Why Does the Anti-School Crowd Lean Left?

[Aureate]

It seems that anywhere youth rights are being advocated, the overwhelming tone is liberal. Often, this means pro-youth proposals are interleaved among arguments for more popular liberal positions.

Why do you guys think that is?

[TheCancer]

I don't agree. The Christian Right is the strongest advocate against compulsory education.

[SoulRiser]

I have no sense of political direction, and will advocate for whatever is the kindest and most respectful towards people's individual needs and hopes and dreams and all that.

Quote:The Christian Right is the strongest advocate against compulsory education.

Also seemingly the strongest advocate for parents rights, possibly at the expense of the children's rights.

[the Analogist]

seems to lean left only because various kinds of injustices are theoretically stopped by an external power, some are stopped by the removal of a power.

dignity in pay means either higher minimum wage or forming a labor union.

a good education either means funding alternatives or... well poor people have fewer options generally.

we want freedom, but the limiting effects of parental wealth, education, and spirit are not helped by that freedom per se.

[Gwedin]

something something radicalism

[xcriteria]

It's a complicated issue; I think part of it is that in a left-vs.-right view of things, the left is generally more socially liberal.

But mainstream left and right overall both seem to be heavily pro-compulsory education. I think homeschooling/unschooling has advocates across the political spectrum, but they are a relative minority.

[the Analogist]

Dan Greenberg attests that all colors of the political spectrum are attracted to the Sudbury model

[xcriteria]

(02-14-2017 11:26 AM)the Analogist Wrote:  Dan Greenberg attests that all colors of the political spectrum are attracted to the Sudbury model

Yeah, I think that is broadly true.

But -- a bit tangential to the OP, but that raises the question, why are Sudbury and other self-directed alternatives so obscure (as in even known about by so few people)? And why, even when they hear about them, are so many people clinging to coercive, factory-model education?

I think that's in part because conventional schooling (or equivalent things done with school-at-home homeschooling) is just what people are used to; it's what many parents experienced, and it's a cultural norm. And in part because some parents are outright authoritarians.

But if political orientation is not the defining difference, why can't self-directed alternatives become more accepted?

[the Analogist]

i wrote about this in my Musings. its because school is an idol we constructed and worship. people dont switch religions so easily.

most atheists in the west still conform to much of what Christianity believes in terms of morality, which is to be expected since Christianity was also made to conform to conventional Roman outlooks.

people dont change religions easily, and often when they do THEY barely change overall as people.