Teachers and Parents
Our national weeping and wailing over education spending cuts, public employee unions, and such like cause minds of a certain vintage to stop still and wonder. When were the divorce proceedings between home and classroom filed anyway? And who filed them, and why? It can be argued that the current traumas of education proceed from that divorce: further testimony to the general understanding that it's the kids who get hurt worst in divorce.
The divorce between home and public school classroom—accomplished by the end of the '70s—was a national calamity. To put it another way, once public education lost in great degree the robust support of the middle class, there was nowhere for things to go but downhill. And so they have slid for decades. Teachers parading around the Wisconsin capital like Jimmy Hoffa's truck drivers? It not only wouldn't have happened in ye olde days—it didn't happen.
The middle class and the public school classroom were hand in glove in a united enterprise. The former wanted—nay, expected—the latter to succeed. Johnny would read. Susie would con her multiplication tables. Because the middle class expected no less. Mothers and daddies weren't putting up with a lot of bad grades and bad behaviors. Stuff like that got in the way of education, which was about—for goodness' sake—urgent matters like personal advancement and civic betterment. Education made for a stronger, wiser America. That is what we believed—and why we supported teachers and principals.
You say I am generalizing. I am. Every assertion regarding the human experience is a generalization. The point is, we used to like teachers and support them. What happened?
The moral collapse of the middle class is pretty much what seems to have happened. As Whittaker Chambers noted in a different context, "History hit us like a freight train." We all, suddenly, wanted liberation instead of restraint and order and discipline—the prerequisites of good education. Someone at the top has to pass the word down the line: Here's what we're doing today, no back talk. What we were "doing today" wasn't always, in abstract terms, the best thing to be found out there, but it made for generally fruitful outcomes. Parents supported it, passing down to children the obligations of self-discipline.
Parents, I tell you, used to like teachers. Teachers liked parents in return. There was a kind of compact between them. Back us up, the teachers said, and we'll deliver the goods. The parents nodded their heads. OK.
That was until the compact came apart and society as a whole withdrew its support from the teacher: the teacher as authority figure anyway.
The compact came apart when the kids themselves took as role models all the fun-loving, war-protesting, authority dissing "campus activists," as the papers called them. You can't have a compact that no one is willing to enforce by—oh, scandalous word!—discipline. Educational standards took a tumble.
Wasn't every little kiddie a potential genius best left to himself? You might have thought so, listening to the discourse of the time. The federal judiciary's embrace of busing for racial balance further disordered the relationship between parents and public schools and drove a big hunk of the middle class into private schools or home schooling.
Home schooling: There's something to which no one gave a thought 50 years ago. It happens in the 21st century that some of the nicest, most dedicated people you could ever hope to know have chosen to instruct their kids at home: unable any more to trust the public schools with getting the job done.
Yes, teachers unions are arrogant; it hurts to see teachers laid off—that, too. And that isn't the end. The good teachers who still show up for work, compact or no compact, don't deserve the opprobrium and the turmoil in which so many are forced to operate. Lord, help 'em, they deserve better. And so—here is the genuinely grievous part—do the kids.
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Please remember this all got started with Albert Schanker in New York City. It got worse when spanking was abolished in school. Then our history classes were twisted into the subject of the crimes of the European race. And finally, the highest mission and role of schools became sex education/gay indoctrination.
Divorce between the classroom and home, and the soaring divorce
rate too.
I don't think the middle class has abandoned public school outside of urban areas. Baby boomers in the suburbs still operate under the delusion that public school is roughly the same as it was in the 50s, when by father was taught the Bible as literature by his Southern Baptist English teacher. That world is gone and not coming back, but the boomers have a hard time getting it. But those of us who went through that meat grinder of the spirit called public education do, and that's enough.
If public schools were only properly funded and the Federal Government would raise standards and keep the local yokels like parents and God out of it, I am sure public schools would thrive after the very next election. The problem is private schools and home schools sapping the best and brightest off from where children need to be to socialized and secularized among their friends --the public schools. If the parents would just get behind the teachers who are now the third, fourth and fifth generation of leftist in America, I am sure the future would be brighter for all.
