Filed under: citizenship

Education That Is Profoundly American

Sound education rests on respect for the First Principle, namely, the God of Creation is man's benefactor.  Increases in knowledge are made possible by the connecting links of intelligible design. Irrefutable third-grade math, for instance, is a link to the latest reliable advances in the physical sciences.

 

John Jay is thought to be one of the most influential among the Founding Fathers.  He served as president of the first Continental Congress and was the first chief justice of the United States.  When Jay applied for admission to King's College in New York at the age of fourteen, one of the requirements he had to fulfill was to translate the first ten chapters of the Gospel of John from Greek into Latin.*

 

The Founding Fathers recognized that the preservation of the family, self-government, and liberty depends upon applying the timeless and universal principles found in the Bible.  And for Americans to have firsthand knowledge of the Bible, they must be taught to read.  Public school textbooks taught the alphabet through Bible verses that started with each letter.

 

Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Founding Father and a Signer who arranged  the final draft of the Constitution, wrote "Religion is the only solid basis for good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man toward God" (The Life of Governeur Morris, Jared Sparks, Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1832, Vol. III, p 483, from his "Notes on the Form of a Constitution for France"). **

 

Immigrants from diverse backgrounds came to America and worked peacefully together because they shared a common mind on the issue of human equality, moral law and responsible citizenship.  They wanted no more potentates, or authoritarian clergy, professors or kings.  The Constitution clarified the point, when forbidding titles "of nobility," that could undermine the sovereign authority of the people under God over government (Section 9, article 8).

 

"O Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto:  'In God is our trust.'  And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" (From The Star-Spangled Banner).***

 

Gouverneur_morris_1752-1816

 

Gouverneur Morris

1725-1816

Founding Father and successful politician, diplomat and writer

He took twenty-three proposed resolutions and condensed them into the seven major articles

contained in the Constitution.

 

 

*John Eidsmore, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 1987), 220.

**http://www.partyof1776.net/p1776/fathers/Morris%20Gouverneur/quotes/contents....

***"The Star-Spangled Banner" was made the national anthem of the United States by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. 301), and signed by President Herbert Hoover.

 

Image from http://www.americansfortheconstitution.com/founding-fathers/

 

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Teacher Union Contracts

The Supreme Court's failure to apply the First Amendment for its intended purposes destroyed the perimeters necessary to protect society from morally incompetent teachers.  Statewide laws, enabling tenure guarantees for unqualified teachers, crept silently into legislation for lower-level public schools beginning in the early 1970s.  Only seven states have rejected such laws.  The leftist NEA union advantage of control continues, however, without tenure laws in those seven states.

 

Two paragraphs for teacher contracts demanded by NEA unions are the root of the problem.  These controlling paragraphs may be found in the contract between the NEA union (or its state affiliate) and the local school board or in the state public sector collective bargaining laws.  One paragraph provides teacher tenure, which makes it virtually impossible to fire a teacher.  There is also a confidentiality paragraph, making it a crime for school administrators to disclose the reason(s) for dismissing a teacher without advanced approval--a very costly and lengthy procedure.  If the citizens are not permitted by law to be informed, their political support, so desperately needed by the superintendent in order to fire a bad teacher, is successfully silenced.

 

"Precisely because of the obvious potential for abuse, even labor union advocates like AFL-CIO President George Meany and Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed unionization of the public employees as unthinkable."*

 

In March 2008, harsh debate in the Iowa legislature brought this problem to the public's attention.  Radicals, whose elections were advanced by large sums of campaign money received from outside the state, were pushing for changes in the public sector collective bargaining law.  A section making it even harder to fire harmful teachers caused "grave concerns" among school administrators.  "Margaret Buckton, chief lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, says [arbitration] adjudicators have tended to rule in favor of the teachers."  As the teachers' bargaining rights law now stands, "Attempts to remove a teacher can last years and cost hundreds of thousand of dollars."**

 

Any force that makes it impossible for the school administrator to be in control and implement the citizen consensus for values is, by definition, fascistic and advances the consequences of fascism.  It was this ever-present threat, and its consequent tyranny of the mind, that prompted elected representatives in the individual states to require that curbs be placed upon government employees via the First Amendment and the federal Constitution.

