Reason 357: Because You Don’t Want The Institution Defining Success

So many times we loose site of “The Bottom Line“.  We get into a rat race with the world and we want our children to win. We want them to be the best, and to leave all our neighbor’s children in the dust. We want to be proud.

But I happen to think that there’s much more to life than a big house on the hill that our neighbors look up at and sigh with envy. I’ve personally met too many people who knew how to makes lots of bucks, but could not hold a family together if their lives depended on it. From one marriage to another they went, always looking for something promised, but which was not there. And worst of all, this rat race is easy to slide into for all of us.

I think therefore that it’s a good idea to write down what we want for our children, and to perhaps even define success for ourselves so that we can keep our eye on the prize. And with that in mind, I wrote this post some time back on my other blog:

If My Children Get A Good Education, Get A Good Job, Get And Stay Married, I Will Consider Myself A Failure As A Father

Here is the post in its entirety:

If we are to aim at success in raising our children, then we ought to at least be willing to define what that success would be.  As a father who desires to see all of life from a biblical perspective, that success is going to look different from the world’s ideas of success.  It would seem wise to me, therefore, to start by seeing all of life as a short prelude to an eternal destiny of torturous damnation or heavenly bliss.

But I know that our world lies to us.  It seeks to comfort us with promises of gray.  We are incessantly warned against the folly of seeing things as either black or white.  Gray is a safe refuge, or so we are told.  But not for me!  Gray is ignorance.  It is an unsafe place; a place of shortsightedness.  Standing at a fork in the road does not afford us such a gray existence.  We must proceed in but one direction.  And so it will be at our last breath.  Our past will determine our eternal future.  And this life will be but a speck in light of what lies beyond it, and it is in that speck that the choice must be made to either clothe ourselves in Christ, so that the real us can be hidden from our Father in heaven, or to dare approach Jehovah’s throne of judgment naked.

Yet it is our sinful nature to fix our eyes on the speck that is the present.  But in doing so we can’t but define success according to its standards.  We find ourselves hoping above all that our children are spared material want first, and  spiritual want second.  But this is a short-sighted perspective. To fix our eyes on Jesus is to fix our eyes on eternity and not this race!  It is in eternity that His throne, at the right hand of the Father, is situated.  The great cloud of witnesses do not cheer when we graduate from a secular humanist college, or get that high paying job.  We are deceived if we do not grasp that good character will give our children joy.  A starved spirit with well-fed flesh is success, at best, for only a moment within this speck of time.  The “present” intends to divert our fleshy eyes from our ultimate destiny by selling us sheetrock, cars, and toys.  But it will leave all who dare try it wanting.

Away with such folly!  It is better, if I truly take Jesus’ words to heart, to define success for my children by their love for Him, and their desire to follow his commandments.  It is my daily prayer.  It is my life.  May my children be complete failures in the eyes of this world and yet receive great applause from the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before them.  That is how I define success.

Reason 327: Because Why Make Your Child Pay For Another’s Willing Blindness

I wondered for some time if the self-appointed liberal elitists knew what they were doing, and were trying to destroy a nation, or if they really believed what they said. It’s not as if there’s no one countering their bad ideas with factual and reasoned arguments. And it’s also not as if there isn’t good data to show the failure that their ideas have become. But sadly, in these days there’s no discussing problems. There’s only one way, their way, and if you don’t agree, why you’re a ________ phobe, or a racist.  Oh, and you’re a closed minded bigot to boot. This is not an environment that fosters learning. Not does it foster innovation or progress–unless by “progress” you mean the destruction of Western Civ.  In that case, there’s enormous progress.  I know longer care whether it’s intentional or misguided. It doesn’t matter. In either case, the effect is the same, and stopping it will require the same actions.

This is mindset is the schoolhouse, and the schoolhouse is this mindset. And it has created an environment that cannot foster learning, nor does it foster innovation or progress–unless by “progress” you mean the destruction of Western Civ.  In which case, there’s been enormous progress.  I no longer care whether it’s intentional or misguided. It doesn’t matter. In either case, the effect is the same.

