Article Surfing Archive

"The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life ' by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past ' and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own efforts."

' Ayn Rand, "The Comprachicos"

The state of education in New Zealand is a shambles. Parents who are concerned about the future well-being of their children are searching desperately for educational alternatives. The increased demand for private schooling and the dramatic rise in the number of home-schooled children provide an accurate measure of the growing degree of parental dissatisfaction with the current situation.

But unless responsible and well-meaning parents are armed with the philosophical knowledge to be able to choose a rational educational method for their children ' i.e., a type of educational method that will fully prepare their children for successful adult life ' then it is quite likely that the results will be just as disappointing for them as for those parents who have left their children's education in the hands of the state.

There is no guarantee whatsoever that private or home-schooling per se will produce satisfactory results. It is one thing to opt out of a state system that not only stunts, but positively perverts a child's intellectual and moral growth (see Editorial, Turning Minds to Mush, TFR #9)