Comments Lounge
Ha! Your unhinged rants are funny.
Yeah, I agree with you about education, roads and cheese, for sure. Not least because kids' basic rights (should) have nothing to do with their parents' (social) power, (economic) ability, OR (internal) willingness to advocate for them.
I don't know what the heck idea you're responding to, though. Not to say it doesn't exist--just that the idea is so foreign to me, I can't follow the reasoning behind a public-school-dismantling perspective.
I mean, is the idea that gov't entitlement programs work against feminism, or that it's antifeminist for education to be one of the gov't entitlement programs we support? Both of those sound like total foolishness.
My guess is that it's, at base, neither. I bet it's more like: I think there is something better than what is, and I want this "better thing" to be mainstreamed as the norm. Which thinking can certainly be classist and rest on a whole host of other unpleasant, prejudiced, or plainly false assumptions, but I wouldn't blame that tendency on feminism (see: school prayer).
I can envision only two types of feminists seriously advocating dismantling public schools:
1. utopian-talkers (advocating the dismantling of public schools within the context of first dismantling both capitalism and patriarchy, which presupposes some broad social welfare values and mechanisms in place and would mean that pulling apart pub-ed wouldn't have any gender, class, and race implications...obviously this would ONLY be true in a utopia, and I can't see WHY somebody hoping to achieve that utopia would *begin* with pub-ed, so it doesn't make sense)
2. those who have conflated feminist support of absolutely all mothers with feminist support of motherhood-as-profession. The ideas from this quarter regularly shock me with their regressive impact (if extrapolating them to *everyone* is even bothered with), but all boil down to some unsupported (and I think unsupportable) right for women - absent the kind of massive social upheaval advocated for by the utopians - to be *only* mothers, to be expected to contribute nothing more than their own children's upbringing to the broader social economy. Which I think is weird not only as a mistakenly "feminist" principle but because it disappears what real live SAHMs DO contribute to (primarily their husbands'/partner's/children's) economic benefit. But their community's, too: imagine if schools and churches and charities had to PAY for all of that "free" labor they're taking advantage of. Our real social values would be a lot more obvious, at least.
Well, anyway. I think a lot of people would consider me a utopianish feminist, but though I can get on board with using postpatriarchal visions as an analytical tool to help identify and deconstruct presuppositions about the way things "have" to be, I honestly don't understand actual policy- or activism- ideas that are based on the assumption that there IS
...no social power hierarchy.
At any rate, I don't think feminism IS ultimately defined by the motherhood-careerists or the social utopians (both of which exist *plenty* in non-feminist affluent circles, both liberal and conservative). It is certainly disheartening, though, whenever and wherever feminism and feminists fall into to the same gendered, racist, classist problems we're (supposed to be) fighting. Definitely.
Don't you feel like sometimes the women who are the biggest proponents of the new feminism are, in fact, 1950's housewives in disguise? They marry men that have "big" jobs where they work ridiculous hours and do little to none of the childrearing, household duties, etc. And their wives? They "understand" because their men work SO HARD that they shouldn't have to do stuff at home. While they stay at home because God Forbid their children should ever see or experience an adult that has different values and different ways of doing things than Mommy does. Mean vicious strangers that are going to rape and pillage any second now. How can you trust them?
It drives me NUTS. It's all so ridiculously fake. I was born in the early 50s and even MY mom had a job/career. I just do not get the whole "we're feminists but we don't trust another soul near our precious children" mentality.
School rules. It's too bad that these women who hate schools without even looking at them, who make the charges like "kids all sitting in rows" without even stepping foot inside a school are raising their children to believe that homeschooling is a better option. As one who has sent her kids to private, public and also has homeschooled (and I'm doing it again for my daughter right now), there is no doubt in my mind that public schools offer the best social interaction, the best education, and the best help for kids with special needs. School isn't perfect, but what is? Homeschooling is FAR from perfect, and it only works for certain kinds of kids. Way too many homeschoolers I've met (and remember, I'm in my second round of homeschooling right now) aren't bright enough to be teaching their kids anything beyond simple elementary school. They're so over their heads it's not even funny, and that's why unschooling becomes so popular with older kids. It's just too damn hard to teach biology, physics, chemistry, trig, and Modern European History at home. So let's just let the kids watch movies and some PBS science specials and call it a class. Ugh.
