September 30, 2009
Story of the Shoemaker
Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Do you remember the first book you ever read? I can remember one of the first books I ever read. It was called The Shoemaker Who Gave India the Bible. It was a children's version of the story of William Carey, an English cobbler who helped begin the modern missionary movement in the face of tremendous obstacles. He then became a missionary to India and oversaw the translation of the Bible into forty languages. Reading his story as a child gave me a sense of passion to love the Lord with all my heart. It was through stories like this that I was drawn to give my life to God’s service.
As you’re choosing books for your children, you have a chance to instill in them what it means to serve God wholeheartedly. Don’t forget to look for books about missionaries and other people who lived for God’s glory. It might change their lives forever.
With Seeking Him, I’m Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Handwriting, Literature, and Art...Oh, My!
As a teacher, I have always loved combining subjects. It give more meaning to what is done and therefore, makes it more memorable. Micki memorized a poem entitled "The Caterpillar." Obviously, we used the poem as a springboard for an art project.
What you don't see is that she also copied the poem and we glued it to the back of her artwork. I only had her do two lines of the poem at a time, so it wouldn't be overwhelming. It was really interesting because you could see her handwriting improve from the beginning to the end.
While I do use a penmanship curriculum to continue her skills, now that she knows how to write, I integrated copywork more and more. Eventually, I want it to be all copywork until I get ready to teach her cursive. Copywork is a very "classical" way of handwriting. Part of the concept is that you have them copy things not only to practice handwriting, but also to expose them to literature, principles, and English grammar. You gotta' love multi-tasking.
The Nile
One thing I have learned is that Micki loves history and science. I think, in part, it's because I can make those subjects a little more hands on. Of course, the more modalities you can include, the more the student can learn and remember. Also, because she is still very concrete thinking at her age, concrete things make more sense.Therefore, we made the Nile River and flooded it. We had talked about the delta, and so, she knew that we needed to make a triangle at one end. Yes, I know that the Nile does not have a foil river bed, but I'm not God! We planted some "crops" which did start to grow after the flood started to dry up. The problem came from the fact that we live in the Midwest and the Nile River got flooded two more times and had to fight lows of 40s!
We move along a little slowly...we're still in Egypt. Once we finish talking about mummies and pyramids a little more, on to Sumer we'll go. What has been really cool is that the geography we are learning for Classical Conversations currently goes right along with what we've been learning.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Brits Tighten Screws on Home Schooling
From: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=693664
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 9/23/2009 8:55:00 AM
A recent British report calls for the government takeover of home schooling.
The report was released in June 2009 by Graham Badman, who was commissioned to conduct the report by the Children's Secretary of Britain -- England's version of the U.S. Department of Education. Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says the report is bad news for Britain.
"It would require all home schoolers to have to register with the equivalent of the federal government here [in the U.S.]," he says. "Secondly, they would have to be available for home visits...from government officials to separate them and ask them questions about their home schooling, whether they like it, etc."
Smith is even more troubled by another aspect of the report: all home-school curriculum would be controlled by the state. "In other words, homeschoolers would not be able to choose their own curriculum," he explains. "These are some of the recommendations that have the home schoolers in Great Britain and around the world concerned."
Smith says Badman used Articles 12 and 29 from the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child Treaty to justify the report.
HSLDA founder Mike Farris is concerned that the same U.N. treaty could be used to the same ends in the United States. Another group Farris started, ParentalRights.org, is calling for concerned parents and individuals to contact their senators and urge them to support a recently introduced parental rights bill.
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 9/23/2009 8:55:00 AM
A recent British report calls for the government takeover of home schooling.
The report was released in June 2009 by Graham Badman, who was commissioned to conduct the report by the Children's Secretary of Britain -- England's version of the U.S. Department of Education. Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says the report is bad news for Britain.
"It would require all home schoolers to have to register with the equivalent of the federal government here [in the U.S.]," he says. "Secondly, they would have to be available for home visits...from government officials to separate them and ask them questions about their home schooling, whether they like it, etc."
Smith is even more troubled by another aspect of the report: all home-school curriculum would be controlled by the state. "In other words, homeschoolers would not be able to choose their own curriculum," he explains. "These are some of the recommendations that have the home schoolers in Great Britain and around the world concerned."
