Convention on the Rights of the Child - Case Study Example

‘The education system has increasingly taken on the roles and responsibility of the parent, thus absolving the parents of their roles and responsibilities, etc.’ Under the heading Topic Details the above title continues with ‘…which creates more irresponsible parents which in turn the education system compensates for.’ To begin with, it is an unexamined, dogmatic statement that the education system taking on more of the parents’ roles and responsibilities absolves parents from their responsibilities. It does not follow that the education system then ‘creates more irresponsible parents’. It may be an unintended consequence of the education system taking more responsibility, but there is no evidence that it does so. The argument does not hold water. It is a non sequitur. It would be much more helpful to look at this issue without pre-conceptions, in an unbiased way. It is accepted that increasingly many more institutions including the education system has encroached on the ‘roles and responsibilities’ of parents. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The evidence has to be examined to arrive at a balanced view. The background to this enquiry is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989. It harks back to more fundamental Human Rights legislation in the West dealing with respect for the ‘dignity and worth of the individual regardless of race, colour, gender, language, religion, opinions, origins, wealth, birth status or ability…’ (http://www.unicef.org/crc/). However, when extended to apply to children, although many nations have signed up for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United States has been dragging its feet. Already, there are problems arising from the Human rights legislation in the UK. For example, a schoolboy who had committed arson could not be excluded from returning to the classroom, on grounds that the teachers, by law, could not deny him the right to education (http://wikimediafoundation.org). The Convention replaces parental rights with parental responsibility. Indeed it is said that the ‘charter undermines parental rights … by vesting children with various fundamental rights which advance notions of the child’s autonomy and freedom from parental guidance’…’ The Convention is intended to emancipate children from parental authority within the home, and invests them with “rights” that can be enforced against their parents’ (http://www.comeandtakeit.com/unchild.html). Under the Convention, if a child decides he has a “right” to join a street gang or religious cult, for example, the parent’s role would be to engage in “dialogue,” rather than exercising parental authority in ways that inhibit the child’s “freedom of association” or “freedom of religion.” In the secular egalitarian state – a radical departure from the biblical worldview in which children are required to honor and obey their parents to the extent that their parents honor and obey God’ (op cit.). In the UK, ‘The Children Act 1989 and The Children Act 2004, almost completely replaced the concept of parents’ rights with the more egalitarian concept of parental responsibility’ (http://instituteofideas.com/parentsopinion.html). Here too, it is the state, through the education system and other interventions which has become the primary decision maker in the lives of children. Teachers have to be aware that they do not become the unwitting collaborators of a fascist doctrine referred to as parens patriae (parenthood of the state), instituted in pre-war Germany where ‘the state was posited to be the true parent of children’ (http://www.comeandtakeit.com/unchild.html). The result was the execrable Nazi state. On the other hand, there is also the recognition of the value of teachers in the lives of children. “Those who educate are more to be honoured than those who bear children. The latter give them only life; the former teach them the art of living.” This is a quote from Carolyn Warner, former Superintendent of Public Instruction in Arizona, USA (op. cit.). A different voice is that of John Taylor Gatto, named Teacher of the Year for the State of New York in 1991. The ‘statist school system’ is said to destroy ‘communities by relegating the training of children to the hands of certified experts – and by doing so it ensures our children cannot grow up fully human – becoming instead mindless automatons programmed by the state’s change agents’ (op. cit. ). Most of the ‘change agents’ Gatto refers to are teachers. In the United Kingdom too there are growing concerns about the power of the state to intervene in children’s lives. The Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ (2003) is … premised on the notion that children are increasingly vulnerable, and that parents are unable to play the kind of ‘safeguarding’ role that the government expects them in their children’s lives. More than this, by failing their children parents also risk failing in their responsibilities to society as a whole. The state must step in more often, so goes the argument, to protect society from badly reared children. (http://www.instituteofideas.com/parentsopinion.html ). However, in examining the role of the mother who stays at home to look after her children instead of taking up full time work, the evidence is not weighted in favour of her continuing to remain at home after the first year. All the research shows that babies at home with a parent in the first year develop more quickly than those put into nursery care, but that is it. By the time they get to school age the reverse is true (op. cit.). A recent report produced by Cambridge-based researchers, ‘Primary Review’ headed by Professor Robin Alexander reveals the pressures under which today’s primary school children live. They are said to suffer from ‘deep anxiety’ over Sats tests, ‘climate change, global warming and pollution, the gulf between the rich and poor, and terrorism’ (http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/education/703...) There is talk of ‘toxic childhood’ and a ‘loss of childhood’ and they place the blame on neither the parents nor the teachers but on ‘the pervasive influence of electronic media and gadgetry’ with ‘children being sold the idea that “happiness is stuff” and the availability of screen-based entertainment’ resulting in children being “battery-reared” ‘ (op. cit.). Unsupervised access to online websites poses the greatest threat to today’s kids. Brian Krebs writing on computer security says that ‘.. while the Internet is a vast ocean of information – much of it fascinating, beautiful, entertaining and informative – there appears to be far more digital crud out there …’ In my opinion, leaving a teenager alone in his or her bedroom with a computer for hours on end is a recipe for trouble. Giving a preteen unsupervised access to the Internet over the long term strikes me as flirting with disaster – particularly if your child trusts the wrong person with his or her personal information. (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/09a_parents_role_as_net_cop_l.html ). In Australia it is the Commonwealth Department of