Posted on 12/29/2010 5:50:30 AM PST by IbJensen
As an advocate of full educational freedom, I am occasionally asked what America would be like if compulsory school attendance laws were done away with and the government got out of the education business.
My answer is that we'd probably become the best-educated nation in the world. Why? Because when parents are in charge of their own children’s education, they will seek the best they can get, and in this age of high technology and endless resources, the very best is available to anyone who wants to look for it.
Let's face it. The public schools use the most boring textbooks to teach bored kids what they really don't care to know. In fact, most public schools don't even teach kids to read properly. They use teaching methods that create reading disability. Now, if you were in charge of teaching your own children to read, would you use a teaching method that produced reading disability? Of course not. You'd seek out a program that produced learning success. Such programs do exist, despite the fact that many public schools refuse to use them.
My own reading program, Alpha-Phonics, was created to permit parents to teach their own children to read at home in the proper phonetic manner, thus avoiding the harm the government schools cause. Thousands of parents, as independent home educators, have taught their children to read with this program very successfully.
We tend to forget that the parents of the Founding Fathers were not compelled to send their children to King George's public schools, which happily didn’t exist. There was total educational freedom in the colonies, and that is why it was possible to get the finest education available — either at home or at an academy owned by an individual whose job it was to provide the best education possible.
Indeed, it was well understood what was meant by education. First, it required a grounding in the Bible, and learning the languages in which the Holy Scripture and theological literature was written: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It meant developing the intellectual faculties, the ability to read and to use language. It was understood that the mastery of language, which is the basic tool of thought, was the key to intellectual development.
In today's public schools, children's brains are stultified by the use of teaching methods resembling a non-surgical prefrontal lobotomy. Bright, intelligent children are deliberately made stupid by teaching methods calculated to do just that. We know that children are by nature intelligent because they start learning their own language practically from birth. By the time they are ready to attend school, they have mastered a vocabulary in the thousands of words. And they have done all of this by themselves, by listening and imitating the people around them, without the help of certified government teachers or schools.
All children, except the very seriously handicapped, are born with an innate language faculty. All children, therefore, are dynamos of language learning. The Bible tells us why. God gave us the power of speech: because He wanted to communicate with those He had created. In fact, the primary function of language was to permit man to know God. In other words, knowledge of God was the first step in Adam's education. The second function of language was to enable Adam to know the world. The Bible says in Genesis 2:19: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”
In other words, God made Adam into an observer of the natural world around him, a scientist, and a lexicographer — an expander of language, and a maker of dictionaries. Then God gave Adam Eve. The Bible says in Genesis 1:28: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
So now language was to be used to know others and explore, discover, cultivate, conserve, and conquer. And finally, Adam was to use language to know himself, for language is the tool of thought, and we use language with our own inner dialogue in the solitude of our being.
Since we know what God made man into, the purpose of education should be to make a man into what God intended him to be: lexicographer, scientist, explorer, inventor, conqueror, farmer, conservationist, and also husband, father, head of his family, and educator to his children.
True educators, steeped in Biblical knowledge, have always known that the development of language and its uses was the initial purpose of education. In Deuteronomy we learn the religious and social functions of education: to know God, and to pass on to future generations that knowledge, that love, that admonition. Language is that means of cultural and religious transmission.
The Bible, passed from generation to generation, is a testament to the everlasting value of the written Word of God. An education system that denies this overwhelming truth cannot be accepted by a God-fearing people.
We read in the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus, the Word is the key to everything of importance in our lives. But compulsory school attendance has destroyed that foundational knowledge and appreciation. You cannot even mention the Word of God in a government school. If we had educational freedom, the Word of God could once more become central to the lives of the American people.
There is no doubt that we would become the best educated people on earth, because we would know what education is and choose the best means to achieve it. We would acknowledge our dependence on God for ultimate wisdom. We would cultivate the minds of our children so that this God-given world of incredible beauty, variety, and mystery would be open to their curiosity and interest.
The public schools of today deprive children of their right to be what God made them to be. That is their sin. Charlotte Iserbyt, in her magnum opus, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, proves through exhaustive documentation that secular educators are using animal training techniques developed by behavioral scientists to turn American children into mindless robots who respond reflexively to stimuli imposed by godless educators. The children are being conditioned to respond through reinforcement as predicted by their trainers. As trained animals, they cannot take dominion over anything.
Education is not the same as training. Animals can be trained. They cannot be educated.