Smith says Badman used Articles 12 and 29 from the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child Treaty to justify the report.
HSLDA founder Mike Farris is concerned that the same U.N. treaty could be used to the same ends in the United States. Another group Farris started, ParentalRights.org, is calling for concerned parents and individuals to contact their senators and urge them to support a recently introduced parental rights bill.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Cursive writing may be fading skill, but so what?
Just thought this was an interesting article...
By TOM BREEN, Associated Press Writer Tom Breen, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 19, 9:44 am ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090919/ap_on_re_us/us_cursive_angst
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Charleston resident Kelli Davis was in for a surprise when her daughter brought home some routine paperwork at the start of school this fall. Davis signed the form and then handed it to her daughter for the eighth-grader's signature.
"I just assumed she knew how to do it, but I have a piece of paper with her signature on it and it looks like a little kid's signature," Davis said.
Her daughter was apologetic, but explained that she hadn't been required to make the graceful loops and joined letters of cursive writing in years. That prompted a call to the school and another surprise.
West Virginia's largest school system teaches cursive, but only in the 3rd grade.
"It doesn't get quite the emphasis it did years ago, primarily because of all the technology skills we now teach," said Jane Roberts, assistant superintendent for elementary education in Kanawha County schools.
Davis' experience gets repeated every time parents, who recall their own hours of laborious cursive practice, learn that what used to be called "penmanship" is being shunted aside at schools across the country in favor of 21st century skills.
The decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing. In 2011, the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require 8th and 11th graders to compose on computers, with 4th graders following in 2019.
"We need to make sure they'll be ready for what's going to happen in 2020 or 2030," said Katie Van Sluys, a professor at DePaul University and the president of the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Handwriting is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others, she said. Students accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting.
"They're writing, they're composing with these tools at home, and to have school look so different from that set of experiences is not the best idea," she said.
Text messaging, e-mail, and word processing have replaced handwriting outside the classroom, said Cheryl Jeffers, a professor at Marshall University's College of Education and Human Services, and she worries they'll replace it entirely before long.
"I am not sure students have a sense of any reason why they should vest their time and effort in writing a message out manually when it can be sent electronically in seconds."
For Jeffers, cursive writing is a lifelong skill, one she fears could become lost to the culture, making many historic records hard to decipher and robbing people of "a gift."
That fear is not new, said Kathleen Wright, national product manager for handwriting at Zaner-Bloser, a Columbus, Ohio-based company that produces a variety of instructional material for schools.
"If you go back, you can see the same conversations came up with the advent of the typewriter," she said.
Every year, Zaner-Bloser sponsors a national handwriting competition for schools, and this year saw more than 200,000 entries, a record.
"Everybody talks about how sometime in the future every kid's going to have a keyboard, but that isn't really true."
Few schools make keyboards available for day-to-day writing. The majority of school work, from taking notes to essay tests, is still done by hand.
At Mountaineer Montessori in Charleston, teacher Sharon Spencer stresses cursive to her first- through third-graders. By the time her students are in the third grade, they are writing book reports and their spelling words in cursive.
To Spencer, cursive writing is an art that helps teach them muscle control and hand-eye coordination.
"In the age of computers, I just tell the children, what if we are on an island and don't have electricity? One of the ways we communicate is through writing," she said.
But cursive is favored by fewer college-bound students. In 2005, the SAT began including a written essay portion, and a 2007 report by the College Board found that about 15 percent of test-takers chose to write in cursive, while the others wrote in print.
That was probably smart, according to Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, who cites multiple studies showing that sloppy writing routinely leads to lower grades, even in papers with the same wording as those written in a neater hand.
Graham argues that fears over the decline of handwriting in general and cursive in particular are distractions from the goal of improving students' overall writing skills. The important thing is to have students proficient enough to focus on their ideas and the composition of their writing rather than how they form the letters.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that 26 percent of 12th graders lack basic proficiency in writing, while two percent were sufficiently skilled writers to be classified as "advanced."
"Handwriting is really the tail wagging the dog," Graham said.
Besides, it isn't as if all those adults who learned cursive years ago are doing their writing with the fluent grace of John Hancock.
Most people peak in terms of legibility in 4th grade, Graham said, and Wright said it's common for adults to write in a cursive-print hybrid.