RE:#4
I can only imagine...the great utopian federal education system...
Dr Fleming was right several months ago, when he wrote that the public schools need to be defunded. They're a total waste and failure and there is no hope for them at all now, just like the federal government.
The recent homeschooling revolution in some parts of the world has (but only) a few people calling it a sign of evil and cultishness. One commentator, I recall, said it should be banned because "children have a right to enter human society and community".
Oh, but I agree. Yet, does a giant, compact school premises open children to their communities or...divorces them away from it?
When I was in undergrad the dimmest bulbs were students in the education department. I think most of them just wanted a government job with little accountability. It is a myth that most teachers are long-suffering idealists who are concerned about "the children".
I certainly agree that we should defund the public schools. We teach our five children at home, yet are forced to pay a good amount in taxes to the local "schools". My family receives no value from this institution, except that the little ruffians are contained for most of the day during the school year and can't harm our community or my children.
Public education boils down to an institution for indoctrination at public expense. Sure, kids learn to put on a condom, but many come out illiterate as well as deceived about everything from politics to history. Of course they also learn valuable social skills, such as sexting and how to do bong hits, mostly from peers, but sometimes from their "teachers".
Parents who care about western culture should pull their children out of school, and work to reduce funding for this sytematic public educational malpractice. Hurrah, Hurrah die Schule brennt!
I agree with Allen Wilson. What good are the public schools anymore? The only decent ones are in the rich white neighborhoods that don't need the 'free' education. They've been trying to fix the inner city minority schools for decades.
I sympathize with the teachers. Although many of them are no good, what do you expect when you don't even require knowledge of a subject to teach it? The teachers are constantly ragged on by all parts of society for failing the students, but what could the best teacher do when confronted with the uneducable savages that make up many of the public school classes? A minimal reform would be to simply start throwing the failures and troublemakers out and focus on the ones with potential, but this country is far too stupid to do something so sensible.
People might want to read the book "The Slaughter of the Cities" by E. Michael Jones to figure out what happened to American cities and schools.
Some of you younger fellows will need to decide in the near future what can be saved out of the remains and what not. Dr. Wilson is very good at pointing out essentials and as he has said many times before, The GOP, Empire, public education, and a huge centralized government attempting to please every Tom, Dick and Harry needs to be let go. When it comes to more attempted reforms of public edcuation,I hope you will take the advice of the old Federal Marshal in the movie True Grit, who said to Matty Ross when she promised to tell him a story if he would stop drinking whiskey, " LET IT GO!"
Schools - public schools, private schools and even home schools - are embedded in and have embedded in them the anti-culture. The anti-culture activly promotes the abstraction of the autonomous individual emancipated and freed from the created order, from God, from family, from the Church and from associations so that this would-be Promethean self can pursue his whims, desires, compulsions and lusts without the incumberance of the institutions of culture which would mitigate those drives. Of course, these would-be Promethean selves are actually, cut off from family, Church and other institutions, estranged, alienated and shriveled selves.
In this anti-culture, schools are no longer places which assist the family, the Church and other associations in training pupils for character which is acquiring, internalizing and living out the great virtues: capital, cardinal and theological. To the contracy, pupils are cut off from family and Church. Character is replaced by personality, hence the promotiong of the cult of personality; and virtues are replaced by values which are mere opinions, informed or uninformed. Pupils are said to be able to create knowledge, hence the promotion of the pupil-driven classroom.
Teachers of my generation and those of subsequent generations must first realize that the anti-culture is embedded in them, and that they must begin the difficult task of emancipating themselves from it. Those who manage this must then find the courage to struggle against the swift, powerful and deep current of the anti-culture. There are nooks and crannies in which we attempt this. Right now, we are not unlike the fifty Japanese engineers who are struggling against the odds at the reactors. The outcome is very much in doubt; however, we struggle on.
