Outcome-Based Education That Is Profoundly American
Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States, wrote to her young son, John Quincy, who would later become our sixth president: "Great learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation, unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them. Adhere to those religious sentiments and principles that were early installed into your mind and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions. Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare. His care and attention to you render many things unnecessary for me to write which I might otherwise do, but the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth, requires line upon line and precept upon precept, and when enforced by the joint efforts of both parents will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for dear as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that an untimely death crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child.*
Children are not the property of the government or the state. The authority and responsibility for what children are taught rests with parents.
A Well-Educated Student:
Speaks and writes accurately.
Listens attentively.
Is a reader.
Is honest at all times.
Is a person of prayer.
Has God-honoring goals.
Upholds the traditional family.
Is sensitive to the Word and to the will of God.
Is sensitive to the needs of others.
Handles success and defeat with grace.
Has convictions and stands for them.
Fulfills citizen duties to family, church and country.
Is polite in his dealings with others.
Uses resources responsibly.
Recognizes the existence of absolute truth which never changes and, applied,
serves as a very sure means for personal development and success.
Uses gentle yet persuasive words, not physical force, to communicate his position.
Woodrow Wilson, in his election campaign for President, stated "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about… America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."**
Abigail Adams
1744-1818
*Abigail Adams, Letter to John Quincy Adams, June 10, 1778, Butterfield Adams Family Correspondence, 3:37, http://books.google.com/books?id=59dQoRNSwxMC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq...&q=butterfield%20adams%20family%20correspondence%20his%20care%20and%20attention%20to%20you%20render&f=false
**http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120802/NEWS03/120802024/Chris-McDaniel...
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