"People still have to write, even if it's just scribbling," said Paula Sassi, a certified master graphologist and a member of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation.
"Just like when we went from quill pen to fountain pen to ball point, now we're going from the art of handwriting to handwriting purely as communication," she said.
By TOM BREEN, Associated Press Writer Tom Breen, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 19, 9:44 am ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090919/ap_on_re_us/us_cursive_angst
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Charleston resident Kelli Davis was in for a surprise when her daughter brought home some routine paperwork at the start of school this fall. Davis signed the form and then handed it to her daughter for the eighth-grader's signature.
"I just assumed she knew how to do it, but I have a piece of paper with her signature on it and it looks like a little kid's signature," Davis said.
Her daughter was apologetic, but explained that she hadn't been required to make the graceful loops and joined letters of cursive writing in years. That prompted a call to the school and another surprise.
West Virginia's largest school system teaches cursive, but only in the 3rd grade.
"It doesn't get quite the emphasis it did years ago, primarily because of all the technology skills we now teach," said Jane Roberts, assistant superintendent for elementary education in Kanawha County schools.
Davis' experience gets repeated every time parents, who recall their own hours of laborious cursive practice, learn that what used to be called "penmanship" is being shunted aside at schools across the country in favor of 21st century skills.
The decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing. In 2011, the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require 8th and 11th graders to compose on computers, with 4th graders following in 2019.
"We need to make sure they'll be ready for what's going to happen in 2020 or 2030," said Katie Van Sluys, a professor at DePaul University and the president of the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Handwriting is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others, she said. Students accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting.
"They're writing, they're composing with these tools at home, and to have school look so different from that set of experiences is not the best idea," she said.
Text messaging, e-mail, and word processing have replaced handwriting outside the classroom, said Cheryl Jeffers, a professor at Marshall University's College of Education and Human Services, and she worries they'll replace it entirely before long.
"I am not sure students have a sense of any reason why they should vest their time and effort in writing a message out manually when it can be sent electronically in seconds."
For Jeffers, cursive writing is a lifelong skill, one she fears could become lost to the culture, making many historic records hard to decipher and robbing people of "a gift."
That fear is not new, said Kathleen Wright, national product manager for handwriting at Zaner-Bloser, a Columbus, Ohio-based company that produces a variety of instructional material for schools.
"If you go back, you can see the same conversations came up with the advent of the typewriter," she said.
Every year, Zaner-Bloser sponsors a national handwriting competition for schools, and this year saw more than 200,000 entries, a record.
"Everybody talks about how sometime in the future every kid's going to have a keyboard, but that isn't really true."
Few schools make keyboards available for day-to-day writing. The majority of school work, from taking notes to essay tests, is still done by hand.
At Mountaineer Montessori in Charleston, teacher Sharon Spencer stresses cursive to her first- through third-graders. By the time her students are in the third grade, they are writing book reports and their spelling words in cursive.
To Spencer, cursive writing is an art that helps teach them muscle control and hand-eye coordination.
"In the age of computers, I just tell the children, what if we are on an island and don't have electricity? One of the ways we communicate is through writing," she said.
But cursive is favored by fewer college-bound students. In 2005, the SAT began including a written essay portion, and a 2007 report by the College Board found that about 15 percent of test-takers chose to write in cursive, while the others wrote in print.
That was probably smart, according to Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, who cites multiple studies showing that sloppy writing routinely leads to lower grades, even in papers with the same wording as those written in a neater hand.
Graham argues that fears over the decline of handwriting in general and cursive in particular are distractions from the goal of improving students' overall writing skills. The important thing is to have students proficient enough to focus on their ideas and the composition of their writing rather than how they form the letters.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that 26 percent of 12th graders lack basic proficiency in writing, while two percent were sufficiently skilled writers to be classified as "advanced."
"Handwriting is really the tail wagging the dog," Graham said.
Besides, it isn't as if all those adults who learned cursive years ago are doing their writing with the fluent grace of John Hancock.
Most people peak in terms of legibility in 4th grade, Graham said, and Wright said it's common for adults to write in a cursive-print hybrid.
"People still have to write, even if it's just scribbling," said Paula Sassi, a certified master graphologist and a member of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation.