To the contrary, pupils are cut off from family and Church. Character is replaced by personality, hence the promotiong of the cult of personality; and virtues are replaced by values which are mere opinions, informed or uninformed. Pupils are said to be able to create knowledge, hence the promotion of the pupil-driven classroom.
This deserved repeating. Thank you, Mr. Peters.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
The problem started when they took God and Christian morality out of the public schools and put the teachers unions and Planned Parenthood in. I live in Wi. and I had many public school teachers in my family. Most were there before unions. I remember them as professionals who liked to acomplish a good job. These teachers in this state now remind me of the worst union goons I dealt with in the construction business. I hasten to add that most of my people did not have much to do with the union, but did their jobs in a competent and professional manner. Most contractors knew how to get rid of the worst union memebers by laying them off first or never hiring them in first place. I found that most gung ho union memebers were lazy bums who didn't like to work hard. The union officials were usually the ones left at the union hall, the most, because no one would hire them. That gave them time to get elected as union officials.
John Marino,
That sounds quite familiar to me. My Grandmother was a teacher, my mother was a teacher, my sister is a superintendent and former school teacher. \Its a damned shame we are left with the burnt out husk of what was once upon a time,a local school system. I don't know which came first the loss of priorities or the unions, but either way there was more taught in one room a hundred years ago than in the consolidated mega-daycares we have today.
#8 das ist neu,das ist neu
hurra,hurra Die Schule brennt
Nothing new here but euro-trash clap-trap. And when we have burned down the schools and torn down the lamp-posts, we must now discuss in the dark -or perhaps by the embers of burned out husks- what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp. It is not much of a lamp-post, it gives little light - but it's better than the arson's torch.
@Keith Blankenship: What percentage of high school teachers have a B.Ed.? My impression is that better schools hire those with a Bachelor degree in their discipline, but who also obtained credit in the (worthless, I agree) education classes required for certification.
Herr Schulz
It was supposed to be funny, witzig. I will take the ad hominem as a compliment. My "trashy" proposal: Let those who want their children indoctrinated in the socialistic, anti-western, anti-Christian world view go out and buy that type of education for them. The cost should not be shifted to people like me, who educate our children at home. Why should I subsidize the destruction of Western Culture? Why should I pay for indoctrination? By what reasoning should the fruits of my labours be confiscated by the government to aid and subsidize the ground troops of cultural decline?
Schooling at home and in private schools is the alternative I am arguing for. Yet I think we on the Right suffer from the idea that change is about being "constructive". When a building is unsound from the foundations on up, it should be torn down. To do otherwise puts the occupants (students) and the neighbours (my family and those like them) at risk.
Do you care to rebut my argument without name-calling? Or at least a little more creative than euro-trash?
Mr. Dancer:
I don't really know how many get the B. Ed. Perhaps there are many teachers who really are committed to education, but don't realize the false premise of much of what they teach. Biblically, the parents have the initial responsibility to teach their children, so even the best teacher can be seen as usurping the parental role under certain circumstances.
My point is really that the entire system is engaged in indoctrination and coercion of the conscience. That is why my five children have never been in the system.
Historically, government in the U.S. was not involved in primary education very much until the 19th century. Public education almost immediately became the vehicle whereby children were indoctrinated into beliefs and attitudes which the apparatchiki espoused, whether the parents liked it or not. Thus public education is at odds with the rights of parents and a threat to libert
I meant to finish the preceding with the word liberty. Sorry.
#19 Mr. B ; Unless you are the lyricist for the band "Extrabreit" how have I possibly offended you. You introduce song lyrics and I reply in kind- euro-trash - be creative think cocoa reefer band.
I don't know cocoa reefer band. It was my perception that you were calling me euro-trash.
In any event, I thought it was geil to hear about the school burning when I was 16. Thirty years later, I would like to burn it figuratively for the reasons stated supra.
