Most people agree there has been a severe decline in the moral character and quality of our population. Most still in the dating pool will tell you there is a shortage of marriageable mates. Employers will tell you there is a shortage of employable employees – including many that can’t even read or write. Professors will tell you there is a lack of serious students. People put the blame on all sorts of places, but usually fail to ask: what are we being taught?

In the latter half of the 20th century, the education system has been influenced heavily by one man: John Dewey, father of “Progressive Education.”

Think people today are lacking in manners? From John Dewey’s Experience and Education:

“Visitors to some progressive schools are shocked by the lack of manners they come across. One who knows the situation better is aware that to some extent their absence is due to the eager interest of children to go on with what they are doing. In their eagerness they may, for example, bump into each other and into visitors with no word of apology.”

Think people are ignorant of basic facts – such as facts of history? From John Dewey’s Moral Principles in Education:

“History is vital or dead to the child according as it is, or is not, presented from the sociological standpoint. When treated simply as a record of what has passed and gone, it must be mechanical, because the past, as the past, is remote.”

Think our society is plagued by dishonesty, such as the Jayson Blair scandal? From John Dewey’s The School and Society:

“The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.”

And, finally: think that people are a bunch of blank, vapid dolls anymore, willing to believe anything people tell them? From John Dewey, circa 1899:

“You can’t make Socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”

Progressive education boasts that it is “child-centered.” This may sound good, except that “child-centered” doesn’t mean to think of what is in the best interest of the child (including discipline, correction of errors, encouragement of ability and skill, etc.), but rather it means to cater to the whims and emotions of any child.

In Progressive schools (when they existed), both the children and the teacher are considered to be in a “democracy,” and the teacher simply has one vote amongst all the children in that democracy. A child’s “self expression” is considered paramount – therefore correcting his errors or enforcing any kind of proper way of acting is considered tyrannical.

The primary job of educators, according to John Dewey, was to develop a student’s “social life” – not to develop the intellect. According to Dewey, the purpose of the school is not “science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography … but the child’s own social activities.”

Was the school structure envisioned by John Dewey copied and implemented exactly in the public schools? Of course not. If schools turned into the nightmare of children running around barefoot (out of respect for their “self expression”), bumping into random strangers without apologizing (in the name of “enjoyment of the moment”), and if children started to run the school more so than teachers (in the name of “democracy”), the public would run in frightened horror. But the spirit of Dewey haunts literally all public schools.

In many grade schools, instead of giving grades, they give out satisfactory or unsatisfactory marks. Public schools put just as much, if not more, emphasis on a child’s “social skills” than they do his intellectual skills. When two students get into a dispute, educators today are likely to make them both apologize to one another – regardless of who was right or wrong. In many high schools, particularly in classes like English, students sit in circles to discuss their arbitrary opinions instead of learning. All of these things are a result of John Dewey.

Given students aren’t taught to master anything except to be “social,” educators had to come up with some way of making the students feel proud and accomplished. Introduce: the “self esteem” movement. Students are taught not to develop pride through achievement, but automatically and causelessly – for no other reason than being them.

All of this creates for an explosive mix. From K – 12, students are fed a daily diet of “social skills” not intellectual skills; feel-goodness not judgment; self-expression not discipline; inflated egos not achievement. The result is wild, chaotic hooligans, who cannot perform the simplest math or tolerate the slightest criticism. This is why there are no marriage mates or employable employees or serious students.

But what can you expect from an educational philosophy that was not designed to raise competent children but to turn them into socialists? (See above quote).

All the previously mentioned affects the intellectual and moral composition of students, which is the most important aspect and should be focused on first. But the content of what is being fed into their brain is not unimportant either. If I had to name the two most destructive subjects taught in public schools today, I would name: evolution and sex education.

I am opposed to teaching evolution in public schools. I say this not as a religious person but as a completely secular atheist. I certainly don’t believe in creationism, I lean towards evolution, but I have to admit: much of the scientific “evidence” surrounding evolution has been wholly made up.

The question that has to be asked: what benefit does the study of evolution have for man? Chemistry, biology, physics, etc., have clear benefits to man. But I propose evolution does not, and in fact does more harm than good.

The study of evolution projects the image of man as being an animalistic beast – driven by nothing but instinct. This cuts right into and denies the need for the moral development of men. To evolutionists – most of whom regard evolution as more of a religion, i.e. something meant to guide man, than a science – the evolutionary process selects those traits that are best suited for survival naturally, by various means, therefore whatever species that is produced is naturally perfect. Therefore, there is no need to develop any kind of moral character in man.

I have heard some people say they believe that our morals are developed based on evolution – that through evolution, we developed some kind of knowledge that murder is wrong. If this is true, why should we bother teaching that murder is wrong? More dominant though, are men who use evolution as an excuse for not picking women of moral character, instead rationalizing that, by nature, evolution forces them pick only women of youth and attractiveness. Said men are also apt to say that marriage is not in the nature of man, nor is staying loyal to one’s wife, all because of evolution. If this is true, what can we do about it? Clearly, men must only be capable of seeking out multiple women, to be used for one purpose with no further desire for relationship. Still yet are some more extremists who say that the entire capitalist existence should be torn down because man’s technology prevents him from evolving according to nature’s stimulus. If evolution would create a more perfect species, why build or produce? The lack of morality and rationality that springs from the evolution way of thinking is obvious.

