THE MADNESS OF PAGAN EDUCATION

Three simple quotes pack powerful truths that I am in complete agreement with. Meditate upon them. Watch the documentary, IndoctriNation from New Leaf Press. #1 It has always mystified me why parents think that it is lawful to send our children into our public education system, which is dedicated to teaching paganism.If people found out I was going to start sending my kids to a Muslim school, they would have a conniption fit. If I were to send my children to a Hindu school, I would be in serious trouble. I would probably get fired. But parents have no problem sending their children to pagan schools. Scott Brown, Director of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches. #2 Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers, who you know nothing about, and out of your sight having them work on your child's mind for 12 years? It is a mad idea! John Gatto, New York City teacher of the year. #3 When your children are in the public school environment (even if they and you are good Christians) and they are walking the halls and in the locker rooms, they're hearing about all the music and the movies of the world and the sensuality and the sin of the world, that is (what Psalms calls) standing in the way of sinners. Children in these schools develop an attitude of resentment toward authority, towards parents, towards teachers, and that is something we have been told to avoid. Israel Wayne, homeschool graduate and author of Homeschooling From A Biblical World View.

HOW TO MAKE A KID BORED!

Here is how to make a child bored: first and foremost, keep him indoors so that the infinitude of nature, its endless variation and chaotic messiness is replaced by a finite, orderly, predictable realm. Second, through television and video games, habituate him to intense stimuli so that everything else seems boring by comparison. Third, eliminate as much as possible any unstructured time with other children, so that he loses his capacity for creative play and needs entertainment instead. Fourth, shorten his attention span with fast-paced programming, dumbed-down books, and frequent interruptions of his play. Fifth, hover over him whenever possible to stunt his self-trust and make him dependent on outside stimulation. Sixth, hurry him from activity to activity to create anxiety about time and eliminate the easy sense of timelessness native to the young. No one, of course, sets out on purpose to strip away their children's most primal self-sufficiency - the self-sufficiency of play - but that is the net effect of a culture fixated on safety, bound to schedules, and addicted to entertainment. In a former time, children, despite a dearth of complicated toys, were rarely bored. Ask your grandparents whether they were bored as children, with their bikes, bats and balls, simple dolls that didn't speak or move by themselves, in the days before television. Boredom, in fact, is a very recent word, apparently not having appeared in print until the mid-19th century. It is not a natural state, and did not exist in state of nature, or in a state anywhere near nature. It is a symptom of our alienation. Boredom, however, is quite good for the economy. It motivates all kinds of consumption, an endless hunger to keep ourselves entertained. It points therefore to a need that was once met without money, but that is now met with money; the phenomenon of boredom and its alleviation exemplifies a much more general economic principle. In order for the (money) economy to grow, some function once exercised without money must be converted into a good or a service. One can view economic growth as a progressive stripmining of nature and community, turning the former into commodities and the latter into paid services, depleting, respectively, the natural and social commons. Pollute the water and sell bottled water; disempower folk healing and make people pay for medical care; destroy cultural traditions that bestow identity and sell brand name sneakers... the examples are endless. Boredom is a symptom of a similar stripmining of what was once a kind of wealth native to us all: the ability to feel good doing nothing, the ability to create our own fun, a general sense of sovereignty over our own time. This is a form of what I call spiritual capital. As I write this, my six-year-old sits a few feet away, wholly absorbed in threading a colored string through an old tape roll. Without a screen in front of him, his brain must make its own images - an ability that counts among the forms of spiritual capital. Before that he was begging to be allowed to watch a video. His whining and cajoling seemed almost like an addict wanting a fix. I haven't tried to isolate him from society. Even though we don't have TV, we do have videos, and he still gets plenty of that kind of thing elsewhere. Besides, there are rarely any kids playing outside. Their parents won't let them, at least not in this neighborhood. They are afraid: afraid of nature, afraid of other people, afraid of what might happen, suspicious of play, loath to have their children unsupervised. Let us create a world of real wealth, where our ability to play and imagine are intact, and where the outdoors is full of children. -Charles Eisenstein

NAVY BACKS OFF HOMESCHOOLING SNUB!

