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"An Ugly Piece of Mechanism"
"Networks like schools are
not communities in the same way that school training is not education.
By preempting 50% of the total time of the young, by locking young
people up with young people exactly their own age, by ringing bells to
start and stop work, by asking people to think about the same thing at
the same time in the same way, by grading people the way we grade
vegetables - and in a dozen other vile and stupid ways - network schools
steal the vitality of communities and replace it with an ugly piece of
mechanism. Nobody survives these places with his humanity intact, not
kids, not teachers, not administrators, and not parents" [John Taylor
Gatto, spinninglobe.net/lesschool.htm].
"Dumbing Us Down"
"Was it possible I had
been hired not to enlarge children's power, but to diminish it? That
seemed crazy on the face of it, but slowly I began to realize that the
bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the
lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the
national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had
set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax
them into addiction and dependent behavior" [John Taylor Gatto,
Dumbing Us Down - The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, p.
xii, quoted in spinninglobe.net/dumbingrev.htm].
-
"These are the
things you pay me to teach":
(1) Confusion.
'Everything I teach is out of context. I teach the unrelating of
everything' (p. 2)
(2) Class position.
"That's the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You
come to know your place' (p. 3)
(3) Indifference.
'Indeed, the lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so
why care too deeply about anything? (p. 6)
(4) Emotional
dependency. 'By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes,
honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the
predestined chain of command' (p. 7)
(5) Intellectual
dependency. 'Of the millions of things of value to study, I
decide what few we have time for, or actually it is decided by my
faceless employers.... Curiosity has no important place in my work,
only conformity* (p. 8). Gatto says this is 'the most important
lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than
ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives' (p. 8)
(6) Provisional
self-esteem. 'The lesson of report cards, grades and tests is
that children should not trust themselves or their parents but
should rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to
be told what they are worth' (p. 11)
(7) One can't hide.
Surveillance is an ancient imperative, espoused by certain
influential thinkers (such as Plato, Augustine, Calvin, Bacon, and
Hobbes). All these childless men ... discovered the same thing:
children must be closely watched if you want to keep a society under
tight central control' (pp. 11-12) [Ron Miller, quoting/summarising
John Taylor Gatto, spinninglobe.net/dumbingrev.htm].
"Here is the crux of Gatto's critique: in the past 125 years, social engineers have
sought to keep American life under tight central control. Compulsory
schooling is a deliberate effort to establish intellectual,
economic, and political conformity so that society can be managed
efficiently by a technocratic elite" [Ron Miller, spinninglobe.net/dumbingrev.htm].
-
A New Education for a
New One World Global
Society
"A
new world is emerging in which the social structures will be of a
different shape, the social resources of a different scope and caliber,
then anything that history records. It is a new deal - in fact a
different game with different cards; and we who are now alive are
privileged to witness its beginning, however blind most of us may be to
its implications for ourselves and our posterity. And for a new age,
a new school!" [Ross L. Finney, sociologist, 1928].
"A really efficient
totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of
political bosses and their army of managers control a population of
slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude.
To make them love it is the task assigned... to ministries of
propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers" [Aldous Huxley,
Brave New World, 1932, p. xvii].
"My
program for educating youth is hard. Weakness must be hammered away. In
my castles of the Teutonic Order a youth will grow up before which the
world will tremble. I want a brutal, domineering, fearless, cruel youth.
Youth must be all that. It must bear pain. There must be nothing weak
and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again
flash from its eyes...That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of
human domestication...That is how I will create the New Order" [Adolf
Hitler, 1933].
"The
major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual.
It must seek to give him an understanding of the transition to a new
social order" [William Givens, NEA leader, 1934, quoted at
crossroad.to/text/articles/zerotol.html].
"The
problem with entrusting the education of children to the state is ...
that instead of parents 'indoctrinating' their children with their own
ideological and philosophical beliefs, they will be indoctrinated with
those of the state - which is exactly why Hitler banned homeschooling in
Germany in 1938" [brusselsjournal.com/node/1389].
"Every
child in America [also Britain and Europe] entering school at the age of
five is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances
towards ... his parents, toward belief in a supernatural being, ... it
is up to you teachers to make all of these sick children well by
creating the international child of the future" [Dr. Pierce,
Professor of education and psychiatry, Harvard University {date}].
