Re: Here's someone on our side :o)

On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 17:06:57 +0100, D.M. Procida wrote:

Ian <ian@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 10:09:43 +0100, D.M. Procida wrote:

Ian <ian@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Every*one* (i.e. every individual) has a duty to take an interest
in education. I don't think that *business* (i.e. profit-making)
has any right or stake in education whatsoever.

So you will give up your teaching salary because its profitable to
you?

I am not making a profit, I am earning a salary. Making a profit
means spending less on resources and labour than you can sell them
for.

Your definition.

Look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit

for a more balanced view.

I fail to see how looking up a Wikipedia article is going to help you
understand what I mean when I say that I don't believe business has any
right or stake in education.

I was rather hoping it might help you understand what profit meant ;-)

I am not buying and selling for a profit.

You are. You are selling your expertise to the students via the school.

I most certainly am not. The students are not customers. That is a truly
revolting picture of education, and one I wholly repudiate.

You can repudiate all you like. The fact is you are getting paid so you
have a financial interest - unless you do it for free I suppose.

Your profit margin is your personal expenses taken from your take home
pay. You have a service level agreement with your employer in the form
of a contract which is not much different from the way I have contracts
with customers.

This is just nonsense. You can't take one model of contractual
relationship and apply it willy-nilly to every other.

I can and I have. Its perfectly reasonable, it just appears to disturb
your perspective on the world. That's cool, its a pluralist society.

Well, perhaps you
can, because it's what you seem to be doing, but it's still nonsense.
You may as well try to redescribe a teacher's relationships according to
the matrimonial model. It's absurd as describing a garden as a
gardener's customer.

Actually there is in loco parentis which is a similar concept.

I am not saying that you shouldn't be making a profit or running a
business, even one supplying services or goods to education. What I
am saying is that business should not have a right over how children
are educated.

Which is absurd. Why should business people have less rights than
anyone else?

Because business are not any*one*. Businesses are businesses, not
people.

Sole trader is a single person business. There are rather a lot of them.
Its generally people who run businesses and who have views represented
through organisations such as the CBI just like teacher unions with a
different political perspective.

In any case, it's not what I said. I said *business*, not *businesses*.

I do understand this as well. But if you agree that it should be
opened up far enough so that we get education secretaries jumping out
of their political boots every time the CBI moans that school-leavers
don't seem to be well-prepared to do tedious menial jobs more cheaply
than workers in the poorest countries in the world, then it seems to
me that you have allowed one kind of view or interest to dominate
very dangerously over education (which in fact I think is the current
situation).

That is a long way from saying "business should not have a right over
how children are educated." I agree that they should not have a
disproportionate say, you seemed to be saying they should have no say
and have no legitimate interest. I just think that is extreme.

It may be extreme, but it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Its wrong in the eyes of most people and since such things are consensus
issues not absolutes that's what matters.

You could also say teachers have such an interest and are in a rather
more powerful position to exercise it. The strength of a pluralist
society is in the balance of power between the interest groups. If one
says the other has no legitimate interest there will be a predictable
reaction polarising things.

Mostly, the teaching profession has the interests of its charges'
educations at heart. Business does not.

Businesses have the interests of employees, customers and shareholders at
heart. The teaching profession also has its own interests at heart too.
This holier than thou attitude is not particularly helpful.

Business has business's interests
at heart, and those interest are often inimicable to those of people who
need to be educated. That's why one group has a legitimate stake in
education and the other does not.

I could just as easily say teacher have their own interests at heart - I
have certainly met some with that attitude just as you have probably met
business people who are entirely in it for personal financial gain. The
fact is that we all live in the same society and education serves that
society so all the members have a legitimate interest in education.
Parents have a legitimate interest too - ask them if they think preparing
their kids to get a job is a legitimate goal of education.

--
Ian Lynch
www.theINGOTs.org
www.opendocumentfellowship.org
www.schoolforge.org.uk
.

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