Monday, January 02, 2006
Values In Education
The other night I was listening/watching a CSPAN 2 viewer call-in show about education. I believe the person who was taking the calls is the national president of the National Education Association.
The call that prompted this post was one from a person who was complaining that the reason for all the violence in schools is do to the lack of ‘values education’ in schools. At this point the show host asked what exactly was he meaning by ‘values education,’ the caller responded that we have moved away from the Christian values as espoused by our Founding Fathers.
I found myself getting worked up by this. First of all I am getting very tired by the whole argument of the ‘Christian values of our Founding Fathers.’ I am not even going to get in to the debunking of that statement, other than to say that our founding fathers were, in many cases, Deists and not Christians. And they certainly would not have been Christians in the modern sense anyway.
The second thing about the stupidity of these statements by people is that it really ignores the reality that this country is supposed to be. I will say that, at this time in our history, I do believe that this country has become a ‘Christian Country.’ I have made this statement before and at least for the purposes of this post I will not defend my position on this. I do believe that this country is not supposed to be a ‘Christian Country.’
The final thing that I would like to say on this is that if I had children going to public school, I would not want to have a Christian teacher teaching my children values of any type. Before anyone who reads this gets upset, I would not want any public school teacher to teach my child values. It is my feeling that values and religion are to be taught at home and at religious institutions. I feel it is MY responsibility, not the schools or anyone else’s, to insure that my children are taught the values I wish them to have. I am tired of people who think that they are not responsible for the upbringing of their own children. If they don’t want that responsibility, they should have brought those children in to the world.
A final thought to those on the ‘Fundamentalist Right.’ If society is so bad, and they are trying to change it, why is it that they have to complain about others doing ‘their jobs’ in raising the children they are ‘raising’?
The call that prompted this post was one from a person who was complaining that the reason for all the violence in schools is do to the lack of ‘values education’ in schools. At this point the show host asked what exactly was he meaning by ‘values education,’ the caller responded that we have moved away from the Christian values as espoused by our Founding Fathers.
I found myself getting worked up by this. First of all I am getting very tired by the whole argument of the ‘Christian values of our Founding Fathers.’ I am not even going to get in to the debunking of that statement, other than to say that our founding fathers were, in many cases, Deists and not Christians. And they certainly would not have been Christians in the modern sense anyway.
The second thing about the stupidity of these statements by people is that it really ignores the reality that this country is supposed to be. I will say that, at this time in our history, I do believe that this country has become a ‘Christian Country.’ I have made this statement before and at least for the purposes of this post I will not defend my position on this. I do believe that this country is not supposed to be a ‘Christian Country.’
The final thing that I would like to say on this is that if I had children going to public school, I would not want to have a Christian teacher teaching my children values of any type. Before anyone who reads this gets upset, I would not want any public school teacher to teach my child values. It is my feeling that values and religion are to be taught at home and at religious institutions. I feel it is MY responsibility, not the schools or anyone else’s, to insure that my children are taught the values I wish them to have. I am tired of people who think that they are not responsible for the upbringing of their own children. If they don’t want that responsibility, they should have brought those children in to the world.
A final thought to those on the ‘Fundamentalist Right.’ If society is so bad, and they are trying to change it, why is it that they have to complain about others doing ‘their jobs’ in raising the children they are ‘raising’?
// posted by Little Wolf @ Monday, January 02, 2006 
