In the “Voting with your Vagina” thread the subject of how religious fundamentalist raise their children came up which included accusations of brainwashing, and, in one case, the abolishing of home school. Rather than hijack that thread I thought it might be better to start anew.
While I certainly dislike what religious fundamentalist teach their children about creationism, sexual education, evolution, etc., I cannot honestly refer to what they do as brainwashing. I thought brainwashing might have been used as a sort of hyperbole, in this case perhaps it was, but, in many other conversations, it appears as though people literally mean that fundamentalist are brainwashing their children.
Aside from teaching things that are demonstrably false, I don’t really see a big difference in the way fundamentalist teach their children from the way I was taught in U.S. public schools. Children under the age of 12 really don’t have the same faculties to reason as adults. Is it possible that any educational programs aimed at the young can be described as brainwashing? I was certainly indoctrinated to believe certain things about illegal drugs, alcohol, and the proper way to treat other people. Was I not brainwashed?
I’m just curious about how exactly we define brainwashing children.
Odesio
Well, there you go, though I would add that IMHO it’s not just that it’s false, it’s also specifically intended to steer children away from certain topics/ideas/activities. I personally consider teaching demonstrable falsehoods about drugs and alcohol brainwashing, but it’s much easier to get sex, drugs and alcohol and find out for yourself that you’ve been taught crap vs when your whole view of science & humanity is deliberately skewed.
ETA: the problem with bad/non-existent sex education isn’t that they won’t find out, it’s that when they do, there’s a fair chance it’s too late.
ETA: seriously, I don’t think there’s a real good definition of the term, but there’s a difference between teaching things you don’t like and deliberate lying to advance a social/political agenda.
This isn’t a matter of not liking something; this is a matter of teaching kids lies. And trying to shield them from the truth. And discouraging independent thinking, questioning, or anything that might break down the lie. That’s brainwashing.
I think you have to look at the whole picture. Fundie types that home school are intentionally limiting contact with the outside world, and likely controlling the information available to the kids. They’re certainly not going to present opposing views in any reasonable manner. The teacher also provides shelter, food, clothing, and discipline.
In a more traditional educational setting, the kids are exposed to multiple points of view, or at least have access to diverse opinions. Kids can fact check their teachers through their parents and/or peers, and do not depend on teacher’s approval for basic subsistence.
Brainwashing isn’t just teaching things, it’s not teaching them things. When you deliberately filter the information your child is getting in accordance with an agenda (possibly excepting the agenda “tell them the truth”) then you are brainwashing them - keeping the ‘dirt’ you don’t like from despoiling their virginal minds.
There’s a good argument to be made that modern compulsory education, i.e. public school, is brainwashing. It stems from the Prussian Model
Is this just a question of choosing a brainwashing that most people have already endured, and are thus familiar with and don’t feel threatened by, versus a brainwashing they’re not familiar with and threatens the values which were instilled in them? I’m not sure this is objectively measurable because all schooling is brainwashing to a more or lesser degree and the determination of degree is largely based on the observer’s ideals, which were probably instilled through their schooling. Thus we have a chicken-egg problem with evaluating various schooling models.
Brainwashing involves deprivation and physical abuse in order to get the subject to feel empathy (and hence accept the beliefs of) their captors when then they alleviate those physical conditions (on a basic animal level you will feel kindly disposed towards someone who gives you a blanket after a week in a freezing cell without one). And there is no real evidence of it working in anything but a very short term sense.
Nothing on either side “culture wars” could be considered brainwashing (though if you watch “real life” cop shows you’ll notice the interegating officer always provides a blanket and a cup of coffee for the suspect). Not that I agree with teaching your kids that evolution is a work of Satan, but hey their your kids, you have (within reason) the right screw them up as you see fit.
So apparently all those evil Christian parents are brainwashing their children into … being smart. Heck of a lot smarter than those who attend the public schools where religious education is banned. So those who want to outlaw homeschooling basically want to outlaw good education and make a crummy education mandatory.
As for the claim that homeschoolers are somehow cutting their children off from the outside world, it’s the exact opposite of the truth. The truth is that adults who were homeschooled are more likely to have a college degree, more likely to do volunteer work, more likely to be involved in their communities, and more informed about their daily work, as compared to the population as a whole. In short, homeschooling creates better results all around. Some people may prefer not to admit it, but it’s the truth.
I like Pink Floyd’s another Brick in the Wall as a description of what we are doing to our children when we hand them over to the state to raise.
Scriptures describe man as clay, which God shaped onto works of art, God is Love, so it is love that does this shaping. The other method is to hand your child over to a loveless system to be formed into bricks, which we see the Israelites forced to make in Egypt, and brick (fired clay) is what the Tower of Babble was constructed from. From the loveless system children are taught to conform, to comply so others may step on them and elevate themselves.
But did the studies you refer to control for parental income, education or involvement? You would expect parents with the time, money and desire to homeschool their kids to do a pretty good job.
And kanicbird, schools are not supposed to “raise” children! They are supposed to teach them things. You are really overstating your point there. It also might upset some teachers to say they are “loveless”.
No one denies that homeschooled children do well academically. Actually, let me raise on objection here. You aren’t talking about randomly assigned groups here. Children that have parents motivated and involved enough to homeschool have a huge advantage over the general population. A child with parents that involved is going to perform well above the average in a public school.