"The
purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts,
feelings and actions of students" [Benjamin Bloom, All Our
Children Learning, 1981, p. 180, quoted at crossroad.to/text/articles/mc9-24-98.html].
"Fundamental, Bible believing people do not have the right to
indoctrinate their children in their religious beliefs because we, the
state, are preparing them for ... when America will be part of a
one-world global society and their children will not fit in" [Peter
Hoagland, Nebraska State Senator, 1983, quoted at
theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/newworldindex.htm].
"Schools, I hear it
argued, would make better sense and be better value as 9-5 operations or
even 9-9 ones, working year-round. We're not a farming community any
more, I hear, that we need to give kids time off to tend the crops. This
New World Order Schooling would serve dinner, provide evening
recreation, offer therapy, medical attention, and a whole range of other
services which would convert the institution into a true synthetic
family for children - better than the original one for many poor
kids, it is said, and this will level the playing field for the sons and
daughters of weak families. Yet it appears to me as a schoolteacher that
schools are already a major cause of weak families and weak communities.
They separate parents and children from vital interaction with each
other and from true curiosity about each other's lives. Schools stifle
family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any
sound idea of family to develop - then they blame the family for its
failure to be a family. It's like a malicious person lifting a
photograph from the developing chemicals too early, then pronouncing the
photographer incompetent. ... Whatever an education is, it should make
you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an
original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow
you to find values that will be your road map through life; it should
make you spiritually rich, a person who loves wherever he is, whoever he
is with, whatever he is doing; it should teach you what is important,
how to live and how to die. What's gotten in the way of education
in the United States is a theory of social engineering that says
there is ONE RIGHT WAY to proceed with growing up. That's an
Egyptian idea symbolized by the pyramid with an eye on top that's on the
other side of George Washington on our one-dollar bill. Everyone a stone
defined by his position in the pyramid. This theory has been presented
in many different ways but at bottom it signals the world view of
minds obsessed with the control of other minds, obsessed by dominance
and strategies of intervention to maintain that dominance. ... The
heart of a defense for the cherished American ideals of privacy, of a
man's home being his castle, of variety and individuality lies in the
way we bring up our young. CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE. Put the kid in
a class and he will live out his life in an invisible cage, isolated
from his chance at community; interrupt the kid with bells and horns all
the time and he will learn that nothing is important; force him to plead
for the natural right to go to the toilet and he will become a liar and
a toady, ridicule him and he will retreat from human association, shame
him and he will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught
in large scale organizations like schools are deadly. Think for a
minute, by definition individuality, family, and community are
expressions of singular organization, never of one-right-way thinking on
the grand scale. Private time is absolutely essential if a private
identity is going to develop, and private time is equally essential to
the development of a code of private values - without which we aren't
really individuals at all. Children and families need some relief from
government surveillance and intimidation if original expressions
belonging to them are to develop. Without these freedom has no
meaning [John Taylor Gatto, spinninglobe.net/lesschool.htm].
"The
conditioning aspect of a public [state] school system is the key reason
Karl Marx first advocated such an institution. Do not be deceived:
the primary reason for public [state] schools today is to indoctrinate
your precious children into the values and attitudes of the coming New
World system" [cuttingedge.org/news/n1383.cfm].
"Our
situation today is remarkably similar to the one Paul faced two thousand
years ago. Society erects alters to various gods including naturalism,
materialism, and relativism, as well as 'spiritualities' of all kinds.
The exclusivity of Christ is looked upon as a scandalous doctrine, and
we who advocate the biblical worldview increasingly find that the
culture is determined to silence us, all the while exalting the virtues
of 'tolerance' and 'open-mindedness'. We can no longer assume others
[i.e. public schools] share the Judeo-Christian perspective that has
shaped Western society" [R. C. Sproul, quoted in Bradley Heath, Millstones
and Stumbling Blocks: Understanding Education in Post-Christian America].
United
Nations Educational, Social and Scientific Organization (UNESCO)
"[S]ince
the world today is in the process of becoming one, and since a major arm
of UNESCO must be to help in the speedy and satisfactory realization of
this process ... UNESCO must pay special attention to international
education - to education as a function of a world society"
[Julian Huxley, First Director-General of UNESCO, UNESCO: Its Purpose
and Its Philosophy, p.29-30].
