The focus of this comment struck me. Seems to me that education of children involves influence - even a "hands-off" approach influences, no? So, apart from questions about physical safety and measurable/occupational skills taught, these points seem to touch on the greater question of who or what should be an influencer, and to what degree?
Western culture (my personal background) has seen shifts in answers to this question over the past centuries... and not in isolation from other shifts in viewpoints about cultural interactions.
Are we going in a direction that is good? All I can say for sure is that it becomes increasingly easy for me to focus on myself and current times while ignoring children and what they will grow into, and increasingly harder for me to understand the reasons my parents, grandparents, etc thought and reasoned the way they did. Again, a slice of the world, but if my experience is widespread, that surely affects how decisions about education are currently being made.
This is an off-topic point, but perhaps this TED talk by James Flynn might give you a perspective to understand why your parents and grandparents tought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vpqilhW9uI
It posits the idea that the way of thinking back then was different, because they had to overcome different cognitive challenges from us today. This would shape how people back then viewed the world.
Western culture (my personal background) has seen shifts in answers to this question over the past centuries... and not in isolation from other shifts in viewpoints about cultural interactions.
Are we going in a direction that is good? All I can say for sure is that it becomes increasingly easy for me to focus on myself and current times while ignoring children and what they will grow into, and increasingly harder for me to understand the reasons my parents, grandparents, etc thought and reasoned the way they did. Again, a slice of the world, but if my experience is widespread, that surely affects how decisions about education are currently being made.