After easily passing the military aptitude test (ASVAB) to get into the United States Navy, a homeschooler from South Dakota was denied acceptance by an Armed Forces recruitment officer, who told him that his score was not high enough because homeschoolers have to score higher than students who have been traditionally educated. Confused as to why homeschooled students were punished by having to score a 50 to get into the military – public schoolers only need a 35 to pass – the parents of Jared Wright* contacted the Home School Legal Defense Association to see whether the Navy's admission policy was legal and accurate. Not so fast ... Not long after being contacted by the Wrights and discussing their situation, HSLDA senior counsel Scott Woodruff sent an email to the Navy recruiter inquiring into his discriminatory treatment of the homeschooler. "I understand that you recently told [Jared Wright], who desires to enlist in the Navy, that he could not be accepted because he was homeschooled and his ASVAB score was below 50," Woodruff wrote. "If this in fact happened, your notes may reflect superseded policies and need to be updated." Woodruff, Scott (HSLDA)Woodruff went on to present the facts and lay out the proper protocol for admission into the Navy. "Pursuant to the National Defense Reauthorization Act of 2014, homeschooled applicants shall not be required to score at a higher level on the ASVAB than public school students," Woodruff asserted. "This legislation has been implemented into policy form at the Pentagon level." The Christian attorney – who has helped thousands of homeschool families challenged by social workers, police officers, truant officers, principals, superintendents and prosecuting attorneys – proceeded to instruct the recruiter to contact specific personnel at the Pentagon for confirmation of this information. Accordingly, Woodruff contended that Jared's acceptance into the Navy should be a no-brainer. "I understand that [Jared]'s score was well within the level that is acceptable for a public school student," Woodruff pointed out. "There should therefore be no impediment to him moving forward with entrance into the U.S. Navy." Just hours after the recruiter received Woodruff's email, he did an about-face and notified Jared that his score was indeed sufficient to enlist in the Navy. More than just 'sufficient' Woodruff wanted to make sure that the Navy-aspiring teen from Sioux Falls was assured that his commendable score earned him a ticket to the job of his choice – not a disqualification. "Based on his scores, he qualified for the job he wanted in the Navy and many other Navy jobs," Woodruff told OneNewsNow in an exclusive interview. The attorney, who is licensed to practice in Virginia and Missouri and serves as a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, is quick to point out that Jared's high performance is no fluke, as homeschoolers consistently outperform students enrolled in traditional education. "According to Dr. Lawrence Rudner, the average homeschooled 8th-grader scores at the level of a 12th-grader on standardized tests," Woodruff reports. "There is simply no empirical reason to discriminate against homeschool graduates." In fact, across the curricula – regardless of age or subject – homeschoolers average 30 percentage points higher than conventionally educated youth; while doctoral dissertations consistently show that – contrary to the popular belief promoted by public school officials – homeschoolers are better socialized and typically exude superior leadership skills than their counterparts in the public classroom. This is consistent with Woodruff's analysis of homeschoolers. "When there is a level playing field, homeschool graduates will always shine," Woodruff concludes. Perfect timing In the not-so-distant past, homeschoolers had their work cut out for them when it came to applying for the military, and HSLDA attorneys plunged onto the battlefield to fight for their equal right to serve. Standing in their way was the discriminatory language in the National Defense Authorization Act, or H.R. 3304, which made it more difficult for homeschoolers to gain admittance into the military. Estrada "In August of 2012, a bipartisan group of U.S. representatives sent a letter to the Pentagon demanding that officials eliminate this discriminatory policy, but the Pentagon ignored the letter," reported director of HSLDA federal relations and staff attorney William Estrada. "At this point, HSLDA determined that the only solution would be another amendment to the NDAA. Homeschoolers were able to enlist, but it was unacceptable that they needed to score higher than public and private school graduates on the military's initial enlistment test." And at the end of last year, HSLDA's hard work on homeschoolers behalf paid off. "And thanks to Representatives [John] Kline (R-Minnesota) and [Duncan] Hunter (R-California) and their tireless work on behalf of homeschoolers, the House included our language in a modified NDAA bill which was then sent to the Senate," Estrada continued. "On the Senate side, Senators [Orrin] Hatch (R-Utah) and [Lindsey] Graham (R-South Carolina) and their staff worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to ensure that our language was not stripped out. Upon final passage, President Obama quickly signed the bill into law." Estrada was ecstatic to see that both parties recognized the importance of making sure homeschoolers could serve their country without any undue hardship in the process. "HSLDA is grateful to see that homeschool freedom and equality is a bipartisan issue," Estrada declared. "Republicans and Democrats – culminating with President Obama's signature on the bill – came together to ensure that homeschool graduates will be treated in the same way as graduates of public or private schools when they enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces." - See more at: http://onenewsnow.com/education/2014/08/27/victory-navy-levels-the-field-for-homeschoolers#.VAdq4ewg_3g