"UNESCO’s
'lifelong learning', now being implemented through Goals 2000, takes
education far beyond the boundaries of the classroom. Its goal is
socialization and preparation for a global workforce. Everyone - in
homes, schools, and workplace – must be mentally prepared to
participate in the consensus process. In
the name of 'unity' and 'community', people of all ages must help form new
values, challenge contrary beliefs, report non-compliant friends and
relatives, and oppose all other obstacles to compromise, 'common ground'
and 'mental health'" [crossroad.to/text/articles/Harry9-99.html].
"In
the education arena, the goal ... is to socialize students fit for the
global community. The planned change is incremental and permanent, not
temporary. It is part of UNESCO's program for lifelong learning" [crossroad.to/articles2/MovieMagic.htm].
"The
task before UNESCO ... is single. The task is to help the emergence of a
single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and
with its own broad purpose. This is opportune, since this the first time
in history that the scaffolding and the mechanisms for world unification
have become available and also the first time that man has had the means
... of laying a world-wide foundation for the minimum physical welfare
of the entire human species. And it is necessary, for at the moment, two
opposing philosophies of life confront each other from the West and from
the East. ... You
may categorize the two philosophies as two super-nationalisms, or as individualism
versus collectivism; or as the American versus the Russian way of life,
or as capitalism versus communism, or as Christianity versus Marxism.
Can these opposites be reconciled, this antithesis be resolved in a
higher synthesis? I believe not only that this can happen, but that,
through the inexorable dialectic of evolution, it must happen. ... In
pursuing this aim, we must eschew dogma - whether it be theological
dogma or Marxist dogma. ... East and West will not agree on a basis of
the future if they merely hurl at each other the fixed ideas of the
past. For that is what dogmas are - the crystallizations of some
dominant system of thought of a particular epoch. A dogma may of course
crystallize tried and valid experience; but if it be dogma, it does so
in a way which is rigid, uncompromising and intolerant. ... If we are to
achieve progress, we must learn to uncrystalize our dogmas"
[Julian
Huxley, First Director-General of UNESCO, UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its
Philosophy, p.61].
Humanism
Humanism remains de facto
the established religion of our land, and the public schools are the
main vehicle for the promotion of its worldview. As one great
Humanist triumphantly declared: Education is thus a most powerful
ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of
Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-school, meeting for an hour
once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem
the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching? [Charles
Francis Potter, (Signatory, Humanist Manifesto I, 1930), Humanism: A
New Religion, 1930, p. 128].
"[W]e believe that the
penalty that is now imposed on parents who do not send their children to
public schools violates the spirit of the First Amendment, whatever
lawyers and judges may decide about the letter. Public schools teach
religion too, not a formal, theistic religion, but a set of values and
beliefs that constitute a religion in all but name. The present
arrangements abridge the religious freedom of parents who do not accept
the religion taught by the public schools yet are forced to pay to have
their children indoctrinated with it, and to pay still more to have
their children escape indoctrination" [Milton Friedman, 'What's Wrong
With Our Schools?' in Free to Choose, 1978/9].
"Many humanist
leaders are quite open about using the public schools to proselytize
their faith. This might surprise some parents who think the schools
are supposed to be free of religious indoctrination, but this quote
makes it clear: I am convinced that the
battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public
school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their
role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion
of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians
call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same
selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they
will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom
instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever
subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool
day care or large state university. The classroom must and will
become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting
corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery,
and the new faith of humanism … it will
undoubtedly be a long, arduous, painful struggle replete with much
sorrow and many tears, but humanism will emerge triumphant. It must if
the family of humankind is to survive'" [J. Dunphy, A Religion for
a New Age, The Humanist, Jan.–Feb. 1983, 23, 26 (emphases
added), cited by Wendell R. Bird, Origin of the Species Revisited,
vol. 2, p. 257, quoted in creationontheweb.com/content/view/3830/].
Evolution
and Creation
"[A] leading science journal, the New Scientist, 11 Nov
2006, has published a special article on Home-schooling: '[N]ot all
home-school parents have a religious agenda. [Brian Alters of McGill
University, Canada says] "There are probably some wonderful
home-school parents, some of whom may be evolutionary biologists
themselves. But I have a feeling after talking to a lot of home-schoolers
that this is a minority ... It's disconcerting, to say the least"
he says'. Notice the contrast? Being a 'religious' home-school
parent is set against being a 'wonderful' home-school parent"
[extract from email, received 10 Nov 2006].
