Schools ought to reinforce community norms
Developing a philosophy of education--bit by bit, or post by post
Young people need to be rooted in a belief system. They need a solid foundation telling them what is right and wrong and good and evil. A young person’s belief system may be rooted in a religious tradition or a moral framework that their family, and perhaps community, abides by. When they enter school, this belief system travels with them, informing their conduct and how they arrive at opinions about the world, process information, and make sense of the knowledge that they acquire.
Ideally, schools would reinforce a foundational framework of beliefs, or at least the norms that stem from it. But this can only happen if everyone abides by a shared system of beliefs, as is the final of five criteria for my (developing) philosophy of education: Schools ought to…
Reinforce societal or community norms. However, importantly, this only works when schools are the center of a tight-knit community. One where everyone abides by a shared tradition and participates in civil institutions.
I actually don’t know that it’s possible to incorporate this criterion, partly because I’m not confident that there are enough schools situated within tight-knit communities that share one tradition to make this a viable aspect of a philosophy of education.