Education has been in the news, or at least in the memes, of late. Some have expressed disgust at New Jersey requiring schools to teach LGBT history, while Trump's support for teaching the Bible in schools has received varied responses. It seems the liberals are getting more liberal, while the conservatives are trying to maintain some semblance of conservatism, which, by contrast, makes them look that much more conservative. Our ideologies are becoming more extreme, or at least the Internet makes it seem that way. Lines are being drawn, and nowhere is more apparent than in academia. Education has been, is becoming, and will continue to be a premier ideological battleground as each group seeks to impress its worldview on the youth of this nation. After all, children are impressionable. Children are malleable. Children are sponges whose ability to absorb information and habits put adults to shame.
It is impossible to deny the significance of teaching children when they are young. If you want to shape the minds and hearts of a nation, you start when they're young. This inescapable reality has been universally recognized as virtually every religion and philosophy has sought to claim children in their youth. Practically every influential thinker, from Moses to Hitler, has emphasized the need to train children. Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Socialism, and many, many other isms have all emphasized the importance of education. Even those who endorse letting children "make their own choice" fail to realize that they are, in fact, indoctrinating their children, too.
It is logical to complain about what your regional education system is teaching. After all, if money is being taken from me and used to teach the children in my community, I believe I should have a say in the content of that teaching. Such complaints, however, should demonstrate clearly that public education is untenable in a pluralistic culture. In a nation with so many competing, contradictory worldviews, how could we possibly hope to represent each worldview equally in an increasingly-monolithic federal education system?
Education is not neutral. Choices must be made. Whose opinion of the truth are we going to represent? Whose view of the world are we going to propagate? Some worldviews may view the truth as relative, and the proponents of those worldviews may be satisfied with "neutral" education, but my worldview teaches that truth is objective and concrete and that no part of life is neutral. As a Christian, I must not be satisfied with an education system that is pluralistic because the suggestion that there are other worldviews as equally valid as Christianity is an affront to Christ. Christianity is not alone in this exclusivity. Many, if not all worldviews, are exclusive of all other worldviews at a fundamental level.
Instead of trying to satisfy everyone, why not abandon public education altogether? Instead of fighting over what we should universally teach children from all different ethnic, religious, and philosophical, and economic backgrounds, why not allow each people group to use their money to educate their children in the way they see fit? Why not sell the facilities to the teachers unions and allow them to teach whatever they want, competing in a market economy for the same dollars that other private schools are trying to earn?
Isn't it time to abandon an education system that has proven to be unproductive? Isn't it time to scrap this inherently-flawed system and try something new?
It is impossible to deny the significance of teaching children when they are young. If you want to shape the minds and hearts of a nation, you start when they're young. This inescapable reality has been universally recognized as virtually every religion and philosophy has sought to claim children in their youth. Practically every influential thinker, from Moses to Hitler, has emphasized the need to train children. Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Socialism, and many, many other isms have all emphasized the importance of education. Even those who endorse letting children "make their own choice" fail to realize that they are, in fact, indoctrinating their children, too.
It is logical to complain about what your regional education system is teaching. After all, if money is being taken from me and used to teach the children in my community, I believe I should have a say in the content of that teaching. Such complaints, however, should demonstrate clearly that public education is untenable in a pluralistic culture. In a nation with so many competing, contradictory worldviews, how could we possibly hope to represent each worldview equally in an increasingly-monolithic federal education system?
Education is not neutral. Choices must be made. Whose opinion of the truth are we going to represent? Whose view of the world are we going to propagate? Some worldviews may view the truth as relative, and the proponents of those worldviews may be satisfied with "neutral" education, but my worldview teaches that truth is objective and concrete and that no part of life is neutral. As a Christian, I must not be satisfied with an education system that is pluralistic because the suggestion that there are other worldviews as equally valid as Christianity is an affront to Christ. Christianity is not alone in this exclusivity. Many, if not all worldviews, are exclusive of all other worldviews at a fundamental level.
Instead of trying to satisfy everyone, why not abandon public education altogether? Instead of fighting over what we should universally teach children from all different ethnic, religious, and philosophical, and economic backgrounds, why not allow each people group to use their money to educate their children in the way they see fit? Why not sell the facilities to the teachers unions and allow them to teach whatever they want, competing in a market economy for the same dollars that other private schools are trying to earn?
Isn't it time to abandon an education system that has proven to be unproductive? Isn't it time to scrap this inherently-flawed system and try something new?
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