Liberalism,
Marxism,
and Communism
"You
can't make Socialists out of individualists - children who know how to
think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which
is coming, where everyone is interdependent" [John Dewey, Fabian
Socialist founder of public education in America, quoted in Gena Suarez,
What About Public School?].
"Nearly
three-quarters of faculty members of U.S. colleges and universities
describe themselves as liberals, and at elite schools, the proportion is
87 percent (7/05 Baptist Watchman). ... Business Week in
1981 said over 10,000 Marxist professors were teaching in U.S. colleges
and universities" [The
Calvary Contender, Sept-Oct 2005].
“[Canada USA/UK] as nation[s are] now dominated by
an alien system of beliefs, attitudes and values
that has become known as “political correctness.”
It seeks to impose a
uniformity in thought and behaviour among all
[Canadians/Americans/Britons] and is therefore
totalitarian in nature. It has its roots
in the ideology of Marxism, which requires a radical
inversion of the prevailing traditional culture by
cultural Marxism in order to achieve a social
revolution.
...
In
1924, as a result of a meeting the year before
attended by Georg Lukacs and other Marxist
intellectuals associated with the Communist Party of
Germany, there came to be founded the Institute of
Social Research at Frankfurt University in
Frankfurt, Germany. This Institute became known as
the Frankfurt School. Its model was
the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. The members of
this Institute prepared numerous studies on the
beliefs, attitudes and values they assumed led to
the rise of German national socialism. These were
critical studies that combined Marxist analysis with
Freudian psychoanalysis. The sum of these critical
studies became known as Frankfurt School “Critical
Theory.” Frankfurt School Critical Theory was
essentially destructive criticism of the main
elements of Western culture such as Christianity,
capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy,
hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint,
loyalties, patriotism, nationalism, heredity,
ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism. These
criticisms are reflected in such works of the
Frankfurt School as “Studies on Authority and the
Family,” Eric Fromm’s “Escape From Freedom” and his
“The Dogma of Christ,” Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass
Psychology of Fascism” and Theodor Adorno’s “The
Authoritarian Personality” published in 1950.
Frankfurt School Critical Theory encompasses a group
of specific sub-theories such as matriarchal
theory, androgyny theory, personality theory,
prejudice theory, authority theory, family theory,
sexuality theory, racial theory, legal theory and
literary theory. These various sub-theories are
used to induce an inversion of the
prevailing belief system so the Marxist
revolutionaries can engineer a non-violent social
revolution” [Elliot Lake News and Views, 28 November
2006].
Funding
for the New Education for the New World Order
" [M]oney went to promote John Dewey, Marxism, a
One-World-Government agenda, and Socialism. The foundations (principally
the Rockefeller and Carnegie) stimulated two-thirds of the total
endowment funding of all institutions of higher learning in America
during the first third of [the] 20th century" [theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/antiamericangroupspt2.htm].
The
Purpose of Multicultural and Multifaith / Environmental and Ecological
Education
"[A]n essential
element of the new educational process in the United States [also
Britain and Europe] is values clarification. ... in order to mold the
child into a world citizen, his values must be divorced from those of
the 'old order', that is, his parents. ... While secularism has held
sway for a number of years in our education system, secularism was meant
for one purpose: to do away with the old forms of spiritual values in
order to make way for the new. It created a vacuum which will be filled
with a new spirituality based on a pantheistic view of nature, and upon
self as God" [Al Dager, Education Reform for the New World Order,
Media Spotlight Special Report].
"In the process of
bringing children into their self-realisation as God, the World Core
Curriculum promotes eastern meditation techniques" [Al Dager, Education
Reform for the New World Order, Media Spotlight Special Report].
"We can see the
[beginning] of the emphasis on ecology and spiritualism in the new
education. ... All [the] members of the Design team for the Global
Education Project are strong proponents and activists for globalism and
New Age philosophy. ... [T]he true source of education restructuring
has nothing to do with education in the academic sense, but education in
the philosophical and esoteric sense" [Al Dager, Education
Reform for the New World Order, Media Spotlight Special Report].
