The topic for this debate is "Mandatory public education is necessary for a developed nation.".

dntwastetime will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
skyfloating will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.


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Indoctrination should not be Mandatory

I am convinced that public schooling should be available to parents as an option but most certainly should it not be Mandatory, much less in its current form.

Our current standardized school curriculum lacks true education in the areas most important to life:

1. Mind/Body & Health Education
2. Financial Education
3. Love/Relationship Education
4. Communication
5. Creative Thinking

Instead, our children are indoctrinated into a lot of abstract data they will never ever need for their future lives. Neither will most of them need to know which king killed another king in the year 1342 nor will most of them need to know high algebra. No doubt for some children will this be important...but as the above list shows, priorities are clearly distorted.

Add to that underpaid teachers, outdated methods of teaching, and an increase of violence in public schools, then sending your children to a public school not only becomes unattractive but even dangerous to the development of a child.

The solution is to make certain skills such as writing, reading, basic maths, basic history etc. mandatory, meaning that at a certain age the child must do a mandatory "fit for society" test, but leave the rest for the child and the parents to decide and to have the choice between public schooling, home schooling and private schooling.

Public School may not be a perfect vehicle, but it gets us from point A, to point B. Above post stated a mandatory basic exam. If you give a child a mandatory skills exam, then let them go unsupervised for the remainder of the childhood, the child is still completely at the parents mercy on how the child develops, with no oversight of the remainder of the population who lives within the community. I see children free to do what they wish all day as a way for crime to be perpetrated with less clues to the identity of the perpetrators. With most adults at work ,this leaves the opportunity for crime to be carried out. If a parent would have there child rob someones home while they are at work. The child does not know he is doing wrong, because he was trained robbery is right. It is all perception. Outside Perception is honed in public schools. Mandatory Public Schooling is important, because people in this society have already proven many times over the inability to be left unsupervised with children. I do believe Mandatory Public Schooling protects the child, as well as the community, and as I stated previously, gives the child more opportunity to experiance the world via social integration of youth, and other adults that are there teachers to gain wisdom from.

For freedom of choice and diversity of education

You point out various problems that would arise should we remove mandatory schooling. And I have to say I agree with your points. Children do need to learn other viewpoints than those only provided by their parents. They do need to learn social skills, integration into society and the basics of life.

These are problems solved by mandatory schooling. But they do not outweigh the problems created by mandatory schooling. We should therefore consider solving these problems by other means

The problems created by mandatory schooling are manyfold:

* Parents and children loose freedom of choice in the matter. Should we remove mandatory schooling, most parents will send their children to public school anyway. Why? Because its the cheapest option and because of the points you provided! But at least they would have freedom of choice about it.

* Since schooling is mandatory, schools do not make much effort to be better than other schools. What should they care? Kids are going to come no matter if they perform well or not.

* Since schooling is mandatory, we get a lot of "sameness", something you advocate when you say "synchronization of society is necessary". I strongly disagree with this. I find diversity and the mutual appreciation of diversity a key element to a society that is interesting, creative, prosperous and progressive. Unfortunately we have a "same for all" schooling, ignoring the childs individuality, the parents preferences, and any alternative way of living that does not conform to the standards.

* Your screenname is "dont waste time". As follows from my post above, the specific type of public schooling we have nowdays is a massive waste of time. The poor kids are forced to sit from 8 to 3 and be indoctrinated into societies belief-systems. As education is the cause of what our world looks like today and as our world does not look too good today, something in our schooling system must be flawed. To teach our children according to the same system will only cause more flaws.

And even if schooling should be mandatory, I still have a problem with the word "public". My solution then would be to say, yes, schooling is mandatory, but not public schooling. What is mandatory is education. What is mandatory are basic skills (as already mentioned). The solution is: A number of private schools that are affordable to all and special grants (exceptions) to parents who cannot afford that type of schooling. This will provide us with a great variety of schooling systems (approved by the government) parents can send their kids to.

I think we need to expand our freedom of choice on how long children spend at school, what subjects they study, what the overall attitude of the school is, and so on.

Your claim that a school teaches right from wrong I must contradict. School only teaches what is right vs. wrong according to their specific beliefs, within the limited context of their country, own education and religious upbringing.

Conclusion: Either the word "mandatory" or the word "public" must be removed.

Thank you for the discussion SkyFloating all excellent points made.


From what I am reading, basically we both agree kids should be forced to attend some form of mass comunity school. The name, and how we word it has to change. Yes diversity, and repaving of the peoples/public education system severly needs attention by the collective population. This is the mega issue, People instead of becoming eneibriated, and staring at the TV, should form major discussion groups about there schools, and all the things happening there. Make there kids life TOP PRIORITY. If people would put actual effort, and study into where they send there children, all these problems will be solved by communication, attention, and group scrutiny instead of trusting the school to do it.
The main issue is, parents can't be trusted to keep kids hidden from the world. If people want to keep children concealed for there own gain , they can move to a country where they allow this behavior. Also parents could have many children seperate from outside world in homes doing who knows wha,t with however many children ,who knows what the posibilitys of giving this freedom of choice to adults in the modern world would produce.
The absolute biggest threat from no public school is that parents could abduct others children and no one would know where to start looking.
I do not agree with control over people or there family, unfortunatly they cannot be trusted with concealing children. From this discussion I have discovered Forced Public Schooling its a tough subject to face.

Say No to government enforced conditioning and yes to true education


Well, thank you. Its my first time I am thinking about the pros and cons too and I must say, we have been given a tough subject here....but I think we are both doing fine in looking at it.

I will adress your points shortly. First let me recap what we are talking about here.

