Virginians, like much of the nation, have been thrust into a number of very unsettling controversies by ideas being pushed upon us. With a disgraceful lack of moral and mature character, the governor steered these debates away from adult arenas and instead chose to put Virginia’s children in the front lines of this battle with his administration’s mandates and financial arm-twisting on public schools.
Should children be put into unhealthy masks again? Should they be taught to categorize people into unescapable castes with Critical Race Theory? Should we pretend gender is defined by feeling rather than biology? No wonder parents are upset!
But this battle of the purpose of education has been going on for a long time. John Dewey, who was very influential in creating a public education system that would direct culture and society, understood perfectly that the future of a nation is very much determined by the ideas put into the minds of children. At Columbia University in New York City, Dewey welcomed as colleagues people from the communist leaning German Frankfort School and together they created a teaching college that has been replicated as a model across our nation. Most teachers learn from Dewey’s teaching model. For a concise set of essays by a number of authors that tells the story of how we got where we are, please read “Political Correctness: A Deceptive and Dangerous Worldview.”
Dewey understood what many parents do not: the entity that controls education determines the thinking of the students and with that the culture. And those who control the education funding, control the education. And that is why what parents are rightfully seeking – a real voice in their children’s education – will never happen in state-controlled education. Between state mandates, threats of losing state funding, and fear of expensive lawsuits, school boards have almost no influence.
This force and intimidation education model is very much a consequence of putting education under the state, whose only tool is force. As ideas deviate from the truth, more force is required and that is what we are seeing. Even good teachers are unable to question wrong ideas. Lies advance when truth is silenced.
The Bible presents a very different education model, with no state role, but rather training children is primarily the role of parents. The local church being commissioned to disciple the nations (Matthew 28:19) also has a significant Biblical role. Whereas education by force creates subjects who follow out of fear, education by love creates disciples who follow by free choice. God created humankind to be free.
If you want your children to have true ideas shape them into confident adults, don’t waste your time trying to make the state do what it cannot. With surveys indicating that over 80% of churchgoing parents send their children to public schools, I do wonder where are the shepherds warning of the dangers of false teaching? So while public schools have huge problems, the reality is most churches today have a much bigger problem, because education is discipleship.
When God’s people humble themselves and turn away from the sin of disregarding the calling of the church toward the least of these, we can rightfully ask God’s blessing on our nation. How wrong it is to put our children on the front lines of this cultural war. Now is the time to be adults and get children out of the truly abusive state model. Removing children from this fear-ridden heavy-handed controlling environment is step one in this battle of ideas. (Many resources are at www.christedu.org and www.publicschoolexit.com.)
36 comments
When I was in middle-schools and high school way, way back when, there were posters in my homerooms’ of the Ten Commandments. I came from a non-churched family that never practiced religion at all, but was respectful of others who did. The Commandments were my introduction to the Moral Order. Having a reminder that murdering, stealing, cheating, covetousness were inherently wrong, regardless of whether you had a faith or not was a good thing and not a bad thing. I did, however, get a good education in important literature, basic historical knowledge that showed me how I ended up in the greatest nation on God’s earth, and excellent math skills. At that time the US was at or near the top of every nation on earth in educational performance – turning out kids who were equipped with life skills with which they could make a living, or go to college, or both. Today, we are a middling ranked country in every discipline at best. I believe the last number I saw in math was that the US was ranked around 39, as an example. (I can believe it interacting with cashiers). Our statistical ranking is in direct proportion to our lose of “moral footing” in my humble opinion. Now we churn out kids who are by any standard, poorly equipped to do much of anything. It seems to me the time has come to pull the plug on the government run school “industry” run from Washington, D.C. teacher’s unions and the DOE. It’s a failure. Every parent deserves a choice on how and where to educate their child in their local communities via a voucher, and make the “public, government” schools compete with religious and technical schools, or private non-religious schools and academies, charter, or homeschooling. If we do nothing and simply accept the current nightmare in public government owned schools, then we’ll get nothing but more of the same. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll have a fighting chance of turning out kids who understand their own country, its unique freedoms and their own responsibility to both.
I have long held the belief that every church in America should be a school. If Christian churches ensured the kids in their own congregations had a Christian education, then kids would be smarter, better Christians, and America would be a better place. We don’t have to change the world. If we change the kids in our own backyard then the rest will take care of itself.
That all depends if you can find a job. How many social workers are there? How many electricians? Do the multiplication and you will see the difference in value to Americans. Electricians are an essential part of raising the standard of living, including a cleaner environment.
