Education Series, Part 4
By
Darla Isackson
Click
here for
Part 1 Part
2 Part
3
Author’s
note:
I
feel it important to offer a preview of the rest of the series.
After this article I will move from analyzing the problem to the
happier topic of possible solutions. I am currently interviewing
parents, gathering information, and planning articles that will
include the following:
1. Experiences of parents whose children seem to be successfully
weathering the storms of the public school system--for example,
a family in North Carolina whose children excel in their predominantly
non-LDS schools and are staying firm in the faith. I hope to explore
what such parents are doing in an attempt to counter the negative
aspects of public schools and how they offer extra support to
live gospel standards.
2. Experiences of parents who are combining public school with
home school--possibly teaching academics at home but taking children
to school for classes in music, drama, art, sports, or taking
advantage of the option of BYU Continuing Education’s full schedule
of high school classes--online or paper, which can supplement
a parent’s resources. (Some of these classes can also give high
school students college credit.)
3. Experiences of parents who have enrolled their children in
private LDS academies. How parents can search out available academies
or even help start them. I’ll given a brief overview of how the
academies operate, how they differ from public schools, what parents
and students are saying about them, what they are experiencing.
Also how some academies mesh their programs with public school
music, drama, sports, etc.
4. Experiences of parents who are working together in LDS Co-op
home schooling. Assessing the ups and downs, the problems and
the possibilities, various ways to organize.
5. Experiences of parents, and even grandparents who are successfully
home schooling. The organizations and the curriculum resources
that support them. How to assess your own strengths and capabilities
and the potential benefits and liabilities of home schooling for
your own children. Where to go for information and support from
others who have sailed these uncharted seas.
Readers
who would like to contribute ideas and experiences for any of
the above articles may e-mail me at: darla2@xmission.com.
I would love to hear from you!
***
In
a talk titled the “Charted Course of the Church in Education,”
President J. Reuben Clark Jr. quoted Daniel Webster, “When the
mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and of
an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause
in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude,
and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true
course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther
on the waves . . . refer to the point from which we departed,
that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are”
(The Ensign, September, 2002, p. 55). This quote eloquently
states my intent. Part 1 and 2 of this series referred to one
point from which we departed--the educational direction of prophets
in the early days of the Church. In Part 3 W. Cleon Skousen took
us back to the Founding Fathers, and added the dimension of what
they intended for American schools--an even earlier point
from which we have departed. Skousen summarized with clarity the
intention of the Founding Fathers to safeguard the exercise of
religion, knowing that the fulfillment of their dream of democracy
rested on the ability of the people to stay true to the basic
religious tenants they all espoused. They trusted that these tenants
would be passed on to future generations not only in the homes,
but in the schools. They specifically laid out their plan for
schools to teach basic religion and morality as well as secular
knowledge. In two consecutive parts, posted on July 2 and 5 you
will find the text of pp. 675-688 from Skousen’s book The Making
of America. If you missed this excellent summary, I suggest
you go back and read it. He recounts the history of our government’s
turn against the First Amendment and how far off course the storms
of Godless education have driven us from the Founding Fathers’
vision.
Vital
Questions
In
this article, Part 4 of the educational series, I want to examine
one more “point from which we have departed” in order to more
clearly “conjecture where we now are.” In order to truly see
what the Lord would have us do in regard to the education of our
children, we must first understand why education is so important
after all. We must be clear about what we lack in order to improve.
•
What are the fundamental purposes of education?
•
How well did the schools in the 1800s and 1900s accomplish these
purposes?
•
How well are the schools today accomplishing these purposes?
Searching
for Answers
- What Are the Fundamental Purposes of Education?
Respected
Church scholar and BYU professor Hugh Nibley, on a tape series
called "Preparing for the Millennium,” suggests that the
emphasis on education strictly to qualify us to make more money
is totally misguided--that true education should refine the soul,
make us more godlike. We should be educated not just to make a
living, but to build a meaningful life.
