We Need Discrimination in Education

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A key ingredient in education should be the cultivation of discrimination, good discrimination.  There is bad discrimination that judges from prejudice, but there is the right kind of discrimination that judges according to the truth, and we should not throw out the good in an attempt to discredit the bad in respect to discrimination.

Proverbs 1:3-5 gives good direction about the cultivation of good discrimination in education, as it says:  “To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; to give subtlety [prudence and insight] to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding will attain unto wise counsels.”  That word, “discretion” which Solomon uses in the Proverbs is vital to learning, and it closely relates to discrimination.

In public schools there is a blatant attack on what is called “discrimination.”  It relates to race, sex, and religion, but it goes on into all other areas of life as well.  It seeks to avoid the cultivation of discrimination in education. Alexis Herman made the statement that, “Education is important because, first of all, people need to know that discrimination still exists…, and we should not take that for granted” (Brainyquote). Discrimination does exist, but it is not the original sin.

Christianity and Christian values are increasingly under constant attack, ignored or even discredited in our public education, and so-called alternate lifestyles are constantly being promoted.  Confusion is rampantly increasing throughout our society about what is right or wrong, what is good or bad, and what should or should not be.

How does one relate to discrimination to get the right and avoid the wrong? In helping to avoid the wrong in Acts 10:34 it says that “Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:”   Galatians 5:14 says, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” In helping to apply the right discrimination there are verses such as 2 Timothy 2:15 that says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” and there is the Lord Jesus’ statement in John 8:32, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  These can be some of the guides for applying positive discrimination in life.

Under the banner of the war on prejudice, American public education is seeking to kill not only the bad types of discrimination but the good as well in the name of progress.

Discretion is the ability to have, practice, and know wisdom and prudence, so as to make good judgments.  I recall as a youth I was taught to see discriminating people in a very positive light, but things have changed in our nation!  Discriminating people displayed discretion, but today it seems that discriminating people are to be classified as old fogies or those caught up in prejudice.  Is it however prejudice to say that the promotion of homosexuality in public schools is not good?  Is it is prejudice to say that reverse discrimination in respect to race is not right or has outlived its purpose?

There is racial discrimination and other discriminations, which are often the product of generalizations that might or might not be true of a particular group.  One of the general meanings of discrimination is a “treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.”  This type of discrimination can and often is harmful, but this should not become an excuse for making this understanding of the word, discrimination, which otherwise is very positive, into a negative concept.

New high school principal Dennis Prager, at a school in Colorado said as part of his inauguration speech to the student body: “This school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity — your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American.”  We need this attitude in all our schools.

Notice in Proverbs 1:3 it spoke about education and mentioned “equity”, which is “being fair and impartial.”  In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  We must discriminate between good and bad behavior, and the bad should be taken out of public education and not the good so we properly cultivate positive behavior.

There have been attacks about discrimination in respect to race, but the attacks are presently shifting to the promotion of homosexuality in education.  We read that there is the opening up of our school restrooms to the so-called transsexuals in various states.  The transsexual categorization is just a polite way of assuming homosexuality.

All people have both a mixture of female and male hormones, but males and females have distinctive sexual organs, and this determines ones sex. One’s sex is not determined by one’s mental attitude any more than one’s race is determined by it.  Although there may be variations in racial classification, there is not in respect to sex.

Kirsten Andersen in LifeSite News (Feb 19, 2013) brought out in the article, “Massachusetts forces schools to let ‘transgender’ boys use girls’ restrooms, lockers”, that “Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester has issued orders to the state’s K-12 public schools requiring them to permit “transgender” boys and girls to use the opposite sex’s locker rooms, bathrooms, and changing facilities as long as they claim to identify with that gender.”  She also observed, “Many elementary schools in smaller Massachusetts towns include children from kindergarten through eighth grade, making it possible for boys as old as 14 to share toilet facilities with girls as young as five.”

So as not to discriminate against the transsexuals, according to the newly issued school policies, the boys who say they identify as girls must be addressed by the feminine pronoun and be listed as girls on official transcripts. And the policy does not require even a doctor’s note or even parental permission for a child to switch sexes in the eyes of Massachusetts’ schools. Only the student’s word is needed: if a boy says he’s a girl, as far as the schools are concerned, he’s a girl.  Neither does age matter, for a transgender rights group also announced recently that it has filed a discrimination complaint in Colorado on behalf of a first-grader who was born a boy but identifies as a girl.

The use of public school restrooms is just another step in the affirmation of the gay lifestyle and marriages.  Brian Fitzpatrick in an excellent article, “Gay Marriage, Distant Consequences”, Lambda Report, brings out many chilling facts about this type of focus that he sees as definitely leading to collapse of our culture and our nation.  Fitzpatrick writes that in his book, On Character, that eminent social commentator James Q. Wilson defines virtue as “habits of moderate action; more specifically, acting with due restraint on one’s impulses, due regard for the rights of others, and reasonable concern for distant consequences.”  This is discernment and very much parallel with discrimination.

In this article Fitzpatrick also brings out that: “Perhaps the definitive work on the rise and fall of civilization was written back in the thirties by an Oxford anthropologist. In Sex and Culture, a study of eighty-six human civilizations ranging from Rome to Tahiti, J.D. Unwin found that a society’s destiny is tied inseparably to the limits it imposes on sexual expression. The highest levels of social development are reached only by cultures that practice what Unwin called ‘absolute monogamy,’ in which marriage is limited to one man and one woman, sex outside marriage is not tolerated, and divorce is prohibited.”

He also says, “Absolute monogamy promotes cultural growth by solving what anthropologist Margaret Mead termed the ‘central problem of every society,’ to ‘define appropriate roles for men.’ Monogamous civilizations require men to choose either lifelong celibacy or the responsibilities of a husband: fidelity, breadwinning, and fatherhood. Most marry, to their good fortune, because married men tend to be healthier, happier, and more productive than bachelors. Joseph Schumpeter, the great economist, attributes the success of capitalism not to the entrepreneur’s lust for money or status, but to his love of family.”

The family is a basic unit of a society, and what was once taught to be the family is no longer. Public education has opened the door so as not to discriminate against the deviants to the point where deviant behavior is projected not only as normal, but even desirable.  Just think about how all the so-called transsexuals are going to feast on doing much more that just going into the opposite sex’s rest rooms.

From the Christian perspective the Apostle Paul touches this well, as he said in Galatians 3:27-28 “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” The discrimination learned from Jesus Christ is a valuable channel to direct the cultivation of the right kinds of discrimination in the public schools.  We need to seek the positive uses of discrimination and not to confuse them with the negative.  Christianity can provide this kind of discrimination in education.

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by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Educational Columnist, Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, 5931 West Avenue, Lavonia, Georgia 30553,  706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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