The present system of education reduces man to animal status so that he is denied the knowledge that he was made in God's image. When human beings, especially children, are trained like animals, they are being denied what is truly human about them: their ability to use their minds independently of any trainer. It is criminal to deprive children of their human qualities and capabilities. But that is what is being done in the name of School-to-Work, Outcome Based Education, and other such programs.
Our schools now teach children death education, suicide education, sex education, and drug education. Charlotte Iserbyt has observed that anything that is taught with the word "education" attached to it is not really education. You don't call reading, “reading education.” You don't call arithmetic, “arithmetic education.” You don't call spelling, “spelling education.” In other words, what they are really teaching is death, suicide, sex, and drugs. By adding the word education to these subjects, the educators fool parents into thinking that what the schools are doing is not subversive of their children's health and well-being, but something beneficial. But we know that it is not.
How much longer will Americans permit their children to be robbed of their most precious human values? Homeschoolers no longer permit it. Although they represent a small percentage of families in America, their numbers are growing. Little by little, the word is getting out. Thank God for that!
Hodar, I agree with you.
Same for learning about vacuum tubes. Nobody uses them anymore, but the theory is the basis for field effect transistors, which are everywhere.
Not to rag on her, but Wendy gives us a glimpse of why this article is just wishful thinking.
Without a central core, there would be a (large, I think) percentage of well-meaning parents out there who would cheat their kids out of the basics and perhaps give them a "good Snopes-based" superficial education.
The article mentions the classic education of the classic theological texts...ahem...but that was due to the central education institution of THE CHURCH.
Government schools are not the best, but they are typical of a large one-size-fits-all institution.
The one-size-fits-all Church was not all that good for an engineering education back in the day, either. (Ask Galileo!)
Wow, Wendy, that’s a provincial point of view I rarely see represented here on Free Republic. Most Europeans by necessity speak three or four languages with ease, and having a basic foundation in Latin and Greek makes learning English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian much easier, as they are all rooted in those early languages. Language skills make learning any language, including Chinese or Arabic, much easier, too. Why so negative?
Gee, and I thought it was only liberals who instinctively think the worst of human nature!
It’s not instinct, and if I’m wrong, I’ll be glad of it. But I wonder how to get from here to there after so many years of indoctrination.
Those are excellent points, but I think there’s a very positive angle to eliminating compulsory education: You’d get the non-serious “students” completely out of the way and allow the serious ones to get a serious education. The problem with having these social/cultural misfits in a classroom is that they reduce the lowest common denominator dramatically — and that brings the whole system down.
I do not oppose a 'core' basic education. I have two children that have earned college degrees. One is in law school and the other is currently working on a PhD in electrical engineering. My third child at this point is not interested in attending college... teaches beginning piano and has a retail job.
All three of my children would say that at least one half of their time in public school was 'wasted' time. The 'core' was 'socialization' in fundraising and special classes in situation ethics. It was what I required of my children outside of the classrooms that kept their focus on building upon the 'core basic' information from which to move to higher education.
Thank the Dear LORD, all my children are adults now and I do not have to deal with public education. One year in eighth grade one of my children had three different math books, none of which were allowed out of the classroom. The math class was about teaching to take a state required test so the district would have great numbers.
After the presidential election of 2008, I heard a liberal trying to be JonStewart, brag that the overwhelming majority of 40 and under college educated voters, voted for BamBamKennedy.... Wonder how many of this crowd are now surviving from unemployment stipends?
I have read a number of articles and book reviews that hammer the foundations of American education that were implemented in the early decades of the 20th Century -- particularly the pernicious influence of John Dewey on our education system. The whole point of "education" under that system was not to educate children, but to train them to be functioning parts in the machinery of the American "corporate state." Even something as simple as the bell that rang in the school yard in the morning and after recess had a very specific purpose: to prepare children for the day when they'd work in a factory or mine and respond to the same kind of bell or whistle at different times of the day.
The fact that Dewey's philosophy on education was built on the eradication of any religious aspect to a child's education was a clear indication of his motivations.
Oh, but they do, especially in audio.
Oh Lord. Only in "boutique amps." Ridiculous people who argue over how many angels they can hear dancing on the head of a pin called "Audiophiles" do!
Don't get me started!
I use tubes in antique AM radios where they belong.
And, people use a tube (magnetron) in their microwave ovens.
But actually, these exceptions prove the rule!
Parents who would skip latin or greek would skip over the basics of tube technology too....while heating up a slice of pizza (greek etymology?) for their darling in the microwave with a vacuum tube!!
Not all teachers are bad. Not all government schools are bad. Not all parents are good, and not all good parents are good teachers. So all homeschooling might not be all good!