"Public Schooling should be Mandatory".

By public we mean "controlled by the government"

By mandatory we mean forced, obliged, "a must".

In slightly different wording your side of the debate would sound like this:

"A child must be forced to government-controlled information"

Sounds ominous, doesnt it?


In your argumentation you rely heavily on the "weird parents", "dangerous parents" point. Mainly relying on this point could backfire on you, because:

Who should have more decision power over a child...the government, or its parents? Saying that parents may be dangerous but the government is better to educate the child I find questionable.


Information & Education form how we structure reality in our minds, how we perceive reality and interact with it. I think it is safe to say that one thing that is wrong with our world is in the way we have been educated. The government ("public schooling") seems to be educating us to be sheep...to be good workers or employees (corporate slaves and robots) rather than self-determined, creative, thinking individuals.

And the way the conventional school curriculum is structured, it is very easy to turn an enthusuastic, energetic child into a dumb and docile yea-sayer. All you have to do is replace self-thinking with info-indoctrination.
So a teacher would rarely ask "What do YOU think?" and more often tell the kids what to think.

So my ranking for who should decide on the education of the child is:

1. The child him/herself (above a certain age)
2. The parent
3. The Government.

According to your posts, your ranking would be just the other way around.

I obviously cannot win debating the pros of government controlled school systems on the worlds top conspiracy website. No offence Sky, my words are being twisted by you for effect, as well I feel as if the topic was unfair considering what this website represents to the to begin with. I do not believe that government alone should control a childs development. There ARE psychotic serial child abductors and, murderers out there who would LOVE the government to not have any control over children. These people are a minority, but they EXIST. Putting kids in school where they belong should be controlled by the mass of parents, and not just the government. I never said the government should control the whole ball of wax. My statements were to the effect that yes kids should be forced to go to school of some sort to have tabs kept by responsible community centered parents.

The Future of Education


Well, no offense to you either. I dont mean to invalidate you or your views, but for this debate we agreed to argue our sides to the best of our ability, right? I admit that on a CT-related website you do have a tough side though.

As for your last point: I believe murders and child abusers should be punished by the law. Furthermore, they should be punished directly rather than punishing parents/child by imposing certain school-times and a certain curriculum on them. Ive never heard anyone say "How do we conquer child abuse? By making public schooling mandatory!" Furthermore, it might be that murderers and perverts are the product of very, very bad education...another reason to re-think our entire schooling system.

When calling for a removal of government-enforced-schooling I ought to offer alternatives. The Future of Education in my view (some points have already been mentioned):

* A certain level of education is mandatory. This level is secured by yearly tests. What is not mandatory is the form and method of schooling. Parents will have a wide variety of choices: Home schooling, public schooling and especially private schooling and affordable private schooling.

* Self-education and the childs and parents choices will be promoted. The Internet will be used as an additional education tool.

* The teaching methods will be more up-to-date. Examples:

More movement rather than sitting all day.
Colourful and interesting classrooms rather than dull and lifeless ones.
Teachers get paid more than warmongers (for example) because we as a society start valuing education more.
More training in basic life skills such as money, mind, body, communication, relationships, etc. rather than
Incorporating the latest discoveries on learning and the mind rather than adhering to 18th-century-style schooling

...and so forth and so on

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Ill make sure I use a cartman avatar next time.

Closing Statement


To my opponent: Obviously you dont like the side you had to take. I enjoyed the debate because luckily it reflects some of what I really believe. Better luck with your topic next time.

To the reader: I have already said everything I want to say on the subject so I will now choose something more philosophical and speculative on the subject. This is pure speculation only though.

As a child I was very aware that there were many things I hadnt been given a choice in. I was sent to school without having any say. I didnt have any say about going to school, about which school I went to, about the subjects being taught, about the teachers, about how class is conducted. As is the nature of a child, I was curious and had many questions, most of which were left unanswered because the teacher either didnt know or didnt want me to "disrupt" class.

As a child it seemed to me like the whole system was set-up to teach me one main lesson: "You do not have a choice. Just shut up and conform".
This lesson was reinforced on a daily basis by the mere act of going to school. When questioning the system I was labeled "a difficult child"

I would prefer a world and a society in which children are given a little bit of choice, or at least the impression/illusion of choice. I suspect this might make them a bit more self-confident and free. But maybe the government doesnt want a bunch of people being raised self-determined and confident. Afterall, who would do the dirty work? The line of society is: "Go to school. Get good grades. Get a job". For some more rebellious souls this is going to look as if their whole life is lined out for them.

I think the Moderator chose a very, very important topic that needs to be looked into not onyl here on ATS but by the whole of society. When I was a child I noticed a lot of very talented children who didnt make it in school. They either got kicked out or they got bad grades. Not because they werent good enough but because they were too good to conform the the norm.

All the best to our children and may they not be labeled as "stupid and unknowing" but given a bit more choice in their own matters. And may a reform of our schooling system speed up.

Results.

This debate was judged at 8:36 Pacific on October 2nd.

The star count is 17-6, in favor of skyfloating. The single judge, who can award 5 stars, also has judged skyfloating to be the winner.

The final count is 22-6

Skyfloating will advance to the next round.

The judge's comments follow

While Dntwastetime started off pretty well, he lost "steam" midway through and essentially gave up...

Skyfloating continued to stick to the debate issue and basically "Stayed the course" finishing in good style...

Shyfloating should have done more with his closing however. If Dntwastetime had stuck to his guns, he may have been able to take the day with a good closing and not worrying so much about which side he had drawn..

I think without a doubt Skyfloating won the day.