I'm sorry, flea, but there is more than one type of homeschooling/unschooling moms out there. The ones you rant about do deserve beatings, and that's where I agree with you. However, some folks make the sacrifice of a lower household income precisely because their district didn't provide for their special-needs kid, or other valid reasons.
Um, WTF?
I love you, flea.
Silvermine, I'll bet Google will give you some background info if you haven't heard of anyone touting home-schooling as a means of saving children from the pro-patriarchy, pro-authority public school system.
I'm going to whip out part of my Higher Education here, specifically the part where I researched something, a lot, and that something was public education (specifically teaching/teachers). And? Flea, I'm singing along with you here. I have no idea where that rant of yours started, but there are so many, many versions of it.
And, because I live in the BigCity near where you live, I've seen what happens when the upper/middle classes abandon public schools/ing. It's difficult not to believe in conspiracy theories, because there's nothing that guarantees a permanent lower class mired in poverty and relegated to dead-end service jobs like killing off the school system. Orwellian, I tell you what.
Listen, people, public schools are THE thing--they're the equivalent of teaching someone to fish. And destroying the public schools, either actively or passively, is tantamount to breaking the fishing poles over your knee.
I'm too lazy too google tonight, so I'll admit I'm agog at the notion of feminists advocating the abolishment of public schools, but flea, I'm SOO on board with you here. I don't see how it's possible to consider public schools anything other than a general good, despite the fact that many public schools are doing less than a stellar job; work to improve them, but eliminate them?? god, what the fuck would happen to families, to women, to those kids? Insane.
I followed a link to your blog tonight for the first time and just want to say AMEN! I'll be sure to come back and read more of what you have to say.
I'm amending my comment to say i overcame my laziness and googled, and still didn't really see a satisfactory sampling of feminist argument against abolishing public schools.... any chance someone could provide some linkage?
Nicely put, flea.
I'm fine with supplemental homeschooling if someone doesn't think that the schools are doing an adequate job, but the social interaction alone is worth it. My daughter has several homeschooled friends, and every one of them is a little...off. They seem to lack core social skills.
And yeah, I do think that certain radical feminist viewpoints don't seem to have been thought through all the way.
with the caveat that of course there are exceptions to every rule and many homeschooled kids are just fine, etc..... I'm a speech-language pathologist and at both the school age and preschool level have worked with many families who homeschool their children, and the vast majority are, as Cobwebs said, "off" somehow. Oftentimes the parent's motivation for homeschooling is rooted in some kind of paranoia that is so unhealthy, and in so many cases that parent is barely educated herself (it's always a mom, in the cases I've known). I personally find it frightening that kids can be so subjected to the whims of their parents in that way.
Hella yeah.
Please allow the unhinged rants to spill over more often.
KellyS, I'm honestly not slagging on homeschooling. There was a NYT story about bullying last month, and the featured kid was a 15-year-old boy in Arkansas who was beaten up every day by his peers, and they'd film the beatings and put them up on MySpace or YouTube or whatever. The school isn't helping, and the parents are suing, which of course they should, but I'm all for the parents yanking that kid right out of there for the time being. (Which, to my knowledge, they haven't yet done, and I think that's nuts.) I just don't think all public schools should be closed down nationwide because of it.
And, embarrassingly, in my surfing tonight I actually did find a post by someone who I absolutely adore advocating the dismantling of public schools. Some sort of horrid synchronicity, I suppose. Usually I write my crazy rants on the Notepad and don't publish them. Today I was in the mood to amuse myself by publishing the kind of stuff usually only Steve has to listen to.
I totally understand there are parts of public school that go against any given parents teachings and/or beliefs - the saying of the pledge, bullying, evolution, etc. I myself had a high school fundie English teacher that made us take Bible quizzes on Fridays. This is just one of these arguments that doesn't take into account that homeschooling, for most people, isn't a matter of making sacrifices and doing without certain luxuries. Homeschooling, for many, many people, would lead to homelessness and children who live their lives with no breakfast or lunch. This is such a huge example of class privilege that I get angrier at my own people, feminists, when they don't or won't see that reality.