Educator
and author Dr. Jack Monnett said, "True education is not
restricted to the intellect but includes character, morals, habits,
and development of Christlike love. . . The prophets explained
that a fallacy in public education was the division of moral instruction
on one hand and academic instruction on the other. By amplifying
the intellect and denying character curriculum, schools had assisted
in the creation of an out-of-balanced society that is ‘ever learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ In his
letter to Timothy, Paul further explained that learning without
knowledge would be symptomatic of the last days because of uncorrected
character flaws, such as people coming to love "their own
selves, [being] covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy" etc. (2 Tim. 3: 1-7). President
David O. McKay, formerly an academy principal, a Commissioner
of Church Education, and the President of the Church, cautioned
that, ‘The principle aim of schools and colleges seems to be to
give the students purely intellectual attainments and to give
but passing regard to the nobler and more necessary development
along moral lines.’"
Monnett
continued, "True education was intended to be more inclusive.
More specifically he [Pres. McKay] taught that: ‘true education
does not assist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science,
history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.
True education awakens a desire to conserve health by keeping
the body clean and undefiled. True education trains in self-denial
and self-mastery. True education regulates the temper, subdues
passion, and makes obedience to social laws and moral order a
guiding principle of life. It develops reason and inculcates faith
in the living God as the eternal, loving Father of all’ (Conference
Report, April, 1932, p. 64).” (Revealed Education Principles
& the Public Schools, Jack Monnett, Archive Publishers,
Heber City, Ut, 1999, p. 123-124)
Although
these words may sound lofty and idealistic, one would be hard
put to argue with them. I would even be inclined to add to them
that true education should encourage the flowering of individual
gifts and talents--the discovery of self, the ability to think
one’s own thoughts, and the courage to express one’s own opinions.
To keep all these high-minded goals in perspective we need to
see them as stars to steer by, not sticks to beat ourselves with.
Interestingly
enough, such ideals are founded in practicality. It is impractical
to steep the mind in facts alone. It is also impractical to attempt
to press all students into the same mold, because individuality
is the imprint of heaven and cannot be erased. It is practical
to strengthen character, to encourage individual growth, and to
learn the spiritual disciplines that make daily life a practice
in right living, not just an intellectual exercise. Monnett said,
"The Lord’s education program is necessarily practical; real
learning includes application [including moral application]. The
prophets have always spoken of education in terms of practicality.
Brigham Young told the Saints that, "We should seek substantial
information and trust little to that kind of so-called learning
that is based entirely on theory . . . Let our school teachers
seek constantly to fasten upon the young mind useful information"
(Journal of Discourses. Vol 9, p. 369). "Do not confine
their study to theory only, but put in practice what they learn
from books" (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 17, p.45,
April 18, 1874). (Ibid p. 197)
2.
How Well Did the Schools in the 1800s Accomplish the Fundamental
Purposes Stated Above?
Concerns about quality
of education are not new. Neither is the trend to substitute strictly
intellectual knowledge for wisdom and practical life skills. The
following excerpt is taken from the inaugural address of Joseph
Smith upon being elected Mayor of the city of Nauvoo. He quoted
from a current periodical, Alexander’s Messenger, to substantiate
his views concerning practical versus theoretical education:
“The following observations in relation to false education, from
Alexander’s Messenger, so perfectly accords with my feelings
and views on this highly important subject, that I cannot do better
than incorporate them in this message,
‘Among the changes for the worse, which the world has witnessed
within the last century, we include that specious, superficial,
incomplete way of doing certain things, which were formerly thought
to be deserving of care, labor and attention. It would seem that
appearance is now considered of more moment than reality. The
modern mode of education is an example in point. Children are
so instructed as to acquire a smattering of everything, and as
a matter of consequence, they know nothing properly. Seminaries
and academies deal out their moral and natural philosophy, their
geometry, trigonometry, and astronomy, their chemistry, botany,
and mineralogy, until the mind of the pupil becomes a chaos; and
like the stomach when it is overloaded with a variety of food,
it digests nothing, but converts the superabundant nutriment to
poison. This mode of education answers one purpose--it enable
people to seem learned; and seemingly, by a great many is thought
all sufficient. Thus we are schooled in quackery, and are early
taught to regard showy and superficial attainments as most desirable.