Here is a great story that demonstrates my point:

Federal Racial Discipline Quotas Create Chaos In St. Paul Schools

On [outsted Superintendent Valeria] Silva’s watch, the city’s high schools have become menacing places where gangs of out-of-control teens prowl the halls, and “classroom invasions” by students settling private disputes are commonplace…  Her policies, initiated in 2010, launched the St. Paul schools on a downward spiral of chaos and violence. In December 2015, Ramsey County attorney John Choi labeled the situation “a public health crisis.” In 2015, assaults on teachers in St. Paul schools reported to his office tripled compared to 2014, and were up 36 percent over the previous four-year average.

What brought all of this on you ask? This:

Using Race as a Weapon for Inequality

The discipline policies that gave rise to this chaos sprang from Silva’s embrace of “racial equity” ideology. In St. Paul, as across the nation, black students as a group are referred for discipline at higher rates than their peers. Silva made eliminating this racial gap a top priority.

Study after study after study after study, etc, etc and so on ad nauseam  points to the real problem, which is fatherlessness. But since liberals hate patriarchy, these studies must be ignored. Since communism has always stood against the family unit, because barbarians are much easier to enslave, family and fatherhood are anathema.  So the only thing left is to make millions of rules to fix the problems caused by the previous millions of rules that were created to impose with force what reality would not grant; repeat, repeat, repeat, till destruction complete.

This is the school house. Silva is a product of the schoolhouse. If you think she’s just going to ride off into the night after being fired, you or horrifically mistaken. She is on a mission, and she is not alone. She is one person in a vast army. And that army controls your government’s “education program”.  But it doesn’t have to control your child’s education program. You can actually still legally raise your child in reality, and this is but one reason out of 365 I’ll give why you should.

Reason 315: Because Children Ought To Be Taught Family Privilege, Not “White Privilege”

Guilt is a powerful motivator. But if there is no God, why should we feel any guilt at all? Shouldn’t we cast off the restraints implanted into us by evolution and live according to the popular, campus-culture phrase, YOLO? (You only live once)  Why should I feel guilty because evolution has apparently deemed some races inferior if obviousness is a factor? Look around. Wouldn’t it follow that if history, and thereby evolution, has brought us to this place where some races are obviously exploited by others? And if they are, doesn’t if follow that evolution has made one superior to the other?  Seems logical to me… if there’s no God. Of course, I reject that, but then again, I prefer to live a life of consistency. And I also prefer to teach consistency to my children.

Still, if the Godless statist education institution thinks that we ought to not feel guilty about sin, and it rejects sin, but at the same time it teaches our children to feel guilty based on the Godless statist’s morality, then the only conclusion I can come to is this:  Never feel guilty for violating God’s morality, because guilt is bad. Always feel guilty about violating the god/state’s morality of equality, even though that morality contradicts everything else the god/state teaches, because… errrr, ahhh… guilt is good? It must be good because as we can see in this article, teachers are urged to teach it:

National Conference Tells Educators to Check Their Book and Newspaper Privilege

The author of this article includes an excerpt from another of his articles addressing a “privilege walk”:

1. “If you were embarrassed about your clothes or house while growing up, take one step back.”

2. “If you have tried to change your speech or mannerisms to gain credibility, take one step back.”

3. “If members of your gender are portrayed on TV in degrading roles, take one step backward.”

4. “If you can walk past a construction site without being looked up and down or catcalled at, take one step forward.”

So, basically, anyone who has ever gone to school in a bright orange sweatshirt with flowers on it (not that I’m talking about myself or anything), only to feel humiliated, could technically step back for item 1 regardless of family income. For item 2, anyone who had not used an f-bomb during a job interview. As for item 3, anyone familiar with characters like Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, or actually pretty much most TV dads would realize that everyone in the room could step back regardless of gender.

There are a couple of things that are very glaring to me about this exercise. First, it’s self-contradicting, which is a tale-tell sign that it’s founded in the liberal, Godless mind. In number one I’m supposed to be able to look like everyone else or I’m under-privileged. In number two I’m supposed to be accepted even though I am different. In number three it speaks of degrading roles played by gender on TV. In number four it degrades and prejudges men, who are not acting out due to their gender distinctions, because those distinctions don’t exist, but who instead are acting according to the social constructs they’ve learned, which is what all our morality is based on, except when it’s not, I guess. Confused? I am.

Second, it’s based on a worldview that is antithetical to true happiness. For the Godless liberal, this world, and this life is all there is. So power and material possessions are the only things that matter. But in my experience, nothing could be further from relevant.

