I have joked that people shouldn't be allowed to leave the 8th grade without reading Atlas Shrugged. But I'm with Yaron Brook on this, government should not be telling anybody what to read. Heck, they shouldn't even be involved in schools.
Rand would insist that the educational system perform its only fundamental responsibility - teach students to think critically and use an ethically rational protocol to arrive there.
Everything else is essentially just job training subject matter.
Regarding Atlas Shrugged - of course it would be part of her recommended reading list in the Ethics 101 class.
MrSelfish, Exactly. The problem is that the school system teaches them NOT to think and to NOT to use reason. They teach them the things they must, "the three Rs", and the rest of the time is spent teaching them to be collectivists and, at least in Clark County, NV, doing worthless fundraisers (which of course have a collectivist bent to them.) All the while, implementing more and more policies that keep the parents at curb's length. We had finally had it and withdrew our kids, having no clue where to start guiding their learning. We found out very quickly that teaching them to learn is a very simple, albeit long process. Atlas Shrugged, We The Living and The Fountainhead will be part of their curriculum when they get a little older, but I am the PARENT and it is my job to raise them as I see fit. In the meantime, we will teach them HOW to learn and HOW to reason and detox them from the collectivism. I am not a huge fan of homeschooling, it's HARD to do it right. It's tough to work it into the schedule of a dual income family with a gaggle of children. I was just a parent who had had enough of politicians and their sidekicks deciding what my children were learning...whether it agreed with my outlook or not.
it isn't force. you are paying for curriculum choices. problem is, you've paid for liberal propaganda to be spoon fed to you through textbooks costing hundreds of dollars across every single one of your classes that were not engineering based. reason doesn't appear to be on teachers' radars. funny that
Everything else is essentially just job training subject matter.
Regarding Atlas Shrugged - of course it would be part of her recommended reading list in the Ethics 101 class.