by 
If you want to change the world, aim for the children. Every great empire has attempted to gain control of a generation through schools in order to change society. It was said that in Soviet Russia the children were told that the U.S. was evil and that parents could get into trouble for attempting to give their children religion. We’ve seen recent stories of Arab children being taught that Jews are cannibals– eating Arab children.
Far more diabolical than that is what is being taught and preached from the “pulpits” of America’s public schools. Founded on Christianity and established for the betterment of the training of children in the ways of the Word, public schools have taken to proclaiming the humanist/socialist philosophy in an attempt to remold the country in their image.
Mindclearer takes up this concept in a recent post. One of the lines near the end I thought was most interesting:
I’m telling you as a teacher that we’re not trained to teach kids how to think. We’re taught how to teach them what to think. What passes for critical thinking skills is nothing more than techniques to break down traditional values, morality and pro-US history.
Do you see what he’s saying is being done here? We are sending our children to places where teachers are telling people what to think.
When I first told a woman at the place I work that I was planning on homeschooling my children she was aghast. Besides the fact that my children would not be properly socialized, she was concerned that the only opinion they would get about the world would be my church’s opinion. My comment to her was that they would certainly get that– and that would be their basis– but they would be free to read and get knowledge about other things.
In light of our topic, what choices do public school students have? Every day they are taught to think of morality and Christianity as something archaic, restrictive, and something to be avoided– if not evil. It is they that are not allowed to see and experience the other point of view. It is they that are not taught to think, but are told what to think.
I suppose if we wanted our kids to be properly socialized, we could hire local high schoolers to shove our kids into lockers and talk to them about the most vile sexual practices imaginable.
The worst is when your own family, who raised you not to drink or curse, acts like you’re abusing your kids when you start talking about homeschooling.
Bias is inherent in teaching. Its extremely hard to teach something without putting some of your own thoughts or opinions into it.
Homeschooling gives you the option of controlling how much bias and what kind you want to give to your children. Public schools leaves it up to the individual teachers, but at least you know that religion will not be a part of it. If you want a religious bias, homeschool or send your children to a private school. If you dont want a religious bias in the classroom or you want to supplement that religious-less education with Sunday school or something similar, that too is your choice.
I think kids in public schools have whatever choices they want. If you are a Christian sending your child to a public school, its not practical to expect the public schools to teach them Christianity or encourage it. If public school mentioned Christianity in a positive light or even encouraged it, how fair is that to the Buddhists who pay the same tax money to get an education without religious undertones?
I’m probably in the minority here but I like the separation of church and state. Founded on Christianity shouldnt have a bearing on the fact that we have freedom of religion on top of an establishment of the separation of chruch and state. If people want that changed, which clearly not enough do in order to pass another Amendment to end such debates, then it can be changed. Until then, I think that there are more than enough ways for religious families to get their religion outside of schools or the government.
The problem, as far as I see it, is not that it’s either religion or no religion, but it’s a selection between religions. Public schools are the primary pulpits of the religion of Humanism. My tax payer money is being used to educate people (my kids if I chose to send them there) that everything here is all that there is, that humanity is great etc.
Why is the government so afraid of vochures? It would accomplish what you said would be fair– people would be able to send their children to the school teaching the philosophy of their choice and it is the people’s money. Why can’t we purchase education from a place of our desire– be it homeschooling or otherwise?
“I think kids in public schools have whatever choices they want.”
Even if that were true, it wouldn’t be a good thing. Education isn’t about choices that the kids make, it’s about teaching them what they need to know. Leaving it up to them is not the best idea. Now, if you meant to say that it gives parents the choices they want, that’s not true. Public schools have been increasingly uniform since the 1920s when the Supreme Court first began “selective incorporation” of the Bill of Rights. There was a time when “Congress shall make no law” applied to “Congress”. Now it applies to every level of government including the school district. And it was a decision of the courts not the voters and tax payers.
Parents who choose public schools have no choice but to have their children indoctrinated. At best, they may get a teacher who bucks the system and teaches them to think anyway, but that teacher’s influence will be watered down by four or five others. At worst, and even more likely, they will have to deal with far left attacks on traditional morality plus sexual abuse and degradation.
Public schools bend over backwards to be accepting of religions other than Christianity. Listen to any Christian radio talk shows and you will hear story after story of teachers refusing to let little Johnny bring his Christian storybook for show and tell, but praising little Muhammad and his mom for giving the classroom a taste of Ramadan. ???
Even in our VERY small town, the kindergarten teachers wouldn’t allow Christmas trees, but they let the one Jewish parent bring in her Menorah…all in the name of cultural awareness!
Satanism is more welcome in public schools than Christianity. I’m thankful for every Christian teacher in the p.school system, they are truly unsung heroes…
For a great read that exposes the secular humanism at the root of the public school agenda…get Homeschool: The Right Choice by Christopher J. Klicka
“Now, if you meant to say that it gives parents the choices they want, that’s not true.”
Yes I meant to say it gives parents, not student, a choice. However, i’m not entirely clear as to what you are getting at as far as the options parents should have. If its an option that involves religion, then thats not an option that should be available. And its really not as if private school are any better teaching-wise since private schools have even less standards for teaching licenses.