Studies show a reality beyond materialism and power. A more pertinent question would be, “Were you happy as a child?” Or, “Were you raised in an intact, traditional family?” If the answer to those questions were yes, the odds are much greater that you really were privileged, regardless of the wealth and power your family enjoyed. But no one’s going to be asking those questions because families are available to all regardless of race, gender, wealth and power. In fact, studies show that families fair much better in all those categories.  And if the statist school system actually cared a whit about the welfare of your children it would encourage sexual purity, marriage, childrearing, and family to all races and socioeconomic groups. Fatherlessness and its effects do not discriminate.  There are worse things in life than being poor. I’d bankrupt myself for my family. I’d rather live in a dumpster with my family than in a mansion without them. But then again, I’m not a materialist.

This is important. The statist education institution is GOING to do everything in it’s power to have your child worshipping at the altar of materialism and power. They must, lest your children realize that there’s much more to life than the god/state’s promise of a Utopia, which is out there in the future somewhere, eventually, once your child finally grows up and gives it the power it needs to create it. But it will always be out there in the future because it is an impossible task, an illusion. The only Utopia that the state will bring about is for the masters who live an isolated existence, protected from the very law that makes life hell on earth for everyone else. But even in that hell, the family is the best place to be, and your children should be taught this and it should be demonstrated to them constantly.  And sending them to the god/state for a statist, secular humanist education is not demonstrating it.

 

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437954/national-conference-tells-educators-check-their-book-and-newspaper-privilege

 

Reason 307: Because Age Segregation Is Not A Good Thing

A friend mentioned that he was talking to a homeschooling parent and asked her what her reasons were for homeschooling. He told me that none of her reasons have been mentioned here. I went back and looked and I think he’s right, at least not in a title.  So here we go.

So I found this article:

Age Segregation in School

Like most articles on home education, this article is focused on reform of the education institution. I hope you, dear reader, understand that that’s not going to happen. The administration of the institution, you might say, is in a steel reinforced concrete bunker a thousand feet thick. Nothing is going to get through to them. Their minds are in a jar and the lids are on tight. Those who suggest reform can’t seem to understand that the statist institution is a success beyond the wildest dreams of those who concocted it, and whose bones are now moldering in the grave. There will be no reform, only reinforcement.  So lets get on with some excerpts from the article:

Some people think it is “natural,” or even beneficial, for children to be confined with other children of approximately the same age for most of each school day, but this is a recent, mistaken idea promoted by education bureaucrats.

“The fact is, however, that most American schools were ungraded until the second half of the nineteenth century, the graded school having been introduced in the United States in 1848, when the Quincy Grammar School in Boston, Massachusetts, opened its doors. A number of educators, impressed with the graded schools they had seen in Germany, had been proposing adoption of the technique in this country. The Quincy School was the first built for that purpose; it contained twelve rooms of equal size, four to a floor, in which a teacher and some fifty-five children would meet for a year at a time. The men who created the school predicted that it would set the pattern of American schooling for another fifty years. Their estimate was clearly conservative.”

Does it seem odd to anyone that what someone experiences for most of their formative years seems “natural”?  Well of course it seems natural. It defines our very existence as youngsters and young adults.  But, as we can see in the exerpt, age segregation is a relatively new idea. But interestingly enough, with the advent of homeschooling, there are enough adults out there who have escaped the age segregated experience to use as a control group in order to study the long-term effects of it. This article cites one of those studies here:

Interesting evidence suggesting how much age-grading dumbs down schoolchildren today comes from the contrasting experiences of homeschoolers, who don’t have to stick to the average schedule of other children their age. The Rudner 1998 study of homeschooled studentsanalyzed standardized test scores of a large sample of homeschooled students. Rudner is an educational researcher who is not himself a homeschooler. He notes that many homeschooling parents in his study voluntarily gave their children standardized tests for one or even two “grade levels” higher than what their children would be assigned to in an age-segregated school, but the children still scored well above national norms.

I agree with this only partly because the thinking behind it is stratified.  It seems to imply that if the state ever decided against age segregation that it could provide a better more uniquely tailored education. But that’s like suggesting that if all the tires on a car are flat the car will be fine if you put air in only one tire. It ignores the most important ingredient of all in education: love.  The love brings about the one on one instruction. And second down on that list is time. The institution doesn’t foster real education time, it steals it from family time which is some of the best educational times available. But the state sends your child home with loads of homework that eclipses time spent with family. It is robbery.