...but seriously, I'm the only one who's seen this in action? I must be reading some far out blogs! Yikes.
flea, I've seen a couple Twisty posts about the way schools operate to (I paraphrase) break the spirits of children and teach them to be obedient cogs in the system. I see the point, sort of, and can recognize that routine parenting can also be assholish in much the same way. (E.g., saying "Because I said so!" when really, I could ease up and let the kid do the thing he's insisting on.) But Twisty's blog and the comments therein the only place I've encountered feminist arguments against public school.
With No Child Left Behind's emphasis on teaching to the test, no, public education isn't perfect. But even though I'm lucky and could afford to home-school my kid (and am smart/educated enough to know the material), there's no way in hell I could do it. I don't have the temperament or the patience. My kid's an only child, too—so the socialization he gets at school is a huge advantage. The free speech therapy in preschool? Also a huge plus. (When private therapists bill $100 an hour...) School also provides friendships and the freedom to experience things and develop his self outside of the home and away from his parents.
The ones I hear talking about dismantling the public school system are usually republicans, and not so you would notice it feminists.
I am a feminist and I loathe public schools generally, having been tortured (to the extent that I don't find the daily filmed beatings and lack of action to stop them surprising) in them for years.
BUT I vote in every election and I vote to increase funding for public schools, park districts, and libraries, and I think those that don't are idiots. I firmly believe we are all better off if everyone has at least a high school education.
I had planned to home school my children, but my husband, who was a great teacher, has fibromyalgia. The constant pain, migraines, sleep deprivation, and other symptoms has made that dream impossible for us.
Fascinating post flea. I'm not entirely familiar with the sentiment you're responding to, but then I haven't read a huge amount of stuff on the net by homeschooling feminists. The only one I read regularly has never stated a position on public schools.
But this,
http://www.bitchmagazine.org/art.../learning-
curve
sort of related?
I struggle with one aspect of home schooling particularly - women performing yet more unpaid labour in their fight against capitalism.
I do agree with you that any position by feminists against public education is a terribly elitist/classist position to be taking.
Wow. I'm a teacher, flea, and I hadn't heard of it.... though I totally believe it. I see so much of this attitude in conferences, and it makes me sick.
(On a side note, I kind of notice that the type of parent you reference is the same one who generally comes into conferences insisting that her - I use "her" because it's ALWAYS the mom in my experience thus far - child's teacher is an incompetent boob and has no idea how to teach to accommodate her child's strengths/weaknesses. It's getting increasingly difficult not to retort, "Oh yeah? Where did you graduate with some kind of degree in my specialty area? I know I don't teach like your (specialty area) teacher did when YOU were in high school, but that's because THINGS CHANGE. Suck it up and come back when you're thinking rationally and ready to hear why I teach this way, what I've done to accomodate your child and what s/he has *not* done to follow up and do some independent work even though I've given hir the necessary resources gratis and using quite a bit of valuable planning time."
flea - as a fellow parent of a special needs kid, am with you 110%.
Plain(s) Gal, I would love to be able to say that to a parent in a conference. Unfortunately, the trouble that would cause is probably not worth the satisfaction of the looks on their faces when you do say something like that.
Oh, my god, I love this rant. May I confess that I was actually kinda happy that younger son's speech delays warranted him starting preschool a year earlier? Hell, who do I think I'm kidding? I danced down the street.
I love my kids, but if I tried to homeschool them we'd get to about tenth grade and realize we forgot history or some such thing. Just never crossed our minds. Managed to omit a whole subject because nobody in this household can can keep track of anything worth diddly patoot. Also, after about three weeks I would lock myself in the attic and live off dead spiders.
Good for you.
I'm another who hadn't heard of feminists wanting to stop public schooling (and hey, I read Twisty) instead of just changing it for the better. I personally fully support public schools, and spend a lot of time arguing with my coworkers, who nearly all send their kids off to private schools (less emphasis on the home schooling around here). To me this spells the slow destruction of public schools - without the support of the middle and upper middle class - we're going to lose the sense that public education is an unqualified good and watch it slip away.
I guess it would be considered ironic if families grouped together to hire their own general ed teacher for their one-room school house in a desperate attempt to educate their kids... but to me that is just sad.
And while we're at it, why don't we feminists dismantle social security, the National Park system, and public libraries. Because they all just promote the Patriarchy, you know.