"Just like when we went from quill pen to fountain pen to ball point, now we're going from the art of handwriting to handwriting purely as communication," she said.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Cartoon and Quote
According to a UNESCO statement from some years ago, "It is often the family that infects the children with extreme nationalism."
A love for one's country is to be treated like some kind of disease, lest it hinder the goal of "peace at all costs."
A love for one's country is to be treated like some kind of disease, lest it hinder the goal of "peace at all costs."
Cartoon and quote from parentalrights.org
Monday, September 14, 2009
12 Benefits of Music Education
1. Early musical training helps develop brain areas involved in language and reasoning. It is thought that brain development continues for many years after birth. Recent studies have clearly indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire the brain's circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds.2. There is also a causal link between music and spatial intelligence (the ability to perceive the world accurately and to form mental pictures of things). This kind of intelligence, by which one can visualize various elements that should go together, is critical to the sort of thinking necessary for everything from solving advanced mathematics problems to being able to pack a book-bag with everything that will be needed for the day.
3. Students of the arts learn to think creatively and to solve problems by imagining various solutions, rejecting outdated rules and assumptions. Questions about the arts do not have only one right answer.
4. Recent studies show that students who study the arts are more successful on standardized tests such as the SAT. They also achieve higher grades in high school.
5. A study of the arts provides children with an internal glimpse of other cultures and teaches them to be empathetic towards the people of these cultures. This development of compassion and empathy, as opposed to development of greed and a "me first" attitude, provides a bridge across cultural chasms that leads to respect of other races at an early age.
6. Students of music learn craftsmanship as they study how details are put together painstakingly and what constitutes good, as opposed to mediocre, work. These standards, when applied to a student's own work, demand a new level of excellence and require students to stretch their inner resources.
7. In music, a mistake is a mistake; the instrument is in tune or not, the notes are well played or not, the entrance is made or not. It is only by much hard work that a successful performance is possible. Through music study, students learn the value of sustained effort to achieve excellence and the concrete rewards of hard work.
8. Music study enhances teamwork skills and discipline. In order for an orchestra to sound good, all players must work together harmoniously towards a single goal, the performance, and must commit to learning music, attending rehearsals, and practicing.
9. Music provides children with a means of self-expression. Now that there is relative security in the basics of existence, the challenge is to make life meaningful and to reach for a higher stage of development. Everyone needs to be in touch at some time in his life with his core, with what he is and what he feels. Self-esteem is a by-product of this self-expression.
10. Music study develops skills that are necessary in the workplace. It focuses on "doing," as opposed to observing, and teaches students how to perform, literally, anywhere in the world. Employers are looking for multi-dimensional workers with the sort of flexible and supple intellects that music education helps to create as described above. In the music classroom, students can also learn to better communicate and cooperate with one another.
11. Music performance teaches young people to conquer fear and to take risks. A little anxiety is a good thing, and something that will occur often in life. Dealing with it early and often makes it less of a problem later. Risk-taking is essential if a child is to fully develop his or her potential.
12. An arts education exposes children to the incomparable.
© Carolyn Phillips former Executive Director of the Norwalk Youth Symphony. Used with permission.
Friday, September 11, 2009
New Kids' Magazine--Free for MO residents
The new kids' magazine from MDC
Subscribe to Xplor, and your kids will get eye-popping art, photos and stories about Missouri’s coolest critters, niftiest natural places, liveliest outdoor activities and people who make a living from the wild. Together with Xplor Online, our magazine and website combo gets kids outside and exploring!
Subscribe Now!
The first issue of XPLOR will hit mailboxes February 2010.
Xplor is available FREE to Missouri residents (one per household) six issues per year. OUT-OF-STATE subscriptions are $5. FOREIGN subscriptions are $8.
Subscribe to Xplor, and your kids will get eye-popping art, photos and stories about Missouri’s coolest critters, niftiest natural places, liveliest outdoor activities and people who make a living from the wild. Together with Xplor Online, our magazine and website combo gets kids outside and exploring!
Subscribe Now!
The first issue of XPLOR will hit mailboxes February 2010.
Xplor is available FREE to Missouri residents (one per household) six issues per year. OUT-OF-STATE subscriptions are $5. FOREIGN subscriptions are $8.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Parent's Responsibility
It has been rare lately for me to take the time to put my own thoughts into words. There are so many other bright, intelligent people putting into words similar thoughts as mine that frequently I hear myself saying, “Let’s not reinvent the wheel.” This time however, I don’t seem to find many people, if any, communicating these thoughts, so I felt led to make this point myself.
