Conversations - The right to choose your child's education

Here we are again with another conversation. It is pretty tough to find enough time to talk about controversial issues and even more difficult to have this conversation recorded. The past two months we both had many assignments to carry out -I still have some... but now we are back. And since foxie lady's posts concerned education, we soon started a heated discussion that led to this post. If you are interested on the subject check out the videos following the next.


N: I believe in the right of the family to freely choose their children's education, not the state exercising such a right.

F: Yes, but, no home-schooling.

I was once reading about a home schooling case of two girls that were also 'singers' their parents educated them to believe in Nazism...

N: If parents wish to, then I accept this.

F: At least at any public, free entrance school you might bump onto another opinion, someone with different ideas.

N: I agree it is a great risk, but I am 110% against restriction of choice.

F: No honey, there is a reason we study Pedagogics. There is a reason that such a science exists.

Parents cannot become professional teachers -although in most cases teachers are... unworthy of their role. There is also socialization that we must consider.

It is like you are telling me that anyone can do a graphic designer’s work.

N: But teaching should be a family choice, even if parents are not suited to teach. If they wish to choose teachers for home schooling, again I think it is fine.

Actually I would not characterize it as fine but as justified.

F: Yes it should be a choice but not just any choice.

I understand that your logic can apply to some cases (special needs, distanced villages) but I do not think that such an option should get widespread. There is the issue of friends and 'enemies' as well, and generally different voices inside the school community.

The kid should not be deprived of this variety -honey, we live in a society.

N: But the point is not for the state to force socialization but for parents to teach it if they wish.

If the family is distanced from society and finds itself circled by groups that do not welcome them, it is their right to close the borders.

It is their home they live for, not society.

F: If the kid is not taught how a society functions then the child won't become a proper citizen and that cannot be allowed by any state on the world, most of all a democratic state.

People live for themselves, yet they live in a society and for the society at the same time.

If everyone looks out only for his/her self then we will get chaos. Democracy as you may know is based on society's cohesion.

N: I hope not. Democracy is based on different voices with different beliefs, yet equal rights to speaking their choices.

Let me put it otherwise:
I would never accept to send my child to a Greek school, to be taught about Karaiskakis*.

Why should I not call a professor of my choice home, especially in the case that -public- schools are in the worst possible condition.

F: Because schools offer opportunities and experiences that home schooling does not.

The meaning of state on its own means limitation and control; you cannot always leave everything uncontrolled.

Democracy's definition, from my own personal perspective, is this: your freedom stops where someone else’s freedom begins. There are limits. You cannot have people doing whatever they want.

N: Exactly. So here we have a case where freedom of the family is abused. There has to be limitation but we aim for it to be as little as possible, essentially the state should work only for whatever we cannot achieve on our own, e.g. military.

F: What a great example of a proper function…

N: No one has the right to say no to the choice of the family, no matter how many positives a public school may have. At least the way I think about it, it sounds horrible.

F: So, is not the case of a family raising its child to be a Nazi, the most horrible thing for a democracy?

N: It is, but it is a risk that I believe such a society should take.

To other people's minds, our belief in multiculturalism is horrible. If these people consist a majority and the state acts according to their will, having the power you described, then we are going to have a lot of trouble as parents.

We need to have freedom, to act uncontrolled.

F: You have a point. I think the issue is more complex.

The main problem is what is better for the child and the child is "too young" to decide.

What is right and what is not has always been a major problem.



Key words: Freedom, Social cohesion, Homeschooling, Children, Parental control, coercion, Choice, Education.

*Hero of the 1821 Greek revolution against the Turks

to be continued…