Pop Quiz
What Chinese philosopher said: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”?
What former slave said: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”?
What American author said: “Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.”?
What civil rights leader said: “Your children need your presence more than your presents.”?
What American educator said: “No school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children’s best interests.”?
What American businessman said: “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”?
Answers at the end of the post.
A reader responded to a recent post by noting that the modern “oppressed may not know any better” because they are not been “taught they have options, given direction or received training so they can have a more meaningful future.” A reflexive reaction is to blame the schools and the mephistophelean Randi Weingarten but the problem may be more serious…today’s parents are abdicating their function as role models and are not establishing guidelines for the social development of their children.
Raising children may be the most important job in America. Unfortunately the family, the nuclear family, is under attack from the Left. The Smithsonian published a document suggesting that the nuclear family is part of the “white dominant culture”. And all things “white” are immediately suspect. The concept of two parents raising children is deemed to be archaic, a relic of the days of Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet. The stay at home parent is the subject of social ridicule.
The disparagement of the nuclear family is intended to rationalize the growing number of single parent households. The argument is made in response to the increase in such such households, especially in low income areas, following the imposition of the so-called, Great Society on the country by LBJ. The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, both graduates of Harvard University. was published in 1994 and it was pilloried by the left wing media, The information developed by the co-authors made clear that a single parent household is a fast track, for children from those households, to academic failure, limited career options, a life of dependence on welfare and an increased likelihood of ending up in the criminal justice system. In short, a recipe for societal chaos.
Parents today regard public education as a day care operation. They have little or no interest in the quality or content of the education their children are receiving. Merit is not encouraged as part of the public school curriculum. Knowledge is not all that important as demonstrated by the fact that student performance on state mandated competency exams has been declining for years. Social promotions are made as a matter of routine such that a high school diploma is now worth as much as AOC’s degree from Boston University, i.e. useless.
Young people today are provided no familial, social or historic context to the world around them. The internet has diminished social intercourse whereas sex education has fostered other types of intercourse. These failings are directly connected to the lack of parental involvement in the early development of the ability of children to flourish in a merit based system. Success is seen as an entitlement not something to be earned.
The Left finds this state of affairs more than acceptable. People who have no self-confidence, poor social skills, a level of self-absorption that is frightening and no ability to think critically are easily manipulated. How else do we explain the election of such mediocrities as Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Kathleen Hochul and Gavin Newsome. Young voters embrace Social Democracy, “sustainable development” and communism because they have no understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of such parasitic philosophies. The public schools do nothing to advance the ability to think, intellectual curiosity or independent thinking. In fact they dismiss such skills in the classrooms across the land. Dissent from the groupthink is not tolerated.
Parents refuse to accept the fact that their children might be subject to failure in school or in sports. Yet they do nothing to instill a desire to succeed, the will to be the best or to understand the real world. Participation awards are encouraged. They don’t just go out to play. Rather their controlling parents arrange “play dates”. This ensures a high level of risk aversion because such activities are tightly controlled. Young people are given cell phones and are allowed to access social media and fantasy games like Assassin’s Creed at an early age without any parental guidance. ChatGPT has flourished which ensures that there will be no independent research or critical thinking and no development of written communication skills.
All of which begs the question: How do Asian and Jewish students manage to excel in this environment? It may relate to the traditional values that are practiced in Asian and Jewish families. They believe that education, at home and in the schools, is the foundation of the preparation of their children to succeed in a merit based world.
Symptoms of our societal failure
The use of essay questions on tests is a thing of the past. Testing generally involves fill in the blank, true/false or multiple guess questions. This requires memorization and not thinking. Your humble scribe taught at the college level for 13 years and all of my exams were comprised of essay questions only. It was rewarding to see the vast improvement between the mid-term and the final exams for many students. I was accused by a number of students every semester of “making them think”. A rewarding complaint.
A symptom of this aversion to the real world was on display recently at the local Best Buy. A long line of people between the ages of 20 and 30 waited patiently to buy Pokemon cards, Originally Pokemon cards were great gifts for children between 5 and 8 years old. It was fascinating to eavesdrop on the vacuous conversations between the these Pokemon enthusiasts. Every discussion involved participation in fantasy games. It was tempting to ask one of these parental basement dwellers when the Magna Carta was signed, what monarch signed it and what it meant to our liberty.
The Smithsonian published a document disparaging values that were part of White (read “oppressive”) Culture: politeness, respect for authority, delayed gratification and use of the “King’s English”. Is it any wonder they embrace the words of John Galt…”If we do away with private fortunes we’ll have a fairer distribution of wealth”…the basic tenet of Democratic Socialism.
Recommended reading: Agenda 21 by Ron Taylor. It is an expose on the grand plan by the United Nations to “teach children to place loyalty to the state above loyalty to the family. The purpose of education is “values clarification” which includes the proposition that there is “no absolute right or wrong”. All that is needed for this to succeed is parental indifference.
Dan Brown’s latest book, The Secret of Secrets, is not as good as The DaVinci Code but there is a quote in the last chapter that is worth considering: “When you see someone glued to a phone, you see a person ignoring this world-rather than a person engrossed in another world”…an escape from the world as it is into a world that you wish it were.
Resistance is futile. As the irrepressible Dorothy Parker observed: “I can’t stand people who, when they are with you, can’t talk about anything except how things will be good later if everyone cooperates”.
Answers to the pop quiz:
What Chinese philosopher said: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”? Xunzi
What former slave said: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”? Frederick Douglass
What American author said: “Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.”? Elbert Hubbard
What civil rights leader said: “Your children need your presence more than your presents.”? Jesse Jackson
What American educator said: “No school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children’s best interests.”? Dorothy Cohen
What American businessman said: “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”? Malcolm Forbes