Every boarding school miss is a Plato in petticoats, without an
ounce of that genuine knowledge, that true philosophy, which would
enable her to be useful in the world and to escape those perils
with which she much necessarily be encompassed. Young people
are taught to use a variety of hard terms which they understand
but imperfectly--to repeat lessons which they are unable to apply--to
astonish their grandmothers with a display of their parrot-like
acquisition; but their mental energies are clogged and torpified
with a variety of learned lumber, most of which is discarded from
the brain long before the possessor knows how to use it. This
is the quackery of education.’” (Ibid, pp. 249-250) There is obvious
application to our educational headaches today.
In
1831 the commandment was given for the Saints to write their own
gospel-based textbooks. Yet the textbooks at that time were full
of Bible quotes and solid values. For instance, Jack Monnett wrote,
“A few years ago I ran across a public school history book entitled
The Village School Geography. It was written in 1835,
just four years following the commandment [to the Saints to write
their own textbooks] and the same year that the Kirtland Temple
was dedicated. It was written and used in the same area of the
country, and was typical of books of those times. You and I would
look at this book and we'd say, ‘Hey, this is a pretty good little
book.’ For example, Chapter 1 begins, ‘Genesis, Chapter 1: Our
Father in Heaven made the skies above and the earth below,’ and
it goes on to say that ‘we are now going to talk about all of
Heavenly Father's creations.’ All of Chapter 1 is about the book
of Genesis. Wouldn't you like to take a history class like that?
Wouldn't you feel comfortable sending your children to a school
that used The Village School Geography? I think you would.
The book ends, ‘Now that we've learned about our Father in Heaven's
creations, we've learned more respect for Him. We also have to
have respect for our teachers and respect for our parents.’ The
next paragraph says, ‘Be sure to say your prayers each night,
ask for blessings and you'll receive blessings in this life and
in the world to come.’
“That
was part of the public school curriculum in early Ohio, yet the
interesting thing is that the Brethren, in 1831, said that was
not sufficient. As good as it was, it was not sufficient. What
else did we need? We needed specific curriculum that directly
reflected the gospel of Jesus Christ--not the Bible as interpreted
by others, but the literal gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus the commandment
to write textbooks for our children.” This commandment was given
in D&C 55: 4: “And again, verily I say unto you, [speaking
to W. W. Phelps] you shall be ordained to assist my servant Oliver
Cowdery to do the work of printing, and of selecting and writing
books for schools in this church, that little children also may
receive instruction before me as is pleasing unto me.”) Beginning
in the 1880s many gospel-centered textbooks were written--some
referred to in my last article and many reprinted by Archive Publishers
and available again to the Saints. However, as explained in Part
2, by the late 1880s the public schools in Utah had become tax-supported
and controlled by school boards that were predominantly non-LDS.
Use of modern scriptures, references to Mormon doctrine, or use
of Mormon textbooks was forbidden.
3.
How Well Did Public Schools in the 1900s Accomplish Education’s
Fundamental Purposes?
In
the 1915 General Conference, President Joseph F. Smith said, “I
believe that we are running education mad. I believe that we
are taxing the people more for education than they should be taxed.
This is my sentiment. And especially is it my sentiment when
the fact is known that all these burdens are placed upon the taxpayers
of the state to teach the learning or education of this world.
God is not in it. Religion is excluded from it. The Bible is
excluded from it.” As the public schools veered further and further
from the religious and character-building goals of education,
in the late 1800s the Church had established academies where these
true values could be taught--but only 10% of the Saints supported
the Church academies, and by 1920, all except those for higher
education had failed financially and been shut down.