"'Diversity missionaries'
are being sent into [UK state] schools to teach children about bigotry,
while teachers have to monitor incidents of alleged racial harassment.
Those schools that don't report any cases are told to put up posters
raising awareness of racism. So if their pupils aren't aware of
what bigotry is, they soon will be. Yet another pathetic example
of an insidious grievance industry seeking out intolerance where there
is none" [Amanda Platell, Daily Mail, 31 October 2009].
Harry Potter and the
New Education
"Good
stories capture the heart, mind, and imagination and are an important
way to transmit values" [Louise Derman-Sparks, Anti-Bias
Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children {p.}, quoted in
crossroad.to/text/articles/Harry9-99.html].
"[T]he
stories and books children read in the classroom are usually selected or
approved by each state because their message teaches the new global
values, and because they provide useful discussion topics for the
manipulative consensus process. ... Books such as the Harry Potter
series fit, because they reinforce the global and occult
perspective" [crossroad.to/text/articles/Harry9-99.html].
"There
are many ways to persuade the masses to reject uncompromising
Christianity and embrace a changeable blend of all kinds of religions
– including a cross-less and universalist perversion of Christianity.
Schools do it through books such as the Harry Potter series, through
multicultural and environmental education, and by integrating social
issues and politically correct ideology into more mundane subjects
such as math and science" [crossroad.to/text/articles/Harry9-99.html].
"It's
not surprising that Harry has suddenly soared to the peaks of popularity
in schools across the country. His story fits right into the
international program for multicultural education. The envisioned
global community calls for a common set of values which excludes
traditional beliefs as intolerant and narrow - just as the Harry Potter
books show. The Biblical God simply doesn't fit into his world of
wizards, witches, and other gods" [crossroad.to/text/articles/Harry9-99.html].
"Dr.
Craig E. Abrahamson, Assistant Professor of Social Work at James Madison
University, ... scorns the old factual or didactic learning and
calls for the feeling-based, image-rich unconscious learning so
popular among today's educational change agents. Storytelling is vital
to this process, and few forms of communication transmit stories into
the minds more effectively than movies - especially when based on myths
created by master storytellers such as J.K. Rowling. ... No wonder
educators delight in the Harry Potter movie[s]. ... [They fit] the
planned 'reality' that ... UNESCO educators have been seeking for half a
century - one that would help establish new values, new beliefs, new
lifestyles and new ways of thinking" [crossroad.to/articles2/MovieMagic.htm].
"When
an exciting story has distracted the Potter fan from actual reality and
bombarded him or her with contrary suggestions and feelings, the
subconscious mind seeks a way to reconcile the conflict between the old
and the new values. This quest for resolution involves the dialectic
(consensus) process. Trained by schools to seek 'common ground' and
conform beliefs to the group consensus, the student simply relieves the
tension through moral compromise - a basic element of the 'new way of
thinking'" [crossroad.to/articles2/MovieMagic.htm].
The
Purpose of 'Holistic' Education
"The
basis for all education restructuring is 'holistic', that is, viewing
life on the planet as interconnected, with no life form having any
greater standing than any other life form. This, in turn, is based on
the evolutionary view of life. ... It is cosmic humanism: the belief
that all life forms are evolving to higher states of consciousness.
mankind, though representing the highest mental consciousness on earth,
is yet deficient in his attainment of perfection. That is to be overcome
through the next stage of evolution which will see the emergence of a
new species of human being - a true planetary citizen that is
psychologically, spiritually and physically superior to present mankind.
The hope for the quantum leap to perfection lies in the upcoming
generation - the generation that will usher in the New Age on a
global scale. That is why children are to ... develop their own values.
... Holistic education is not merely how a child studies but how the
child is studied. It has little to do with academics and everything
to do with creating a new species of human being. We learn this from
[the New Ager] Alice Bailey ... in her book Education in the New Age"
[Al Dager, Education Reform for
the New World Order, Media Spotlight Special Report].
"The time is coming
when all children will be studied in the following directions: (1)
Astrologically; (2) Psychologically, supplementing the best of modern
psychology with a knowledge of the Seven Ray types, which colours
Eastern psychology; (3) Medically; (4) Vocationally; (5) Spiritually. By
this I mean that the apparent age of the soul [i.e. reincarnation] under
consideration will be studied, and the place on the ladder of evolution
will be approximately noted; mystical ... tendencies will be considered
and their apparent lack noted. ... One of the major functions of
those who train the infant minds of the race will be to determine,
as early as possible in life, which of the seven determining energies
are controlling in each case" [Alice Bailey, Education in the
New Age, {p.}].
