A self taught philosopher achieves a level of brilliance you and I will never reach, semck, no matter how hard we try and no matter how much modern education we might go through. Clearly, though, you forget each and every person that history forgets - the humongous majority. How you think that there is nothing magical about even the concept that everyone can receive a fair and impartial education is beyond me. How you forget all of the systems designed to put down those who were not elite in every great empire as well as all of the empires nobody gives a shit about is beyond me. The ones you reference, save a few who, as I said, go down in history as the single most brilliant minds with the single greatest drive to achieve *ever*, were not the whoevers and the whatevers, they were the elites, trained by those before them to do what those before them did. The ones who grew up great were, more often than not, educated in their craft, taught by professionals - who were often also their parents and relatives - to do what they did. Save that select few, they enjoyed the benefits of a system made for the elites that we now enjoy as an entire populace. Everyone has that opportunity now, but to you, that's not magical.

My "cultural myopia" is an understanding that the age we live in is nothing short of remarkable in the scope of world history and that we are far, far more advanced in each of those arts than we ever have been. My "appalling" view is that public education is magical in that somewhere along the lines, we broke through one of the many gates that elitism made for us, the regular folk, over thousands of years of civilization. There are plenty more to break down, but please do yourself a favor and stop putting down the ones who acknowledge how ridiculously primitive a "do as your father does" lifestyle truly is. Public education gives me a shot to be something more than everyone expects me to be and the main hurdle that it has is people like you who continually repress the urge that every young, naive, myopic, and rebellious person has to become what they want to be, not what their lineage or community expects them to be.

When you are afraid that a professional, who has trained their entire lives to teach your child about sex in a unilaterally appropriate way, so that they, like all of their classmates, can come home to you and learn the morals you want to preach to them (and dutifully so), will somehow corrupt your child by allowing them to explore the other choices they have without necessarily sticking to every little guideline you ever set them, you are the one being ridiculous. It is their job, not yours. They know what every organ does. They know how to explain things professionally and adequately so that your children view it as a science, not a right or a wrong. These are things you cannot do. That is why you teach a child to count, read, write, and tell time but leave nuclear physics to the person who is trained to teach nuclear physics. Sex is not as elementary as those things; rather, it is more or less a brand of nuclear physics as far as the overall human experience goes, something that can be explained as a science but only realized in its full value when it actually occurs.

Please stop reading me for some neocon who wishes to enslave the human race under 324,598 different systematic curriculums. I hate systems. I hate being told what to do and how to do it or what to think. I simply realize that the average parent can teach sex as well as the average parent can teach their kid math - just the basics. It's not political.

http://i.imgur.com/EEgfDOY.jpg

@bo
"Public education gives me a shot to be something more than everyone expects me to be"
Fair enough. The breadth of (American) public education does provide training in a number of possible roads that you can follow as an adult. But it also neglects a lot of areas that, depending on what your calling is, may be far more important than solving an algebra problem, dissecting the meaning of a poem, identifying the chemical properties of elements, and all of the associated knowledge that flows from them. I don't mean to say that public education is pointless or too narrow, only that it's selective.

"people like you who continually repress the urge that every young, naive, myopic, and rebellious person has to become what they want to be, not what their lineage or community expects them to be."
The great irony of this statement is that it lacks even a touch of irony. Why exactly is it a good idea to encourage an urge driven by youth, naivete, myopic, and rebellion? Maybe I need to get out more, but I've never gotten the sense that these were useful qualities on which to base decisions, major or minor. I'll grant that "what their lineage or community expects them to be" is not always what a person is cut out for or what they're truly called to and that people shouldn't be forced by others into forms of life that are inappropriate for them. But then again, sometimes people aren't called to "become what they want to be" either, since what they want to be is also inappropriate for them -- and for others. Sometimes wisdom from "their lineage or community" is exactly what they need. Also, paying heed to what your community wants and expects from you is important -- not least because it plays a big part in leading you to a role by which you can support yourself and your family. Last of all, your statement seems to put far too much stock in a person's duty toward himself/herself (which is at best secondary and I'm not sure is overly useful as a foundation for guiding choices and actions) and far too little stock in a person's responsibility toward others (which is primary, whatever role duty toward self happens to play). I don't deny the importance of self-discovery, self-reflection, self-exploration, and so on, but these are, at least in the end, meaningless pursuits if they aren't channeled into helping you take up and fulfill your responsibilities toward others.

And coming from a Christian point of view, I would add that these pursuits are, in the end, meaningless if they aren't channeled into helping you take up and fulfill your responsibilities toward God. What He wants is more important that what you (or I) want. It's also more important than what anyone's family or society wants.