The cheese has to go, though. Didn't you read "The Higher Power of Lucky", by Susan Patron? The only way to make it edible is to fry it in bacon grease.
w00t. That's all. Just w00t.
Flea, honey, Twisty isn't a breeder. This is all highly theoretical to Twisty. And I find it hysterically funny that she thinks homeschooling is the way to bring down the patriarchy - she is clearly unaware that the homeschooling movement has been completely overrun by a smug, self-righteous, ignorant narrow-minded dogmatic Christian set who are most certainly IN FAVOR OF the patriarchy. I homeschooled for eight years - I know these people.
They're the ones, by the way, who think developmental and behavioral problems can and should all be solved with physical discipline - spare the rod, spoil the child, don't you know? And Twisty and her ilk have no idea, of course.
That's the problem with these theoretical types - they're mostly talking to hear their heads rattle.
What I am impressed by is what a terrific advocate you are for your kids - and their schools. Keep up the good work.
Hmm.
I say WTF, because I am a homeschooler. I'm not christian (well, okay, we put up a christmas tree in a secular sort of way, but I'm agnostic). I'm not a feminist, I don't think? I was a tom boy, a geek, a whatever, but not like a "feminist".
Spoil the rod? Heh. I don't spank.
I don't want to dismantle the schools, I just don't want to really have much to do with them.
Socially? Yeah, I'm probably odd. I mean, I think reading blogs probably still counts for that. Being a female computer programmer certainly counts as odd. I don't think it's a bad thing though.
I really haven't ever heard another homeschooler jump and and down and talk about destroying all the schools. If I have, I've forgotten it, and it hasn't happened often enough for it to register in my head. Certainly never heard one say they wanted kids to be stupid or go hungry or whatever. Most of the homeschoolers, and republicans, I know tend to do lots of community-involved things to help people.
What a rather nasty unloading of stereotypes though.
I like Tomato Nation's article on feminism. She starts with the definition of feminism from the dictionary.
feminism n (1895) 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests — feminist n or adj — feministic adj
http://tomatonation.com/?p=677
I guess some people think that dismantling society means equality and I just don't get that.
I could make an educated (ha!) guess about where this stuff gets said. I'll just say that clearly you aren't reading well enough. There would be no special needs kids if you just didn't vaccinate or visit the doctor, ate only raw goat milk and quinoa, and dressed your children in undyed homespun organic wool tunics.
Wow.
When you rant, you REALLY rant! I'm impressed!
I also agree with you. Very much. Well said, well ranted and way to go!
Excellent rant about the whole homeschooling thing, but the people I've run into who homeschool are less feminist oriented and more into homeschooling for religious reasons. Which, whatever, to each her own, I guess. I don't get why people get completely bent about public schools. yeah, there's a lot to deal with (NCLB, I'm looking at you), but the thing that bogs down schooling are the benchmark testing that takes up 1/4 to 1/3 of the school year.
As lee, Suz, and Suniverse have said, I've seen a LOT more homeschoolers that were of the conservative, religious, Republican variety.
What strange bedfellows Twisty must be keeping.
I agree that public schools can be very beneficial to special-needs kids. My nephew is high-functioning autistic and he seems to be doing much better since he's been in preschool with the local school district. Both his parents (my sister and brother-in-law) work for the local library system, and it made things a LOT easier.
I will forbear from relating a very long story about my wife and I caring for him before that, and what a mess it was...
Besides, the successful homeschoolers I have met seemed to use the public school system to augment home study. In other words, the public schools presented opportunities they would not be able to do on their own: friends of mine were in the band, or worked for the student radio station.
LOL Brooke.
Thank you, flea, for bringing up single-parenting and class issues. I get sick of screaming about these things in my head. Your ranting was great.
In Twisty's defense, I don't think she's actually espousing what some of you think she is—she's not one to be in favor of women's unpaid labor. I think she's come down more as being against the entire system (just as she is against the entire patriarchy and all its sundry tentacles that govern our society). Some of her commenters respond to her posts about schools by saying that they were glad their parents pulled them out of a bad public school situation, but I don't recall Twisty ever saying, "Hey, everyone! Home-school your children!"
Brava.