The question isn’t how academically well or how social the children are. Its a question of how much exposure and acceptance do they have to ideas outside their parents. In other words, do they believe in evolution, are they accepting of gays, do they have different religious beliefs from their parents, what’s their stance on abortion, sex before marriage, or any number of other social issues.
The fundamental difference between brainwashing and education is about the exposure to ideas. An educated person will be familiar with a variety of theories, even if they have been told that one particular theory is correct and the others are false. A brainwashed person will be exposed to a narrow set of ideas and told that they are right. As a result, an educated person is much more likely to establish their own beliefs whereas the brainwashed person is much more likely to accept their parents worldview.
What good things come from drug/alcohol abuse?
Religious fundamentalists may be crazy in a lot of their teachings but the moral aspects of it certainly don’t harm anyone and they probably have a pretty profound ‘good’ in them.
“Lies” according to whom?
Just because you don’t believe them doesn’t make them lies.
On to the matter at hand, brainwashing. Brainwashing, by my definition, would be the lack of alternatives. Only teaching that white men with blond hair should rule the world. ONLY teaching creationsism.
I am not a religious dude but, the religious tenants really are a very strong base of morality. Why would you NOT want those taught to your children?
Well, brainwashing in the strict sense requires that the person was exposed to something else before, and that you are isolating them from it and replacing it with a new, controlled reality now.
We don’t really ahve a word for what some homeshooling families are doing, which is compeltely isolating their children from the outside world. These kids don’t see television o rthe internet. They are not allowed to socialize with anyone outside their “Home Church” and they very often don’t even see a pediatrician. Many of these sects don’t even think children should be immunized, as God’s will decides whether their children egt sick.
I don’t think that this, whatever you cal it, shoudl be allowed. I think every American should have the right, for instance, to understand how their reproductive system works. Replacing knowledge of one’s fertility cycle with magical thinking about a micromanaging God is neither safe, nor fair.
If a person understands their choices, and makes them, then to the extent that they are harming no one else I think we should stay oput of it. But when children are being raised without choices, I have to say it’s our job to step in and give them the exposure to make their own decisions.
It’s like the Amish Rumspringa. This single tradition compeletely eliminates any charge that the Amish are a cult. Their children are given the freedom to explore and decide for themselves what kind of life they want. The penalties are extreme, it’s true (in some churches they can’t visit or even communicate with their families if they leave) but they are givent he opportunity.
That’s what I’m talkign about here. If a girl is married (to a man, and at a time, chosen by her Father) and pregnant, with no secondary education and little idea of the outside world by the time she is 19 years old, can it be said that her rights to freedom as an American citizen have been protected?
Thank you for point this out, yes God does have some teachers in place to give the love of God to children, God has people (shepherds) at all levels in all professions, so not all teachers is loveless, but the state run school system is designed to be loveless.
As for if schools raise children, I suggest you youtube the video of another brick in the wall (not that they raise them in a good way)
I’m just about 59 years old, and I’ve seen a lot of changes in the overall attitude of society over the years. When I find that my children are more sensitive than I am to racism, sexism, homophobia, drug abuse, alcohol abuse/driving, tobacco use,environmental damage, lack of recycling, etc., I know they aren’t getting it from the street, and they aren’t getting it from me, because they are way ahead of me.
Its either TV or school, but someone else besides me the parent has an agenda to participate in the construction of my children’s brain dervelopment.
Any statistician knows that if you correct for enough variables, you can make any result disappear. I entirely agree that it’s a good thing when parents are involved with education. The more involved they are, the better the results. Logically, then, the best results should come from homeschooling, because that’s the model where parents are most involved. Outlawing homeschooling is simply outlawing direct parental involvement in education, and would necessarily produce bad results.
For children raised in liberal atheist households, are the public schools obligated to expose them to the ideas that evolution is false, that gays should not be accepted, that they should become religious, that abortion is homicide, that sex before marriage is wrong, and to the conservative viewpoints on many other issues? Whatever your personal answer, the answer that’s actually enforced in the public schools on some of these questions is obviously ‘no’. It’s hard to take seriously the claim that public schooling exceeds homeschooling in exposing children to a wide array of intellectual viewpoints, when most people who make that claim also want all alternate viewpoints squelched other than their own.
While definitions of brainwashing are multiplying like rabbits in this thread, public school education meets almost all of them. Lies? Public schools lie all the times. Health class teachings about drugs and alcohol are only the most obvious example. Steering children away from certain topics/ideas/activities? Banning religious education from public schools certainly does that. Limiting access to diverse opinions? That obviously happens in public schools. Just take a look at ALA’s recommended literature for college-bound students. Firstly, all the books were written in the past two decades, so 99% of the human heritage is simply missing in action Second, it has a clear political bias to the left. Though of course public schools aren’t strictly limited to teaching books on that list, it’s a sign of where they lean.
The Wall is, one must admit, a first rate documentary.
However, the equally compelling series of historical analysis, His Dark Materials, would suggest not letting religion take the role of British teachers.
Instead, we should turn to the factual study, Starship Troopers, so that we may be prepared in case humanity ever has to do battle with a race of giant sentient insects, again.