Idiocy Revised

Teaching Against Idiocy

Question: What roles should schools and schooling play bin the United States?

The quote I chose from Walter C. Parker, Teaching Against Idiocy is, “An idiot is one whose self-centeredness undermines his or her citizen identity, causing it to wither or never to take root in the first place. Private gain is the goal, and the community had better not get in the way. An idiot is suicidal in a certain way, definitely self-defeating, for the idiot does not know that privacy and individual autonomy are entirely dependent on the community. As Aristotle wrote, Individuals are so many parts all equally depending on the whole which alone can bring self-sufficiency. Idiots do not take part in public life; they do not have a public life. In this sense, idiots are immature in the most fundamental way. Their lives are out of balance, disoriented, untethered, and unrealized. Tragically, idiots have not yet met the challenge of “puberty”, which is the transition to public life” (2005, pg344).

Schools today play a huge role in children and introducing them into different situations. One example is that schools are integrated and now children are faced with children from different races. They also learn how to think for themselves when they are in school through different classes and different types of work. From reading this article it comes off to me that Walter C. Parker thinks that the schools raise the child into puberty. I do not agree at all with this statement by Parker. I think it is the parents that nurture the child into puberty and the schools are just there when they are getting an education. The transition to public life does not have anything to do with the so-called “puberty” he is talking about. Idiots do take part in public life even if they are challenged in their own ways. But they mature over time and even if it takes years they are still considered part of the public life whether you like it or not.

Aristotle states that, “Compared to home life, schools are like village squares, cities, crossroads, meeting places, community centers, and market places” (Aristotle in Parker, 2005, pg348). I do not agree with this little thing he says. School is nothing like village squares or even market places. School is where the children learn things for them to get jobs later in their life. A village or market place cannot teach children these skills that they are learning in schools. Therefore the idiocy is in the quote is where Aristotle said that.