During one of our recent Summits [www.AIPNews.com], I heard some interesting discussion about how to impart the importance and worth of restoring our republic. As a former classroom teacher, I understand the desire to impart the Truth to my students and plant seeds that would hopefully grow with more cultivating.
I realized the problem with this belief after God gave us a child to parent. After studying the Word, I realized that the responsibility of educating our daughter was laid directly on the shoulders of my husband and me. And regardless of how much I search, no where do I see that mantle of responsibility removed in Scripture. Even if I didn’t believe “Sola Scriptura,” the fact that the socialist agenda has been encroaching on this right and responsibility for years should prove the point. Years? Actually more like over a century.
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” Didn’t we hear Obama say this? Probably. But this quote is actually from Karl Marx himself. And slowly (or not so slowly) the Christians in the United States have been poisoned with this belief. So, off the women go into the workforce and men resign their responsibility of father to a “step” or to no one at all; both treating the “blessings” of God as curses. They turn their children over to government storage facilities. Parents are told that they are not capable of training their children. After all, “The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.... In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God” or so says a famous father of modern education, John Dewey.
“But wait,” say many unsuspecting parents, “we send them to school for an education.” That may be your goal but don’t assume it’s the educational system’s goal. The public education system’s goal is not individual education but communal indoctrination. As John Dewey stated, “Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”
While I know that many individual teachers have a wonderful heart for children, what teachers are being taught and given to teach does not provide the worldview some of us hold. Even as I sat in my Science Methods class at a Catholic college, I was instructed to teach evolution. But while there are some teachers who attempt to swim against the tide, most do not or have been too corrupted by the system already themselves to realize they are part of the tide. For instance, as I sat in my Philosophy and History of Education class at the same college, I was the only person in the room who believed in absolutes. Not even our instructor believed in absolutes. If this is the mindset of the majority of those teaching, how can much good come out of it?
Correction. How much good could come out of it for those of us who hold to our conservative, Christian beliefs? There is a lot of good to come out of it for those following and fostering a socialist agenda. If not, why else would Lenin boldly state, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” If he knew that could happen after only four years, what about our American posterity that has been abandoned to the enemy for twelve or more years? Is it any wonder then Saul Alinsky taught in his book Rules for Radicals the need for “community organizers” to reach out and train the youth? Is it surprising to find that the well-known “community organizer” not only was praised by Alinsky’s son after the Democratic National Convention for how well Obama had used his father’s model, but he also made sure to teach those principles to students and such groups as ACORN.
It should be no surprise, then, when we learn that Obama is planning to speak to the nation’s students this coming Tuesday. Not only is he speaking, but providing teachers with the correct propaganda material otherwise called “classroom activities.” After all, as Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute noted, “In his letter, Duncan [Secretary of Education] asserts that the work of educators is ‘critical to…our social progress.’” Sound familiar?
And it is no coincidence that not only will Obama speak, but follow-up materials are provided because after all, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” or so believed Lenin.
Many may feel that my thoughts concerning the weight of education lying on the shoulders of the parents is outmoded or even wrong. That is fine. But if you are a Constitutional conservative, you may want to reconsider. After all, nowhere within the explicit powers given to the federal government is education mentioned. We cannot pick and choose which powers usurped by the federal government should be extinguished making sure to leave only the ones that are convenient for us to keep.
So in the end, it is the family who should reclaim our right and responsibility to teach our children in all things including the very important role as citizens of a republic. I agree with the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, who stated, “The best education is education in the best things.”
During one of our recent Summits [www.AIPNews.com], I heard some interesting discussion about how to impart the importance and worth of restoring our republic. As a former classroom teacher, I understand the desire to impart the Truth to my students and plant seeds that would hopefully grow with more cultivating.
I realized the problem with this belief after God gave us a child to parent. After studying the Word, I realized that the responsibility of educating our daughter was laid directly on the shoulders of my husband and me. And regardless of how much I search, no where do I see that mantle of responsibility removed in Scripture. Even if I didn’t believe “Sola Scriptura,” the fact that the socialist agenda has been encroaching on this right and responsibility for years should prove the point. Years? Actually more like over a century.