Family & Community Services that takes the lead role in providing a ‘strategic framework for supporting parenting capacity’ (http://www.facs.gov.au/family/goodbeginnings/vol1/EIP5.1.html). They advocate a more than equal role for parents as against teachers in the upbringing of their children. To them, parents are ‘a major single influence in how a child gains the necessary health, skills and resilience needed for life’ (op. cit.). They cite ‘Research in the USA’, which ‘demonstrates that increasing parent’s participation in their children’s schooling through developing their skills as advocates, supporters and monitors of their children’s education, both increases their children’s academic successes and their broader capacities as parents’ (op. cit.). Under the aegis of the Family Law Act 1975 the Australian government funds a Family Relationships Services Program. Both national and local government ‘provide funding for services that assist parents in their parenting role including supported playgroups, parenting skill courses, home visiting programs, support groups and counselling and mediation services’ (op. cit.). With so much emphasis on parenting capacities globally, it is difficult to sustain the argument that this essay began with, that the education system ‘absolves the parents’ of their roles and responsibilities. What appears to be happening is that the state posits what the ‘good life’ is and seeks to make the parents instrumental in achieving that aim. Whether it succeeds is a moot point. On the other side of the coin, Fiona Millar in an article in the Education Guardian (UK newspaper) headed ‘The Parent Trap’ articulates some concerns over the emerging ‘consensus that parental involvement in schools is a good thing’ (http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1935110,00.html ). She reports on the ‘warning that the orthodoxy about parental involvement is a dangerous trend that will end up with parents being treated like children, and a terminal blurring of the lines between the job of the teacher and the role of the parent’ (op. cit.). The implication in all this is ‘that if we can get parenting right, everything from anti-social behaviour to educational underachievement, conduct disorders and adolescent mental illness will be solved’ (op. cit.). She refers to the trend as the ‘parenting industry’, a ‘juggernaut’ that cannot be stopped. Now parents are beginning to fight back reacting ‘against being told what to do by the “nanny state” and guard private family life fiercely’ (op. cit.). The above exposition makes it clear that it is not just the education system that has taken over some parental responsibilities but that the state in general has many more agencies which appear to exert control over the parenting role in a much more comprehensive manner. How does the ethics of the teaching profession mitigate against the encroaching into their territory of a ‘parenting industry’? The final paragraphs of this essay will be devoted to the broad exploration of ethics in education. The National Education Association (NEA) is historically the guardian of the ethics of the teaching profession in the USA. Its Code of Ethics of the Education Profession begins with a Preamble that articulates ‘the aspiration of all educators and provides standards by which to judge conduct’ (http://www.nea.org/aboutnea/code/html). It then follows with two Principles. Principle I is Commitment to the Student, and Principle II, Commitment to the Profession. Although both Principles begin with positively stated comments, they both have 8 rules each that begin with ‘Shall not’, which means of course that transgressions incur punitive measures. In contrast, the Graduate School of the Pennsylvania State University ethics of teaching, are stated in positive terms as four Norms and nine Principles (http://gradsch.psu.edu/facstaff/tethics.html ). The norms are: honesty, promise-keeping, respect for persons, and fairness. The principles are as follows: 1. Content competence, 2. Pedagogical competence, 3. Dealing with sensitive topics, 4. Student development, 5. Dual relationships with students, 6 Confidentiality, 7. Respect for colleagues, 8 Valid assessment of students, and 9. Respect for institution. The NEA Code has been analysed and found to be based on ‘three sources of ethical ideas and principles’. The first source, ‘ethics of inquiry’ is based on the values of ‘truth’ and ‘autonomy’. The first is … the ethics of inquiry. The second area might be called the civic ethic. That is, the NEA code recognizes those ideals and principles that regulate the public conduct of citizens of liberal democratic states to be ideals and principles that should also regulate the practice of education. A reason for this is that one goal of education is the creation of citizens. The third source of ethical ideals is the ideal of professionalism (http://www.answers.com/topic/school-teaching-ethics). However, absent from this code is the concern for human relations in teaching. For example, among what is ignored are ‘promoting the growth of the whole child’ and the more inclusive values of ‘caring and trust’ (op. cit.). There is also an issue under the heading ‘Meta-Ethics’. ‘Two meta-ethical disputes are the justice/caring debate and the postmodern critique of modernity’ (op. cit.). The justice/caring dispute grows out of a critique of Lawrence Kohlberg’s views of moral development by feminist scholars, principally Carol Gilligan. Kohlberg viewed justice as the central moral conception. Gilligan claimed … that women’s thinking about ethics emphasizes care. … A second meta-ethical perspective is postmodernism. … one useful characterization of postmodernism claims that it is incredulity towards all grand meta-narratives. A grand meta-narrative is a sweeping and general view about human beings and society. Liberalism and socialism are examples. Postmodernists often argue that all such grand stories represent the perspectives of groups or eras and, viewed as the single truth of the matter, are oppressive. Postmodern critiques often seek to deconstruct such meta-narratives by showing their biased character and how they serve the interests of some over others (op. cit.). The above has been a wide ranging enquiry into the varying emphases placed on the parent and the teacher in their respective roles in the development of children into responsible citizens in adulthood. Evidence was analysed from developed countries where the institutions and ethics of teaching and parenting have been the subject of considerable debate. (2100 words) Works cited 1. < http://www.unicef.org/crc/ > 15/10/2007 2. < http://wikimediafoundation.org > 14/10/2007 3. < http://www.comeandtakeit.com/unchild.html > 13/10/2007 4. < http://instituteofideas.com/parentsopinion.html > 15/10/2007 5. 14/10/2007 6. 7. < http://www.facs.gov.au/family/goodbeginnings/vol1/EIP5.1.html > 8. < http://education.guardiuan.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1935110,00.html > 9. < http://www.nea.org/aboutnea/code.html > 10. < http://gradsch.psu.edu/facstaff/tethics.html > 11. < http://www.answers.com/topic/school-teaching-ethics > Read More