I am not offended. What are your solutions to the problems of our education system?
For whatever my opinion is worth, I offer this for consideration: Realize that the "education system" you (rightfully) criticize is fundamentally different from the real "education system" in this country. What you go after here is simply the factual/formal/informational educational system. This system only takes up a few small percent of a child's day.
The real and far greater foe here is the mass media: advertising, television, movies, magazines, internet. The school system is simply an intellectual-engineering system. The mass media is an EMOTIONAL-engineering system: working on attitudes, perceptions, emotions. As we all know, it is far easier to affect someone on the emotional level than on the mental/intellectual; most Humans simply are not capable of much deep thought.
The emotional-engineering system permeates the culture, and marinates children in its toxic wastes for many hours a day. The best practical way of dealing with it is to "get there fustest with the mostest"; find some other way to occupy your children's attentions: Scouts, hobbies, family activities. More importantly, do your flat-out level best to reduce/restrict the presence of this system in your home. Screen the magazines, music players, etc. Toss out the set outright, if you must, and if you can !
If nothing else, you will at least have the satisfaction of: a) knowing that you are fighting back, even in a losing cause, b) knowing that if enough people do this, we can maybe even go from fighting a rear-guard action to fighting the system to a standstill, and c) knowing that what you are doing is right in the sight of your God.
No doubt this and $ 2.25 will get one a copy of the Wall Street Journal, but I offer this to you anyway.
Fight the Powers, mes amis !
#23 there is nothing "toll" about destruction be one 16 or 66. Specific "solutions to the problems of our education system " are not as important as the ends they need to achieve- to wit " educate the intellect to reason well in all matters to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it."
Mr. Schulz, See the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, regarding the appropriateness of destruction at times. Es ist doch toll, sagt der Herr!
Anyway, you have not proposed anything as an alternative to the public schools, either "constructive" or "destructive". Accordingly, one must assume that you have no alternatives to propose.
Mr. Schaeber, I love the expression emotional-engineering. it really hits the mark!
Mr. Blankenship @ 26:
"Emotional Engineering" is not original with me; it's from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".
But you are right, sir; it does seem to hit the mark.
#26 ecclesiastes ch2 -14 tells me the fool walks in darkness and you say he needs the light of arson to help him find his way. I gave you Newman sans quotes read it .
"Perhaps there are many teachers who really are committed to education, but don’t realize the false premise of much of what they teach. Biblically, the parents have the initial responsibility to teach their children, so even the best teacher can be seen as usurping the parental role under certain circumstances."
Teachers at their best are a sort of other parents. Also I find teachers very similar to doctors, lawyers, carpenters, clergy, and the other fields. A few are excellent, a few are notoriously horrible and most of them, very much like their students --- just pretty, damned average. I think if the federal level was extinguished control was returned to states and then to local communities and neighborhoods, things would improve a little. But since that is not going to happen, I think private schools and homeschools are the best alternative. The problem is that there is so much immitation of rotten education at all levels. Home schoolers immitate many rotten goals of the public schools they just do it more efficiently.
How many more Spelling Bees do they need to win to prove.... what exactly? How many more homeschool kids need to be accepted to Harvard... to prove what exactly?(Who cares!) A better question is how many learn Latin? How many learn Greek? How many are listening to charlatans who are putting Christian makeup on modernist faces from Dewey to Pippi Le Pughe? Lee as a youngster studied by a fireplace in a one room spartan apartment his tutor lived in with vistas of the Potomac for a background, swamps and woods for a playground. Adding flourescent lighting, work books, outlines and "a more modern reading list" doesn't add a damned thing. In fact it detracts.
Mr. Schulz:
I meant to quote Ecclesiastes 3, verse 3 which says that there is "a time to wreck and a time to heal" (AAT), also verse 5 "a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them". Also verse 8, a time to love and a time to hate". As I attempted to explain to you, I am not advocating arson. It was meant to be funny. I am advocating secession from, and destruction of the public education racket.
