Public and Private

[Lanolin]

I have been thinking about this for a while what really is the difference between what is public and what is private.
I've worked in public schools and in public libraries and am quite familiar with the public sector, and of course, have been treated in public hospitals.

Now I'm working in a private school, although I have also at times worked for private sector businesses and independently owned ones.

For me there seems to be little difference in service, except with private sector they pay a lot more and can charge whatever they like.

I've read a lot of opinions about how, christianity seems more aligned with private sector because say, in terms of schools there has always been this mythical separation between church and state (not sure where that comes from, or whether that is even true!) because I recall going to a public school where we said prayers and had Bible lessons... but then I go to a private school and its secular as anything!

So I'm a bit confused as the only real difference I see is that more rich people work for the private sector and poor people try to work for the public, and the public sector better serves everyone because they don't put so much barriers of who can afford what. Public libraries have always served anyone who comes in through the doors, while private libraries would be more for members only that could afford to pay a subscription fee. And rich people/well off people are not necessarily more religious, nor are poor people all unwashed heathens.

So what are your thoughts on this. I've always seen rich people as sort of have this mentality that they are 'above' poor people, and thus think they are better, or morally a cut above but actually, they still have many of the same problems as poor people do...and this idea that richer children are not as naughty as poor children can be is a bit of a misnomer. And I note that class sizes in private schools are pretty much the same as public schools, so, I don't see much difference in terms of what type of education students are getting or how its gets delivered!

I was kind of expecting maybe smaller class sizes, like say if you went to a private hospital, maybe you'd get a room to yourself instead of sharing a ward, and not have to wait as long, but the only difference seems to be they charge you to use the toilet paper! And the quality of the doctors/nurses would still be the same as all need to be qualified to work anywhere anyway.

 

[LearningToLetGo]

I have been thinking about this for a while what really is the difference between what is public and what is private.

Private lives and dies by its value to consumers. People buy what private sells or private goes out of business.

Public lives by government appropriation. Public need not provide value to consumers.

(This doesn't mean public does not provide value but only that its value to the consumer need not equate to profits for the company, i.e. it can operate at a loss.)

 

[crossnote]

I've read a lot of opinions about how, christianity seems more aligned with private sector because say, in terms of schools there has always been this mythical separation between church and state (not sure where that comes from, or whether that is even true!) because I recall going to a public school where we said prayers and had Bible lessons... but then I go to a private school and its secular as anything!

I'm not sure how the separation of church and state moves Christianity in alignment with the private sector, but we do see marriage, the owning and selling of private property, bank investing, compounded interest etc. in the NT, yet we are admonished not to trust in uncertain riches but the true and living God,(1Tim 6:17) whether we are slaves or free, public servants ( Phil 1:13 / Luke 3:14) or self employed.

We use to recite prayers and had Bible reading in public school (pre1963) until it was banned on the grounds of 'separation of church and state'.

 

[Lanolin]

I personally think that is a stupid argument to ban things that are a normal part of everyday, DAILY life as if you can only be at church on Sundays between 10-12 and read the Bible then.

Reciting prayers though, is a bit off. Jesus always said go in your room and shut the door (i.e pray in private, not public) and he admonished people who prayed loudly and for a long time on street corners for everyone to see.

A lot of Christianity is related to what happens in public though, eg the early believers went to each others houses, had things in common, they weren't all by themselves, owning each individual scrap of land. We are urged to be a BODY of christ as members not individual separate organs. The other thing was James saying you can't tell a poor person wearing poor clothes (or no clothes) to go off and sit in a corner away from everyone else.

But that's what rich people tell poor people, pay up or else. But poor people can't afford it. That is why they share resources because there isn't enough for everyone to have their own. So is being a Christian only for rich people? It seems like sometimes it is.

Does being private only value proft and money?
While being public values other things like service and well being that can't be quantified?

 

[crossnote]

So is being a Christian only for rich people? It seems like sometimes it is.