"It is their job, not yours. They know what every organ does. They know how to explain things professionally and adequately so that your children view it as a science, not a right or a wrong. These are things you cannot do."
I think this is one of semck's main complaints. I'm quite sure it's one of Tru Ninja's and mine. I don't WANT a professional teaching my children about sex as a science. Sex INCLUDES the participation of hands, mouths, genitals, and other multi-functional body parts (especially the brain), but it's not primarily a physical experience -- or at least it shouldn't be and it shouldn't be taught as though it is. I also don't WANT a professional who is trained to avoid invoking God's role in sex giving my children their primary education on sexual matters. He/She is going to give my children an inadequate and incomplete discussion of what sex is and should be. He/She may give true information, but because he/she treats it as an entirely personal or interpersonal matter, he/she is never going to be giving more than a (secondary) portion of the truth. The fact that he/she can expatiate about the finer points of sexual contact and sexual consent may all be very interesting, but that's NOT what good sex education primarily consists of.

I don't mean to suggest that sex education needs to be removed from school. Plenty of kids don't have parents or churches who are willing to take up their responsibility to discuss sex frankly and Christianly. And professionals know a lot of information and can provide a lot of useful supplementary material. I do mean to say, however, that the primary job of teaching sex education to my children belongs to me and to my church and that it most assuredly does NOT belong to a professional who is bound and restricted to what can permissibly be taught within a public school curriculum.

bo,

Thank you for the stirring speech. But whatever the advantages conferred upon you by your education so far, reading comprehension is not prominent among them. I made no reference to self-taught philosophers, or indeed self-taught anybody. And, like you, I celebrate the ideal (and partial achievement) of universal education. My post was about the professional, classroom-centered model of education. And even that I am not griping about; it serves its purpose well enough in many ways. I was complaining about your absurd absolutizing of it, as if it is the one way in which young humans can learn, when young humans learned a great many other ways through all of history.

(If the privilege of education was not available to any but the privileged before, that is lamentable; but let us not fail to realize that the education they received was a very great privilege, even though it was typically not attained in the one way you designate as acceptable).

So, anyway, all of the self-praise you express for your opinions is basically irrelevant, and I'll just pass over it. That brings us to the following:

"It is their job, not yours. They know what every organ does. They know how to explain things professionally and adequately so that your children view it as a science, not a right or a wrong. These are things you cannot do. That is why you teach a child to count, read, write, and tell time but leave nuclear physics to the person who is trained to teach nuclear physics. Sex is not as elementary as those things; rather, it is more or less a brand of nuclear physics as far as the overall human experience goes, something that can be explained as a science but only realized in its full value when it actually occurs."

This is such a uniformly inane sequence of sentences that I have to assume you're just saying anything you can to try to win the argument. I certainly lack time to catalog all of the ways it falls short of the standard of sensible thought, but here is a sampling:

1) Virtually every society in history, including ours, has attached moral meaning and rules to sex. It is arbitrary and silly to DESIRE that this be removed from the teaching of sex, no matter how necessary it may sometimes seem in a pluralistic society.

2) Learning the names and functions of a set of organs, and then teaching them to children, is a fairly simple task that any moderately educated adult should be able to do. Few sex educators have degrees in biology, nor should they have to. Like them, other intelligent adults can learn whatever is necessary to teach the subject, and then do a good job of teaching children. Saying that I (or another) "cannot do" this, but only somebody with a degree in education, is outrageous nonsense.

3) You are equivocating anyway. Sex education does not derive its importance from the need to know a great number of biological terms (terms which the children will largely forget anyway, no matter how well taught, so that they'll have to go look them up again when they teach their own children). For example, there is not a special class to teach children the names of the parts of the lymphatic system (though, like many things, this is covered in biology class). Sex is taught because it covers an extremely important -- culturally, personally, ethically -- set of *behaviors,* and it is important that those behaviors, their meanings, their consequences, and how to govern them be well understood by all. That does involve a certain amount of science. But an argument could be made that it's MORE elementary than reading or writing; it's a natural biological behavior that humanity has been engaging in, learning, and teaching about far longer than we've been writing. Yes, of course we want to include a lot of more modern information that wasn't a part of that long tradition, and which we've learned only more recently. But none of it is remotely in the same category of conceptual difficulty as nuclear physics. If you think it is, I suspect that says something about your knowledge of nuclear physics.

I could, of course, go on.

" I simply realize that the average parent can teach sex as well as the average parent can teach their kid math - just the basics. It's not political."

It's extremely political. The "average parent" can decide for him or herself as to the fitness of what they can teach about sex. To suggest otherwise is, necessarily, to insist on substituting your *moral* as well as academic judgement for theirs. Moreover, your statements have been quite a lot stronger. You have said that no parents, but only "professionals" can teach this subject adequately. It is a remarkable and absurd claim.

Also, @bo,

"Please stop reading me for some neocon who wishes to enslave the human race under 324,598 different systematic curriculums. I hate systems. I hate being told what to do and how to do it or what to think."

