Reply to Private Schools that Emphasize Critical and Independent Thinking

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Progressive schools do not invite debate acknowledging that both sides of many political issues have valid points, and encourage students to think critically and be able to appreciate, articulate, and argue from multiple perspectives.  Instead, any dissent is “hate.”  Backward and the opposite of critical thinking.[/quote]

Isn't there a difference between schools that practice progressive education and schools that have progressive politics? Or is there not?[/quote]
There tends to be an overlap in part because progressive schools are inherently open to challenging the status quo with regard to pedagogical techniques. Children become active participants in their own learning, as opposed to vessels to be filled by higher-status adult teachers, which complicates (but does not eliminate) hierarchical relationships. Not surprisingly, people who are open to this model of education tend to be more liberal politically.
I consider myself to be very liberal politically, but as a long-time professor in the humanities, it really bothers me when I see the policing of ideas from both the left and the right, but more from the left because it is so blindly hypocritical. I send my own children to a well-known liberal and progressive independent school, but I am unhappy knowing that there is definitely an atmosphere where students are afraid to ask or test out controversial ideas--and quick assumptions that clumsy language is ill-intended--because of fear or reprisal from students and faculty.[/quote]
We had a bite of that when last year any criticism of Israeli government is viewed as anti semitism even when one voicing it is Jewish. [/quote]
+1. GDS is particularly bad at this. The suggestion of the Gaza war as genocide is quickly shot down. Not surprisingly, DS is hearing a lot of accusations (parroting of parents) of Mamdani as antisemitic. It's unfortunate. We stay because of other aspects of the school, but the school definitely discourages critical thinking on certain topics.[/quote]

So, how does this fit in the social justice? Social justice for the one  group? [/quote]

No school charging well over $50k/yr has any real interest in social justice.

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