Taking Children Seriously

Taking Children Seriously, TCS, is a worldwide parenting movement and educational philosophy based upon the idea that it is possible and desirable to raise and educate children without either doing anything to them against their will, or making them do anything against their will.

It was founded in 1994 as an email mailing-list by the libertarians Sarah Fitz-Claridge and David Deutsch. [ [http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/node/136 Origins of TCS] at TCS web site. ]

The TCS model of parenting and education argues that most traditional interactions between adults and youth are based on coercion. TCS rejects this coercion as infringing on the will of the child, and also rejects parental or educator "self-sacrifice" as infringing on the will of the adult. TCS advocates that parents and children work to find a common preference, a solution all parties genuinely prefer to all other candidate solutions they can think of. [ [http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/common_preferences_and_non_coercion] Taking Children Seriously common preferences and non coercion]

The TCS philosophy was inspired by the epistemology of Karl Popper. Popper was a professional educator himself before he started to do philosophy. In fact, philosophy was only a second option for him at that time, to be able to emigrate to escape the imminent Anschluss. He was active in the "Wiener Schulreform" (Vienna school reform) movement, [Karl R. Popper: Über die Stellung des Lehrers zu Schule und Schüler. "Schulreform" 4:4 (1925), 204–208.] [Karl R. Popper: Zur Philosophie des Heimatgedankens. "Die Quelle" 77:10 (1927), 899–908.] and there are connections between the psychology of learning, on which he did his doctoral thesis, [Karl R. Popper: Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie. Wien, 1928 (unpublished dissertation).] and his philosophy. [William W. Bartley: "Die österreichische Schulreform als die Wiege der modernen Philosophie". In Gerhard Szcesny (Ed.): "Club Voltaire IV" (Hamburg: 1970), ISBN 3-499-65086-X, p. 360)] However, as a philosopher, he did not advocate any concrete pedagogy, although he had some general views on the issue. [Rafe Champion: [http://www.the-rathouse.com/RC_PopperEdu.html Popper on Education] (1987)] TCS views Popper's epistemology, as Popper himself, as a universal theory of how knowledge grows, and tries to work out its profound implications for educational theory.

References

* " [http://www.brainchildmag.com/ Brain, Child Magazine] " Vol. 4, issue 1, Winter 2003
* " [http://www.greenanarchy.info/etc/tcs.htm Taking Children Seriously (TCS) and Anarchy] " by (I)An-ok , in Green Anarchy #10 (Fall 2002). Accessed May 2008.

External links

* [http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com Taking Children Seriously Website]