Encouraging
LDS Teachers
At
the time the Church academies were discontinued, David O. McKay
was Commissioner of Church Education. In addition to vigorously
promoting the seminary and institute programs, he spearheaded
a huge movement to encourage faithful Latter-day Saints to enter
the teaching profession. The LDS colleges--BYU, Dixie, Snow, and
Ricks for awhile became primarily teacher colleges. The idea was
to counter-balance the loss of control of the public schools by
loading the schools with as many good faithful LDS teachers as
possible. Though they were restricted from teaching the Book of
Mormon and exclusively Mormon doctrine, they were not at that
time restricted from praying, teaching from the Bible, and teaching
sound moral values. By the 40s, however, these colleges were no
longer primarily teacher colleges and by the 50s and 60s we as
a people were no longer providing substantial numbers of LDS teachers
to the public schools.
The
Ruling Against Prayer in Public Schools
Then,
in 1962 came the blow of the Supreme Court ruling against prayer
in public schools. Here are some of the things the Brethren said
concerning this decision.
Boyd
K. Packer said, "Just a year after I had been called as a
General Authority, I saw President McKay very agitated. I had
not seen him that way before. We were in a meeting in the temple
with all of the General Authorities in October 1962, prior to
the general conference. When President McKay came in, he was
obviously very agitated. When it came his time to speak, he told
us that the Supreme Court had made a decision announcing the prohibition
of prayer in the public schools." President McKay’s printed
statement about this decision, which Elder Packer then mentioned
in part, was: "The Supreme Court of the United States has
made it unpatriotic for public schools to teach your children
to pray. By making that unconstitutional, the Supreme Court severs
the connecting cord between the public schools of the United States
and the source of divine intelligence, the Creator himself. Evidently
the Supreme Court misinterprets the true meaning of the First
Amendment, and are now leading this Christian nation down the
road to atheism." ("Parental Responsibility," Relief
Society Magazine, Dec. 1962, p. 878. Also printed in the Church
News June 22, 1963]. Elder Packer continued, "That statement
and his anxiety was prophetic of what has come now and the drift
that we have seen." (Boyd K. Packer, David O. McKay Symposium,
BYU, Oct 9, 1996) The First Amendment reads "Congress shall
make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof." In Part 3, Cleon Skousen explained
in detail how badly that First Amendment has been trampled, how
much the free exercise of religion has been restricted.
Just
four years ago, when President Hinckley was asked by the Press:
“What about prayer and meditation in public schools?” President
Hinckley replied: “We took a terrible step backwards some years
ago. I don’t know whether we’ll recover from it.” (Gordon B.
Hinckley, Speech to National Press Club, Q&A Session, March
8, 2000)
The
Danger of Minority Rule in Public Schools
Even
though the vast majority of parents who send children to public
schools believe in God and believe in the Bible, the minorities
who do not believe in these things have taken control of what
is taught. Although minority rights should always be protected;
the rights of the majority should never be sacrificed for those
of the minority. This is possibly the greatest danger of public
schools. In a 1970 general conference address, President Benson
quoted this prophetic insight:
“The tenth plank of Karl Marx’s Manifesto for destroying our kind
of civilization advocated the establishment of “free education
for all children in public schools.” There were several reasons
why Marx wanted government to run the schools. . . One of them
[was that] ‘It is capable of exact demonstration that if every
party on the State has the right of excluding from public school
whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes
most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that
believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing,
no matter in how small a minority the atheists or agnostics may
be. It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently
and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the
United States system of popular education will be the most efficient
and widespread instrument for the propagation of atheism which
the world has ever seen.” (Improvement Era, December, 1970,
p. 49)
Many
believe we are now experiencing a prohibition of the free exercise
of any religion in the schools--except the negative “religion”
of atheism. In a talk given to graduating students at the University
of Utah and later printed in the Ensign, Elder Packer said,
“There is a crying need for the identification of atheism for
what it is, and that is, a religion—albeit a negative one, nevertheless
it is a religious expression. It is the one extreme end of the
spectrum of thought concerning the causation of things.Those who
are spiritually sensitive recognize God as the cause, a living
being who rules in the affairs of man. The so-called atheist declares
that God is not—not just that he isn’t the cause of things, but
that he indeed is not. We put sunshine and rain under the
heading of weather. It would be a little ridiculous to talk about
clear weather and cloudy and claim that the two are not related
and could not be considered as part of the same discipline. It
is equally ridiculous to separate theism from atheism and claim
that they are two separate matters, particularly when we condone,
in some instances encourage, the atheist to preach his doctrine
in the . . . classroom, and then at once move with great vigor
to eliminate any positive reference to God. He is protected, as
they say, by the principle of academic freedom.” He continued,
"I submit that the atheist has no more right to teach
the fundamentals of his sect in the public school than does the
theist. Any system in the schools or in society that protects
the destruction of faith and forbids, in turn, the defense of
it must ultimately destroy the moral fiber of the people. Is any
lesson more abundantly clear in our present society?” (Boyd K.