 

*Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, "How the National Education Association Corrupts Our Public Schools," Forbes magazine, June 7, 1993.

*Dan Gearin, "Schools Concerned with Union Bargaining Bill," The Tribune (Ames, IA), March 27, 2008, B4.

Image from http://papundits.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/spending-cuts-national-security-more/

 

Image_ownersmanual2011-01-07-digest-cartoon-1

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

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Censorship of Christmas in Public Schools

Antichristmastree

Permit me one interruption of my discussion of immortal American Principles ...

 

Secular militants have shut down ideological competition by preventing religious, political and academic freedom on many campuses throughout the nation.  Haters of citizen self-government in America are effectively muting the voices of tens of thousands of concerned citizens.  

 

The war against the Judeo-Christian foundation for American law, self-government and the spirit of liberty extends beyond leftist radical censorship of American history and foundational American beliefs from public school textbooks.  "A decorated pine tree in the Ames High School cafeteria has been taken down because of complaints from a high school employee and some parents" (The Tribune, December 4, 2010).  Reporting the words of the school Superintendent, "We are in the business of educating students.  I didn't want this [decorated pine tree] to become a distraction … so we decided it would be best to take down the tree."  His frankness about a few people who were intolerant of a pine tree within the sight of students is commendable.  The tree was in the school for the traditional Christmas season, but apparently they dared not even call it a Christmas tree.

Hh_dp19755592

It is needful that we reject the spirit of rebellion and enjoin the spirit of truth that empowers man to storm the strongholds of evil.  It is spiritual wisdom that enabled this nation to become the most blessed civilization in history.  The restoration of spiritual glory--the potential to reassert our culture's values of freedom, education, prosperity, and truth--is at hand.

Merry Christmas to all"In this was manifested the love of God toward us,

because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world,

that we might live through Him."

(I John 4:9)

True Patriotism

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In his Farewell Address, Washington reminded Americans that:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them."

(George Washington, Farewell Address, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_ century/washing.asp.)

Knowledge of the Bible, the Great Reformation (1517-1648), and the American experience inspires individuals to become self-governing and, on a broader scale, inspires communities and the nation as a whole to overcome the tyranny of moral confusion.  Even the German atheist Friedrich Nietzsche understood the source of freedom for his way of life when he wrote:  "Remove Christianity and the ideas fall too."  (Cited by Dinesh D'Souza, "Created Equal:  How Christianity Shaped the West," Hillsdale College Imprimis, November 11, 2008.)

 

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844-1900

German philosopher

 

Failure to acknowledge the benevolent laws of God and creation's nature and conform to moral truth guarantees harmful consequences.  When God's benevolent provision is rejected in any particular, the rejecter bears the price of that sin against himself and the will of God.

 

A most insightful analysis has been presented by Marvin Olasky.  As a Marxist intellectual, he was highly regarded by the chairman of his PhD academic program and dissertation committee at the University of Michigan.  Marvin Olasky, who became disillusioned by the shallowness of socialistic panaceas, became a solid convert to Christianity.

(Marvin Olasky, “God Doesn’t Give Up,” World Magazine, May 23, 2009, 64-67).

Olasky

Marvin Olasky

1950-

Author

Whittaker_chambers

Whittaker Chambers

1901-1961

Author

Olasky concurs with Whittaker Chambers, who came to believe in God after being a Communist Party member in the 1920s and 1930s.  In the autobiography Witness, Whittaker Chambers writes:  "A Communist breaks because he must choose at last between irreconcilable opposites--God or man, Soul [conscience] or Mind [emotions], Freedom or Communism ....

Patriotic-bible-americanflag

The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree

 in which it is indifferent to God."

 

 

 

 

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