child-rearing and rural farming, respectively. Both rely on a core principle of confinement. In factory farming, animals are generally kept indoors in confined pens for duration of their lives. If we’re talking about male cattle raised for veal, they are literally confined to a small box and denied any exercise whatsoever. With public schooling, children are confined indoors for the majority of daylight hours and, in lower grades, generally restricted to a single classroom. They are expected to sit quietly at


desks – analogous to a factory animal cage – with only limited exercise approved for limited, scheduled intervals. Animals and children alike are deprived of the ability to fulfill their natural desire to exercise and explore their outdoor environments.


The confinement of children on the part of authoritarian figures who demand mandatory attendance illustrates how the federal public school system has become a security garrison with satellite detainment facilities. Moreover, yanking children from their parents and assimilating them into dumbed-down, draconian learning pools based on age and collectivizing their learning experience in a quasi-prison environment hasn't worked, and it will never be ideal for the vast majority of the children. Skip Oliva continues:


There is also the issue of socialization. Many farmed animals, including cows, pigs and rabbits, are naturally sociable and psychologically require healthy contact with other members of their species, particularly with their mothers during adolescence. Factory farming largely ignores those relationships. Young cattle are often denied any maternal contact, in order to preserve the mother’s milk for human consumption. Animals are often caged or together in inadequate indoor facilities which promote the spread of disease, aggressive fighting and even cannibalism. Similarly, when children are confined in large classrooms, they are more exposed to communicable diseases and subject to anti-social behaviors such as bullying.


Of course, proponents of schooling claim socialization is a primary benefit, especially compared with continued instruction from a parent (aka "homeschooling"). Yet as is true with most high-order mammals, human children require an extended period of exclusive access to a parent, ideally the mother, who serves as a model for proper social behavior. Children of the same age are inadequate substitutes. They cannot model behaviors that they themselves have not learned. Nor is a teacher in a position to do so, as one person is incapable of developing the necessary relationship of trust with several dozen


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10