Social workers are needed because wrong-ideas rooted in a rejection of individual human value set root in a mind. In my study of worldviews, I have found only one worldview that does not embrace some form of a caste system and that is the Judeo-Christian worldview. The reason an American can transfer to a very different career later in life is rooted in the worldview that embraces “new beginnings” and that is the worldview that offers all of humankind redemption – the most meaningful fresh start. Even so, because of the fallen nature of humankind, such a culture was and still is a struggle, but one we that is well worth contending for.
Atheists don’t send their children to an evangelical Christian Sunday School one hour per week, but Christians send their children to the atheist public schools 30 hours per week. I am a retired teacher and unequivocally proclaim that there is no hope for America as long as Christians and conservatives allow their children to be indoctrinated in the public schools. We must rescue our children!
a year in my wife’s first grade classroom is an experience that benefits kids for a lifetime. There is no indoctrination although i am sure you believe that. Ridiculous
Is the pledge of allegiance said? Is there an American flag in the classroom? Is a moment of silence observed for prayer or remembrance? How about LGBT and CRT? What is the priority – reading and math or political correctness? I doubt you have spent much if any time in her classroom.
So you seem to be saying that your wife’s classroom is identical to every other K-12 classroom in the whole nation? Ridiculous. That CRT and the 1619 project are just myths along with the classroom and school counselor push to create sexual dysphoria? That the prevailing worldview in public education doesn’t contain any cultural Marxism? Focus on the big picture and the dumbing down that has occurred over these past 6 or 7 decades.
I think you are replying to Martin.
So you seem to be saying that your wife’s classroom is identical to every other K-12 classroom in the whole nation? Ridiculous. That CRT and the 1619 project are just myths along with the classroom and school counselor push to create sexual dysphoria? That the prevailing worldview in public education doesn’t contain any cultural Marxism? Focus on the big picture and the dumbing down that has occurred over these past 6 or 7 decades.
I agree, if you believe teachers have the right to ignore the wishes of parents when it comes to their children in the name of “religion”, you should probably have your kids in a religious school. Sound advice.
Today Public School Teachers have self demoted themselves to nothing more than a Political Mouthpiece for the Democrat Party.
I had a discussion with a school administrator just two weeks ago about the ineptitude of this school being able to get students to and from school in a timely manner. This person’s response was they did not enough money.
I responded that maybe you need to put that Doctorate to good use and figure it out and to not be so focused on divisive social issues and more on the Administrations responsibility to students and their education.
Folks the Democrats have been complete failures in their leadership and policies from;
CRT
Transgender
Housing
Welfare
Education
Immigration
Energy
Afghanistan and
even McAuliffes failures with Charlottesville.
Doctorates in Education have been devalued by diversity initiatives. Some of the doctoral dissertations are so poorly written that the writers are logically incoherent and should ever be given the doctorate. Politically correctness mandates giving the doctorate based on physical characteristic not on competence.
The lack of religion is religion itself. The lack of a belief in God is a belief in itself.
Lyn Nuri,
I went to school in the 60’s & 70’s. I did not see anyone pushing religion. It was reading, and arithmetic (better known as math). AS you can see with SOL’s just published, Virginia is doing poorly. Public education is more interested in pushing a political agenda than they are in educating kids.
bullshit
John,
Pamela is correct. The teachers’ colleges are brainwashing the teachers who enter the classroom and brainwash the K-12 students. The teaching methods are methods developed specifically to brainwash while the students are completely unaware of how their affective domain is being directed. The curriculum material is all based on cultural Marxism designed to destroy America’s Western Civilization to usher in a Marxist based Technocracy.
John, at least Eric goes to google. Can you back up your one word response… That should get your comments banned?
You are correct. While public schools teach students that they can be multiple genders and assist children in evading telling their parents, it should be no surprise that children are more anxious than ever before. Don’t put your kids through government-run schools and expect a stellar outcome.
Lyn, Did you actually read the column? Nothing in the column suggests that the state run schools, rather just the opposite. You are only fooling yourself to think that the public schools are not already guide by a religion/worldview. Every form of education is. I am not sure what constitution you are referring to, perhaps the USSR, but our constitution supported the freedom of religion and the best way to insure that is to not send your children to a state-controlled school. We are not the first nation to learn the hard lesson of the very real dangers when the state controls education.
So……after 20 years of failing to make any progress in two overly religiously ruled countries, we want to ditch the Constitution and establish a state religion here in America?
Actually, Lyn, the constitution was ditched when the Federal govt legislated the ESEA then established the Dept of Ed followed by Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top (or is that bottom?) and Commie Core. By the way, the state has adopted a religion which is called cultural Marxism. It’s because the USofA has thrown God out that we’ve become a failed mess….totally by design by the way. It began with the Progressives back in the late 1800s with the secular humanist religion and now with the Frankfurt Schools cultural Marxist religion.