I see your rant and raise you with a polemical statement that well-off educated whites who pull their kids out of public schools (or move to "good" school districts) are failing in their duty as citizens and members of the public sphere.
Point one, I am crazy about your blog and am so happy I found you. Point two, I think it's interesting that Twisty's post bothered you so much. I'm with Ruth in finding a strong pro-homeschooling, anti-public schooling sentiment to be pretty rare among the feminist bloggers I've come across. Most of the bloggers I read who emphasize their feminism seem to do paid work, which means they're not personally homeschooling. If you're just talking about Twisty, then you may as well just get pissed at the fact that she thinks women shouldn't bear children. I personally find that more representative of the Twisty point of view than any tangential thoughts she has on the existence of traditional schooling.
But your anger at the hypothetical middle class angry white woman is interesting. I think you're mad because this theoretical person is failing to appreciate how much good public schools do for people, even if the schools aren't perfect. Also, that she's choosing to exit the system altogether rather than helping to change what a feminist would see as needing changing about how public schools work. Eh?
Mmm. This is why I don't rant, I remember now. I get bored too quickly and no longer care. Now all I want to talk about is my genius cat.
P.S. - Seeing as how this conversation has moved over to Twisty, please bear in mind that this was written over a month ago, and leave Twisty out of it accordingly. Actually, Brooke was the one who nailed it.
Now all I want to talk about is my genius cat.
Gah! What is it about the tech-savvy and cat lover stereotypes? Gimme a dog any day!
...I'll stop drifting now.
silvermine, my experience with homeschoolers has been similar to what people here have posted. I certainly wouldn't say all of them share the same motivation and I'm glad you don't. But trust me, they're out there, and just thinking about them kinda makes me angry. The whole idea that you want to shelter your kids from the material and worldly? They want to literally control their children's education to make sure that education is incomplete. The whole point is to make sure their kids don't experience things that would cause them to question their faith. Those parents are intentionally keeping their children ignorant. It is the very antithesis of what an education is supposed to be about.
Brooke was the one who nailed it
Haha! I get a cookie!
I don't know many feminists who want to dismantle public schools. Just the opposite. My feminist friends and I all volunteer like crazy for the local public schools. Which even in South Carolina, where they are terribly underfunded, are generally very good places. Imperfect, with plenty of room for improvement, yes, but still very good.
Academic feminists like the fantastic Martha Nussbaum are also very pro-public schools. So there are definitely many feminists who feel like you do.
A little late to the party here, but just wanted to egg you on. Anytime you want to rant about the glorious concept of public education, please do so.
I'm deep into a umm, disagreement with the administration of our district, but it's all about the same thing. Damned if there shouldn't be a good, free education for every kid in my city. And I'll hang around and fight 'em to get it -- as much for the other kids as mine. Hell, we're going to have to live in the world these kids make someday. I want the people taking care of me in my old age to be happy people with interests and abilities that were encouraged in their public schools.
Ah. Well, if THAT's what you're talking about, I'd say those are just fringe people who are not only very much motherhood-careerists, but pretty much disconnected from ANYBODY's reality that isn't the one in their own heads. I mean homes. But this is all prejudice on my part: I physically can't read the stuff in that place because my eyes cross and steam coming out of my ears. It's like Popeye, only even less funny.
Aside to Brooke: your cookie is made entirely of hemp flour and stevia. So there. :p
"Don't you feel like sometimes the women who are the biggest proponents of the new feminism are, in fact, 1950's housewives in disguise?"
margalit -- Yes. wm
Aside to funnie: As long as it's gluten free.
Home-schooling in the news: Teenage boys who are home-schooled have been charged with abusing a corpse they dug up. They used the skull as a bong.
Public school kids don't do this shit, yo.
Over here from Wacky Mommy.
And YES! American parents have no idea of how lucky they are to have so many options! Public school provides a good, basic education to a lot of kids who otherwise would grow up illiterate and unemployable. I usually live overseas and have my kids in a private school because the public schools there have 70 kids per classroom, and a teacher who only shows up half the time, and beats the kids with a large stick whenever he feels he needs to. So don't complain to me about America's public schools--they are doing okay.
I hadn't heard of this from the feminist side, but if some feminists are so virulently opposed to public school, they seem to have more in common with evangelical religious nuts (who rail against the public schools) than they do with me.
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