In the beginning of our homeschooling endeavor, I didn’t think much about age desegregation, but as time passed and I begin to see my children’s comfort in interaction with all ages, including those very young and old. I can vouch that it is a great benefit.  It also allows my children to forego a feeling, or perhaps a sense, that was ingrained into my mindset, and I didn’t even know it.  I thought that advancement in life would come automatically with age. I can remember how odd is was to learn that outside of the campus culture the boss was not necessarily older than the employee.  It truly was a strange concept to me. Of course, that was then. Those were thoughts thought by a young and ignorant young man who’d been thoroughly indoctrinated.

But your children don’t have to grow up like this. Their life can be more realistic. And the best education they can get is one that won’t require them to uneducate themselves from their “education” for the rest of their lives.

 

 

 

Reason 269: Because Liberty Is’nt Cheap, But Government School Is

Let’s face it. Most of us were indoctrinated into the myopic. Our master wannabe’s don’t want us looking too far into the history, and the future is kept as vague as humanly possible by impossible-to-achieve, or even to define, words like “social justice” and  “Equality”, which are nothing more than code words for Marxism. No one wants to study history very closely lest they discover what a horrific history Marxism has had. And no one wants to define words that describe the future lest someone realize it’s just stuff made of emotional pixy-dust.

But the future depends on vision, both forward and rearward looking. Civil society must think in terms of generations, and not “till I die then to hell with it”.  But to think in terms of generations, there must be the building blocks of generations, which is the family. This is why Marx was–and Marxism is–so dead-set on its destruction.

Government school is cheap. In fact, it’s “free”. And why is the state so willing to educate your children? Because the one thing governments, historically, could never control their apatites for is ever more amounts of power. And your children are playing a vital role in satisfying that ever growing apatite by being indoctrinated to believe that government needs more power to do more good in the world.

But if your children were taught history, they’d know better. If they were taught the true nature of man, they’d know better. But they’re not. And you were not. So off we go, happily into slavery… again:

But it doesn’t have to be this way for your children. The masses may enslave them, yes, but at least they won’t become willing slaves, helping the masters themselves to place the chains of their bondage around their own necks. At least they won’t do that!

Reason 206: Because There Is A War On Children, And The Institution Is Part Of It

The truth is, even if the institution didn’t want to make war on children, it couldn’t help but do it anyway. It’s just the nature of the beast. It removes children from the family and puts them in a large, fenced-off, impersonal government building. It takes them away from their parents when they are supposed to be with their parents.

This is a great article that speaks to this:

The West’s War on Children

The article goes into the beach-landing environment that is the modern-day womb where most are cut down before reaching shore by abortion and abortifacients. But those who do survive the womb are packed off to the institution and taught that their existence is a blight on an otherwise pristine planet.

It is a worthwhile read. Here is one excerpt:

We currently inhabit a society in which more people die than are allowed to be conceived and survive until birth. Such a society is fundamentally different, including in its child-centrism, from one in which new life is welcomed as part of the natural order. The children who succeed in being born today often are treated as precious items to be protected from all harm, affirmed, and made the center of attention in any reasonably well-off household—at least when that attention is given by professional “caregivers” in government, education, or the childcare industry. What these children are not is part of functioning families and communities, in which they learn how to cooperate, compete, and practice daily virtues. The result? Two generations of people who are too self-centered to enter into lasting marital relationships, choose life, and work to make better lives for themselves and their posterity. From children being the center of our culture we have reached a point where each child sees himself as the center of the world. Why? Because so few of us recognize ourselves as part (though not the center) of an ongoing tradition, an order of existence tying the dead with the living and the yet unborn.

Children are precious. I love them. It breaks my heart to see a war on them. But you can withdraw. You can rescue your child from the front lines.

Reason 202: Time

Well done piece by a homeschooling mom.  Love it!

Why Homeschool: The Gift of Time

A couple of tidbits:

I wouldn’t know him[if I didn’t homeschool].

