With that attitude, you might as well do away with teacher certification, mandatory training, and just give the job to anyone who passes a background check.

Not quite. There's no evidence that the training does anything so we can do away with that[1]. Set a subject matter test, hire the people who do best on the test and have them teach it. Primary school could be more obviously day care to its great improvement, like at Sudbury or deomcratic schools, or at Summerhill, where the students can do whatever they want as long as they're safe and stay on school grounds.

[1]It's easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the correlates of teacher effectiveness

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

Research highlights ▶ Majoring in education is not associated with teacher effectiveness. ▶ University attended for college is not associated with teacher effectiveness. ▶ Acquiring a master's degree is not associated with teacher effectiveness. ▶ Teachers become more effective with a few years of teaching experience. ▶ Teachers may become less effective later in their careers.

> Frankly, we have little real idea what's psychologically appropriate for kids.

You must be joking. Look at parental guidance for movies and games for example. Violence is good and appropriate. Just show no blood. ( Harry Potter). Sex is not good except when in Disney movies and preferably between a prince and a princess. Scenes of normal life are borring just like story costruction. Children must learn that they have to reach the goals as fast as possible, no matter what means are employed. And did i mention violence ? Maybe they don't have it at home but it must be introduced somehow in their lifes. They also need to speak more hysterical. TV and politics have shown that if you speak in normal tone noone will listen to you.

You're probably right, but nonetheless, the original commenter's point stands about the state having literal and legal responsibility for peoples children. It makes sense to be conservative in deciding what material to put in the school library.

""In carrying out searches and other disciplinary functions pursuant to such policies, school officials act as representatives of the State, not merely as surrogates for the parents, and they cannot claim the parents' immunity from the strictures of the Fourth Amendment."" (NJ v TLO)

Meaning: schools have the right (and responsibility) to take steps necessary for the safety of children, but those rights are rather limited compared to those of parents, because they must also satisfy the limits set by constitution for all acts of the state and its representative. Banning books is an excellent example since it is almost the textbook definition of a restriction of free speech at the same time as having exceptionally weak arguments for its necessity, ostensibly to prevent psychological harms, which is a dubious concept to begin with.

> It makes sense to be conservative in deciding what material to put in the school library.

Does it? Is there actual evidence of harm from having these materials available, or is this really just pearl clutching?

> It makes sense to be conservative in deciding what material to put in the school library.

It really doesn't. School is one of the best places we can have people encounter challenging idea and works for the first time. If we coddle people on school and then they are exposed to those ideas on their own (which they will be) then they have fewer resources to aid in processing those ideas and are more likely to end up confused and misinformed.

That’s a good formula for college, once children have become legal adults and are responsible for themselves. While they’re children, it’s up to the parents to expose them to the world.

Yes and no. I would argue it's even more important to maintain a variety of voices in repressive environments like private religious schools and libraries, especially where queer kids (as one of many examples) there may not have any access to stories reflecting their own experiences. Being that repressed is far more harmful than anything fiction can do, and I speak as that literal example there.

I owe my entire current mentality to the books and literature I found on my own beyond the parent's wishes. They're good people in many ways, but having that sanctum to explore other experiences was critical.

Most people don't go to college and even if they did, you need to start teaching these cognitive skills much earlier.