Packer, "What Every Freshman Should Know,’" (Ensign,
Sept. 1973, p. 32)
Two
decades later, Elder Packer said, "Moral values are being
neglected and prayer expelled from public schools on the pretext
that moral teaching belongs to religion. At the same time, atheism,
the secular religion, is admitted to class, and our youngsters
are proselyted to a conduct without morality.” ("The Father
and the Family," Ensign, May 1994, p. 19)
Joyce
Kinmont said, "There is something especially interesting
about that quote: So many parents think their children need to
stay in the school system to be missionaries, but President Packer
says it is our children who are being proselyted!"
4.
2004 and the Fundamental Purposes of Education
Although
we may still find many upstanding and committed teachers in public
schools, many of the best are leaving because of the constraints
of the system and various negative conditions. It seems evident
that our schools in general have resigned from the basic purposes
of education stated earlier.
One
of the most eye-opening books I’ve read on that subject is
Dumbing Us Down written by John Taylor Gatto. Gatto was a
public schoolteacher for 30 years, and was New York State Teacher
of the Year, yet is one of the most outspoken concerning the inadequacies
of the system. In the first chapter, called “the Seven-Lesson
Schoolteacher” he says that although he was certified to teach
English, that he, like all other public school teachers, was actually
paid to teach confusion, class position, indifference, emotional
dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem,
and that you are under constant surveillance and can’t hide .
. . Such a curriculum, he says, produces physical, moral, and
intellectual paralysis. (pp. 2-11, 14) He says, “It is the great
triumph of compulsory government monopoly mass schooling that
among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the
best of my students’ parents, only a small number can imagine
a different way to do things. . . . [Yet] only a few lifetimes
ago things were very different in the United States. Originality
and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation
made us the miracle of the world; social-class boundaries were
relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident,
inventive, and able to do much for themselves independently, and
to think for themselves . . . From Colonial days through the period
of the Republish we had no school to speak of . . . yet literacy
at the time of the American Revolution . . . was close to total
. . . Senator Ted Kennedy’s office released a paper claiming
that prior to compulsory education (which happened around 1850)
the state literacy rate was ninety-eight percent and that after
it the figure never exceeded ninety-one percent, where it stood
in 1990.” ( pp. 12,22) “Were the Colonists geniuses?” Gatto asked?
No, the truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take
about one hundred hours to transit as long as the audience is
eager and willing to learn . . . The continuing cry for “basic
skills” practice is a smoke screen behind which schools preempt
the time of children for twelve years and teach them the seven
lessons I’ve just described to you” (Dumbing Us Down,
New Society Publishers, 2002, p. 12).
In
another of Gatto’s books, The Underground History of American
Education, he expresses his view of public schools “as a conflict
pitting the needs of social machinery against those of the human
spirit, a war of mechanisms against flesh and blood ”
Textbooks
Today vs. Spiritual Roots
What
kind of textbooks are our children studying in the public schools
in 2004? Are they learning respect for God and parents and the
Bible? Are they learning respect for the Founding Fathers and
other prayerful leaders? Are they learning the spiritual aspects
of history? In the book The Rewriting of American History,
the author, Catherine Millard, gives numerous examples of
current public school history textbooks that have stripped all
references to the spiritual dimension of history. For instance,
what do our children learn about Columbus today? Do they hear
anything about the fact that he felt spiritually led?