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” Didn’t we hear Obama say this? Probably. But this quote is actually from Karl Marx himself. And slowly (or not so slowly) the Christians in the United States have been poisoned with this belief. So, off the women go into the workforce and men resign their responsibility of father to a “step” or to no one at all; both treating the “blessings” of God as curses. They turn their children over to government storage facilities. Parents are told that they are not capable of training their children. After all, “The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.... In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God” or so says a famous father of modern education, John Dewey.
“But wait,” say many unsuspecting parents, “we send them to school for an education.” That may be your goal but don’t assume it’s the educational system’s goal. The public education system’s goal is not individual education but communal indoctrination. As John Dewey stated, “Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”
While I know that many individual teachers have a wonderful heart for children, what teachers are being taught and given to teach does not provide the worldview some of us hold. Even as I sat in my Science Methods class at a Catholic college, I was instructed to teach evolution. But while there are some teachers who attempt to swim against the tide, most do not or have been too corrupted by the system already themselves to realize they are part of the tide. For instance, as I sat in my Philosophy and History of Education class at the same college, I was the only person in the room who believed in absolutes. Not even our instructor believed in absolutes. If this is the mindset of the majority of those teaching, how can much good come out of it?
Correction. How much good could come out of it for those of us who hold to our conservative, Christian beliefs? There is a lot of good to come out of it for those following and fostering a socialist agenda. If not, why else would Lenin boldly state, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” If he knew that could happen after only four years, what about our American posterity that has been abandoned to the enemy for twelve or more years? Is it any wonder then Saul Alinsky taught in his book Rules for Radicals the need for “community organizers” to reach out and train the youth? Is it surprising to find that the well-known “community organizer” not only was praised by Alinsky’s son after the Democratic National Convention for how well Obama had used his father’s model, but he also made sure to teach those principles to students and such groups as ACORN.
It should be no surprise, then, when we learn that Obama is planning to speak to the nation’s students this coming Tuesday. Not only is he speaking, but providing teachers with the correct propaganda material otherwise called “classroom activities.” After all, as Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute noted, “In his letter, Duncan [Secretary of Education] asserts that the work of educators is ‘critical to…our social progress.’” Sound familiar?
And it is no coincidence that not only will Obama speak, but follow-up materials are provided because after all, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” or so believed Lenin.
Many may feel that my thoughts concerning the weight of education lying on the shoulders of the parents is outmoded or even wrong. That is fine. But if you are a Constitutional conservative, you may want to reconsider. After all, nowhere within the explicit powers given to the federal government is education mentioned. We cannot pick and choose which powers usurped by the federal government should be extinguished making sure to leave only the ones that are convenient for us to keep.
So in the end, it is the family who should reclaim our right and responsibility to teach our children in all things including the very important role as citizens of a republic. I agree with the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, who stated, “The best education is education in the best things.”
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Thanks for the Wakeup Call, Mr. President
Thanks for The Wakeup Call, Mr. President
Posted by Neal McCluskey
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/02/thanks-for-the-wakeup-call-mr-president/
It’s one thing for a president to encourage kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and presidency, and prod schools to drive social change. Yet as Andrew Coulson has already begun to discuss, the latter is what President Obama, audaciously, has done.
This is, of course, a very troubling turn of events, giving rise to very legitimate fears of political and social indoctrination even if it turns out that those aren’t at all the President’s motives. Perhaps, though, this is also a blessing in disguise. As many liberals and conservatives push for national academic standards and other centralizing education reforms, this situation brilliantly illustrates why government schooling is totally antithetical to a free society, and why the more centralized the power, the greater the danger.
Some background: In anticipation of the president’s planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed “classroom activities” with all sorts of alarming buzzwords and guidance to schools across the country. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is “critical to…our social progress.” It’s a statement that suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students. Fear that this might be the case is reinforced by suggested classroom activities in the department’s guidance for pre-K-6 students that encourage children to make posters setting out “community and country” goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson being pushed that it is important to listen to “the President and other elected officials.” Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech “by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.” Finally, schools are told to ask students how president Obama will “inspire” them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.