Your statement "I gave you Newman sans quotes read it" makes no sense to me. What are you referring to? You do cite a passage in quotes, but without stating the source. As far as the directive that I read "it", I might, but I would have to know what "it" is. Further, the end may be fine, but there must also be a way to achieve them. What do you propose?
Martin Luther said something to the effect that schools not based on the Bible are gateways to hell. I think he was right.
I have asked you to provide me with your proposed solution to the education problem, and you have failed to do so. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume you have no solution.
Robert:
I echo your critique of the use of texts which are the same or similar to those used in government schools. My family found this out when we purchased a set of history textbooks written by Joy Hakim. They were horrible, although they had been recommended by a generally reliable source. However, unlike in government schools, we had the option of not using them.
Although I agree that winning spelling bees and gaining admission to Harvard are not ends in themselves, I would also add that they are means to achieving influence in a society which needs in the worst way.
Keith writes: "Although I agree that winning spelling bees and gaining admission to Harvard are not ends in themselves, I would also add that they are means to achieving influence in a society which needs in the worst way."
I am in the process of attempting to raise nine. My eldest was homeschooled to learn Latin. He recently graduated from the University of Chicago. The secularist won with him. My daughter was homeschooled until High School and attended a State University and seems to be (knock on wood) doing as well as can be expected. My third was homeschooled for his elementary years, private school for High School, is attending an Ivy League school, is mad as hell all the time like his Father, but the jury is still out.
I have tried it almost every way there is. Presently we have some in a public school where my wife teaches. Without her,( and the hearth) there is no home to school and without me, there is no building to call a home. These are difficult times for families and all the more reason for courage and gratitude for having them at all.
Robert:
I will remember your situation in my prayers. What do you think of Patrick Henry College? My son is interested in it.
Why do you say that the secularists won with your eldest? What did he study at Chicago?
Your children sound like they are incredibly bright. Perhaps your eldest will come around. I will also pray for your wife. I hope the left aren't so strong in her school.
Keith,
Oh, they have not really won only momentarily captured his imagination more than the richer tradition that was ignored during his formative years. He still attends Mass when he is home for visits and probably even prays when he is in a pinch. But given the times, what should one expect? He studied economics of course. What else is there? It is all about Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!!!
Thank you for the posts and the prayers and the heads up for Patrick Henry. I do not know but I have heard of Wabash College and University of the South. I will probably need all of them before my work is done.
Robert wrote: "I think private schools and homeschools are the best alternative. The problem is that there is so much immitation of rotten education at all levels. Home schoolers immitate many rotten goals of the public schools they just do it more efficiently."
Mr. Robert, I am a new dad looking for advice. My wife and I refuse to expose our kids to public schools, and you obviously have a lot of the kind of experience I am looking to draw from. What do you think is most important as we prepare to teach our own kids at home? I am already very sure that just by keeping them away from the indoctrination system I am taking a good step.
Greg,
I am no expert on education but I do think less is sometimes more. Kids have a capacity to memorize declensions and learn languages at a young age so why not develope that capacity. Fairt tales and stories read aloud are also a good thing for children. The illiustrations in childens books are also important and should be rich and beautiful, this has been ignored and so much of the modern stuff is ugly and unimaginative.
Try to stay away from televisions and video games. When I was a young father living in North Carolina, I always looked forward to buying fresh oysters or shrimp on fridays and renting a movie for entertainement. Dogs and cats I always liked to have around and a fireplace for winter. Let your wife make her own home, they do the best job. Talk to Tom Fleming, Dr. Ptarick or Clyde Wilson as the kids get older for good primary sources. Too much religion at a given age, stifles and sours kids on the whole subject. Avoid long and loud services with alot of shouting. (Unless you are in the South and the preacher is legitimate and not just raising money.)
Try to be a man even among the daily difficulties --especially among the daily grind. Work at it, as if the outcome depended upon you alone and pray as if it ddepended upon Him alone. That's about all the advice I would be willing to give. Hope it helps.
