Homeschooling, Should it be banned?

[Shogoki]

I'm a pragmatist of the Rortian persuasion I do not 'oppose' science, and I certainly respect the scientific method insofar as it applies to scientific practice. However, I feel that science needs always to have a useful end in sight.

There's so much bullshit in your posts, but anyway, just wanted to respond to this bit, Nikola Tesla was considered a crazy man, he made all kinds of strange experiments just for the sake of looking at the results, came up with all kinds of unheard off concepts and inventions, and he rarely had a "useful end" in mind that wasn't or at least sounded like a really far fetched idea. His work was the basis for the practical development of pretty much every modern piece of technology we use today.

[Sam Or I]

No it should not be ban. If you happened to be zoned in a bad school district, home schooling maybe better for a child than public education as long as they are able to meet State requirements. I would not send my child to school in the current district I live in. If I had a child right now that needed to go to school I would home school him or her until I could afford to move to a better district.

Public education in the U.S. is not that great, it is even worse if you live in a poor neighborhood.

I feel the religious nuts that everyone is referring to is more of a stereotype than the actual people doing it, but then again I live in California. Most home schooled children are such because of the poor education system here and not religious reasons.

[Spin Echo]

I'm a pragmatist of the Rortian persuasion I do not 'oppose' science, and I certainly respect the scientific method insofar as it applies to scientific practice. However, I feel that science needs always to have a useful end in sight. If it does not result in an advantage on the lived level, there's not much of a point in doing it - bellowing "Knowledge for the sake of knowledge!" is almost Romantic.

You obviously don't know much about scientific research. High school tends to lie to children in regards to the scientific method. First you have a problem, and then you come up with a hypothesis, and then you test this problem and so forth. Where in reality, it's much more "I've got a stick. Let's see what happens if I poke this!"

Blue sky research is necessary for innovation. My field of research began in the 1940's as a parlor trick. If you hit a bloch of parafin with an RF pulse of the right frequency, you'll get a signal back. No one realised at the time what a useful tool in terms of chemistry, physics, and medicine magnetic resonance would become. This is hardly an isolated incident. Like Shogaki mentioned, Telsa made all sorts of novelties that turned out to be useful. Røntgen was looking at the effect of an electrical charge through gases when he accidently stumbled across the x-ray.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

From what I understand of Pragmatism, it's an American philosophy that has it's roots in the late 19th, early 20th century in figures such as William James. Some of the claims of Pragmatism about "truth" are bizarre, which might give us some insight into his thinking.

According to Pragmatism, truth is mutually constructed by the person, and it's not stable. They argue, and this is what seems odd, truth is not a state that corresponds to fact or to reality, but instead according to it's utility in solving a problem.

He seems to be using that and extrapolating to "if it's not immediately useful..."



Edit: However, what he's saying makes no sense, even from the Greek perspective. Many Greeks engaged in philosophy, and the latter Hellenistic Greeks proto-science (this was the period of blossoming use of empiricism, testing in Greek history), research, testing, thinking were done for the sake of attaining knowledge. They engaged in abstract practices when they had no immediate "use" for it (application). Archimedes is typically known for his engineering and invention, but he only considered that a hobby. Although more practical than the Polis Greeks, they still did it for the hell of it: to understand. If they could apply it, they would, but it didn't have largely the same respect as pure research. Theorizing for its sake was still top dog.

So there are many historical cases, even of his target group, doing research primarily for knowledge.

[Shogoki]

This is hardly an isolated incident. Like Shogaki mentioned, Telsa made all sorts of novelties that turned out to be useful. Røntgen was looking at the effect of an electrical charge through gases when he accidently stumbled across the x-ray.

Funny you mention this, cause Tesla realized the existence of x-rays in the late 1880's and invented some x-ray devices by 1892 and had made some patents involving x-rays in 1891 and 1894. 4 to 1 years before Røntgen discovered them by accident. He didn't call them x-rays, though, and made no attempt to commercialize them or find a practical purpose for them in medicine, though, he just quietly added them to his repertory of "Things I know that no one else can yet imagine".

[The Yosemite Bear]

as probably the majority have already mentioned

leaves them improperly prepared for social interaction, keeps them ignorant, and allows for some pretty weird fuckin brainwashing to be done.

[darthbob88]

IMHO, homeschooling should not be banned yet. It provides a possibility of quality education in situations and locations where public education is not adequate and private education is not available. Therefore, once public education is improved enough that homeschooling is not necessary to teach a child well, and the only reason is brainwashing, then homeschooling should be banned. Until then, it should be watched and regulated as much as possible.

[CaptainChewbacca]

As far as undirected science goes, I think an even better example would be the discovery of the electron. It was discovered at the end of the 19th century by men who simply wanted to find out more about electricity. Nobody could concieve that 100 years later the entire world would run on electrons.