Back to school: big mistake

It’s almost time for Americans to repeat the terrible mistake of sending their children back to public school. In some parts of the country the new school year has already started, proving that the Geneva Convention doesn’t protect America’s children.

In my hometown the budget for the four schools is more than that for all the rest of the municipal expenses put together. At the same time, one after another, new “learning centers” are being opened downtown—half a dozen of them, when last I counted. You wonder why such expensive schools need to be augmented by private tutoring shops.

What are we getting for our school tax dollars? What are the kiddies so busy learning that they have to resort to private instruction to pick up a bit of math and reading skills?

One) The big thing that they learn is conformity. Paid educators, and the people who believe them, call it “socialization” and insist it can’t be properly managed outside of public school, ignoring the fact that people all over the world socialized their offspring just fine for thousands of years before public schooling came along.

The single biggest lesson learned by most children in the public schools is that the most important people in their lives—way more important than those un-hip family members—are, of course, their age-group peers. Their friends. Children learn from other children. They do learn from their classroom teachers, which is another problem; but the ones they really listen to are the other kids in their class.

This is what’s been wrong with public schooling since the day it was invented.

The biggest thing they learn from other kids is how to be just like them. Sooner or later, every parent finds out what’s wrong with that. But usually by then it’s too late to uproot peer-group approval as the thing most desired by most children.

Two) Once upon a time—you won’t believe this, but it’s true—the biggest source of opposition to the social-engineering schemes of “education” theorists was… the teachers’ unions! But that stopped being true a hundred years ago, and by now the teachers have fallen into line with the theorists and become true Social Justice Warriors.

An invaluable book by R.J. Rushdoony, “The Messianic Character of American Education”, traces the long history of “education” theory in America by the simple expedient of letting the “educators” speak for themselves. They openly admit that their great objective is to impose “change” on society by alienating children from their families, their communities, their country, and—most importantly, to them—from Christianity. Is there anyone who dares to say they haven’t succeeded in that enterprise?

Just as John Dewey and other education swamis envisioned in the 1920s, schoolteachers have become “change agents.” This is the source of all the wackiness in public education. You can’t have a transgender/gay/whatever movement throughout society unless you start it in the classroom.

You can’t expect children to learn reading and math and history from teachers who are not well known for their deep understanding of those subjects, but are devoted to tearing down America as it is and replacing it with some crackpot humanist utopia dreamed up by college professors who do a lot of drugs.

Three) The lesson of dependence is a big one. Have you noticed that you almost never, anymore, see children simply playing as they used to? A pickup softball game on a summer’s day, with only four or five to a team and trees or bare spots in the grass for bases—you’re more likely to see a “Gerald Ford for President” bumper sticker.

Educators insist that every minute of a child’s day in school be supervised, and this has slopped over into the rest of life. Children are not allowed spontaneous, self-organized play, so they get no experience in making decisions, resolving disagreements, or coming up with compromises that let the game continue. Every decision is made for them by an adult.

Is it any wonder, after years and years of this, that college students cling to “safe space” where no decision need ever be made, no problem need ever be thought out, talked out, and resolved? They may be 19 or 20 years old, but when it comes to standing on their own two feet, they’re toddlers. They don’t know how to muster a cogent argument, but they’re always good for a tantrum.

It’s horrifying to contemplate what will happen to our country when the grownups are too old to carry on, and must hand it over to these overgrown infants.

Thanks, public education!

I have discussed these topics, and others, on my blog, http://leeduigon.com, throughout the week. Please stop by and read! All it takes is just one click to get you there.