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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27567 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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I think what you’re getting at, and this is my general impression, is that the bottom quintile or two of parenting is so awful that the public school(and lets be real, very few of the parents who opt out of public school are in this group) system is making up for basic failures and that explains its constant expansion, but that giving bureaucrats more power is just creating potential fuckups and extra paperwork with the top three quintiles of parenting. Honestly the solution is probably tracking the kids and having easy opt-outs. But that’s not going to happen.

If anything I think putting bureaucrats in charge of making sure kids get a minimum of an hour of running around a weekday, instead of that hour being spent culture like many of the proponents of English classes want, is putting much less power in the hands of bureaucrats. Let parents decide what classics their kids read, the schools can just make kids get some active time.

I don't disagree with you, but what you're describing is actually "recess", not "gym class". In any case, having bureaucrats in charge of making kids play games that aren't on a computer because we can't expect the bottom 35% or so of parents to do anything right sticks in my craw much more than having bureaucrats in charge of making sure they're familiar with the western canon. I don't really know why, exactly.

Ideally the PE classes would go over stretching and doing exercises that improve kid's fitness and be overall structured, not just recess.

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