Abstract
In this response to Matusov's "Right for Freedom in Education," I will offer two “yes, but…” concerns about crucial complexities of this freedom that I think Matusov leaves unaddressed, and a “yes, and…” alternative pragmatic justification of this freedom that differs from, but I think is more compelling than, Matusov’s.
Highlights
In “A Right for Freedom of Education,” Eugene Matusov lays out a case “that students must have to freely define their own education.” He lays out four types of education, and argues why students’ rights to define how, whether, and when to engage in these forms are necessary for true education in each form
As I write this, my family has an infant foster-daughter in the house. We violate her rights to educational freedom (RoEF) by forcing her into “tummy time;” we put her onto her stomach so that she can strengthen muscles necessary for crawling and gain necessary practice being on her stomach
The second problem with his existential justification is that throughout the paper, he seems exclusively to rely on the pragmatic justification he says he is not making For instance, when justifying why a right to educational freedom is justified in cases of “open socialization” he writes that open socialization requires creativity, and creativity requires freedom: Creativity is out-of-box thinking, feeling, relating, talking, imaging, and acting
Summary
In “A Right for Freedom of Education,” Eugene Matusov lays out a case “that students must have to freely define their own education.” He lays out four types of education (training, closed socialization, open socialization, and critical examination), and argues why students’ rights to define how, whether, and when to engage in these forms are necessary for true education in each form. I suspect that for Matusov’s case to work - and to explain why our infant is a learner but not an RoEF-entitled student - we need to define “student” by appealing to the capabilities we
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