The Struggle For Stupidity : Educating The Young Mind
17 Sunday Aug 2014
Written by dennisghurst in Inspiration
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Bill Whittle, Christianity, Classics Education, Conservatism, Constitutional Republic, Everlasting, Family, Firewall, Founders Academy, Freedom, God, Hillsdale College, Jesus Christ, Lessons, Life, ResponsiveEd, Teaching, Wisdom
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Not a mile from where I live, sits Founders Academy of Lewisville. They have another facility opening this month 200 miles away in the Austin suburb of Leander, and are part of the collaboration between the Hillsdale College Barney Charter School Initiative and Responsive Education Solutions – otherwise known as ResponsiveEd. To read more about these wonderful halls of learning go here and/or the other links throughout this piece.
The reason I’m highlighting these schools is to support this latest “Firewall” from Bill Whittle, “The Struggle for Stupidity”, and the revelation (as if We The People had to be reminded of how abject the government school system is) of how far away from the traditional home school curricula our education system has fallen; “reading, writing, and arithmetic” were the foundation of early education, with a very large dose of classical educational studies thrown in for good measure – to say nothing of the other underlying foundation, the regular study and practice of the Bible. As a boy growing up in post WWII England, our Secondary School Days always began with a 9:00 am “Message of the Day”; a relevant Bible reading; a closing prayer, then off to begin classes at 9:15 am – every day.
Bill Whittle is a great polemicist (check him out on the numerous topics in which he is well-versed on “Afterburner”, his current “Firewall” series, or through his personal appearances) but as the Founders Academy reminds us, the knowledge of the Classics is not dead, even though the current edition of the Dept. of Education is doing its darnedest to bury them in the ash-heap of history in the struggle for stupidity:
I read an account from one of the teachers who just went through four weeks of teaching Ancient Greece, with two other colleagues, to children from third to eighth grade, in preparation for the new school year. They were ravenous to have closer knowledge of the tales of the Rage of Achilles, the death of Hector, Odysseus, the man of twists and turns, and his return home to Ithaca. The gods and goddesses they know in some depth, thanks to the Rick Riordan novels of Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus. These kids were given a diet of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle. They read from Aristophanes’ “The Clouds”, in which he pokes ruthless fun at Socrates. They also were familiarized with the battles at Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Leuctra. They practiced the Hoplite phalanx and wrote plays about the deeds of fighting heroes. The Classics are alive and well, inspiring a new generation to drink deep of their wisdom.
So much for the struggle for stupidity.
Let’s face it folks – generally speaking in the struggle for stupidity, most of those who are/were raised in government schools are, by-and-large, mental sluggards, but that’s not to say that we all are, nor are we lacking in other key areas that would dictate our success. It is an affront to anyone’s personal honor and dignity were we not to pursue excellence in every facet of our lives, and therefore I believe that “education” needs to be seen more as a lifestyle rather than something you are forced to endure for the first 20-something years of your life. Like everything else, it is a choice, and those who choose to seek a higher standard of living than their progenitors, generally succeed. One of my dear English friends (always on the bright side of life) might express it thusly: “That’s why I started a business at 18, why I was able to educate myself with my own money and not take on student debt, why I have my car bought and paid for, why I get up early, work hard and diligently all day, then go to bed satisfied that I’ve done my very best.” Hardly a hint of the struggle for stupidity in that assessment.
Rather than despair in the hopelessness that grips all of us from time to time, I’m personally doing my part to reverse the steady march of ignorance, incompetence, and downright shiftlessness that is so prevalent in today’s society, especially when it comes to the Dept. of Education. We all need to do our best, and if we do, America will reach the heights of greatness once again. Just imagine if half the nation had the same zeal as those third to eighth graders, giving up a whole month of their summer to learn more about the Classics, and doing it with a “ravenous appetite.” The struggle for stupidity would be done and dusted in an instant.
So there ARE alternatives to sending our children to the death camps of government public school indoctrination in the struggle for stupidity, with all their rules and regulations of CommonCore, and White House-induced lunch menus, and lock-downs, and shootings, and radar weapons-screenings, and dumbing-down lessons on contraceptive use, and homosexuality, and gender-equal restrooms, and text-books on abortions, and sexual intercourse techniques, and other mind-numbing behaviors. Founders Academy is free, just like “gubmint skrules” but my goodness, what well-mannered, well-educated, civic-minded young adults emerge from their Christian-based environment. The struggle for stupidity retracts into educating the young mind. PERIOD.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” ~ Proverbs 22:6
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