How COMMON CORE TESTING CHEATS on the Statistics

Stop the celebration! The 0.1% increase on NY ELA tests may not be the result of our hard work & grit, but simply the result of lowered cut scores. New York State constantly changes the score needed to pass (cut scores) on ELA and Math tests. Only AFTER the tests are graded, a score needed to pass is established. All questions go through extensive field-testing before the tests go live. Why is this practice is needed? Perhaps it might have something to do with fulfilling the NYSED Commissioner’s prediction for ‘incremental’ increases in years to come. When Commissioner King declares ‘incremental’ increases August 2013, he delivers ‘incremental’ increases August 2014. NY promised to leave the cut scores unchanged and decided this year that they did not need teachers to be part of the process (as explained here). Results of the Math tests are up 4.6%, but the cut score was lowered by 3% (3rd grade). In 2013, students needed to receive 44 out of a possible 60 points in order to achieve a passing score of 3. In 2014, students needed to only receive 42 out of a possible 60 points in order to receive a passing grade of 3. Results of the ELA tests are up 0.1%, but the cut score was lowered by 2% (3rd grade). In 2013, students needed to receive 35 out of 55 possible points to achieve a passing score of 3. In 2014, students needed to only receive 30 out of a possible 49 points to receive a passing grade of 3. NOT ONLY IN NEW YORK! Notice, "Only AFTER the tests are graded, a score needed to pass is established." We worry about Islamic extremist training camps being set up in America. Well, flying under the radar, are socialist training camps in the form of common American education. They are already prevalent in our country and their goal isn't to catch up with other countries academically. They are thriving and promoting socialist, Marxist attitudes and doctrine among our young. Higher education, in collusion, is right there with them to put the nail in the coffin of America as we know it. This is not conspiracy thinking. It is fact and a minimum amount of research can verify this to the discerning parent. Posted by Lacetothetop

Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD

Suffer the Children The case against labeling and medicating children, and effective alternatives for treating them by Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France? Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder? Surprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether you live in France or in the United States. In the United States, child psychiatrists consider ADHD to be a biological disorder with biological causes. The preferred treatment is also biological--psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall. French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children's focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child's brain but in the child's social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child's brain. French child psychiatrists don't use the same system of classification of childhood emotional problems as American psychiatrists. They do not use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM. According to Sociologist Manuel Vallee, the French Federation of Psychiatry developed an alternative classification system as a resistance to the influence of the DSM-3. This alternative was the CFTMEA (Classification Française des Troubles Mentaux de L'Enfant et de L'Adolescent), first released in 1983, and updated in 1988 and 2000. The focus of CFTMEA is on identifying and addressing the underlying psychosocial causes of children's symptoms, not on finding the best pharmacological bandaids with which to mask symptoms. To the extent that French clinicians are successful at finding and repairing what has gone awry in the child's social context, fewer children qualify for the ADHD diagnosis. Moreover, the definition of ADHD is not as broad as in the American system, which, in my view, tends to "pathologize" much of what is normal childhood behavior. The DSM specifically does not consider underlying causes. It thus leads clinicians to give the ADHD diagnosis to a much larger number of symptomatic children, while also encouraging them to treat those children with pharmaceuticals. The French holistic, psychosocial approach also allows for considering nutritional causes for ADHD-type symptoms—specifically the fact that the behavior of some children is worsened after eating foods with artificial colors, certain preservatives, and/or allergens. Clinicians who work with troubled children in this country—not to mention parents of many ADHD kids—are well aware that dietary interventions can sometimes help a child's problem. In the United States, the strict focus on pharmaceutical treatment of ADHD, however, encourages clinicians to ignore the influence of dietary factors on children's behavior. And then, of course, there are the vastly different philosophies of child-rearing in the United States and France. These divergent philosophies could account for why French children are generally better-behaved than their American counterparts. Pamela Druckerman highlights the divergent parenting styles in her recent book, Bringing up Bébé. I believe her insights are relevant to a discussion of why French children are not diagnosed with ADHD in anything like the numbers we are seeing in the United States. From the time their children are born, French parents provide them with a firm cadre—the word means "frame" or "structure." Children are not allowed, for example, to snack whenever they want. Mealtimes are at four specific times of the day. French children learn to wait patiently for meals, rather than eating snack foods whenever they feel like it. French babies, too, are expected to conform to limits set by parents and not by their crying selves. French parents let their babies "cry it out" if they are not sleeping through the night at the age of four months. French parents, Druckerman observes, love their children just as much as American parents. They give them piano lessons, take them to sports practice, and encourage them to make the most of their talents. But French parents have a different philosophy of discipline. Consistently enforced limits, in the French view, make children feel safe and secure. Clear limits, they believe, actually make a child feel happier and safer—something that is congruent with my own experience as both a therapist and a parent. Finally, French parents believe that hearing the word "no" rescues children from the "tyranny of their own desires." And spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France. (Author's note: I am not personally in favor of spanking children). As a therapist who works with children, it makes perfect sense to me that French children don't need medications to control their behavior because they learn self-control early in their lives. The children grow up in families in which the rules are well-understood, and a clear family hierarchy is firmly in place. In French families, as Druckerman describes them, parents are firmly in charge of their kids—instead of the American family style, in which the situation is all too often vice versa. Copyright © Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. Marilyn Wedge is the author of Pills Are Not for Preschoolers: A Drug-Free Approach for Troubled Kids

FRANKLY, I'M TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT IT!

