Educated: Week 4 Discussion

Recorder: Lauren
Group members: Leslie, Lauren, Cameron, Samantha, Naoto

1. There are some claims about homeschool versus public school made in this Facebook post in August of 2020
as students were set to return to school near the beginning of the COVID pandemic. This post on medium.com
explores Danelishen’s ideas in a lengthier post. Read the post below and discuss: What do you think? Agree or
disagree? Why? Valid arguments? Invalid? Share anything that comes to mind. Relate your answers to your
own experience and/or the experiences shared in Educated.

Discussion Notes:

We agree with Danelishen to some extent. We disagree with

the latter part of the tweet though. Danelishen makes a
couple of good points on how homeschooling helps teach
children how to think for themselves. However, we don't
believe that governments are trying to brainwash children;
instead, governments are trying to educate children who
wouldn't have the motivation to educate themselves. It
teaches children how to participate in democracy. School
also gives a more well rounded education. When you are
homeschooled, it is hard to teach about various different
subjects and cover enough material on each. At home, you
don't really have a specialized person to teach you about the
topic, so you may not get a sufficient education in that
subject. At school, teachers who are specialized in subjects
can truly educate children properly about the subject.
Additionally, in regards to homeschooling, the homes may
not have enough resources to properly learn about the
subjects; they also won't know what they need to learn in
order to function properly in society. Take, for example,
Tara. She didn't know what she needed to learn because her
homeschooling didn't emphasize the education she needed.
She didn't get a well-rounded education, so it became an
insecurity for her since she didn't know what the other
children knew. She didn't know what she had to learn, so she
became stressed trying to learn everything. Tara didn't know what was important. Also, you can't form the
same social relationships at home that you can form at school. You don't get social interactions outside of your
home and community when homeschooled. You also don't really have access to and experience in the real
world when homeschooled because you don't have the same social opportunities as people at school do. At
homeschool, you don't get different political beliefs from the teachers and your family, so homeschooled
children may blindly follow what their parents believe without realizing that their family can be wrong.
Homeschooling, in a way, brainwashes their children to become miniature versions of themselves.
2. James Baldwin, American writer and activist, delivered A Talk to Teachers in October 1963 to New York City
teachers. It was later published that December in the popular weekly magazine The Saturday Review. Within
the text, Baldwin argues that responsible Americans must use education to address injustice in society. Read
the excerpt below and discuss: What do you think? Agree or disagree? Why? Valid arguments? Invalid? Share
anything that comes to mind. Relate your answers to your own experience and/or the experiences shared in
Educated.

A Talk to Teachers by James Baldwin

“Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily
intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of
education in the first place. It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I’m the child’s parent, it is
my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child. Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a
society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for
granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education
occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example,
the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of
the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to
become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of
education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own
decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in
heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way
he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What
societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society
succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as
responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it—at no matter what risk. This is the
only hope society has. This is the only way societies change,” (para. 2)

In summary, Baldwin writes, “I began by saying that one of the paradoxes of education was that
precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your
society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person. And on
the basis of the evidence—the moral and political evidence—one is compelled to say that this is a
backward society,” (para. 19).

Discussion Notes:

Basically, what Baldwin is trying to say is that education is important as it helps to address injustice and help
individuals be critical of society. They shouldn't be too indoctrinated to be a specific way by schools. Baldwin
says that schooling helps students to think for themselves, which is in direct opposition to Danelishen's tweet.
We do agree as school helps teach students to think critically and gives students the basis of knowledge to
form their opinions and think for themselves. The knowledge provided by school helps students to form their
own beliefs and causes them to form views of society based on what they learn. As people become more
educated, they tend to criticize society more, even though their knowledge is based on society itself. This
relates back to Tara, who has grown up in one society. She then inserts herself in a different society, leading
her to become critical of herself and her old society. This causes Tara to be conflicted with herself as she
doesn't know which one she should follow; she grew up in her old society for such a long time that she doesn't
really know what is "correct” anymore. We do partially disagree, however, because certain aspects of
schooling make students think in one way. Take, for example, the ACT. Students have only been taught that
there is only one question, even though, for many questions, there can be more than one answer. Also, in
regarding Tara, instead of choosing to research history, she chose to research historians because she wanted
to know how they came to their decisions and claims. Homeschooling, in some ways, helped her look at her
education in a different way, leading Tara to form different views on topics than the majority of her
classmates.