Why We Pay Our Kids For School – Part 1

Dave — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:42:23 +0000

I know that when you read this you’re instantly going to think that we’ve gone insane, but I promise you that my mental faculties are just as sound as they’ve always been (that probably won’t have the effect that I hope it does). We decided a couple of months ago to pay our kids for the time and effort they put into doing their school lessons. It was a complex decision and took a while to figure out whether it was the right thing to do or not, and then how much and in what way to administer the wages. I’ll do my best to describe the details of the decision to you.

First, why pay kids for doing school work? It seems like such an odd thing to do. After all, we didn’t get paid for going to school. We just had to grin and bear it. But, as we should all keep in mind, just because the majority of people do something a certain way doesn’t make it the best way to do said thing. We should always be on the lookout for ways to improve the things we take for granted. And, that’s one of the brilliant things about homeschooling. We get to experiment with all kinds of techniques to reach the kids with a greater level of educational realism. That’s what led us into thinking about all of this. A desire to make our children’s education have the most real, practical effect. We wanted the act of educating, itself to be instructive and realistic.

So, with that in mind we thought about how the modern educational process is treated so differently than every other real-world experience we have. Just think about it for a moment. What is primary education really saying to our kids? It’s saying, because you are young, you must go and work for 8 hours a day, plus nights and weekends(for homework) without pay for twelve years of your life. If you don’t do this, the state will do bad things to you and/or your parents. Now, can you think of any other institution that resembles this? I can. It’s called slavery.

Now, I know that your knee-jerk response to this claim is that I’m crazy, because “this is different.” Or, “they’re getting an education.” Or, “it’s for the child’s own benefit.” Or, “education has X number of external benefits, so it’s worth it.” I could probably think of a dozen other statements like this that people would probably think of when I claim that mandatory elementary education is just like slavery. But, I hope that you will stop and think about it for a moment and realize that all of those statements are true for slavery as well. You could say, “they’re learning a skill.” Or, “they’re getting three meals a day and shelter.” My basic premise is that no matter how you try and make mandatory education different than slavery, you can’t. It all ultimately boils down to forced labor.

This is the premise we came to the table with. We thought in this way: if we force our children to do work, the moral thing to do is pay them a wage for that work. Work without pay is slavery. Remember, though, not all pay comes in the form of money. When I talk of paying them a wage(10 cents per lesson in our case), that wage could come in another form also. It could come in the form of food, play time/free time, getting to stay up a bit later before bed, etc. In fact, that’s going to be the subject of the next post.

Let’s Talk About Slavery in the Beginning

Dave — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:50:00 +0000

While I was doing research on the Peabody Education Fund, I came across the report that the Fund gave in 1880. It was a fascinating read. One of the things that really just shocked me was the language in it about how slavery had gotten it’s start in the Colonies. I had stuck it in my stack of things to post in the future and kind of forgotten about it. But, it came back to my mind when I was watching Ken Burns PBS documentary on Thomas Jefferson. It corroborated the story that the original wording of the Declaration of Independence contained harsh language denouncing King George the III for forcing slavery onto the Colonies against their will. I really can’t do it much better by commenting on it since I’m no slavery historian so just read it for yourself:

It would be foreign to the purposes of this Report to
enter into an extended discussion of the history of the
introduction of African slaves into our country, or of the
many questions connected with their presence among us.
But it can hardly be deemed out of place to state the
unquestionable fact that they were introduced into what is
now the territory of the United States by authority of
the British Government, more than one hundred years be-
fore the Declaration of Independence, and while we were
British Colonies. Nor was it done with the sanction of the
Colonial Legislatures. On the contrary, there is abundant
evidence to prove that some, if not all, of the Colonies
earnestly remonstrated against it.

The preamble to the first constitution of Virginia,
adopted on the 12th of June, 1776, three weeks before the
Declaration of Independence, in reciting the causes of com-
plaint against the British Government which had impelled
that commonwealth to arms, assigns as one of the most
prominent, ” that the king, by the inhuman use of his
negative, refused permission to exclude by law the intro-
duction of negro slaves.”

It further appears, from the testimony of Mr. Jefferson,
that his original draft of the Declaration of Independence
contained the following impassioned paragraph: ” He (the
king) has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the
persons of a distant people, who never offended him ; cap-
tivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemi-
sphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation
thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of Infidel
Powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great
Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men
should be bought, he has prostituted his negative for
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or re-
strain this execrable commerce.” Writings of Jefferson,
Vol. I., p. 19. It is true that, from motives of prudence,
this harsh denunciation of the British king was stricken
out by the committee, but that circumstance does not in
any degree invalidate the truth of the charge.

The fact was recently distinctly admitted by John Bright,
the eminent British statesman, in a speech delivered by him
at Rochdale, on the 19th December, 1879. In that speech
he is reported to have said : ” And I may tell you that
slavery in the United States was not the offspring of republi-
can institutions. It was there in colonial and monarchical
times; it was during the time of George III. that, when
the Colonies and the United States would have abolished
the slave-trade, the English Government forbade that abo-
lition, and continued the trade.”

Buckle, Vol. I., page 321, says: “George III. looked
upon slavery as one of those good old customs which the
wisdom of his ancestors had consecrated.” And in a note
he adds : ” Such was the king’s zeal in favor of the slave-
trade, that in 1770 he issued an instruction under his own
hand, commanding the governor (of Virginia), upon pain
of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which
the importation of slaves should be in any respect pro-
hibited or obstructed.” Bancroft’s American Revolution,
Vol. III., p. 456.

Edmund Burke, in his great speech on conciliation with
America, delivered in the House of Commons, March 22,
1775, referring to a proposition to enfranchise the slaves in
the Colonies, said : ” Slaves as those unfortunate black
people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must
they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that
very nation which has sold them to their present masters,
from that natio. ne of whose causes of quarrel with
those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that
inhuman traffic?”

These facts abundantly prove that whatever responsibility
attaches to the introduction and continuance of slavery in
the Colonies rests with the Government of Great Britain.
It is due, however, to the truth of history to say, that,
when our fathers undertook to form the Constitution of the
United States, they found the institution of slavery so inter-
woven with our industrial and social systems that they were
obliged to leave it as they found it, trusting, doubtless, that
a cure for it would be found in the future. Hence, neither
the word ” slave ” nor ” slavery ” is to be found in the
Constitution.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, slavery existed
in all the Colonies. But, under the influence of wise legis-
lation, it gradually receded from the Northern to the more
Southern States, where it lingered until the close of the
Civil War, when, happily, by an amendment to the Consti-
tution of the United States, this disturbing element in our
political affairs ceased to exist anywhere within the juris-
diction of our Government.

I believe that Dr. Barnas Sears was charge with writing the report so that’s who is pictured above. This information really opens up a great research window for anyone who is interested in actually learning about slavery and not just historical rhetoric.

Southern Bread » slavery

Why We Pay Our Kids For School – Part 1

Let’s Talk About Slavery in the Beginning