Teaching vs. raising children

 The idea that schools should ONLY teach, as if nurturing children is separable from teaching, contradicts both common sense and the legal principle of in loco parentis.

It is common sense that anybody that takes custody of a child is responsible for that child’s well-being. No reasonable parent would give their child to a teacher that recklessly starved, suffocated, or dehydrated students. Nor should they send their children to a teacher that routinely alienated, controlled, and frustrated the skills of their students. All human have primary psychological needs for relatedness, autonomy, and competence which are just as important to well-being as the other more well-known needs. I take nurturing to mean, at minimum, the support of primary human needs. It is common sense that anyone who takes custody of a child has a duty to ensure that their psychological needs are supported. Independent of anything else they may be obligated or committed to accomplishing with that child this is the minimum of care that Is owed to the child. 

This common sense view was put into common law through a principle called in loco parentis. The following series of quotes, mostly from legal decisions, will help illuminate the principle. 

In Sir William Blackstone's compilation of English law from 1770 he made it clear that the “exercise of power [by a tutor or school master] is limited to what is ‘necessary to answer the purposes for which he is employed.’” (p. 271, Zirkel & Reichner, 1986)

“[T]he courts have accepted with relative ease the notion that in loco parentis gives rise to duties as well as rights of educators.” (p. 281, Zirkel & Reichner, 1986) 

“The status of a parent, with some of the parent's privileges, is given a school teacher by law in aid of the education and training of the child…” (Guerrierri v. Tyson, 1942)

Blackstone assigned three duties to parents that are “transfer[ed] to teachers: maintenance, protection, and education.” (Worley, 2003)

“We are not here concerned with the law applicable to punishment of a pupil by a teacher; but rather with the law applicable to the duties of a teacher in the care and custody of a pupil. In the faithful discharge of such duties the teacher is bound to use reasonable care….” (Gaincott v. Davis, 1937)

There are a variety of ways that a school institution cannot act like a parent and the law carves out limitations and deviations accordingly. But the foundational principle of in loco parentis is that parents are responsible for ensuring the well-being of their child AND when they entrust their child to school personnel, that makes those school folks into caregivers who are likewise obligated to support the child’s well-being. 

Marco Rubio’s comment quoted in the meme demonstrates his ignorance of the principle of in loco parentis, ignorance of children’s needs, and/or a reckless impulse that will harm school children.

Motivation Does Not Cause Learning, But You’re Missing the Point

There seems to be a misunderstanding about the relationship between motivation and the duty of care known as in loco parentis among folks in the education field. It is true that motivation is only indirectly related to academic performance, but that is a trivial fact. The important fact that seems to be overlooked is that when children are in the custody of educators that means that need satisfaction is a prior obligation to academically educating them. The moment you took custody of the child from their parent you became obligated to ensure their well-being as a pre-condition to providing instruction. That means that you do not have an option about providing support for their primary human needs. Primary human needs are the most central CAUSES of well-being, by definition, and they also cause motivation to be certain ways, too. Both parents, and by extension all adults that they entrust custody of their children to, are duty bound to ensure their well-being, which necessarily means providing support for their primary needs and ensuring their motivations are more autonomous than controlled. 

No reasonable parent or teacher would accept the existence of a school that recklessly starved, suffocated, dehydrated, or exposed children to the elements. It should be equally abhorrent to accept schools that routinely thwart psychological needs which will manifest as a pattern of controlled motivations in their students and teachers.

Reading: Drop the Evolutionarily Secondary Skill Bullshit

The notion that reading difficulties are a consequence of that skill being evolutionarily secondary is bullshit. Children have an innate desire to be a competent member of their tribe. Evolution equipped them with a need to be competent. That means that all children possess the skill to learn whatever it takes to become a competent member of their group. When learning to read is necessary to be a competent member of society and when there is support for their primary psychological needs for relatedness, autonomy, and competence in that society, children are perfectly capable of tapping their natural learning abilities to do so. The observation that children struggle with reading is more about embedding them in an institutional structure that undermines those needs and/or places other barriers in the way of the children tapping their innate learning capacities. 

The folks that posited the secondary skill bullshit were taking mainstream schooling to be the natural way of things, they failed to realize that the institutional social structures of mainstream schooling are the problem. If you are embedded in a mainstream school and want to do better by the children, it would be far more impactful to support their needs rather than adjusting your instructional techniques. Obviously, instruction should be done skillfully, but children need to arrive in the instructional situation after their primary psychological needs have been satisfied, not before. Remember, all adults with in loco parentis duties of care (not just teachers) must, first and foremost, ensure the well-being of the children. They can attend to their others duties once the duty of care has been fulfilled. 

Update: I found references to other more academically respectable critics of the notion of evolutionarily secondary skills.

Ellis, G. F. R. (2008). Commentary on“an evolutionarily informed education science” by David C. Geary. Educational Psychologist, 43(4), 206–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520802392216

Gray, P. (2016). Children’s natural ways of educating themselves still work: Even for the three Rs. In D. C. Geary & D. B. Berch (Eds.), Evolutionary psychology (pp. 67–93). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29986-0_3

Lancy, D. F. (2016). Teaching: Natural or cultural? In D. B. Berch & D. F. Lancy (Eds.), Evolutionary perspectives on child development and education (pp. 33–65). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29986-0