And other things I’ve never said…

The last time I had the gall to notice that there are some bad nursing homes out there, and that even good nurses are often unable to really do good in these places, I got some enraged comments because, they said, I shouldn’t talk about nurses that way. Just yesterday I commented on a recent news item involving a hospital and another commenter’s immediate response was “don’t stereotype nurses and doctors that way”, as if I’d done any such thing. It seems people are incapable of hearing about malpractice within their own profession without immediately assuming that they are being tarred with the same brush. Either all health care professionals are saints, or none are, it seems.

Similarly, if I talk about our bloated, incompetent, soulless public education system, many (whether they agree with my main point or not, it seems) will take my words to mean that I believe that the teachers and principals are all equally bloated, incompetent, and soulless.

Normally, I’d just let these little misunderstandings things slide, because they don’t really matter, but…aw, who am I kidding? These niggling little things might not grab the attention of better minds than mine, but hillbilly mommy bloggers gotta talk about somethin’, don’t they?

So, what does this homeschooling mama think of teachers? I think they are just people. They are nothing more (or less) than fallen human beings–some redeemed, most not–just like everybody else. I will not pretend that I think teachers are heroes, nor do I (despite many union protests to the contrary) believe that they, as a group, “deserve” anything better than they are getting. Some teachers deserve a raise, some do as good a job as they can under the circumstances (bless their hearts) and some of them boff students in the parking lot. When people say “teachers are heroes” or “nurses are angels”, roll your eyes, my friends, because they are not. They are all over the place, morally speaking, just like the rest of us.

What about “salt and light” teachers? It’s no secret that I think the “salt and light” argument is a pretty weak one for sending impressionable children to be educated by a secular curriculum. It doesn’t matter who administers it. I also note in passing (just for fun) that those parents who send their kids to schools for the sole purpose of providing these little “missionaries” are funding their children’s mission trips through involuntarily collected taxes. I’m pretty sure that’s not the Biblical model for evangelism.

It makes no sense to send little Johnny off to school with the admonition to “listen to your teachers” and then expect the poor child to figure out in which situations he should disobey you by standing up to those authority figures whom you just put over him when they attempt to force him to do, say, or believe immoral things. Transferring the mantle of parental authority to the state, especially in an age when even kindergarteners are being subjected to aberrant sexual teaching, is bad stewardship of our blessings, at the very least.

But that says nothing of teachers, who are adults, and (presumably) able to discern whether they are able to be the kind of Christians they need to be in the public school environment. If they are able to avoid having to actively endorse immorality or unbiblical teaching, then they may, in fact, be great witnesses. I had a few unabashedly Christian teachers, too!

God bless you, Mrs. Henson!

My high school biology teacher, Mrs. Henson, was one such teacher. As one would expect, at least a couple of chapters of our ninth grade biology textbook were devoted to teaching about evolution. Before she got to those chapters, though, Mrs. Henson taught us about biogenesis (the fact that life comes from life), and she spent, I suspect, a little more time drilling home that point than the curriculum necessarily indicated. When she started the chapter on evolution, she reminded us of this fact of life, and told us in no uncertain terms that she was about to teach us a legally-required lie, and that life was created by God. She didn’t go on at length, but she didn’t leave any relativistic “some people believe this, some believe that” residue behind, either. She told the truth as Truth, and taught the lie as a lie, giving it no respect whatsoever.

She could have lost her job for that, and I heard students mocking her later on for both that and other aspects of her faithfulness. I’m glad she was there, and willing to stick her neck out for the sake of her students. I witnessed other brave acts like this by my teachers, as well, whether quietly expressed to students in the hallways, or subtly hinted at in sex ed classes. I don’t want anybody to think that I believe that Christians stop being Christians when they walk through the metal detectors of a public school.