That may be the perception, but the reality is closer to this...

1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; [28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

 

[Lanolin]

That may be the perception, but the reality is closer to this...

1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; [28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Interesting though I have been in some churches and really noticed the way the rich ones tended to be the ones on the boards controlling all the finances of the church, or they only wanted to attract rich people to the church as more for their coffers.

I had read of the Schaeffers, who were presbyterian christians, basically ignoring people who were maybe unemployed or illiterate and only wanting powerful, rich, educated people (or their children) in their church. Not sure if this is accurate but this is the impression one of their sons gave of his mother when they set up L'abri that basically attracts hippie nomads. Hippie nomads are rich youngsters who can AFFORD to travel lol. People that are genuinely poor would actually be trying to earn a living to feed their families rather than running off around the world finding themselves.

Of course this is quite opposite to what God has said..

 

[Lanolin]

I think it's weird how both public and private sectors see people as 'consumers'.

I really don't like that image of people being thought of as 'consumers'. As if all we have to do is buy buy buy or eat eat eat. I think there is more to people than that, and we can create and make things ourselves, do the work of our own hands instead of having things ready made for us all the time. But maybe as civilisation evolves or progresses, people tend to think that everything should just ALREADY be provided?

 

[Big Moose]

These questions have a lot to do with the origins of the United States and the history of Europe. The original idea of separation between church and state comes from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association. These Baptists were worried that the new American government might dictate to the churches what would be acceptable religious practices.

Jefferson assured them that, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people", (meaning the US Constitution), "which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

Modern liberals, i.e. progressives, bastardized this by switching it to mean that the church should have no say in how the State, or the government, should operate. This switched idea is how they justified taking prayer and Bible study out of public schools. Now, if you want your child to study the Bible and be able to pray aloud in school, you have to enroll them in a private religious school.

 

[Lanolin]

Why does the US govt always have to butt into what other countries do.
We don't have their constitution and were never under Thomas Jefferson. I also have attended baptist churches and they were never part of the Anglican church/Church of England and thus were never under Royalty or Archbishops in the first place. They always operated independently and subsequently didn't actually have much influence missionary wise in this country. The treaty Maori signed was with the Crown (at the time, Queen Victoria) and not actually the church. That Christianity was her religion was incidental to the 'mana' or prestige she had as 'chief'.

The Methodists made much more of an impact, but THEY were not part of the Anglican church either, and did not impose christianity statewide or try to 'civilise the heathens' like the church missionary group tried to do by trading in guns and nails but did it the old fashioned way - evangelism, and the desire for Maori to learn to read and write IN THEIR OWN language. (Hence, native schools)

Schools were always initially run by churches with mostly Christian teachers and there was really no such thing as state school until much much later.

I still don't understand whats so wrong with not praying out loud, praying out loud in public with children isn't the best thing to do. I wouldn't worry about that. Blessing children is what we ought to do, not get them to recite prayers.

One thing though is the Bible needs to be READ and enjoyed not studied. Everyone knows that the more you study something, the more you come to hate it, so maybe its just as well the Bible is not a set text like Shakespeare lol.

 

[Big Moose]

I find it ironic that the original schools in America used the Bible as the MAIN textbook to learn from. Prestigious Ivy League universities Harvard, Yale and Princeton were Christian universities at their inception and had clergy teaching students. New ideas about science brought in textbooks that eventually pushed out the Bible from the classroom.

 

[Lanolin]

I wasn't a science major but the way science was taught in my high school (out of outdated textbooks) wasn't inspiring.
Science needs to be empirical and hands on, not taught out of books. Nobody actually believes what Darwin thinks is gospel. He only could observe things and come to his own theory which wasn't necessarily correct. Theories are only just that - theories.

To be curious about the natural world isn't a bad thing though.But if you want to cut up a cadaver or dissect a frog and find its soul or spirit inside, you won't find it.