Oh, I’d try as any mother would.  I’d try to absorb every moment as soon as he’d get off that big yellow bus at the end of the driveway. Like my own mother, I’d meet him with milk, cookies, and a smile. But I know he’d be zombiefied.

It’s what happens.  I remember being a zombie after getting off that bus.

Think of how many hours children who leave for public/private school are away from home every day? All they’re missing is getting a paycheck at the end of the week.  And this is childhood?

And:

Siblings get to know each other; they are not just passing by morning, night and weekends. Even if a sibling conflict erupts {no perfection, we have them} we handle it as a family.  More prayer.  More Word.  More time.  I can say though, with all our children, they are increasingly becoming one another’s best friends. I’m seeing it happen.

And much more. Probably one of the best articles I’ve posted here. I’ve lived it. I know what she’s talking about. It really is very, very cool.

 

 

Reason 148: Because Think About It, It Makes No Sense If Freedom Matters To You

A free society is an anomaly in the context of history. Man wants to become ruler over his fellow man. He wants to impose his will for lots of reasons. It could be the hope for some Utopian society that he thinks he can bring about. It can be for the gathering of money by gaining the power to fleece his neighbor. It can simply be because he loves power. But the bottom line is, a free society is not a given.

But when one was born into a free society, and has lived in that society in the midst of the prosperity that freedom brings, he can take it for granted. After a few generations he will play fast and loose with his freedoms, and begin to let them be stolen.

Here is an excellent article that explores this line of reasoning from the Christian Post:

Why Not Send Your Kids To The Government Schools? 

He gets right to his point, and mine, in his first paragraph:

I often ask people, “Who in his right mind ever thought it made any sense whatever to entrust to the government the shaping of the minds of the people by whose consent it is supposed to govern?”

Rarely have they entertained that question before, but usually they get the point immediately: Government-run schooling is a sure path, however long or short, straight or winding, to tyranny. Let the government determine curriculum, and ultimately it will determine what citizens think and how they vote.

No wonder Marx and Engels included “free education for all children in public schools” as the capstone of the Ten Planks of their Communist Manifesto.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/government-schools-christian-homeschool-154871/#18y6kbjEoMFkPhQO.99

It is a revelation for some that they themselves have had their thought forms, their narratives, metaphysics and epistemology handed to them by this institution. I know I did, which is why I’ve done everything in my power to keep the state and my children far apart.

 

Reason 139: Because The Schoolhouse Is A Conduit For A Different Set Of Values Than Yours

Here is an article from Life Site News worth reading. It does a good job of giving insight into why the world if falling apart around us, and why freedoms are going down the drain at an alarming rate:

Dear Christians: It’s no longer enough to work hard, raise a family, and hope to be left alone

Pertinent to this blog is the following excerpt:

Which brings us to our present unpleasant realization that from a cultural perspective, the traditionalists and conservatives have been thoroughly beaten in the war for the culture. For the most part, we never even showed up. We raised families, built farms and businesses, and attended church functions while secular revolutionaries took over the entertainment industry, the media, academia—and finally, the public education system that now dutifully serves as a conduit for secular “values.” Prayer is out, queer theory is in, and many a middle-aged conservative has found occasion recently to splutter his coffee and gape at his newspaper: “How did things change so fast?”

I would say that it is more truthful to say that he is “Spluttering his coffee”, not because of what he sees in the “newspaper”, but rather what he sees his child doing, saying and thinking. The schoolhouse experience will have far more influence on those things than he ever did, unless, of course, he decided to forego that experience altogether.

Reason 116: Because Child Abuse Is Not Education

Here’s a great article written by  Joy Pullmann, found in “The Federalist”. Please take a few minutes to read it, then run, don’t walk, down the street and rescue your precious children.

Here is the first paragraph for a taste, but the entire thing deserves to be read:

Parents, It’s Time To Realize Big Government Is Your Enemy

In Scotland, six-year-old Daniel McFadyen‘s mother insists he is transgender ever since she found him gesturing at his privates in the bathtub with scissors when he was three. Even though these parents have other sons and must have seen them all playing with themselves (boys do this, as any parent of a male toddler can tell you, and it means nothing), this will now likely result in him taking “drugs to postpone puberty as well as hormone treatments, and then have gender realignment surgery” at age 18. So now we have state-encouraged and -sponsored child mutilation, and not in a Muslim country but a Western country.