This episode features a lecture by historian and Austro-libertarian Tom Woods as published on his podcast in 2019. This is a lecture taken from the Ron Paul Homeschool curriculum (found at RonPaulEducation.com) and explores the economic calculation problem inherent in socialist economic planning.
Tag: education
How Government Programs Ruined Childhood
An op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times entitled “We Have Ruined Childhood” offers disheartening data about childhood depression and anxiety, closely linked to school attendance, as well as the disturbing trend away from childhood free play and toward increasing schooling, standardization, and control.
Upheaval, Back to School, 1984
A confluence of at least 3 elements brings this blog post to you — it is a mosaic of Jared Diamond, a new school year, and George Orwell.
College Degrees are Dying Proxies
Being able to spend a ton of money one college is a weaker and weaker proof of these qualities, because college loans are handed out like candy, parents have way more education money for their kids than they used to, more scholarships, grants, etc. In fact, spending a lot of borrowed money on college is now as likely to be a sign of poor judgement, and a lot of your parents money is as likely to be a sign of not being independent or responsible.
The Difference Between Public Libraries and Public Schools
Plans for the Boston Public Library, the nation’s second-oldest public library, were approved in 1852, the same year Massachusetts passed the country’s first compulsory schooling law. Both public libraries and public schools are funded through taxation and both are “free” to access, but the similarities end there. The main difference between public libraries and public schools is the level of coercion and state power that public schooling wields.
Education Needs Separation From State
Once again we approach that saddest time of the year: when the majority of parents send their kids back to school; back into the local government concentration day-camps. If you’re someone who mistakes schooling for education you probably believe this is good.
Questioning the Back-To-School Default
Back-to-school time is upon us. My Instagram feed is starting to fill with first-day photos as a new school year begins this week in some parts of the country. For those of us who homeschool, we often get asked, “So, why did you decide to homeschool?” We respond with various personal and educational reasons, including the top motivator for homeschoolers on national surveys: “concern about the school environment.” What always strikes me, though, is that parents who send their kids to school never get asked this question. When was the last time someone asked a parent, “So, why did you decide to send your child to school?”
The History of Private Schools: How American Education Became a Political Battleground
Public schools being an arm of the state are indoctrination centers. This becomes increasingly true as basic skills such as the old “three Rs” of “reading, writing and ‘rithmatic” are jettisoned in favor of climate change, critical race theory and gender ideology – all of which are now part and parcel of a public education in the United States.
Homeschooling, Ideology, and The “Culture War”
Yes, some people use home education to teach their kids harmful lies while insulating them from competing ideas (truth, reality, and ethics). That’s bad. They should not do this to vulnerable children. Yet, government schools do the exact same thing— even teaching some of the same harmful lies the worst of the homeschoolers are teaching.
How Our Culture Disempowers Teens
Teenagers are extraordinarily capable. Louis Braille invented his language for the blind when he was 15. Mary Shelley, daughter of libertarian feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. As a young teen, Anne Frank documented her life of hiding from the Nazis during World War II. Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Prize at 17.