Tired of hearing about what? Parent's fears about the socialization of children who attend homeschool. I have been doing this for 35 years and I haven't seen a socially slow kid yet! I have seen kids that didn't get to play high school sports, but they come back years later and say they are glad and how much they appreciate their home school education and how much better prepared for college they were than their peers. Face it parents, I know it's free, but high school is not like it was even 20 years ago! I try very hard to stay abreast of what is happening in education and to keep my parents informed. Many parents see no need to be alarmed at the federal fight for the minds of our children, not because parents don’t care about their children, but mostly because of a lack of time and being exposed to constant propaganda via the media about how wonderful and socially necessary standard school really is. Never mind that “standard” school entails mostly social and sports activities and quite inadequate academic activities. Many students that I have taught over the years are here BECAUSE of the inadequacy of the public/Catholic schools systems. I do not say this as criticism of parents, but many are concerned as much with the social development of their children as the academic development of their children. If I had to pick one phrase that I have heard a million times is, “Well we are worried about his/her social development, having more friends and missing out on fun high school events, like Prom and Homecoming.” This is the American thought pattern as it is propagated by the liberal media and pop psychology. This type of thinking is what has led to America going from the best education system in the world to third-world status. In this on-going public dialogue of social vs academic there is one big question that has been left out. How concerned are we with our children’s spiritual development and what are we doing about it. Public school has just about removed all traces of spiritual, Christian influence; Catholic education has reduced it down to about 2 to 5%. Most of the students sleep, play on their phone or write notes in religion class. In both public and Catholic schools, teachers have their own religious philosophy, or lack thereof, and don’t mind sharing it with anyone who will listen. At a local high school one teacher poked pins in a voodoo doll when students were misbehaving and had no problem sharing her atheistic belief system. (Yes, right here in our small town). Here, I won’t even touch on the number of different philosophies that are brought to school from home by the students themselves – some not so pretty. So it is always a good idea to consider just who it is that you trust to socialize your children. To answer these and other home schooling questions I write this and have included many articles on our website (Lakewoodlearn.com), listing,from reputable sources, the detriment to a child’s academic and social health that standard/parochial education entails. Now, new since 2010, but kept on the QT until this year, we have Federal Common Core, an insidious political agenda, that has nothing to do with the academic betterment of our young, once innocent, children. This is in both the public and Catholic schools all across the country, and yes, even in our small town. Being knowledgeable about Home School will help you know how to vote in future elections. So here are your choices. 1st and foremost, I strongly encourage each parent to do their own homework about the advantages of home schooling over government schooling. Because if you don’t believe in homeschooling and you don’t see the positive things it does for your children then you will easily be swayed by media propaganda, friend’s or co-workers comments, worries of improper socialization, and the necessity of fighting for the right to choose your children’s path of proper education. I can’t stress strongly enough the need for you to be informed about the ravages of social development and exposure to all kinds of diversity, relativism, commercialism, hedonism, social Marxism, and improper college preparation that children in Common Core education face on a daily basis. Spiritual insight as to how to handle these situations will become crucial to our students in the future in this morally decaying country we are living in today. So , again, please read the blogs and articles on the website and search the internet for a greater understanding of just what home schooling is really about and remember, Christian spiritual development is built in to Seton home school curriculum. 2nd. Your children will get a diploma and a transcript upon graduation, so they can go to college without you doing anything different than you are doing right now. They can attend college with the help of grants, scholarships,(provided they work hard and have a good GPA and an excellent score on the ACT), financial aid, or personal financing. If, however, you want your child to be eligible for the state financial assistance (TOPS) program (this is another new rule) you will have to send your own personal letter of registration as a home school to the Dept. of Education each year. You can use our curriculum and send your children here, but you still have to send a letter at the beginning of each school year to register as a home school. This must be done for at least two years before graduation. 3rd . Here is the basic difference in Home School and Public/Catholic School: Home School is primarily 2 to 3 years academically advanced over Public/Catholic School. Home School Curriculum places Spiritual development first alongside Academic development, then aspects of Social development are included in the curriculum as well as interaction with other students. (Note: All of my children and some of my grandchildren have been homeschooled. All are successful in business and all of them were invited, during their high school years, to local public/Catholic high school proms, home-coming dances and sports events. My oldest granddaughter just graduated from college and is enrolled in the graduate program. Our latest Lakewood graduate graduated at 16 and is carrying a 4.0 grade point average her first semester in the very rigorous Nursing Program at a state university. Public/Catholic school places Sports development first, Social development second, and second-class academic development last (which includes hours of nightly homework) so that many have to have tutors during high school and their first year of college. College professors have spoken directly to us saying that P/C high school no longer prepares students for higher education. With the addition of Common Core, school progress and performance will be stifled and students will continue to decline in academics.