This is very disturbing, making crystal clear the huge dangers that attend government-controlled education. Ultimately, politicians will use power over education for their own ends, something fully at odds with a free society. And this is just the most stark manifestation of the inherent incompatibility of freedom and government education. As I have emphasized constantly since publication of my paper Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict, every day free people are pitted against one another, forced to defend their freedom and basic values because they all have to support a single system of government schools. Evolution vs. creationism. Prayer in – or not in – schools. Books with offensive material in libraries. Decisions over whose history will be taught, and whose won’t. The curtailment of freedom goes on and on when government takes everyone’s money and provides schools with it. And the more we centralize education – the more diverse people we force to support one system of schools – the greater the cost to liberty.
All of which makes one thing obvious: The only system of learning compatible with a truly free society is not one of government domination, but one rooted in educational choice – public education, not schooling – in which the public assures that all people can access education, but parents are free to choose their children’s schools and educators are free to educate how they wish.
For too long we have ignored freedom when it’s come to education, sacrificing liberty for “test scores” or “efficiency.” As a result, we’ve gotten neither good test scores nor efficiency while fomenting constant social conflict and building increasingly dangerous government control over our children and our lives. But hopefully some good will come of this troubling Obama administration initiative, issuing a desperately needed wakeup call to all Americans about the great damage government education can inflict on otherwise free people.
Neal McCluskey • September 2, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
It’s one thing for a president to encourage kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and presidency, and prod schools to drive social change. Yet as Andrew Coulson has already begun to discuss, the latter is what President Obama, audaciously, has done.
This is, of course, a very troubling turn of events, giving rise to very legitimate fears of political and social indoctrination even if it turns out that those aren’t at all the President’s motives. Perhaps, though, this is also a blessing in disguise. As many liberals and conservatives push for national academic standards and other centralizing education reforms, this situation brilliantly illustrates why government schooling is totally antithetical to a free society, and why the more centralized the power, the greater the danger.
Some background: In anticipation of the president’s planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed “classroom activities” with all sorts of alarming buzzwords and guidance to schools across the country. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is “critical to…our social progress.” It’s a statement that suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students. Fear that this might be the case is reinforced by suggested classroom activities in the department’s guidance for pre-K-6 students that encourage children to make posters setting out “community and country” goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson being pushed that it is important to listen to “the President and other elected officials.” Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech “by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.” Finally, schools are told to ask students how president Obama will “inspire” them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.
This is very disturbing, making crystal clear the huge dangers that attend government-controlled education. Ultimately, politicians will use power over education for their own ends, something fully at odds with a free society. And this is just the most stark manifestation of the inherent incompatibility of freedom and government education. As I have emphasized constantly since publication of my paper Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict, every day free people are pitted against one another, forced to defend their freedom and basic values because they all have to support a single system of government schools. Evolution vs. creationism. Prayer in – or not in – schools. Books with offensive material in libraries. Decisions over whose history will be taught, and whose won’t. The curtailment of freedom goes on and on when government takes everyone’s money and provides schools with it. And the more we centralize education – the more diverse people we force to support one system of schools – the greater the cost to liberty.
All of which makes one thing obvious: The only system of learning compatible with a truly free society is not one of government domination, but one rooted in educational choice – public education, not schooling – in which the public assures that all people can access education, but parents are free to choose their children’s schools and educators are free to educate how they wish.
For too long we have ignored freedom when it’s come to education, sacrificing liberty for “test scores” or “efficiency.” As a result, we’ve gotten neither good test scores nor efficiency while fomenting constant social conflict and building increasingly dangerous government control over our children and our lives. But hopefully some good will come of this troubling Obama administration initiative, issuing a desperately needed wakeup call to all Americans about the great damage government education can inflict on otherwise free people.
Neal McCluskey • September 2, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
Posted by Neal McCluskey
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/02/thanks-for-the-wakeup-call-mr-president/
It’s one thing for a president to encourage kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and presidency, and prod schools to drive social change. Yet as Andrew Coulson has already begun to discuss, the latter is what President Obama, audaciously, has done.
This is, of course, a very troubling turn of events, giving rise to very legitimate fears of political and social indoctrination even if it turns out that those aren’t at all the President’s motives. Perhaps, though, this is also a blessing in disguise. As many liberals and conservatives push for national academic standards and other centralizing education reforms, this situation brilliantly illustrates why government schooling is totally antithetical to a free society, and why the more centralized the power, the greater the danger.