 

[Lanolin]

I don't think we really had much of a text book for science at all. I remember one for biology, and there was one for maths but we were loaned them in school and had to return them at the end of the year. I don't remember having one for chemistry, and English set texts were all literature (we could not choose which texts we wanted to study) but I do remember there would always be a Shakespeare play every year from aged 13 upwards. I didn't keep ANY of my textbooks not even the ones from university. I sold them back to the bookshop after my course had finished.

I think if there was one that I used all the time and was most useful it would have been the Dictionary, but that was never a set text. I do remember a 'spell write' book in primary school. Most of the time the teacher would write on the board, dictate, or give us worksheets though learning out of books in class was often just one activity on page whatever, do that for a while and then check your answers at the back.

The way teachers teach can be exactly the same in public schools as it is in private schools across the board. The only discernable difference that I can see is that private schools can be better resourced, like they might actually have desks and more up to date textbooks, and students all have their own devices (which can costs thousands of dollars) and their buildings are better maintained. Whether the school values teaching christian values or incorporates this into the school depends on the Principals leadership, and both public and private schools in NZ can opt in or out of this, there is never 'public schools are all heathen, private schools are all christian' dichotomy. It really depends on the school and maybe the area you live in. And within all schools you might get a christian teacher or you might get someone who's hindu or agnostic. In high school you have many teachers from all different backgrounds teaching different subjects. Religion actually may not be offered as a separate topic, but it MIGHT be mentioned in Social Studies, or in English, or touched upon in Art History, which often has a lot of religious paintings but if the art teacher doesn't read or understand the Bible, they aren't necessarily going to teach what it means. They might just say well the baptistery doors in Florence were richly decorated and showed perspective.

Many catholic schools are not actually christian, and do not require all the teachers to be catholic. Also many catholic schools do NOT have the Bible taught in them because they want to teach it the catholic way, i.e not at all, they will teach from catholic handbooks and catechisms and not actually have students read it for themselves.

What schools often do is have optional lunchtime bible studies/prayer groups for students who want to explore Christianity. Even at university they did this with groups giving special lectures and alpha courses etc. But generally, you don't stop being christian once you step out of church doors if thats who you are, its going to permeate every aspect of your life in your manner and behaviour and how you interact with others especially at school, or say at hospital where, you get kind nurses and maybe even chaplains who treat everyone or you can have nurses and doctors who are only doing the job because of the money.

 

[Lanolin]

Sorry for the long posts I'm still trying to get my head round it.

I have worked in a library that had a public-private partnership. So basically the polytech (which was supposedly the private part) joined with the public library to share a building. At first they thought this was a great idea because the public library got moved to a bigger, newer space, and the polytech could house the public library along with their own books too and they would all work together.

But it only worked for a couple of years. At first the polytechs library interfiled their textbooks with the public libraries non fiction collection but they put stickers on them and told people that weren't students they weren't allowed to borrow them.

We though this was a stupid idea as it made the collection a whole lot bigger than it needed to be and now people were looking all over the place for their books. Why couldn't they just have a separate collection in another area, ok the same building but maybe just some separate shelves?

Then because it was a mostly nursing school we had a big problem when the nursing students would use the outside of the library for their smoking breaks. (this also happened at the university library...smoke would enter the air vents and stink out the library) . We didn't think that was great especially when pre-school children were also using the library.

anyway. That was just one example of a public-private partnership that failed. Also it kind of meant that maybe both were short of money so they had to share a building space. After a few years the polytech librarians moved to a separate area and their books got moved back there and they stopped sharing a staffroom and desks with the public librarians.

It sort of reminded me of many marriages of convenience. They all start off great sharing a house and everything (cos both need a house right?) but eventually find that's not such a good idea and go their separate ways....

 

[Lanolin]

I have a poor opinion of private for-profit schools now that I have worked in one and know what it's like. They really are ripping off the parents, and the money never goes to the children or spent on resources, its just goes to the management's pay packets. Terrible.