The
Church published a pamphlet in 1976 for the bicentennial containing
four family nights lessons; the second was called, "A Land
With a Divine Mission," It contained the following quote
from Columbus: "From my first youth onward, I was a seaman
and have so continued until this day…. Wherever on the earth a
ship has been, I have been. I have spoken and treated with learned
men, priests, and laymen, Latins, and Greeks, Jews and Moors,
and with many men of other faiths. The Lord was well disposed
to my desire, and He bestowed upon me courage and understanding;
knowledge of seafaring. He gave me in abundance, of astrology
as much as was needed, and of geometry and astronomy likewise.
Further, He gave me joy and cunning in drawing maps and thereon
cities, mountains, rivers, islands, and harbours, each one in
its place. I have seen and truly I have studied all books—cosmographies,
histories, chronicles, and philosophies, and other arts, for which
our Lord unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire
for the deed. Those who heard of my enterprise called it foolish,
mocked me, and laughed. But who can doubt but that the Holy Ghost
inspired me? (Jacob Wasserman, Columbus, Don Quixote of the
Seas, translated by Eric Sutton [Boston: Little, Brown, and
Co., 1930], pp.19-20; cited in The Great Prologue, p. 26)
Instead
of teaching the children that Columbus felt led by God to America,
the new textbooks report that he was motivated strictly by greed
and hope for riches. What difference does it make? All the difference
in the world!
Martin
Luther summed up the problem we are faced with when God, the scriptures,
and all references to things of a spiritual nature are left out
of the classroom, “I am much afraid that schools will prove to
be great gates of hell unless
they
diligently labor in explaining the holy scriptures, engraving
them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child
where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution
in which men are not increasingly occupied with the word of God
must become corrupt.”
What
Are Our Children Really Up Against?
Speaking
to the David O. McKay School Education at BYU, President Packer
said, "In many places it is literally not safe physically
for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools--and it is
almost becoming generally true--it is spiritually unsafe to attend
public schools." (Boyd K. Packer, David O. McKay Symposium,
Brigham Young University, October 9, 1996)
Dr.
Jack Monnett, in his book Revealed Educational Principles &
the Public Schools, Summarizes the problems parents are seeing
in the current public school system:
“Despite
the counter-balancing efforts of the Church’s aggressive religious
education program, many parents have still sought other educational
solutions to public schools. Their motives for an alternative
education have apparently been sparked for five major reasons:
(1) Often published school curricula is at odds with revealed
truth
(2) Peer influence--language, discussion groups, accepted behavior--in
some public schools is seen as undue unrighteous influence.
(3) The understanding that revealed gospel truth should act as
a thread binding all academic subject matter.
(4) Time spent in public schools could be used to greater advantage
through better-structured academic programs.
(5) Group conformity in public schools frequently stifles individual
initiative. (Revealed Educational Principles, p. 233)
Here
is a composite of responses to my first article: “Our family does
not attend R rated movies, (in fact we rarely go to PG 13 movies
anymore.) We work hard to have a good spirit in our home, and
my husband has chosen to work in an environment where he is not
exposed to bad language or other degrading influences. Yet every
day we send our immature children to schools where they are exposed
to X rated language and bad influences and expect them to magically
spread light and sunshine and emerge unscathed. It’s not working.
I’m desperate for alternatives.”
What
is a parent to do?
Many
parents are feeling the pressure. Many would like to do something
different but have no idea where to begin or what to do. Beginning
with my next article, Part 5, we will explore options and share
exciting answers that prayerful and committed parents are finding
every day.
Note:
For more information about the book Revealed Educational Principles
& the Public Schools, or to obtain copies go to: www.archivepublishers.com
or call Brother Monnett at 435-785-8090
For
books and tapes by Darla Isackson, go to:
www.rosehavenpublishing.com
