[Erin] Does it include the right to ask "Why?" over and over?

"Pupils in one school made a poster showing the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk asking: 'What about my rights?' It lists his "right to have a castle" and 'right to be bad.'"

Okay, rant time.

That giant got SO SCREWED in that story. I mean, where is his right to property? Imagine if you woke up one day to find your wallet empty, your magical gold-laying goose missing, and some tiny little guy making off with your mystical harp? I'd want to ground his bones to make my bread too! Where is his right to life, that as he chases this "Jack," he can be cruelly crashed into the ground, with no legal recourse against the perpetrator who, we are told, goes on to live in opulence? And don't try to say that the giant killed Jack's father or whatever, that version didn't originally appear until the 1850s. I say we need to forget about this notion of human rights, and start to worry about the rights of the giants, the dragons and ogres, so brutally ravaged and abused by humanity for their own purposes!

...Okay, I'm done being stupid now. God bless. :-)

No, of course not, John M., but I think of religion as a special case (not the least because it's true, but you know I'd say that). It would be just as wrong for conservatives to inculcate into very young children the idea that they ought to bring excess toys to school with the purpose of establishing a lucrative toy-rental enterprise, as this stuff is.

And Joey, I like how you think! :) Sadly, some learned person will come along and explain how the giant was a symbol of the oppression of the poor by robber-barons, or some such thing, and then the fun will be over.

A great many educational fads seem to have been formulated by people with no actual first-hand experience with small children.

Anyone who believes that people are basically good has never spent any time with a group of toddlers. That is human nature at its most unvarnished; and it is not very pretty.

Toddlers are already highly aware of their rights; "NO!" "THAT'S MINE!" "NO FAIR!" are among the first words they utter, especially if they have older siblings. It's convincing them that OTHER people have rights as well, and that their own rights have limits, that is the tricky bit.

I would hazard that a good portion of the trouble in the world is caused by people who never learned how to share, take turns, clean up their own messes and use their words instead of hitting. Perhaps if we spent more time on those basic skills and less time on trying to get three year olds to understand the Geneva Convention, the world would be a better place.

I'm with zoetius here. The more time goes on, the more it becomes clear that homeschooling is about the best chance you've got of raising undamaged kids.

That, and isolation chambers...

Seriously, though, trying to navigate the minefields of idiotic curricula, crappy teachers, zillions of poor role models, peers whose parents think that dressing their little girl like Bratz is cool...?

When your moral system fails to match with the prevailing moral system (or lack thereof), isolation begins to look very attractive. I'd rather attempt to teach my kids chemistry and calculus myself than try to figure out how to let them spend all day in that environment and still spare them from the phenomenon you spoke about in this post called SEVENTEEN, Erin.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/06/erin-seventeen.html