You mention attacks from the far left as well. Its not the job of a school to be Conservatists. Perhaps i’m not entirely clear on what you are getting at, but I dont believe that teaching children to think for themselves should be conveyed through conservatism. They get all the US history lessons they need to draw those conclusions.
If you want to teach you child to reject any “liberal” ideas or whatever else you disagree with, you are more than welcomed to (or send your children to private schools). I don’t understand why the school has to do that for you. It takes away your choice because you never had it in the first place.
Choice in schooling should reflect the community not a nationwide uniformity. It sounds radical because we’ve been conditioned to think that there’s no difference between levels of government. Pick your own point in history when that happened. For my money, it was with the passage of the 17th Amendment.
As for the idealized view of non-partisanship in schools, it assumes that one idea is just as good as the next, and not being a post-modernist, I don’t buy it. Far left ideology is dangerous and allowing it to be taught in public schools is cultural and societal suicide.
I agree with you that public schooling would be better on the local level, but then you’d be faced with the task of making it fair for everyone involved when you will have minorities in the decision-making process (and i mean that in terms of religion for the sake of this argument) paying the same amount of money for its services where they will be under-represented. Its cleaner just to stay out of it entirely I think.
And as far as your views on the far left goes, why do you think far right thinking is any healthier besides raising children with the same beliefs you hold?
“Its cleaner just to stay out of it entirely I think.”
That would be great in a perfect world where one could count on human beings to remain objective.
Right thinking, and by that I mean conservatism, promotes true diversity, a respect for culture (as opposed to deceptive multi-culturalism) and life. Far left thought promotes a degradation of traditional values, cultural anhiliation and death. This isn’t about Democrat vs. Republican and whether or not we should scrap Social Security or fully fund it. This is about the survival of our culture.
“Its cleaner just to stay out of it entirely I think.”
A lot is going to depend on your community and your school board. A lot of public schools are going to reflect the values of the community and if your community has high moral standards (standards that you agree with) then sending children there is probably not going to be a problem.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with many other schools. They still will reflect community values, but generally the values of the most outspoken members of the community. If those values are liberal than home or private schooling is essential. Sure the children lose some opportunities, but it’s far better to have children taught beliefs that you agree with than to spend hours being taught what you oppose.
For instance, one of the schools in my area has banned giving gifts with Christmas wrapping paper (no green or red wrapping paper only blue and other non-Christmas colors). Seems kind of preposterous to go to that length to avoid having any religion displayed in the school doesn’t it? But if that is what your community wants, it will happen. If you keep your children in that school, you have to ask yourself, “Am I spending enough time teaching my values to my kids at home to counteract what they learn at school?” and most of the time the answer is No. If this is the case, do you have any option other than private or home schooling?
That’s exactly right. Some communities will have goofy school systems. Some will have great systems. Some will have great systems that are different from others. That’s called diversity. And parents must have their constitutional rights respected. That means they should be free to control their kids’ education–no compulsory attendance laws. It also means a homeschooling parent should get to write off the amount of money their child would cost the local school come tax time.
Again, I bring up the point that every person has a religious world view– it just depends on the religion. The absence of promotion of one religion doesn’t mean that there are no religious views promoted– just a different set of religions views. We can argue which set, but that’s just the problem. Those promoting that there be no religious views do not consider humanism a view, and therefore miss the fact that they are in fact not being neutral to religion, but being antagonistic toward religion.
Quick example: Creation/Evolution. There’s no definitive research that can prove 100% either way. Since “religious views can’t be taught” we have to teach the worldview that is anti-thetical to Creation, even though Evolution takes a degree of faith and belief since “no one was there.” A truly neutral way would be ignoring the historical evolutionary standpoint altogether or presenting multiple views– we’ve seen where that has gotten us.
Another example is Social Studies and Economics classes. These can easily be bent to stress the teacher’s basic ideals. Kids/teens are not equipped to debate the finer points of different economic and social theories, so if the teacher spends more time on what he believes he replicates himself multiple times– every school year.
This is why it is important to know who the teachers are, what they teach, and definitely why homeschooling is a good option.
Personally I think children ought to be home with their parents. They aren’t losing out by staying home and getting a rich schooling and deepened relationship with their parents. Just the opposite, they are getting more than what you could get at a public school. The relationship with their parents being second only to their relationship with Christ… which we would pray they would develop. now, I realize that some people who homeschool do not do so in a good way, they let their children be leaders of this to the point that the basics are lost, or they aren’t dilligent and consistent, so they don’t cover basics… etc. Homeschooling is expensive and it also requires that the parent DO something, plan ahead and prepare. I think any parent could be capable of this, but not all will have the self discipline to do it.
I do homeschool my son at this point. But he is three… (course he is just learning to read! so… I guess I have taught him something). Anyway, ultimately this decision in our household will be left up to my husband, whom I will follow after dilligently.
My experience in public school (even a really good school in the top thirteen in the nation) was HORRIBLE… I got into all kinds of nasty situations, was harrassed, physically beat up, etc… even here locally I just heard of a small town’s school having a shooting!
I don’t really think private school is too much better. Perhaps it is physically safer by way of guns, but drugs alcohol and sex are all rampant in those schools too.
My two cents,
Mrs. Meg Logan
and i like your last comment there MIN, I totally agree…