Of course the children are made to go their by their parents. I would also imagine that the teachers would step in if a student was just goofing off and avoiding certain subjects. If little Billy loves to read but hates doing math do the teachers just allow him to ingore math? I really doubt it.
Talk to some child psychologist and let me know how many of them believe an 8 year old is ready to live independently.
We currently have a system that works without violating the rights of anybody. Well, at least most of us don’t seem to think that the civil rights of a 15 year old are being violated because they can’t vote or enter into contracts. You just haven’t offered any compelling reason to change. Unfortunately being treated like a kid when you were a kid isn’t a good enough reason.
This strikes me as sufficiently compelling. Any parallels you have drawn between civil rights or equal rights and youth rights are rendered toothless by this fact. Race (insofar as such a construct exists) does not change over time, nor does sex.
As you yourself have previously admitted, there is a point in life where human beings are incapable of caring for themselves and making choices. You want to set the barrier for moving from “youth” to “adult” in a different way than the current one. The burden of proof that this needs to be done is on you. Further, demonstrating that this change does in fact deliver a better solution at a cost that is reasonable to society as a whole is also your responsibility.
Thus far, you have failed to demonstrate either of these things. You have demonstrated that you have significant rhetorical skills and profound dedication to your cause. But rhetoric and dedication do not equal proof of your point.
I don’t doubt it at all. I urge you to read their site, particularly the FAQ, but also pages like this one. It seems quite clear that adults at SVS are not there to act as teachers or require kids to study certain subjects. You’ll find quotes like these:
– There is no way that the staff at Sudbury Valley wants our school to be even remotely associated with the notion that the curricular areas preferred today by other schools have any special value or significance within the total range of subject matter that children or adults can find interesting and absorbing. It is for this reason, more than any other, that the staff carefully avoids encouraging any slight signals given by children at the school that indicate that they want the comfort of tuning into the standard fare, to reassure themselves somehow that they too are “taking” the right “courses”.
– We have adults. They’re called “staff members” and they do sometimes teach, as do many of the kids, but their main purpose is to be here as resources, as people who help make sure the school is running properly, and as role models for what it’s like to be a grownup. Hopefully we’re okay at being grownups.
– Recently, a guest came to the school, and he said, “Oh, I knew someone from this school once,” – this person was a teacher – “I tutored him in math. He had graduated from your school and yet he knew very little math and he wanted to take the SAT’s. But within six weeks, he had learned everything I had to teach him.” That speaks to motivation. This child was not interested in learning math until he needed it for the SAT’s and when he needed it for the SAT’s, he learned it quickly.
– Part of what children enjoy about Sudbury Valley is their ability to interact with adults as people, rather than as authority figures or “teachers”.
– [Some parents] also often don’t agree with us that “suggesting” things to learn to their children constitutes pressuring their children, and that it is not in harmony with the school’s approach to education.
Did I say an 8 year old is ready to live independently? (No, I did not.)
Sure. It’s easy to make any system work without violating “anybody’s” rights as long as you get to choose whose rights to recognize.
I don’t see anything special about the fact that one changes over time and the other can’t (except through surgery). I mean, you can come up with something unique about any criterion you use to separate people into groups. Age always changes over time, religion can be changed at any time, sex is determined by random chance, race barely even exists, and so on. Those statements might be true, but they don’t prove anything on their own.
You’re certainly free to believe that “changes over time” justifies discrimination in a way that “depends on random chance” and “can be changed at any time” do not, but don’t expect to convince anyone just by asserting so. I think this thread proves how hard it is to convince people with mere assertions.
I don’t think this is an issue where the burden of proof is meaningful. It’s a moral issue. I can’t prove age discrimination is wrong any more than I could prove that sexism or murder are wrong - at some point, any proof depends on sharing certain common beliefs. The best I can do is narrow it down to exactly which beliefs separate me from the supporters of age restrictions.
How is proving your point not meaningful? If you want to change the status quo, you need to make the case for change. If you’re not willing to do so, then is this really a debate or should we be in IMHO?
