I chuckle with wholehearted disgust at John Dewey’s assertion in “Private Education Disrupts Democratic Education System” (https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/liberrimus/2017/11/15/private-education-disrupts-democratic-education-system/) that the collectivist values imbued in public schooling’s curricula serve to “[allow] the majority of the population reach their individual freedom”.
Dewey boldly claims that the “encouragement” of parents placing their children in private schools “violates the student’s opportunity to be submerged in various perspectives, cultures, and religions.” I fail to see any violation here; if a student or parent decides that they would rather not engage in an opportunity to be exposed to X or Y, then that is entirely within their prerogative. Johnny here seems to forget that we have the right to pursue our interests, whatever they may be, and are not inherently entitled to them; education, jobs, healthcare, adequate pay, etc. are all commodities — you have the right to obtain these, of course! But you’ll have to earn them. If you yearn for something, you must work hard for it. (Similarly, if an option is as unsavory to you as is Dewey’s argument to me, you could just walk away from it – spend your time striving toward your interests.) The laziness that ensues when individuals feel as though they are entitled to everything is a heavy detriment to the well-being of the country. Rather, the fervor, ambition, and strength of character born of passionate efforts toward self-realization are reflective of both the vitality of the people and of the nation.
Beyond this, encouraging people to enroll their children into public schools is the true evil.
Children are not property of the state — the people responsible for them are their guardians. The government has no place in familial life, since its major and only purpose is to ensure our rights; it is our protective agent, not a separate entity who can extend its own judgements to decide what brand of cereal schools serve and what poisonous propaganda their teachers regurgitate onto our children’s fresh and feeble minds. Schooling, being a commodity, necessitates an intimate agreement made by the parent/student and the teacher deciding the worth of the service. When the government overreaches (whether it be a Federal or National government) and decides what kids ought to learn and what to what to wage their teachers, it nullifies, it destroys, the need for personal agreements because it becomes the one deciding the value! Were anyone entitled by the light of the heavens to any commodities, it would mean that the hard-working endeavors of the individuals providing the services would be given without their deserved cost… I thought you had moved past your adolescence, past slavery, America?
Dewey argues in further perpetuation of slavery, this time, of the mind:
“The state set education system, while separate from other parts of the country, is a broader reflection of the cultural and physical aspects of the given society that each individual who graduates from public schools must assimilate into.”
Individuals are not and should not be constricted by their roles in “society”, because they are people. People’s responsibility is to the self, for acting in accordance to the whims of an invisible collective is a compromise the weak must engage in with total internal dishonesty. Acting in dependence to others disintegrates the sense of self – was America not built on the voraciousness of the individual? If our brightest stars are dulled because of a pressure to conform to the masses, what hope is there for continued intellectual or economic success? The mere thought of forced, or, in Dewey’s terms, “encouraged”, assimilation rattles everything within me, from my sturdy Russian bones to whatever morsel of respect I have left for America, given its tragic Progressive streaks.