Training
Up Children - State or Parents?
"Nine Assumptions of
Schooling
(1) Social cohesion is not possible through other means than
government schooling; school is the main defense against social chaos,
(2) Children cannot learn to tolerate each other unless first socialized
by government agents,
(3) The only safe mentors of children are certified experts with
government-approved conditioning; children must be protected from the
uncertified, including parents,
(4) Compelling children to violate family, cultural and religious norms
does not interfere with the development of their intellects or
characters,
(5) In order to dilute parental influence, children must be disabused of
the notion that mother and father are sovereign in morality or
intelligence,
(6) Families should be encouraged to expend concern on the general
education of everyone but discouraged from being unduly concerned with
their own children's education,
(7) The State has a predominant responsibility for training, morals and
beliefs. Children who escape state scrutiny will become immoral,
(8) Children from families with different beliefs, backgrounds and
styles must be forced together even if those beliefs violently
contradict one another. Robert Frost, the poet, was wrong when he
maintained that 'good fences make good neighbours',
(9) Coercion in the name of liberty is a valid use of state power"
[John Taylor Gatto, spinninglobe.net/9assumptions.htm].
"The
Bible teaches that for a Christian, life is not divided into the secular
and the sacred. It is not up to the home and church to train the child
in 'spiritual' matters while the school teaches him 'secular' subjects.
Such a dualistic approach often leads to conflicts and frustrations in
the mind of the child when he hears one philosophy at home and another
at school. 'The teacher says,' or 'the coach says,' carries much weight
in the mind of the child. The home and church and the school should all
be moving in the same direction with the same philosophy and goals. ... The
school which your children attends should be an extension of the
training program of your home - not the state or federal government.
Please keep in mind that the Christian school is not to take the place
of the home. The Christian school is designed to help parents fulfil
their Christian responsibility 'to train up a child in the way he should
go'" [Paul Kienel, The Christian School, p.62].
"Public
[state] schools are not a friend of Christian families; indeed, they are
stunting the souls of children and transferring a way of life that is
incompatible with the Christian virtues that once shaped generations of
American students. It is time for Christian parents to rescue their
children from these academically deficient, morally relativistic, and
cultural corrosive public schools" [Bradley Heath, Millstones
and Stumbling Blocks: Understanding Education in Post-Christian America].
"The
public [state] 'education' system imposes beliefs that are diametrically
opposed to the high standards of faith in Jesus Christ. Christian
parents send their children to public [state] schools with the
expectation that their children will gain an education. In truth,
what they gain in most cases is indoctrination into the secularist,
leftist political agenda. To add insult to injury, they pay for
that indoctrination with ever-increasing taxes. Yet if any raise a
voice of protest they are met with derision and told to keep their
morality to themselves. How often I've heard parents tell me that
the response to their protests is that they are the only ones
protesting. This seems to be a standard reply, a tactic designed
to quiet opposition and to prevent parents from engaging other parents
in concerted efforts to correct any wrongs foisted upon their
children. Even if it were true that only one parent may complain,
the complaint should be heard on its own merits, not on how many have
voiced it. If there is a wrong that needs to be righted it should
not be allowed to stand because a majority of parents haven't perceived
it" [Al Dager, Media Spotlight, Vol. 30, No. 2].
"If you're going to send
your kids to Caesar, you're going to get Romans back" [Ron Gleason,
quoted in creationontheweb.com/content/view/6001/].
Salt
and Light?
"What's
wrong with public [state] school for a Christian kid? I
get letters from parents asking me this. Can’t they be salt and light,
they say. To me, that’s a crazy question. My answer is that it’s
not their time yet. Right now is a time for discipleship. Right now a
child is to be trained up in the fear and admonition of the Lord
(preferably by the parent!). Right now is a time for family ministry;
serve together, not separately. If a parent wants their child to be salt
and light, then model that. YOU be salt and light with your child;
don’t send them out into the world in your stead" [Gena Suarez, What
About Public School?].
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