Les enfants ne devraient jamais être éduqués à la maison par leurs parents. Etes-vous d'accord ou en désaccord? (document en anglais)

Children should never be educated at home by their parents. Do you agree or disagree?

This question could seem naive but is subject to vivid debates especially in France. More and more French parents are rejecting public schools and fear that their children could be manipulated. In order to answer the question I will consider two aspects of education. In the first part I will see education as a synonym of academic instruction. In the second part I will consider education in another perspective.

Parents have the tendency to consider their children as their property and believe that they can educate them as they want. Nevertheless being parents does not make them infallible. They can make mistakes and bad choices. Furthermore parents can impose their way of life on their children. Parents are not able to educate their children in every field. They can be illiterates or ignorant and don’t have the knowledge required. They can also have no idea of what their children need to know in order to get a good job for instance. Sometimes it is for them very difficult to exert authority and to create a working atmosphere. For all these reasons I think that homeschool is not a good solution.

Nonetheless the role of school is not to provide values and manners. Moreover schools could make parents unaccountable for taking care of their children. Actually if we consider that children should never be educated at home by their parents, we have to find an alternative and suggest a place which is more adapted to children. The first thing which comes to mind is school but school is not an abstract entity it is the result of political orientations. The question of who should educate children is in fact a question of legitimacy. We saw that parents can have many shortcomings but it is difficult to find someone else that could be more involved and ready to educate children. Parents love their children and that is why they are the only people who can devote time and energy in order to take care of children.

In conclusion, I think that parents and school have different roles. Schools provide knowledge and are a good place to meet people. However no institution can replace parents in terms of love and dedication. The children need both.

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