Teaching — Monitoring Stupidity?

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A teacher at a school that had to shut down twice in one week because of bomb scares expressed her frustration about having to use her planning time three days a week for thirty minutes at a time to sit in the hallway to see who went in and out of the restrooms, hoping to find whoever was leaving warning notes about a bomb to go off in the school. The teacher said that this frustrates her, because it is just another way in which teaching in our public schools has been turned into monitoring stupidity. Public school education shifted in the early 1960’s from being the cultivation of self-motivation, to the bribing of  students to learn with external rewards, and onto the current stupidity monitoring phase.

One thing that made the United States a great nation was the underlying principle of the call to cultivate individual responsibility. This was seen as a task to be undertaken from the early development of children and throughout their lives, and the Christian Church was foundational in the education of the nation from its very beginnings.

This call was evidenced even in the training of the children of indentured white servants, who arrived with their parents from Europe into the new land, and were taught trades of all sorts from their very early years. There was a focus upon motivating the achievement of each child to realize his or her God-given talents. Underneath the culture was the overarching understanding that God was the ultimate judge of all.

Categorizing people is never adequate, but there can be a comparison drawn between two polarities—the philosophical perspectives of the liberals and the conservatives in American education. The comparison  provides an interesting observation. The liberal philosophy gravitates around authority being set from the top-down, where the conservative sees authority developing from the call to individual responsibility, with a focus not primarily upon monitoring, but basically upon motivating!  The conservative tone is toward one nation under God, while the liberal tone is toward equal rights for all regardless of one’s achievement, ability, or contributions.

There are some areas of interest that can serve to amplify the contrasts between the liberal and conservative polarities.

In respect to the possession of firearms, it has been said, “ If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he does not buy one. If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.” The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the second of the ten bills of rights that protects the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment was adopted on 15 December 1791 with the other nine of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.

However, the American Bar Association has noted that there is more disagreement and less understanding about the right to keep and bear arms than of any other current issue regarding the U.S. Constitution. Should a young man or woman be taught how to properly use firearms, or should firearms just be kept from them as they grow into adults, unless they are to become law enforcement agents or military personnel?

In respect to dietary rules, it has been said, “If a conservative is a vegetarian, he does not eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.” Many vegetarians are vegetarians because they reject the ideal of killing any living creature, while others choose this diet because of health or religious reasons.

Parents should rear their children teaching them how to eat properly and to develop good health habits. The Jewish religion has many dietary laws, much of them in regards to not eating various forms of meat, but in the New Testament, there is a different focus based on Peter’s vision in Acts 10:11b, where the message is, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” Most Christians have interpreted this, although not the primary import of the scripture, to mean that eating meat is not wrong.

Contrasting the two—conservative and liberal–in respect to sexual morality it has been said,  “If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.” The Bible very much condemns homosexuality throughout, and religious teachings soon were incorporated into legal sanctions. Many of the early American colonies, for example, enacted stiff criminal penalties for sodomy, an umbrella term that encompassed a wide variety of sexual acts.

Within medicine and psychiatry, homosexuality was not universally viewed as a pathology. While some in psychiatry saw homosexuality as a degenerative sickness, others such as Sigmund Freud were more accepting of it. Conservative Christians see it as wrong, sick, and sinful, while the liberal side sees it as but another lifestyle.

In respect to civil rights, it has been said, “If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.  A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.”  This shows a real contrast that has greatly influenced American education, as the vast majority of the educational expenditures have been to attempt to raise those who are low achievers. Much has gone to touch on the vanguard of progress for those who can achieve, but the liberal theme has tended to dominate the day, and the sad fact is that the cultural revolution in the schools has been more to dumb down than to raise up.

In respect to freedom of speech, it has been said, “If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host television personality, he or she switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.”  Much of the liberal element wants to ask for equal time on radio or television, but is it right to give it to them while the Christians have to pay for their time? It is interesting how a talk show host can attack religion, particularly the Protestant, Evangelical, Christian, religious focuses and be completely accepted, but when a talk show host even hints of a strong faith in Christ, he or she is condemned as violating the freedom of religion. What about the freedom of speech?

Has teaching become the monitoring of stupidity? The conservative and liberal mindsets have been contrasted, and it seems that the liberal solution to the educational breakdown in America is to invest in more authority and control from Washington DC, while the conservative focus is more upon developing personal responsibility in the individual students. One approach requires more and more monitoring, while the other demands loosing restrictions to allow more freedom and the cultivation of more personal responsibility.

The Christian religion from the Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical side can provide the needed discipline. Liberalism can ever address the problem of teaching increasingly becoming the monitoring of stupidity. Liberalism is the basic philosophy behind the fact that the once revered teaching profession is degenerating into the profession of being a stupidity monitor!\

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by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, Box 751, Lavonia, Georgia 30553, 706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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