State supreme

I have said this before, and I'll probably say it again.  Having freedom means that I am free to fail.

Where this gets dicey in our modern American minds is when it comes to children.  If my failure means difficult circumstances for my children, should I still be free to fail.  Again, I say yes.

Consider those who founded our nation.  They left the civilization of western Europe at great risk to themselves and their children to find a place where they could live in freedom.  In most cases, they sought a place where they could worship the God of the Bible as their conscience and understanding of the word dictated.  During the voyages across the Atlantic, fathers died.  Mothers died.  Children died.  Should that state have stepped in to prevent this "abuse" from parents?

The real abuse, though, in the mind of the Church of England and the mind of the Vatican, was that the parents would have the arrogance and the audacity to presume to teach their children what the Bible said.  Only the "Church" had the authority to do such a thing, so they believed.

We look back on those pages of history and shake our heads that anyone would allow a nation to become like that and worse, that we would let the Church become like that.

Fast forward 500 years.

It's happening again.  Consider this from the California Law Review*:

• There are legal and constitutional limits on the ability of parents who home school “to teach their children idiosyncratic and illiberal beliefs and values."

Oh, really?  As a parent I'm limited as to what I can teach my child?!  How 'bout this from a George Washington Law School professor:

• "The growing reliance on homeschooling comes into direct conflict with assuring that children are exposed to such constitutional values."

The value she lauds is tolerance.  Continuing,

• "Indeed, the long-term consequences for the child being home schooled or sent to a private school cannot be overstated. The total absence of regulation over what and how children are taught leaves the child vulnerable to gaining a sub-par or non-existent education from which they may never recover."

What is the solution to this problem of parental autonomy where dad and mom teach their children as they see fit?

• "[T]he more appropriate suggestion for our current educational dilemma is that public education should be mandatory and universal."

Ah.  No private school.  No home school.  Just public schools.  Shall we use an adjective that adds a bit more clarity?  Let's try state schools.

We reel in our minds over what the Catholic Church and the Church of England did during their darkest days.   We shake our heads in disbelief that Nazi Germany made little Nazis out of the children by imposing formal training and creating the Hitler Youth.  So why do we not shudder when the UN and educators in our own country begin asserting that state education be mandatory and that it be mandatory at a younger and younger age?

Here's the deal.  Every education form has some fundamental worldview as its foundation.  Whose worldview will undergird the education of my children?  At this point, parents have a choice in how their children will be educated.  They can opt for the state school.  They can opt for a private school with a worldview that has birthed that private school in the first place.  Or they can opt to school their children at home.

(By the way, where are all of the atheistic private schools?  Is their lack because there is no need?)

So here, again, we speed toward an historic crossroad.  Will parents be allowed the freedom to fail by educating their children in the manner that they see fit, or will the state step in to prevent such abuse by insuring our children get a "proper education?"

I can't believe I'm asking that on the threshold of 2011 America.
-------------------------
* All quotes taken from a speech by Michael Farris and transcripted here.

Musings of a madman

It's getting late, but I've come across some rich reads over the last few days that I wanted to get in your hands. Away we go!

• The Three-letter word. I have been teaching on events during the end-times in my church's adult Sunday school class, and one key principle during this time will be God's focus on national Israel, a final plea that they might turn toward their Messiah. With great interest, I read this article in the Jerusalem Post. In it, Emanuel Feldman laments over how Israel has evicted God from the public square, how they have evicted God from their lives. He states,

  "But there seems to be a certain self-consciousness about God on the part of our politicians, our intellectual elite, our media personalities, our cultural spokesmen - a certain anxiety and unease about the public use of His name. They are going well beyond the letter of the law in the second commandment, Thou shalt not utter the name of God in vain. Not only are they not uttering God's name in vain; they are not uttering God's name, period."

• Education without its Source. In an attempt to be unoffensive to any by not permitting God in the public school, we offend those who desire God and His influence in that setting. This troubling truth was recognized also in the Jerusalem Post by columnist David Benkof (here). A great read. He knocks away any distractions and avers:

  "RIGHT NOW, if you're secular and want to educate your children with your values, you can do it for free. But if you're religious, you have to pay thousands of dollars to do it... What's worse, you still have to pay the government an annual fee - sometimes based on the value of your property - to educate other people's children with values you don't agree with."

He tackles it from an observant Jew in Israel. Change it to Christian in America and you get the same deal.

• NBC draws the line. Well, it's nice to know they have some standards. It's just sad that their standards turn good and bad on their heads. Remember that video I linked a few posts ago? Here it is, in case you missed it. That's what NBC won't run. We will no doubt be subjected to entendres (single and double) and blatant garbage all in the name of advertisement. But lauding that President Obama is here because of a decision his mother made crosses their established ethical lines?!? You can read their linguistic gymnastics here.
  

That's all for tonight. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.

The atrophy of education: Wichita Falls, Texas

For those of you who have felt your spleen close to rupturing watching your kid play t-ball, you might want to pop a few Tums before reading on. T-ball comes to the classroom.

