Political Indoctrination of Children

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agree

I think it was R.D. Laing who said that hammering children into the family mould goes on all over the world and does enormous damage. I've never liked the practice because I always hated being told who to be - it never worked as intended and it only caused trouble.

I agree that this "pledge of allegiance" thing fails, at least I hope it does. I've noticed a lot of Americans seem to have more patriotism than I ever saw in the UK though - unconditional support for the armed forces and that kind of thing. In the UK, patriotism is more confined to international sport and the Union Jack probably represents British pop culture, sport, and a commercial brand rather than anything else, though there are those (chiefly politicians) who promote it as some kind of magic cloth like the Americans commonly do. In the UK the flag is probably more seen as a Tory badge. But even in the rural parts of the UK, a flag on a pole in the front garden of a home is a very rare thing. Meanwhile in rural Arkansas I can't walk 100 yards without seeing several.

Having religious parents is the strongest known predictor of religiosity, so I guess that shows how strong indoctrination can be. It always seemed odd to me that belief is touted in scripture as some kind of personal, free-will moral choice with huge rewards and punishments in the afterlife, when it's largely down to an accident of birth.

I never consciously tried to indoctrinate my son with anything. I never told him that this or that value was right or wrong. Yet he became rather similar to me in his ideology - atheist, doesn't eat meat, left wing / green political persuasion. In fact in some ways he's more extreme than I am, e.g. he's completely vegan while I just don't eat meat, he's still hopeful that there may be some kind of socialist political solution while I'm more of an impossibilist.

I don't see any need to actively indoctrinate kids. I think they tend to turn out rather like their caregivers just by copying them and by seeing their way of life as normal. So for example a violent parent tends to produce violent kids even though they don't lecture them on the virtues of violence. I think those who seek to indoctrinate kids are just pushing needlessly for something that's going to happen anyway, for better or worse.

I'd limit this to partisan politics.

How to keep the political situation out of the classroom when there are a handful of fresh refugees in each class?

Also, a skill of civil debate is something I believe kids should learn, regardless of the positions they take in the debate.

Nothing wrong with teaching comparative religion or philosophy of religion in classrooms. It is, however, a disservice to students to indoctrinate them in any religion.

Similarly with politics. There is nothing wrong with teaching basic civics (here are the different levels of government, here is how voting works, here is what the parties in this country stand for). More advanced classes could teach political philosophy in a balanced way.

As for teaching at home - I think children will be poorly equipped for the future if you teach them to be narrow-minded. I'd rather teach them how to think than what to think. If you think your views are correct and factually supported, trust your children to make the same intelligent decisions you have.

Capitalism, if performed correctly, is sustainable and benefits many, many people, while communism is not sustainable or egalitarian and harms many, many people.

I am of course not being entirely serious, but I do disagree with everything you said. Capitalism is not inherently unsustainable or harmful, and the actual version of capitalism we have in the real world has helped to lift billions of people out of terrible poverty. In my view, the fair comparison is actual communism versus actual capitalism (capitalism wins), or hypothetical utopian communism versus hypothetical utopian capitalism (who cares, it's all fiction).

I forgot the indivisible part. She actually said “one nation potentially indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

I taught my kids stuff, my Dh taught my kids stuff, other people they met taught them stuff. they took classes and participated in activities (art, zoo, piano, 4h, swim team…. there are lots of resources in our area)

We used text books for math and real books and public radio and print news and real life experiences and hands on activities for everything else (and also for math)

All three kids are still mad at me about the giant popular culture holes in their educations (tv, movies, video games all very limited)

My kids were not “behind” dd1 was valedictorian. Dd2 skipped a grade by her own choice. Ds was tenth in his class. Ds did need to learn that he actually had to turn his assignments in, not just do them. Other than a stern lecture about that, non of them got any particular support. I pretty much told them I already did high school, and I hated it, so if that’s what you want to do, you’re on your own. I’ll sign stuff.