I think I’ve made my case pretty well, actually, but this isn’t a factual issue to be proved with some handful of cites. If you disagree with the fundamental values I hold dear, you aren’t going to be persuaded by the case I’ve made based on those values. OTOH, I’m not going to be persuaded by yours either, for the same reason. We can point out flaws in each other’s arguments and criticisms, but we can’t change each other’s basic moral priorities.
As for whether this belongs in GD… you don’t need proof to have a debate. There have been plenty of great threads here that focused on philosophical arguments rather than logical proofs - in fact, looking at the GD thread index right now, I doubt that more than a few of the recent threads are about a question that can be proved either way.
There’s a difference between “proof” and “evidence”–if you don’t care to offer evidence beyond “Well, I think so” this isn’t a debate at all, and I will personally thank you to label future rants, screeds, and outburst of unsupportable opinions accordingly.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of evidence would you expect to see for, or against, basic statements of subjective moral beliefs like “people should be treated as individuals” or “people who are competent to make decisions about their own lives should be allowed to do so”? A survey testing the popularity of those beliefs? A signed affadavit from God Himself? Do you see why asking for “evidence” in a debate about whose rights should be respected is silly?
Some have already hinted at it, but the key question to be posed to Mr.2001 is “What is the alternative???”
**Of course ** any delineation by age is arbitrary. **Of course ** some 16-year olds are better-suited than some 24-year olds to make life-altering decisions. So what?
The key question is: What is your alternative?
To say, “I would make a test,” that tests “maturity” is simply not enough.
If an all-knowing, all-seeing Supreme Being devised and passed down from on high a fool-proof test that determined “maturity,” and separated the enlightened young’uns from the majority of their peers, casting their elder, more ignorant counterparts from the pool of self-determination, YES, that would be a better system.
Unfortunately, such a God does not exist, and we are forced to draw lines ourselves. I propose that the line you attempt to draw is not able to be drawn.
We are given an imperfect world, full of imperfect people with imperfect solutions. Yet sometimes lines have to be drawn. The question isn’t “What is perfect?” but “What is best?”
I propose that a test such as you describe is not only implausible, but impossible.
So given that you disagree, exactly where, and how, would you draw the line?
We could make mandating school attendance another option for the courts or other enforcement body.
So it would not be mandatory for the majority of students, and they could not be forced to attend against their will until such time as they had given due cause to the state to compel their cooperation.
Which is pretty much the angle I come from. Young people who have commited no crimes are having their rights infringed… and due to their defined legal status, they have very little access to apply for grievance or redress procedures. Suppose a politician decided to set up a mandatory online registry for homosexuals. Guess what, he’d be voted out, and someone else voted in on a platform of abolishing the registry. Kids can’t vote, though, so they can bring no direct political pressure of their own. They have no voice with which to organize and counter the folks that say “well, that’s fine by me” (which I’m sure would be said about a homosexual registry). No voice that counts, anyway.
So, give toddlers the vote and let things work themselves out?
Probably not, but I think it would be interesting to make an effort to educate young people about their specific legal status and what structures are in place for them to interact with the government (not their government, mind you. They can’t vote. The government does not represent them.) and the creation of such structures as required (impartial third party legal advocates for minors, for example) to allow them greater access necessary to change those structures.
Also, given that the authority of the US government to, well, govern derives from the people granted them that authority in the understanding that the government will represent them (I.E. if you can vote, the government represents you, and you grant the government the authority to regulate you). Since young people can’t vote, the government does not represent them. They do not grant the government any authority to regulate them. So the question comes to whether it can use the authority granted from another group to coerce a second un-represented group… legitimately, anyway. It obviously can. If we talk about the real world, the US Government draws its authority from itself at this point, for all practical purpose.
But I’m not talking about “maturity” in general, I’m talking about the competence to make one’s own decisions about education. “Maturity” is a vague concept, impossible to define in any objective sense, and not something the law should be concerned with. The competence to make a certain decision, like choosing where to go to school, is a lot easier to define.
