Well, Christmas is over and we are in the "tween time", the time between Christmas and New Year. An article I have read has given me some thoughts for the morning. Interestingly it ties together a theme that connects to the tragedy in Connecticut to recent events in China, Germany and even right here in Virginia. Public School.
This is a linked article from the blog site American Thinker (The case against public education ) that has motivated my rant thoughts for this post. Please go read it all, but what I feel is a key point is,
"Allow me to emphasize this last point, as I believe it may hold within it the strongest positive case for the abolition of any public educational model, in favor of the theoretically infinite (but practically self-limiting) models possible in a "private" educational world, by which I mean one in which most or all education of children is chosen and planned at the family level, whether directly (as in homeschooling), indirectly (as through church-based or other privately-managed schools), or through some combination of these."
It is a topic that also impacts my continuing thoughts on government, governing, property rights and freedom.
My wife and I and our brothers and sisters are all the products of public school, albeit from a time long before now! I still remember our Virginia history books and how they extolled the virtue of Virginia, and, of course, the United States. It was a time when there was a sense of discipline and we knew there would always be winners and losers. And more often than not, Mom and/or Dad where interested in and part of the education process.
But it was also during the 60s and as I got out and looked back, times were a changing. Political correctness set in, students who had miserable grades were given authority for no reason other than the color of there skin. The books we used were replaced by politically correct books. Teachers, who used to work with parents, were now more often acting without parental interaction. More families were raising "latch-key" kids with both parents working. Schools and school activities became critical for keeping kids busy and out of "trouble". Interestingly, there was a rise in students who had to be medicated so they would "learn" or at least be still (the actual point of the drugs). I have watched as parents dealt with teachers who, failing to interest a child, determined that drugs were needed. Personally knowing some of these children, I knew the issue was simple, they were smarter than the others due to mainstreaming of classes rather than segregating students by achievemts, the children were simply bored. Often changes in the teacher to one who had the skill to teach different children at different levels demonstrated the correctness of the solution, i.e. motivation not medication. Government run, propaganda driven, factory based schooling was and has kicked into high gear.
Before Christmas, I saw stories about students being upset over "the government" reducing what they got at lunch. They did not get "enough" and so they protested. Putting aside the sad fact that some bean counter in DC can tell a school in Backwoods, Anystate what to serve, my thought was how stupid to protest. Just bring your own lunch, like I did. Then you can eat whatever you want. And if your crafty, you could even do some trading for other goods and services. Or better yet, starve the monkey and switch to a home school paradigm.
In Germany, it is illegal to home school. The state has the sole franchise by law. This flys in the face of all my thoughts on freedom and the responsibility of the family. I have read a number of stories about a family who fled Germany to home school and then for some reason returned hoping to stay under the radar. They have had the government threaten to take the children from them if they try to home school.
Recently in China there was an attack by a man with a knife and another attack on a school by a man with a vehicle. Children were the targets and victims in both attacks. Again, here we have parents shipping students off to government run, propaganda driven, factory based schooling. These children are not there for there safety, they are there for being schooled to be good citizens for the state. Cannon fodder.
The NRA has suggested we arm schools with armed guards. so rather than a mythical "gun free zone", we are asking to have a militarized government run, propaganda driven, factory based school. Sorry,while I will give the NRA credit for borrowing balls for the moment, I think this is a very bad idea. I would rather the parents demand to be a part of the educational system, evaluate what we are doing with all these medicated kids, and allow teachers to be armed before we make the school into a military camp.
As for the results of our current system, one need look no further than the Occupy movement. Hundreds of young people who have so little common sense and such bent concepts of simple economic principles. And they are so bereft of any historical context. Unfortunately, these people represent the future, if for no their reason on their age.
So of what does this have to do with personal property, taxes and freedom. Not a difficult question, we each pay a property tax which in large measure funds the local school system. Through that we fund countless political left propaganda programs. Our property is confiscated for the benefit of another and many of us are given no ability to impact or direct how our property is used. As a result, it is used against us in a larger sense by buying the government propaganda and teaching a liberal bias world view. It is used to create more government zombies, it created the voting mess that resulted in November and so many Novembers before. As Forrest would say, "stupid is as stupid does".
But we must first start with who "owns" our children. I suggest that parents are the prime responsible agent until the age of majority. Lets use age 18 for that. Parents have brought child into the world and thus own that responsibility, not the state. It was the NAZIs that used women as child factories. When born, children were the property of the state for the use and disposal of the state. If I understand, that is the current system in North Korea as well. But that violates natural law, all offspring are born to parents who are given the natural role of bringing that child up to self sufficiency.
So, does the state, who does not have the moral ownership of a child, have the moral right to take property, i.e. taxes, to educate a child. NO, there is no moral obligation or natural connection. The responsibility is fully in the sphere and natural obligation of the parents. Of course, parents may in turn band together and form schools. They may be home based schools, they may be private schools, ecumenical schools, they may even be open to the larger public as a commercial venture, but they have no moral authority to demand those without children or without current school age children participate in funding the program.
Public school is failing to create bold and thinking young folks. It is funding a class of sociology and physiologists in medicating people with drugs that alter reality and create violence. It is requiring parents surrender sovereignty and control of children to a system not based on family values. It is creating selectively ignorant cannon fodder for the next civil war.
It is time to de-fund public school. The government is not required. It is reasonable to require children be educated. It is a simple matter to allow for private and commercial school ventures. It is a simple matter to define a base level of education in reading, English, and math. It is a simple matter to establish a line of gradual certifications through testing on a commercial basis.
I suggest we simply require that parents guarantee that children be educated up to the 12th grade. Failure to preform that will result in their child being behind, a fate most parents fear. (There are those who will say children will not get educated. So your telling me that the current system is doing that 100% now.....not really. From the backwoods of West Virginia to the inner city, children are marking time and getting little in return now.) Parents will then have all the choices that there are to succeed without the government being the headmaster. It will also have the added benefit of beginning to reconnect the family as a foundational system of community. Time to shift the paradigm.
No comments:
Post a Comment