PS. For a break and or inspiration, attend some of the Chronicles conferences from time to time with an old reliable friend.
Robert,
Thank you for the thoughtful reply! On Latin: can I teach them a language I have no familiarity with? I mean, is that the kind of thing that their young "capacity for declension" will be able to absorb in spite of my own ignorance? Alternatively, is it worth it for me to try to pick up some Latin through independent study in hopes of passing a bit of it onto them? I have an 8 month old son so far, hoping for many more. We have many animals around, and very limited TV. I appreciate all of your advice, and yes it is helpful.
And of course, I do plan to attend some Chronicles conferences one day, as soon as that becomes feasible. Looking forward to seeing you there one day.
Me too, Greg.
I mean, is that the kind of thing that their young “capacity for declension” will be able to absorb in spite of my own ignorance? Alternatively, is it worth it for me to try to pick up some Latin through independent study in hopes of passing a bit of it onto them?
Yes, it is possible to stay a little ahead of the student in the Latin. Yes by your own independent study, and I am no salesman for Tom Fleming, although I very much admire the man and consider him one of the best living teachers I know. He has a pretty good little Latin course for adults.
My Latin teacher has been dead for several years and was not a drill sergeant like Dr. Fleming when it came to languages. John Senior taught languages like John Wooden coached basketball. Tom Fleming is more like Bobby Knight -- a lot of demands, blood, sweat, tears and attention to detail until you are exhausted and frustrated and the darkness begins to turn into dawn. Either way is good depending on the student and both passionate about the importance of Latin.
Greg Jinkerson @34: Here is a link to some guidance on learning Latin from the Rockford Institute site:
http://www.rockfordinstitute.org/?cat=21
Thanks to both of you gentlemen!
#30 Mr.B: Let us go then , you and I , and agree with Eccl. 3-1 that if there is an appointed time for everything and a time for every affair under heaven, then surely there is a proper level of authority that is best able to accomplish every task on this earth. Let us agree that the task of education is best accomplished -not necessarily at the lowest level of constituted authority- but at the proper level. Let us agree that leaving the education of our children to the federal government is criminal - state and local levels seem more appropriate. Let us agree that on a rudimentary level education is simply a process of conveying "certain facts ,views or qualities, to the last baby born. They may be the most trivial facts or the most preposterous views or the most offensive qualities...but if handed on from one generation to another they are education." This leads not to an overwhelming question, but to the obvious conclusion that education can be as simple as eating with a fork or as difficult as eating noodles with chop-sticks. Hence, procreate, raise a child and you are an educator. Let us also agree that human knowledge includes the rudimentary and the complex and that educating our children requires that math, science, etc be taught. Are we not now talking about a different, more complex level of educating? Might not an individual family unit-even well educated parents - be too low level an authority to do all of it? Procreate, raise a child and you are not ipso facto mathematician, biologist,etc..
As to solving problems. The educational problems burdening the rudimentary level of education are not problems of the classroom, but the bedroom. They are best accomplished not at the polls but at the dinner table and by tending our gardens. What I surmise you mean by "the problems of our education systems" are in fact political problems and I leave them to be solved by locals. The quotes in question are from Newman's idea of a university and gk's whats wrong with the world.
Considering attempts are ongoing to unionize charter school teachers and charters will be held to the same national standards,assessments and curricula as public schools, the only difference between the 2 will be location. Unionization of all teachers plus national standards,assessments and curricula equals zero local control of schools under this transformed system of education designed and currently being implemented by the insurmountable combo of federal dept of ed and insanely rich philanthrocapitalists, neither subject to the constraints of elections. Privatization and nationalization are real threats to liberty occurring without public awareness. There's no way govt will stop public education. Arguing for such distracts attention from what Arne Duncan/Obama; the Gates, Broad and Walton Foundations; publishing and testing companies; unions; and national standards of Common Core and Framework for Science are set to accomplish with NCLB legislation up for reauthorization.