Just because you hate systems doesn't mean you can't accidentally fight for one. You made clear a couple weeks ago that you consider thinking about how government and society should work specialists' work in which you have no interest. People who refuse to think about so things very easily, like yourself, accidentally support positions that further things they hate.

*such things

"Public education gives me a shot to be something more than everyone expects me to be and the main hurdle that it has is people like you who continually repress the urge that every young, naive, myopic, and rebellious person has to become what they want to be, not what their lineage or community expects them to be."

wow much brave many rebellious so dare wow

And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware of what they're going through.


Reading "On Liberty" by J.S. Mill. Great stuff about generational norms front and center.

Not really sure to whom that's addressed, I'm 3(? maybe 4) years older than bo and still found that post to be sanctimonious nonsense. Nothing about a generational gap...

Nor would I say I'm "spitting" on him, for that matter. I like bo, he's a fine individual who will likely go on to do great things with his life, I'm just taking the piss out of him for a post that was more than a little over the top to me

" Like them, other intelligent adults can learn whatever is necessary to teach the subject, and then do a good job of teaching children. Saying that I (or another) "cannot do" this, but only somebody with a degree in education, is outrageous nonsense."

Wow, i missed a huge amount of this thread.

I would argue for sex ed being done not by trained biologists (little of what they do being entirely relevant to the cultural, and social aspects of sex, in fact nothing beyond the physical, which i have already said is insufficient) I would instead expect to get trained sexologists. It may only be something which has been studied for ~140 years, but it every bit the education you need.

Further, i would claim that not every adult holds a positive attitude towards sex, and most are not able to separate their emotions from the facts. I have done talks on sex positivity with adults, so i know how they react when you ask them to talk about sex...

The issue I have with the secular world discussing it is that no one is devoid of personal beliefs in this area, and in a subject matter like sex, it's difficult to separate personal beliefs from curriculum.
Additionally, there are those that intentionally teach things beyond the curriculum because they feel passionate about their views and they knowingly work to teach their views as factual in order to change the minds of impressionable youth. Keep in mind, kids have an impression that teachers are unbiased and teach absolute truth and the student is there to learn truth. If a student goes against an instructor, it is often viewed as dissent rather than appropriate debate.

Now, if a parent has no problem with the material being presented by another individual, then who am I to tell a parent how to raise their children.

"...it's difficult to separate personal beliefs from curriculum.
Additionally, there are those that intentionally teach things beyond..."

Professionals are professionals and stick to the curriculum.

If you're concerned or paranoid, then opt out.

@Jeff Kuta: I work in the school system and I can assure you that just because someone is trained does NOT mean they stick to the curriculum and separate personal belief from material.

@TN: If that's the case, then there are proper channels for discipline as needed.

@Tru - a good teacher will invite opinions from their student and build on their knowledge (a constructive teaching method) and with a subject like sex where there are many views and what is 'right' the only point where the teacher must step in and correct the students is where something is illegal.

They can also explicitly say that some things are their own opinion, not 'pure facts'. Sure they can back up their opinion with facts if they wish, but a healthy debate is far more useful than telling any group of teenagers the one true conclusion.

That is probably one reason abstinence-only isn't the most effective; it claims that abstinence is the only measure to prevent pregnancy and STIs, which student will know is not true. And it claims some spiritual/moral right - which student will want to test out (even if the come to conclude that they made a mistake, they're still going to try it - just like some teenagers try smoking and/or drinking, because society allows these drugs for adults, so telling teenagers just "No you can't do that until you are 18" is not 100% effective...)

You also want to have an actual discussion (not necessarily a debate) to highlight the fact that different people have different views and you should respect their views - so back to highlighting consent, it is not right to push someone into having sex; and you reinforce student's right to make their own decisions about their bodies. (Which may result is less teenage pregnancy, because peer pressure has less of an effect)

All in all, this idea that teachers can teach one true fact is very negative in my mind.

Because of the moral objections of some, sex ed curricula are heavily legislated by states and/or districts. I think many teachers don't believe in "one true fact" but they have to teach very specific sex ed curricula. This is unfortunate, but that's how it is. You may have students ask questions which take the teacher off message which could lead them away from the narrow path.

Anyway, when politicians get involved, you know the quality of education will suffer. The best is to offer comprehensive sex ed and allow those with objections to opt out. Sadly, this is not enough for some.

Sadly, in the absence of a comprehensive sex education, most teens now learn about sex from pornography. (At least among the 1 in 3 humans who have internet access) which is about as bad as learning history from watching the lord of the rings...

Or, worse, learning about WWI by playing webdip.

I was thinking of 'fantasy' being the commonality. But webdip is more abstraction of ideas and i think a great study of the kinds of choices political monarchs had open to them in the pre-war phase of 1910-1914...

I know it has been used as a teaching tool in many history classes, so i am hesitant to agree...