Are your kids really your kids?
Not like they use to be…
“Well, we got no class
And we got no principals (ooh)
And we got no intelligence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes, well
We can’t salute ya
Can’t find a flag
If that don’t suit ya
That’s a drag
School’s out for summer
School’s out forever
I’m bored to pieces”
-Alice Cooper, “Schools out for summer”
The education of our kids is under attack. What should they learn? What shouldn’t they learn? Who is responsible for the education of our kids? Is it us, the parents? I mean, is it me for my kid? How about you for your kid? Not so much in the twenty-first century. The responsibility for your kid’s education, healthcare, freedoms, and truths are all being taken from the individual parent and been given to the government, community, school district, and even the court system. When did the responsibility of the parenting your child become the control of the institutions around us?
The Washington Monument is one of the first sites in Washington D.C. that you see when walking the streets or flying over our nation’s capital. It is 55 feet in diameter at the bottom and 555 feet tall. The view from the top of the entire city of DC is breathtaking, to say the least. All four sides give a different view of the city, the Potomac River, and even into Virginia. What most do not know is that at the very top of the point there is an inscription that says, “Praise be to God.” This saying or in other words, this reminder, is that as far as you can see from the top of this monument, outward unto the land of the United States, we praise God and ask for God’s blessing. Who are we asking for the blessing? This was not a question to our founders. Only has it been a question to many that don’t want us to know the true history of America.
You can not teach American History without teaching that the first “Americans” came to America for and what teachers like to call the “3 G’s”. “God, Glory and Gold”. We want to teach history now that is more inclusive, but to do so we must teach a history that isn’t factual. The God part was simple. The Colonist wanted to have religious freedom to worship how they wanted without a government telling them what and how to do it. That government was Great Britain. They lined this out for us in the very first amendment to the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. The amount of God in our beginning, founding documents, hearts, and minds of the people in that time is irrefutable. What have we become? Why have we changed? These are great questions for debate, but the reality is it has happened.
Not all parents want their kids to be sent to a public school for many different reasons. These can be personal concerns. Some of these could be secularism, indoctrination of societal issues, religious, medical, bullying issues, or vaccination concerns. This should be up to the parents on how they want their kids educated and what they want their kids consumed with. But, not so fast. The government has said on more than one occasion that they are the ones that are in control of your kid’s education. Sure, you can have them take and pass the standardized test that states require say for a High School diploma if you homeschool them, but how you get there and what you teach is being more and more decided by politicians than by the individual parents.
The liberalization of the education system has changed the teaching of your kids and the thought process of what and how to teach. “Oh, but things have changed….we have progressed”. Sure, but to think everyone has in essence the desire for you trying to indoctrinate change based on your ideology is egotistical at best. This seems kind of funny when the argument for the change has many times been, “We don’t want our kids indoctrinated with your religious or traditional beliefs”. I’m confused. What is the difference? One is your progressive belief in what you think the country or the world should look like, and the other is people believing in what they believe their kids should think the country and the world should be like. Freedom of the parent to teach, educate, inspire, indoctrinate you say is wrong, but for you to do it “collectively” in a state-sponsored education system is fine.
The stakes are very high and the game is being rigged by the politicians for their base, ideology, and warped interpretation of the Constitution. Why do you care what and how I teach my child and prepare them for the world the way I want to do it? I heard many times growing up from my parents and from others alike to their kids, “I brought you into this world….I’ll take you out.” This play on words for this parent-child relationship means that parents produced you and parents are responsible for you and your upbringing. When did this shift from parental responsibility to the government, community, or district’s responsibility?
Homeschool kids and Homeschool networks are the choice of the parent for a way to educate their kids. This education route has been a small but vital avenue for parents that want to teach their kids for many personal reasons. This should be a good thing. Parent involvement is a vital part of their upbringing and a time-tested value to the emotional and mental growth of our young people. Some say, “Well, this stunts their social growth and their educational diversity”. I disagree and actually want to say that most of the homeschooled kids I have had the opportunity to be involved with are more educated and better prepared for their future.
I was the Head Football coach at King’s Academy in Tyler, Texas. A very small Christian school for sure. So small that we had to incorporate homeschooled kids to be able to field athletic teams. These kids were being homeschooled across East Texas. What I saw immediately from these kids were the foundation they have was above and beyond many of the kids I taught in public schools. They get more one on one teaching, while at most of the public school classrooms are stuffed with 25, sometimes even more than 30 kids in a room with one teacher. If you are lucky, they might even throw in a co-teacher.
Should a parent be scolded or even punished by the government institutions just because they want to school their own kids, their own way? Most data I have seen shows that homeschooled kids test better and are more prepared for college. Many are upset in my estimation because, “All kids and parents can’t educate their own kids based on economics, so it isn’t equal or fair”. Well, so what? My kid’s education shouldn’t be subject to people wanting my kids pulled down to a public school just to be able to say that all kids should be schooled equally. Equally bad is OK, I guess? I am not saying public school teachers can’t teach. What I am saying because of the bureaucracy and the institutions not all kids are schooled the “Best” individually because the goal is to educate the totality of kids.
Many are terrified parents will teach their kids religious values or moral absolutes that align with their religious beliefs. If a person decides to teach their kids at home, then the government, institutions, and school boards should stay out of their homes. We have personal protections given to us at birth called the Bill of Rights. Many want to take away personal rights with a chant for collective rights. The reason the Bill of Rights (1791) were added to the Constitution (1787) just four years later from signing was to keep the government from trampling on our individual freedoms because of the rights of us collectively.
We must never forget that we are protected from the government. Some think this is just crazy minded people being paranoid. I think that the freedoms afforded in our Constitution and the Amendments that are attached are there for us to use when we feel attacked by institutions, as well as our own government. Allow parents that want to “hands on” parent, do just that. Parent. Stop the intrusion and ask God to bless again the people who are in charge…..us.
The Coach John Brent