Very good point … Joker. A highschool graduate should be capable of supporting him or herself. Please check this book which comes from that thinking: https://aerosouth.net/shop-and-engineering
That would imply some kind of living wage at minimum…right?
Um do you live in reality, Lyn Nuri? You cannot get a crew of carpenters for months. An electrican or Plumbers make salaries that your soi boy Liberal Arts Majors can’t match at their teaching or Starbucks jobs. Right now 60 bucks and hours. ditto for mechanics.
Your stupid education system has left people to think they are going to college. It abaondonned technical skills so there aren’t any in the US… it closed votech schools left and right in the 90s as it wanted to fed the indoctrination centers or colleges that leave students tens of thousands or more in debt while preparing them for nothing in many cases.
Go try and get some framing done or finished caprentry… Get on the list stupid… it will take months due to a lack of skilled tradesmens.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Thanks to the socialist welfare state, we now have mile after mile of people living in tents who don’t really have to do anything but put their handout. Charity is not welfare – both the giver and the receiver benefit. Welfare inserts a middle man, the government, in this process and both the giver and receiver are embittered because neither controls the exchange which is all for politics. The giver is taxed whether he or she approves of the expenditure. The receiver believes that the government owes them more than they get.
No, Lyn. Nobody is owed a living wage. Individuals have to do something productive to earn any wage and have to educate themselves not only to earn a living wage but to prosperity. This idea that everybody ought to be paid a living wage has been proved to be destructive time and time again because it destroys initiative. You might want to ask yourself if a two year old ought to be paid a living wage. What about a ten year old. We know children are to be prepared live in an adult world not coddled for life to live off welfare.
Let’s just teach English, Math and maybe a little science. Then let’s go back to teaching vocations. Carpentry. Electricians. Plumbing. Maybe computer coding. Welding. Manufacturing Engineering. Stuff that builds a country. Not the crap of nonsense like what pronoun am I. Or idiocy like CRT.
The whole nonsense about concentrating on college. You can have a lot more productive life than a stupid degree in Women’s Xsectionality, or really any Liberal Arts degree. Ever try to get an electrician these days.. You are going to be put on a waiting list. Auto mechanics are out for weeks…. Nurses are swamped and can get hired tomorrow somewhere else…
Concentrate on the three Rs and teaching skills and keep your stupid politics to yourself.
Joker, please. Get some new lines to express to us how intimidated you are by education. Higher education is not for everyone, which is why people like you (who expect everything to revolve around you) get weirded out by fields you are offended by.
Get over it. Not everyone will be a plumber or an electrician.
I guess “Lynn” Nuri… hmmm heard that name somewhere before… could it have been in Winchester… well whatever… it is hard to be intimidated by higher education these days. A system that charges kids tens of thousands of dollars for degrees, that are worthless.
You are right amigo. Not many people have the brains to be an electrician. So they get degrees in Women’s Studies! Or scoiology. Or really any Liberal Arts. You are saying that a trade will lead to minimum wage jobs? Ever see the salaries commanded by a sociology degree… Even a Masters in Social Work gets nothing.
And do you know how badly schools are failing at everything? I doubt they are even teaching Critical Race Theory very well… The city schools are worse than ever.
So yes… the schools need to train people for jobs.
According to ZipRecruiter, Electrician Technician average nationwide salary is $43,719. Social Worker average national salary is $49,439. FYI…
An Electrician brings you electricity to power your lights, heat and even the computer for the Social Worker.
Many can do without the social worker yet the social worker can do without electricity.
I expect that Virginia is in need of many more social workers after the 8 year Rule of McAuliffe and Northam.
Electrician 1 makes ups to $63k. Journeyman Electrician up to $75k. Electrician up to $93k. All here in Virginia. So, in order to make yourself look good, you once again have to lie.
Average salary of social worker is between $72k and $77k after a decade.
Notice I posted my source, Doc. Notice you did not, as usual.
Eric my bud, you cannot get electricians now. They get premium rates because there isn’t enough of them. A search of zip recruiter isn’t valid anymore. You better hope you don’t have a plumbing or electrical problem right now because you cannot get them. They can bandage an issue but it will take weeks or months to address it completely.
You might not now that my friend because you spent your life counting money in Loudoun county. You don’t know what it is to do real work. Real workers are in high demand now. They are scarce.
At one time higher education was focused on science, engineering, medicine and law. Now it is open to anyone who has the money to pay. The degree is devalued as is the institution that gives it.