That was long enough ago that I doubt that today’s environment would allow those same teachers to get away for very long with saying the subversively Christian things they said back then. While some public school teachers hit up the comment box to tell me off for not understanding how wonderfully salty they are (and I don’t doubt that at all), I get a larger number of reactions from people in the system who confirm this fear:

In my experience, the ‘suits’ have agendas, and we people at the bottom must do what we’re told or find a new job. I have been a proud, hardworking teacher for 7 years, but after much frustration, disagreement, and mostly prayer, I am trying to get out. Not only have my job responsibilities (not the kids)gotten ridiculous, the entire education system has evolved into some kind of indoctrination and money-making tool. I have seen major changes since I was a student in the same public school system, as well as in the last 7 years. I LOVE my students. That is why I cannot continue to contribute to the problem.

and, from another reader:

My husband is a public school teacher and we decided to homeschool after our oldest completed 2nd grade. We live in a rural district and he has a rather high profile as a coach for a couple of sports so there was no way to make the change under the radar. What always amazes me is that people are so shocked (sometimes angered!) that a teacher would homeschool his children yet not one parent has ever asked me, “What does he know that I don’t?”

 

I urge you to watch the Indoctrination documentary for profiles of some other teachers who came to this conclusion concerning their own witness within the public schools.

Of course, against these witnesses, I have this kind:

I am the product of a public school education, and throughout that experience, one thing stood out- I am different. My life is different, my calling is different. Because I belong to the Lord, I follow a different path from many of my classmates. That idea, that fact, that identity strengthened my faith. It was even more so emphasized when I saw my peers suffering the consequences of not living in the Light. Furthermore, I was able to bring several of my friends to Christ simply by living the way I knew was right.

Homeschool your children if it is what you think is best. Pull them out of public schools if you have any qualms about the school or district. But don’t point to public schools as the problem with our society. Perhaps the lack of children who know the Truth and the Light learning alongside children who are still lost- perhaps that is the problem with public schools today.

I don’t deny that believers are salt and light, wherever they go, or that both children and teachers who belong to Christ still belong to him even in the midst of the pagan culture of the school system. Nor do I deny that evangelism can happen quietly in schools.  What I do deny is that our culture can survive our forcing our children to digest all this evil along with whatever good they might be able to absorb from their families and church on nights and weekends.

I also deny that there is a choice to be made between being salt and light in the world or homeschooling. Saltiness is a condition of the soul, not a location of the body.

As to whether we can blame secular schools for our society’s problems, public schools raise something like 90% of American Christians, do they not? And how effective would you say this watered down, weak-kneed church is after all these years of secular indoctrination? And yet, this teacher would have us believe that that is because of some abdication of duty by the tiny percentage of Christians who don’t participate in the system, rather than the purposeful godlessness of the system itself!

Our “Christian” nation is more pagan every day, and yet public schools—the places that won’t even allow Christ as more than an item in social studies alongside every other god—aren’t even remotely to blame?

I quoted Ephesians 6: 11-12 in my last post in order to show that our fight is not against principals and teachers, but against principalities and spiritual forces of wickedness. If our fight isn’t against the unbelievers who run the system, then it certainly isn’t against those of our brothers who are still associated with it! Whether they are still in public schools out of harsh necessity, or simple disagreement, we are still brothers, and we can still behave lovingly toward one another.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

–Ephesians 6:11-12

It seems fitting to use this same verse to point out that secular schooling, far from helping children put on the full armor of God, either ignores it completely or actively teaches against it.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart: And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the posts of your house, and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Sound doctrine demands constant teaching. Training children in righteousness is not done once a day, like taking a Jesus-pill in the morning, but all day long, like breathing. Sound doctrine must be lived in front of our children, not just drilled into them at AWANA (not that there’s anything wrong with AWANA). When good doctrine is replaced with secular education, children learn that godless authority is normal and desirable, that Jesus has a compartment in your heart, but not a throne over all the earth.

We have given the government authority to make our children over in its own godless image.

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.

What public school proponents fail to understand is that the teacher, in this case, is not the Christian at the front of the classroom, doing everything she can to plug the holes in the cultural dike, but the government that controls her curriculum.

When the “teacher” is the State, what kind of disciples can we expect to grow from that?

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