-=> Quoting Sheila King to Michael Martinez <=-
 SK> You say that it is the parents' responsibility to teach their kids. I
 SK> have two responses to that.
 SK> (1) I and my husband both work full time. When are we going to have
 SK> the time to teach our kids?
What are you doing full-time?  You're teaching in a classroom!  Actually,
I only say this to bring out the point that the same society, ours,
which has designed the educational system has also designed your jobs,
Sheila.  Abolshing the educational system naturally coincides with
abolishing many of the worthless jobs that exist in today's
corporate world. 
You're mentioning you and your husband.  I'm reaing another Illich
book right now, partly because our discussion makes me want to 
understand him better.  It's called _Gender_.  It's another hard book
to read.  Once you get about 80% through it, you begin to understand
what he's saying.  
The push to have women and men working the same jobs in today's world,
actually is counter-productive to its advertised effect.  Instead of
making women and men equal, it's destroyed the gender-specific role
of both, and opened up a new area for industrial-type sexism.  "while the 
majority of women today work outside the home, their take-home pay is 
roughly 60 percent of what men earn -- exactly the same percentage
as it was a hundred years ago, when only 5 percent of women were so 
employed." 
You don't have to agree with Illich, Sheila, to read him. 
 SK> You propose eliminating schools, so I
 SK> assume that means that we must do the teaching ourselves? What are you
 SK> going to suggest next, that I go out and find someone else who "wants"
 SK> to teach. Sorry. I already spent quite a good amount of time checking
 SK> out several schools and deciding which one I wanted to send my kids to.
 SK> I'm GLAD there is a school with certified teachers down the street that
 SK> I can send my kids to.
Why do you think they're learning better than they would otherwise?
 SK> (2) There are a lot of parents who don't care enough about their
 SK> children and their children's education to help their kids do
 SK> homework, to see that their kids actually attend their classes, to see
 SK> that vacations are take outside of school time, etc...
You say this as if you think that they SHOULD care "enough" about it.  
Why do you think YOUR standards of what is "enough" should be applied
to them?
I believe they should be left alone.
 SK> If the current school system is abolished, what makes you think that
 SK> parents, who don't care about their kids education now, will suddenly
 SK> care about it under your system? I just don't see that happening.
 
Many of them won't.  Neither should they.
yes, Sheila, I went to college.  I've worked as a computer programmer,
tutoring, blah blah blah...   Jobs that other people tell me they
would die for, but I don't think they should feel that way about them
because many of these companies were in the business of shafting people,
pure and simple.  Others were just kinda pointless.
-michael
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