of outcry do you think that will make? Where do you draw the line between "extreme" and "moderate"?

Thus, my answer would be "The parents have a right to school their kid how they see fit, provided it is legal", the legality referring to neglect, child abuse, and minimum state educational standards - which do not include a specific viewpoint through which to learn history.

In fact, I do believe the school board does not have the right to interfere with a parent's decision to homeschool. Their reaction would have no affect on the homeschooling of the child in question.

**Erich von Manstein** · February 20, 2007, 08:25 PM

A good question has been posed here. Since this is in the ethics forum and not the 'Pit, I'll refrain from debating the right to homeschooling other than to say that the school board (a government entity) has no right to impose its set of beliefs upon the child.

As a matter of ethics, however, this question is much more difficult. Obviously we don't want a child to be brought up in a manner that is contrary to societal norms. Let's face it - white supremacy exists on the fringe of society and was on the verge of disappearing from the public spotlight altogether until the rise of chat rooms and the anonymity that is inherent with cyberspace. At the same time, however, we must look at both points of view. This is easy for me to do; my youth and adolescence were spent in the '90s; I was publicly schooled for the bulk of that decade and bore the full brunt of the political correctness movement as a result. At one point my parents pulled me out and enrolled me in a parochial school for a year because they were worried that I was beginning to believe some of the nonsense that we were being taught. They didn't need to worry; a contrarian and a cynic even at that young age, as well as an avid reader of history, I was relatively immune to the revisionism that was being thrust down our throats on a daily basis. Many of my classmates were not so lucky, however, and continue to be quite ignorant on many important issues to this day.

So what happens when the above situation happens? Anyone who came of age in the '90s (unless they lived in a rural area) cannot deny that education became extremely politicized during that decade. In my case, my parents' fears were valid; many of the teachers felt it was more important to convert fertile young minds to their cause than it was to educate them all evenly, allowing the students to arrive at their own decisions. Suddenly the situation is not so clear-cut as it is in the question posed. Instead of white supremacists, you had two educated parents (my father is a university professor, for example) desiring their son to receive a neutral education, at least until he could reach his own conclusions. Instead of a moderate school board, you had one comprised of a majority of far-left politicians who felt they were saving a secular soul (my parents fought against the system for years before ultimately deciding to enroll me in a private school). It is easy to say that the child in the original question should be rescued from his white supremacist parents. But is it right for an extremist school board to "rescue" a child from his politically moderate parents? Unfortunately, the answer must be the same for both questions, as it is all a matter of relativity. You cannot give one school board the power to overrule a parental decision while depriving another. Further, a balanced school board today may not be so balanced in the future; how would you feel, as a parent, if you were placed in my parents' position or, conversely, the school board in question was stacked with politicians representing the Religious Right? Surely you would abhor the idea of the school board overruling your perogative and exposing your child to extremist ideas? We cannot deprive some parents of that right while granting it to others, since morals change. Values change. Everything is relative to time. Today's progressive ideals become tomorrow's backwards ways. Today you are in the majority, but tomorrow you may be in the minority. Subjectivity will not work here. Only equality and objectivity will, even if that means that a child is educated in a manner you believe to be inadequate, even harmful. That is only your individual point of view, after all, and while you may be imposing it on others today, others may be imposing theirs on you tomorrow if you establish that precedent.

**Erich von Manstein** · February 20, 2007, 08:29 PM

Double post.

**Tecumseh** · February 20, 2007, 08:37 PM

I would allow it. But only because I would want justification to do the following:

I would make it my personal mission in life to make the lives of those racists miserable. I would start an advertising campaign to bring as many minorities(the blacker and browner the better) to the little town and I would harass them by starting an anti-hate march in the town around their house. Haha, evil in a good way.

But honestly, I don't think I would allow it because regardless of the rights of the parents to homeschool their children, I think it would be my duty as a person with power, and more importantly as a decent human being, in this situation to stop this blatant racism(or at least not let it go unchecked).

Lately I've come to my own little conclusion that I will not advocate political correctness(retarded in it's own right), but I will personally not advocate real racism in any form, whether it's in the form of racist jokes or in the form of the situation involving the parents as described in the opening post. Discrimination based upon ones skin colour is one of the most retarded things mankind has ever come up with, and I feel that it's everyone who is not racist duty to help put an end to it any way they can.

**Erich von Manstein** · February 20, 2007, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by Tecumseh

I think I should stress that I am not for PC, I am for removing and/or ridiculing the idea of racial superiority wherever possible.

But that is the entire idea behind political correctness: certain ideas, as decided by a ruling body, are ok (aka, correct). Certain other ideas are not, and it is up to the government (or schools, for that matter) to ensure that those ideas are removed from the marketplace of ideas. Ridiculing ideas is one thing, but removing them is the epitome of political correctness. The ruling body may support your ideas today. If history is any guide, however, your ideas will not receive such support forever and you will find so-called progressives attempting to ban your speech at some point in the future, most likely sooner than later.

**Tecumseh** · February 20, 2007, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by Manstein16

But that is the entire idea behind political correctness: certain ideas, as decided by a ruling body, are ok (aka, correct). Certain other ideas are not, and it is up to the government (or schools, for that matter) to ensure that those ideas are removed from the marketplace of ideas. Ridiculing ideas is one thing, but removing them is the epitome of political correctness. The ruling body may support your ideas today. If history is any guide, however, your ideas will not receive such support forever and you will find so-called progressives attempting to ban your speech at some point in the future, most likely sooner than later.

Yeah, I realised that I contradicted myself with that sentence. Woops

.

I say I am not for political correctness because I associate political correctness with government programs and the like that promote "equality and understanding" and other fairy bull**** like that.

I beleive it is up to the people themsleves to spread the word against racism. I don't think we should start using politically correct terms like "African-American", I'd even be fine with using words like n igger, it's the whole idea of "my race is better" that I think should be eliminated. Not through programs, but by the people.

**Erich von Manstein** · February 20, 2007, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by Tecumseh

I beleive it is up to the people themsleves to spread the word against racism. I don't think we should start using politically correct terms like "African-American", I'd even be fine with using words like n igger, it's the whole idea of "my race is better" that I think should be eliminated. Not through programs, but by the people.

We're on the same page there. As I've been arguing in the "how can we let this happen" thread over in the 'Pit, all ideas should be allowed by the government; society should do the weeding out of the bad ones.

**Hells Bells** · February 21, 2007, 06:45 PM

to refuse home schooling based on their philosophy while allowing homeschooling to others of different philosophy, is a clear act of discrimination and can be prosecuted. The school board has no say in the matter.

**Big War Bird** · February 21, 2007, 10:32 PM

Of course the parents have the right to homeschool their child. It should not be the government right to indoctrinate the people, it should be the other way around.