Love of Learning and Diane Ravitch’s Transformation

Sol Stern’s interesting review of Diane Ravitch’s conversion from school choice to radicalism doesn’t take a stab at the cause.  Was it a virus, as some theories of the zombie apocalypse would have it?  Was it blood drawn while necking with a Marxist?  A massive infusion of National Education Association union funding?  We may never know.

But a quotation that Stern highlights stuck out to me:

“I don’t care if my two grandsons … have higher or lower scores than children their age in California, Florida, Iowa, Finland, Japan, Korea…” [Ravitch] recently declared. “I don’t think their parents care either. They care that their children are healthy; are curious about the world; are loved; learn to love learning; are kind to their friends and to animals; and have the confidence to tackle new challenges. . . . Let’s all read Walden, read poetry, listen to good music, visit a museum, look at the stars, and think more about what matters most in life. Let us see our children not as global competitors, but as children, little human beings in need of loving care and kindness.”

That sounds swell, but it takes a bit of the specific meaning out of “education” to include “loving care and kindness.,” which sounds a bit more like “parenting.”

Therein lies the flaw of government-school centralization.  It is the job of parents and social groups to ensure that children are “loved” and “love learning.” It is a tragedy when children are deprived of such influences, but the gap between those who have them and those who do not is so tremendous that no single institution or regulatory regime can answer the needs of both.

That’s where choice comes in.  If it’s not viewed as edification, reading Walden and poetry is probably worse than useless for students, who may only learn that knowledge is a means of using words for fakery.

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