What does someone need to know in order to make an informed decision about his education?
[ol]
[li]He must know what his choices are. Which public and private schools are available, given his location, budget, and his parents’ willingness to help out (with transportation, tuition, tutoring, etc.)? If he doesn’t attend school, does he have something to do instead that won’t put him in any physical danger?[/li][li]He must know the implications of those choices. How do the curriculum, environment, and opportunities for socialization at a public school differ from other available options? How will his employment and college prospects be affected by a public school diploma vs. a private school diploma vs. a GED vs. no certificate, generally speaking? If he chooses one option now, will he be able to switch later?[/li][li]He must know which choice he wants to make. Has he been coerced into a particular choice? Has he taken all of the above into consideration?[/li][/ol]
Those are the three core aspects of a competent decision, IMO, and some specific examples of how each applies to education. Feel free to suggest your own or ask for clarification.
An interesting idea that deserves more thought. Whenever the idea comes up around here, it’s usually countered with fanciful speculation that the next president would be Big Bird or Britney Spears. But minors (everyone under 18) only make up 25.7% of the population (Census 2000) - enough that politicians would have to consider their interests, but not enough to override everyone else’s vote. Women make up over 50%, but they still haven’t elected Oprah Winfrey or Brad Pitt president yet.
In fact (getting back to education), Sudbury Valley School is one place where young children do have a vote: every student and staff member has one vote each, and the students naturally outnumber the staff. Yet they have not emptied the treasury to buy candy and Teletubbies dolls. This suggests that minors can make reasonable decisions when given the power and trust to do so.
You are right on this point- maturity is somewhat of a vague concept, given that it is the sum of a lot of developmental processes. That’s why there’s no ‘maturity testing’ under current law, except where it is necessary to show a grown adult is competent to give consent given outside factors such as mental retardation. Age is our arbitrary dividing line, true, but I don’t see a better way.
Thing is, just as maturity is a composite, so too is your notion of rights. What we are trying to point out is that adult rights are so interconnected that by giving one, you give implicit release of all the others, or else the right doesn’t mean anything.
If I am a parent, and my child decides to not attend school, what are my options? Am I allowed to leave them unattended at home? Can I make them go get a job (as I am forced by circumstance to do myself)? Am i financially responsible for the child’s behavior while left unsupervised?
And, if I can impose my will on my child to either attend school or get a job, what good is their ‘right’?
I do: stop worrying about who is or isn’t “mature” if you can’t even define what maturity is, or whether someone has it. Worry instead about who’s competent to make specific decisions.
All the others? No. Certain rights depend on certain others, as I agreed before, and there are a few ways to deal with that situation, as I mentioned (post #49). But just because someone is competent to decide where to go to school doesn’t mean he’s competent to vote, run for office, or drive a car.
Yes, if that won’t put them in any danger. An infant or toddler who will starve if no one is around to feed him, or who hasn’t learned that his tongue doesn’t belong in the electrical outlet, is obviously a poor candidate for being left at home unattended.
Indirectly: you can withdraw your financial support and let circumstance force them into it.
No.
Good point. You shouldn’t be able to impose your will in such a way.
Mr. 2001: “you can withdraw your financial support and let circumstance force them into it”
So if my child refuses to go to school, and I very much want him to, and refuses to work , also against my wishes, and he passes your maturity tests, I should throw him out of the house? Otherwise he has every right to live at home, and treat me as his personal servant and walking ATM machine?
Do you have any idea why child-labor laws and mandatory schooling laws were passed in the first place? Because before they existed, we had a monstrous number of emancipated children roaming the country (my dad was one), living on the streets, scrounging and stealing, and as a society we overwhelmingly decided that this sad and sickening state of affairs was well worth the price of mildly restricting minors in the ways that you’re now complaining about.
Amen. When I was 21/22 I was surely an asshole when it came to “worldly” matters. I was a nice person, held doors, respectful, etc. but a buffoon on politics.
