I’ve also seen US teachers spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to stock classrooms.

I spent a lot of time in European schools and I’ve never heard of teachers having to stock their own classrooms or fundraise for things like playgrounds, etc.

  • nutsack@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    the conservative point ive been hearing is that government shouldn’t spend money on education, because the real problem is fatherless households. im not really sure what to do with it

    • Kit Sorens@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 months ago

      That’s a smoke screen. Another is the “liberal brainwashing machine” school system scare. What they fear is the statistic that higher educated individuals trend towards populism and progressivism. They see higher education of youths as a threat to their political base, which turns into “spineless parents sending kids to liberul brainwashing camps funded by the gubmnt.”

    • Xanis@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Find out what they believe causes a household to be fatherless. Follow their logic string by asking follow-up questions based on their most recent response. Either they’ll run out of justification quickly, or they’ll back themselves into a corner. From here you can leave it be as they’ve essentially ended up causing them to question their own understanding.

      One way of many.

      • nutsack@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        they believe it is neo-marxism, atheism, liberalism, black culture, the lgbt movement and its sex positivity. godlessness, basically. “the left” are sodom and gomorroah. no idea how to argue with that because there’s not a lot of objective fact in any of it.

      • Jojo@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Also find out what consequences they expect a child being “fatherless” to bring, and compare that to what actually happens when a child has a healthy household without a father in it.

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      9 months ago

      I mean, if someone is saying that they’re probably coming from an afactual, emotional, space, so you’d have to engage with those rules. Try to make them trust you and see you as part of their in-group, because if they see you as an outsider they’re extremely unlikely to listen. This is true of everyone, but especially true if someone’s emotionally invested in a topic.

      Or they’re a troll who knows what they’re doing. Online trolls you can’t really do much about. Real life trolls you can apply social pressure.

      If you were going to try to engage that point on facts, which is probably a waste of time, I don’t even know where to start. Are there statistics backing their claim or is it just made up entirely? Is it a dog whistle for racism? Have they read “The New Jim Crow”? Why does this problem preclude spending money on education? If fatherless households were a problem, should the government address that? How so? Would investing more in education be a long term solution to this problem, too?

      There are so many questions. Most of which are likely to be wasted because the person holding this position is likely uninterested in facts, but has some feelings they’re justifying with words.

      • nutsack@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        if you asked ben shapiro he would probably suggest subsidies for religious private schools, religious leaders in government, policy based on religion, changes to family law, enforced marriage upon pregnancy and that sort of thing