In Wichita Falls, Texas, the superintendent, Dr. Tim Powers, believes that the grading practices that have launched this nation, practices that held children to an objective standard, are "toxic and counterproductive" (article here). A better methodology?

"...we should give the student as many opportunities as the student needs, within the parameter of the time constraints in which we are placed."

Ahhh-huh. For a minute, I thought first grade would last twelve years. Let me get this straight. So that means rather than drawing an objective line and making cuts based upon that line, teachers, beyond the instruction with which they already fill the day, need to concentrate on those who don't get it to the detriment of those who have long since mastered the material. The lowest common denominator drags the train??

Imagine if the teacher invested the extra time (you know, the twenty-fifth hour in every day) in the students who got it. What would happen if we nourished the excellence? Nope. We don't want to make kids feel bad by sending them to special ed. classes if they struggle, and we sure don't want to damage their psyches by administering discipline to the ruffians. No more thwack on the posterior and now no more thwack on the fragile self-esteem.

“Grades should reflect the content learned, not whether they learned it the first, second or third time. Will this require additional effort on our part as educators? ... ‘Yes,’ and it also aligns with doing whatever it takes to help students achieve the mastery level we desire for them”

Additional effort?!? Herculean! But notice where he puts the onus. The load crushes the teachers. This has become standard in our expectation of government. We abdicate our responsibility and demand performance from the government. Dr. Powers (ironic name, by the way) places little demand upon the student to learn. Whenever! In so doing, he foments the welfare cripples that suck the marrow out of our nation, folks who condemn the government for their station in life. It's the bailout mentality. It's wrong, and it's destroying our nation.

Teachers teach. Good teachers identify and encourage the stragglers and identify and push the motivated.

Students learn. Those who refuse to learn should be dealt with in one way and those who struggle to learn should be handled in another. Neither should encumber the class.

Parents. Where do we fit in? How have we prepared our children to meet the challenges of their educational experience? The engaged parent will ensure their children learn. They will be the first to advocate holding them back or to seek special education. They will be the first to allow or enforce discipline when necessary.

For those parents who have to labor within this type of T-ball educational system, you will have to challenge your own kids because the teachers will already be far over-spent. God bless us all as we train up our children in a land that less and less holds its individuals to account.

For those who live around Wichita Falls, Texas, you've got the T-Ball World Series (read about it here). Write your newspaper. Write your school board. And vote (!) when it comes time for that. Here's hoping you can wrest the Titanic's helm from the captain before its ill-fated doom. Implementation district wide is set for Fall 2009, a mere six-months away.

(Tip of the hat to Chekov for calling the article to my attention)

Ponderances

There's very little so fine as golf with your sons...or golf with your father.

Labels. Got a tip-off of something goofy on B. Obama's web-site. Went there and confirmed it. Across the top of the site, the Senator has a header titled "People" and that beast is subdivided a couple of dozen ways. The factions just keep on coming. What happened to Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American?" But the leftists are playing Twister with the language again giving another shot in the arm to political correctness (by the way, we need a new, spiffier term for "political correctness." Any takers?). It seems that Native American (formerly known as "Indian" or "American Indian"), has been replaced by...are you ready?.."First Americans." Ain't that sweet?

Here's an observation by Jay Nordlinger (I'll paste it as he wrote it). An interesting observation about Truth in advertising:

"Was on the streets of New York the other day (as pretty much every day). And these people, spaced about 20 yards apart, were giving away tiny little granola bars. “Free granola bar?” they were saying. “Free granola bar?” And with the bar came a smallish, glossy card, advertising a church.

"Pretty pathetic, I thought: using a miniature granola bar to sell salvation. Almost deceptive. Shouldn’t salvation be the main event? And shouldn’t these folks have enough confidence in their product?"

Israel's president, Ehud Ohlmert, is stepping down. What's next?

Who's watching the watchers? More fun with California and education. The state (police state?) of California has found biblical education incompatible with state education. El-hi diplomas garnered through studies in curricula like Bob Jones and Abeka have been deemed deficient for state university core admissions requirements that you scored 1500 on the SAT notwithstanding. Not surprising, this is in the courts. Read the insanity here.

Drudge has a link stating five athletes have failed gender tests in Beijing and the Olympics haven't even started yet. They should have studied.

For those who know me, you'll know why I was touched by the CNN headline: "Will pond scum become the new oil?" *sniff, tear*

Did you ever think you'd get giddy seeing gas drop to $3.69? Yikes.

And to leave on a happy note, I count six blessings in the picture below. See how many you can find:

The Undiscussables

Conventional wisdom held that the two topics you could not discuss were politics and religion. I contend that those are the two best topics to discuss because of their depth and sheer import for humanity.