The study of evolution is destructive to man. It projects the image of man the beast, which fits right into the Dewey agenda because the ultimate domesticator of man – the intellect – is denied.

The second most destructive subject taught today is sex education.

Children who are put through the public school’s sex education program have a tendency to come out with a completely de-mystified and mechanical view of sex. They usually regard their right to attain immediate pleasure as paramount, and feel it is an almost duty that they be having sexual relationships at young ages. The practical result can be seen in the modern day “hook up” scene on college campuses.

Talk show host Charles A. Morse sums up the public schools nicely in an article of his called “The Communist Public Schools”:

“The goal of Dewey, Foster, and their followers, known as the ‘frontier thinkers’, or ‘change agents’, was to teach young people not to think for themselves. They sought to accomplish this evil agenda by replacing such ‘bourgeois affectations’ as literacy, science, math, American history, language, and other disciplines, with content vacant and mentally dissonant whole language, social studies, sex education, values clarification and guessing. They replaced character development and conceptions of morality with moral relativism. They ‘molded’ our young people into semi-lobotomized cogs of the corporate State.”

This quote is chilling, because it’s true. But, rest assured, there is a solution.

First, let me give what the best, and ultimately, only effective solution is: to completely privatize the public schools. Even if you wanted to provide some type of funding for students (which I do not support), unless the government-run monopoly of public schools is broken up, and competition and free market principles are allowed to reign, we will continue to get education that is worth what we are paying for it: $0. The goal is not to “get the federal government out of schools” or even “school vouchers,” (which are nothing more than efforts of the religious right to shuffle students into schools that preach their agenda) but to completely privatize the industry. And let me say what schools I think are the best schools, which I believe would win in a free market system: the Montessori schools.

However, that is not an option – not for the general public anyway, which struggles daily to meet budgets let alone with an expensive education to pay for. Given the public schools are so inexpensive (free) and easily accessible, another school would find it difficult to compete or provide a reasonably priced education (not to mention the fact that the teacher union is so insistent on shutting down any competition). But here is what you can do: home school your children.

There is a home schooling revolution in this country. And the leftists know it. And it drives them nuts.

The reason people choose to home school their children are much as I listed above. They don’t want to send their children to the anarchy known as public schools, where justice, truth, and intellect are slandered daily.

The person who home schools their children doesn’t believe that education is about the “social,” obviously, but rather to develop the mind and various skills.

The idea that the purpose of a school is to develop the “social skills” of a student is absurd. Social skills are the easy part. I am not sure why they think that dating or socializing are Herculean efforts to overcome. They are not. Dating and socializing are leisure and should be simple and fun. Industriousness, reason, discipline: these are the hard parts, and should be prodded of students. And it is almost laughable to think that the students coming from public high schools have even an ounce of “social skill” competence.

The people I know who home school do not raise children who are socially inept. The ones I have met fit in quite well – they are honest and spunky and look people in the eye when they talk. They also know how to sew and cook and balance their own checkbook – things kids from the public schools increasingly cannot do. Home-schooled children are also grounded in principles and morals, something anathema to the left.

The success of the home schools drives leftists nuts. First, it proves one does not need to be an “expert” to do something as simple as teaching a child K – 12 course material. Leftists become increasingly unable to make parents feel inferior in parenting and raising their own children. Most of all, though, leftists know one thing: home-schooled children tend to come out Republican.

On March 8, the New York Times ran an article called: “College for Home-Schooled is Shaping Leaders for the Right.”

The college they are talking about is Patrick Henry College, the first college that accepts primarily home-schooled children. According to the New York Times, “Of the nearly 100 interns working in the White House this semester, 7 are from the roughly 240 students enrolled in the four-year-old Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville.” It is interesting what the New York Times points out as a reason for why people choose to home school their children: the teaching of evolution and sex education.

The ultra-leftist magazine The Economist ran an article in their Feb 28 edition on home-schooling, which had the haunting title, “George Bush’s Secret Army,” and the equally haunting sub-title, “A revolution is happening in American education. As it grows in size, it should frighten teachers everywhere.” According to the article: “According to the HSLDA, 76% of home-schooled young people aged 18-24 vote in elections, compared with 29% in that age group in the general population. Home-schoolers are also significantly more likely to contribute to political campaigns and to work for candidates-normally Republican ones.”

The title and sub-title of The Economist article are downright funny. Oh no!!! Watch out: an army of home-schooled little children is going to take over the world! A crop of children who haven’t been brainwashed by the public schools about the religion of evolution or the wonders of gay sex – what are leftists going to do?

You don’t have to be a fundamentalist Christian to realize the decrepit nature of our public schools, and want to provide some kind of alternative for your child. I wouldn’t let my child near the moral relativist, irrational, feminist, liberal public schools as they exist today. And, I know, because it wasn’t too terribly long ago that I was in the public school system.

The home school revolution brings a huge sigh of relief to the irrational world of education, as it exists today. It is one step closer to providing children with what the precious little dears deserve: a rational education.

Amber Pawlik