The OP should print this thread and squirrel it away for 15 years.
Sure, go for it. If he leaves school, you’re no longer obligated to support him; whether you want to continue supporting him anyway is for you to decide.
If you want to talk about parents’ obligations to their children in a more general sense than “what happens if their kids don’t want to go to school?”, a new thread might be appropriate.
You really think that decision was made “as a society” when the very people it affected weren’t even allowed to vote?
15 years from now, if I no longer believe minors deserve rights, I hope someone kills my body, because the real Mr2001 will already have died. You can print that out and squirrel it wherever you want.
And how many instances of child castouts and runaways (think: how many 10-12 year olds selling themselves in the streets) before we institute parental responsibility again?
I love my children. I would do almost anything for them. But there has to be middle ground between me casting them out and me footing the bill for all of their choices.
Fight the power, brother. but you might want to tone down the hyperbole.
Yes, I am. The way it works is: first you win sufferage, then you vote. This issue, like all others, is decided by society, which gets to define itself, sometimes fairly, sometimes not but always by its own consent. Slaves were freed, and women were granted the vote, by white men, largely because their cause was deemed just. You haven’t begun to demonstrate the validity of your case here.
I sufggest you have some work to do, in building that case and supporting it, but you seem to want to win it without ever having provided evidence.
If those kids don’t want to be out on the street, they can stay in school, or make sure they have a way to support themselves. They knew what the consequences would be when they made that decision.
Nothing would stop you from continuing to support them even if they weren’t in school, as little or as much as you wanted. If that’s not enough of a middle ground, what would you prefer?
Hyperbole? No, I don’t think so. If I turn into a bigot someday, someone ought to put an end to it. Few things offend me more than people who ignore the suffering of a group just because they’re no longer part of it, and if I betray myself by becoming one of them, I’ll deserve whatever I get.
As I wrote earlier…
If you start with the same fundamental beliefs I have, then the rest of my argument follows quite easily. I think I’ve done a good job in that respect. If you don’t share those fundamental beliefs, you’ll have some problems with the rest, but what “evidence” could possibly change your mind on such a basic moral issue?
How do you test for this sort of thing? And once they’ve made their decision, are they allowed to decide later on that it’s too hard and come back home? Or should that be dependent on the parent?
My problem with this scenario is that it seems like a formula to produce the sort of
adult I detest- someone that expects me to clean up after them. You are forcing me, as a parent, into a position of either supporting their behavior regardless of my agreement, or else tossing them out.
Once again, you’ve done nothing to convince any of us that this is a civil rights issue. The very nature of the fact that there is a definite cutoff when everyone graduates from this group argues against that. Plus, you’ve not really argued as to why they should have these rights, or want to have these responsibilities, other than your perceived inequity. What benefit to society is it for a child to have the option to opt out of school? None that I can see, and there are a host of arguments against it, some based on society’s interests, some based on the best interest of the child. I don’t ‘ignore the suffering’ of my kids- but I weigh their temporary suffering against long term hardships. As an adult, i have that sort of perspective.
I just chuckle at statements like you’ve been making, though. Everyone thinks, growing up, that the worst thing that can happen to them is ‘becoming the Man.’ There are a lot worse things. Starvation, homelessness, being forced into menial labor/prostitution, illiteracy, being unable to analyze the massive amounts of date you are exposed to in order to make your way in the industrialized world all beat it out as a bad thing to happen to someone.
But if you are the only one that has your fundamental belief, then you need to argue in favor of those first before you propose initiatives based on them. We can point out developmental theory, basic economics, historical examples, and what do you have? Your ‘belief.’ Now, the purity of thought might be attractive to you, but you’ll not convince many that your way is either morally or practically right.
Telling me that all I have to do is buy into your core philosophy to get everything else is almost cult-like in its nature. Probably the best response I would have is to tell you that if wishes were horses, we’d all make a fortune in glue and dog food.