Some background: In anticipation of the president’s planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed “classroom activities” with all sorts of alarming buzzwords and guidance to schools across the country. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is “critical to…our social progress.” It’s a statement that suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students. Fear that this might be the case is reinforced by suggested classroom activities in the department’s guidance for pre-K-6 students that encourage children to make posters setting out “community and country” goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson being pushed that it is important to listen to “the President and other elected officials.” Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech “by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.” Finally, schools are told to ask students how president Obama will “inspire” them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.
This is very disturbing, making crystal clear the huge dangers that attend government-controlled education. Ultimately, politicians will use power over education for their own ends, something fully at odds with a free society. And this is just the most stark manifestation of the inherent incompatibility of freedom and government education. As I have emphasized constantly since publication of my paper Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict, every day free people are pitted against one another, forced to defend their freedom and basic values because they all have to support a single system of government schools. Evolution vs. creationism. Prayer in – or not in – schools. Books with offensive material in libraries. Decisions over whose history will be taught, and whose won’t. The curtailment of freedom goes on and on when government takes everyone’s money and provides schools with it. And the more we centralize education – the more diverse people we force to support one system of schools – the greater the cost to liberty.
All of which makes one thing obvious: The only system of learning compatible with a truly free society is not one of government domination, but one rooted in educational choice – public education, not schooling – in which the public assures that all people can access education, but parents are free to choose their children’s schools and educators are free to educate how they wish.
For too long we have ignored freedom when it’s come to education, sacrificing liberty for “test scores” or “efficiency.” As a result, we’ve gotten neither good test scores nor efficiency while fomenting constant social conflict and building increasingly dangerous government control over our children and our lives. But hopefully some good will come of this troubling Obama administration initiative, issuing a desperately needed wakeup call to all Americans about the great damage government education can inflict on otherwise free people.
Neal McCluskey • September 2, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
It’s one thing for a president to encourage kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and presidency, and prod schools to drive social change. Yet as Andrew Coulson has already begun to discuss, the latter is what President Obama, audaciously, has done.
This is, of course, a very troubling turn of events, giving rise to very legitimate fears of political and social indoctrination even if it turns out that those aren’t at all the President’s motives. Perhaps, though, this is also a blessing in disguise. As many liberals and conservatives push for national academic standards and other centralizing education reforms, this situation brilliantly illustrates why government schooling is totally antithetical to a free society, and why the more centralized the power, the greater the danger.
Some background: In anticipation of the president’s planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed “classroom activities” with all sorts of alarming buzzwords and guidance to schools across the country. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is “critical to…our social progress.” It’s a statement that suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students. Fear that this might be the case is reinforced by suggested classroom activities in the department’s guidance for pre-K-6 students that encourage children to make posters setting out “community and country” goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson being pushed that it is important to listen to “the President and other elected officials.” Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech “by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.” Finally, schools are told to ask students how president Obama will “inspire” them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.
This is very disturbing, making crystal clear the huge dangers that attend government-controlled education. Ultimately, politicians will use power over education for their own ends, something fully at odds with a free society. And this is just the most stark manifestation of the inherent incompatibility of freedom and government education. As I have emphasized constantly since publication of my paper Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict, every day free people are pitted against one another, forced to defend their freedom and basic values because they all have to support a single system of government schools. Evolution vs. creationism. Prayer in – or not in – schools. Books with offensive material in libraries. Decisions over whose history will be taught, and whose won’t. The curtailment of freedom goes on and on when government takes everyone’s money and provides schools with it. And the more we centralize education – the more diverse people we force to support one system of schools – the greater the cost to liberty.
All of which makes one thing obvious: The only system of learning compatible with a truly free society is not one of government domination, but one rooted in educational choice – public education, not schooling – in which the public assures that all people can access education, but parents are free to choose their children’s schools and educators are free to educate how they wish.
For too long we have ignored freedom when it’s come to education, sacrificing liberty for “test scores” or “efficiency.” As a result, we’ve gotten neither good test scores nor efficiency while fomenting constant social conflict and building increasingly dangerous government control over our children and our lives. But hopefully some good will come of this troubling Obama administration initiative, issuing a desperately needed wakeup call to all Americans about the great damage government education can inflict on otherwise free people.
Neal McCluskey • September 2, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
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