In light of the last few blogs, I've thought about a number of topics that have become taboo in the public forum, especially within the media or halls of education:

(Already cited)

1. Evolution's limitations
2. God's existence
3. Global warming
   

(New to the discussion)

1. Man's "right" to medical care
2. Man's "right" to an education
3. Man's "right" to retire
4. Homosexuality and sin
5. Gluttony and sin (pass me my second Big Mac, please)
   
6. Anything and sin
7. Racism from black to white
8. Poverty as a choice
9. The supremacy of the American experiment
10. Marriage

Can you think of any others?

Science & God

The problem begins at the beginning. Not the Genesis "in the beginning," but at your starting point for science.

The Christian knows that the "heavens declare the handiwork of God," and as such is free to dissect the cosmos knowing that whatever he finds will merely bring greater glory to God for the astounding nature of His created universe. It doesn't matter if the scientist examines at the micro or nano level or if he taps into Hubble and tries to peek around the corner of adjacent galaxies. All will point to God. As such, the Christian is free to discover and figure things out knowing that the God who has revealed Himself truly (though not exhaustively) has also revealed Himself truly (though not exhaustively) in His creation.

Many scientists believe that science can only be carried out if you begin with nothing and then try to discover (interestingly, this is not a scientific position, but a philosophical one and not verifiable by science). If you begin with nothing, how then can you determine that anything within the cosmos is knowable or discernible? Again, their naturalistic position founders at the beginning because it is based largely upon philosophical positions and not "scientific" ones.

Another starting point for many scientists is that all of the natural universe must behave naturally and that there must exist a natural explanation for all things. The problem with that point is that if the evidence begins to point to a purposeful design, that conclusion cannot be accepted for a Designer lies outside the realm of the natural world.

What's wrong with that position? If at the outset of a problem you dismiss a possible solution, and if that possible solution turns out to be the actual solution, then the scientist can never come to the correct solution. He will continue to construct fables and cartoons to explain the results while ignoring the elephant in the test tube. It's as though he rips out his eyes and then attempts to discern the nature of a sunset.

So, should science and God coexist? It's a laughable, "OF COURSE!" As Ben Stein notes in the film, "If the evidence of science points us toward God, how exciting is that!" He states it not as a question but as an enthusiastic statement, much like, "Skydiving, how exciting is that!" I would contend that only the Christian or the one who makes room the possibility for an Intelligent Designer is free to follow where the evidence leads.

The Darwinian scientist must always be checking his results to make sure that nothing smacks of the supernatural, for if it did, he might discover the God who is there which would mean, too, that the scientist is a creature responsible to that creator. Hence the panicked pains to distort the evidence.

Science

I just saw "Expelled." Superb movie. But this is not intended to be a review (though if you ask me, I'd be happy to encourage you to see it).

What disturbed me was, like the reviews from an earlier post, the disdain shown toward real scholars who challenge evolution...and the poor schmuck didn't even have to be a Christian. The moment he would challenge any evolutionary concept, he's branded as a religious goof and dismissed from the world of academia.

As this rattled around my cage, I was struck by how much this is happening all around us. For example, my son and I were hammered for 15 minutes before the movie with an infomercial about environmentalism and global warming. It wasn't about being a good steward of the earth we were given. It was about the evils of man and what we need to do to heal the damaged earth. Yikes.

Has anybody noted any media outlet unwilling to bow to those espousing this "environmental holocaust" man has unleashed on the planet? The scientists who speak out against it are dismissed in the public forum. Their shut up and moved aside. You need tune in through the first cycle of commercials to learn that the meteorologists on the WeatherChannel who disagreed with the cause celeb have been efficiently and effectively silenced.

Much during the film discussed the coexistence of science and God. I'll not say religion because that could be anything. I'll not say faith because most folks wrongly divorce faith from reason. I'll say God because He is not merely an idea or a notion. He is. Whether we choose to believe that does not alter that He is.

So until I sit down at this keyboard again, I'll leave you to ponder science and God: Should they coexist? For those who have been sitting through the Francis Schaeffer, "How Should We Then Live?" video series, you have a distinct advantage.

Fundamentalist Irony

I hadn't intended on any more blogs on Fundamentalism (at least in the near future), but my pastor's sermon this morning forced my hand.

Pastor Lukus (spelled correctly) mentioned an article attacking Christian fundamentalist thought. Here's the headline:


Granted this is from a state university's daily paper, and the author is an "an adjunct professor of Peace Studies at MU, a member of Veterans for Peace and a member of the national steering committee of Global Action to Prevent War." So it's not exactly the New York Times. Okay, maybe it is. Perhaps some slight toward their objectivity may have played better.

Still, Mr. Wickersham, the author, superbly illustrates the caricature that the world has toward those who hold to fundamentalist Christian doctrine. If you're at all interested, you can read his article here. Some fundamentalist nutball has commented on the article, too.

What made it all the more ironic was that my pastor's sermon was on the very thing that make Wickersham's secularist brain reel, that Jesus Christ will come again to the earth but this time in judgment

Odd that Mr. Wickersham would rage against fundamentalism when the church's creeds have testified to the bodily return of Jesus Christ for judgment from two thousand years.

Anybody seen my snakes?