Thanks for writing.I see your point. But today, when it comes to punishing independent intellectual inquiry as heresy, our state-supported institutions are ready and willing.....
LOL
Actually, a couple years ago, I hooked up two Scott amps on my workbench here, with the same signal source and the same speakers. One amp was solid state, the other an old LK-48 that I had refurbished.
The LK-48 (7189 outputs) sounded better. And that's not a boutique amp by any definition.
However, this one definitely is.
That was before the NEA was formed and the busy bodies in DC figured they knew more than the states about education and started taking over. Now we have about $9,000-$20,000 per kid, per year being spent "educating" the skulls full of mush and are ranked 21st and 25th in the world in math and science. Good job, Washington.
And what do the parents do, nothing, as their children's brains are destroyed by the beauracrats. The parents are to blame for going along and not in the streets in a rage!!
True. Vatican yesterday. White House today.
Except the White House now only reflects the morality of a majority of the voters.
I have so much fun when enthusiastic experts about something I don’t know anything about go at it. It’s sort of like watching Bollywood films without subtitles.
Or as my father-in-law says when his wife’s Sicilian relatives get cranked up, “Like watching the fights on the Spanish channel!” (Which wouldn’t work for me, because I understand Spanish ...)
I agree with the author’s principle, that education should be private. Private pay, or private charity. His predictions of the outcome of that situation are arguable, of course, but a person would have to try very hard to persuade me that *any* possible outcome of fully privatizing education would be worse for the country than what we have now.
I agree. Anything is better than having the greasy hands of a central socialist government on the education ‘industry.’
If the UK can lay off 500,000 government workers, the US should be able to permanently furlough a million. This should start with eliminating permanently the FED and the DOE!
The posting was almost starting to sound intelligent until I got to the point about wanting to foist Greek and Latin on kids. I mean, if I was a Greek kid and the only language being taught in school was Greek, I’d move.... There are enough LIVE languages available to study that it should be possible to get whatever side benefits you hope to get by studying live/real ones. You can get a good enough feel for IE grammer by studying Russian and at the end of the day you have something useful.
The so-called "progressive" movement brought about the promotion of other ideas which are counterfeit and lead to tyranny. Their propagandizing the citizenry through the "government" schools has created the constitutional illiteracy which brought us the Congress and Administration of the past two years.
"Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free." James Madison America's Constitution is the means by which knowledgeable and free people, capable of self-government, can bind and control their elected representatives in government. In order to remain free, the Founders said, the people themselves must clearly understand the ideas and principles upon which their Constitutional government is based. Through such understanding, they will be able to prevent those in power from eroding their Constitutional protections. The Founders established schools and seminaries for the distinct purpose of instilling in youth the lessons of history and the ideas of liberty. And, in their day, they were successful. Tocqueville, eminent French jurist, traveled America and in his 1830's work, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, wrote:
On the frontier, he noted that "...no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling that shelters him.... He wears the dress and speaks the language of the cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious about the future, and ready for argument about the present.... I do not think that so much intellectual activity exists in the most enlightened and populous districts of France' " He continued, "It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of the democratic republic; and such must always be the case...where the instruction which enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education.." Possessing a clear understanding of the failure of previous civilizations to achieve and sustain freedom for individuals, our forefathers discovered some timeless truths about human nature, the struggle for individual liberty, the human tendency toward abuse of power, and the means for curbing that tendency through Constitutional self-government. Jefferson's Bill For The More General Diffusion Of Knowledge For Virginia declared:
Education was not perceived by the Founders to be a mere process for teaching basic skills. It was much, much more. Education included the very process by which the people of America would understand and be able to preserve their liberty and secure their Creator-endowed rights. Understanding the nature and origin of their rights and the means of preserving them, the people would be capable of self government, for they would recognize any threats to liberty and "nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud." (Adams)
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People already know what the "quality" of "education" their children are getting (or not getting) in public schools. The liberals' response is always that there is not enough money in education budgets and use the poor education to actually increase the spending, taxes and benefits for the "education system".
What needs to be done is for people to find out how much BIG EDUCATION is costing them (whether they have children in school or not), and keep hammering at this message until most people will decide that, as Robert Redford's character Bill McKay said in The Candidate (1972), "there's got to be a better way!" of educating the kids - one that doesn't cost nearly as much money as it does now and one that (with the help of technology and market forces) spends less on teachers and books and "materials" and more on teaching.
Then, you will see progress... Until then, the government will keep transferring your money into their pockets via "education", "environment," "healthcare," "infrastructure," "union works," "your taxpayers money at work" etc. etc.
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