The New FCC - Federal Common Core

We have the FCC - Federal Communications Commission that regulates the brainwashing we receive through the media and now we have the new FCC - Federal Common Core that will be programming our children to act and think like left leaning liberal socialists. Common Core is the new Federal Curricula under the guise of individual state choice. Think your local school board has control of what your children are being taught? Most of the board members are naïve enough to think that they do still have control, but they don't. They are ruled by federal points and dollars. Believe me, they follow the money regardless of what they have to do to get it! Federal Common Core will make sure all kids think and are taught alike - poorly! This guarantees that American students will be several years behind high-achieving industrialized countries. The general purpose of our new bureaucratic FCC? Creating dumbed even further down workers, worshipers of liberal politicians. No part of the FCC is interested in educating free thinkers, creators, innovators, and surely not Christian thinkers! This is truly the end of freedom as we have known it. The sad epitaph is that American students were smarter and could read better BEFORE compulsory education began. It will soon be the 100th anniversary of the last state implementing compulsory attendance laws. Since that time education has gone straight down hill. Think about it; only a hundred years. Every year since the 80's we've been sold a bill of goods about a new magic pill that will fix our education system. All these lies have done is put more money in the bureaucrats coffers. It has never been about the kids. It is about big business and politics. So now FCC is supposed to fix everything. Won't happen. Federal Common Core is another ruse to blind the public to the Federal takeover of education, and what the government runs, in today's world, doesn't run very well and isn't good for anything except destroying our once great country. Think about this, do your own research, and remember your kids when you go to the polls in the next election. Their future depends upon it!

Negative? Sometimes Truth Seems Negative to Evil-minded Men.

I get accused of being negative about the condition of most schools, not only the condition our academics are in, but also the environment our children have to endure for 8 long hours of incarceration. These are the hours that they "belong" to the school, rather than the parent(s). Common Core has been added to most schools which further degrades the educational process. Why? Do your research. It won't take you long to realize that it is money motivated, not international ranking motivated. Thus the kids get booted around once again, degraded and treated like humans that don't really matter in the overall picture. Government intrusion is running rampant and no one seems to know what to do to stop it. Jesus knows and if we would use the tools He gave us and quit ignoring Him, we would be well on our way to turning this country around. But alas, not many are praying these days and even fewer read God's Word. So I guess when we're ready Jesus will fix our brokenness, but not until we're ready!

WORST SCHOOLS 2014

Recent report card results are in. Louisiana is one of the worst places for education(?) in the country. Only Mississippi is lower overall. Read and weep. 2. Louisiana > State score: 59.8 > High school graduation rate: 67.0% (6th worst) > Per pupil expenditure: $12,454 (19th highest) > Preschool enrollment: 52.1% (7th highest) Louisiana students had among the worst NAEP scores in the nation, with fourth and eighth graders ranking second worst in math proficiency, as well as third worst in reading proficiency. While proficiency scores in the state are on the rise, as of 2012, high school students in Louisiana were among the least likely to record high scores on A.P. tests. Many students in the state lack adequate opportunities to succeed as well, with low family incomes and limited parental employment or education. All these factors help shape the early foundations that play a big role in determining a child’s chances for success in pursuing an education. The state has also faced controversy in the past over a 2008 law that allows schools to teach creationism in science classes. Read more: States With the Best (and Worst) Schools - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/01/14/states-with-the-best-and-worst-schools-2/#ixzz2t1eWlln0 Follow us: @247wallst on Twitter | 247wallst on Facebook

DESCHOOLING RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The ideological assumption that ‘schooling’ and ‘education’ are synonyms, that they both describe the same exact thing, has sunk so deeply into our collective consciousness, that it is at this point ubiquitous. Common sense has gone insane. Homeschooling, for the most part, is nothing more than schooling in a home. The kitchen table replaces the desk, but the textbook and the formulaic curricula remain. So much of the dreary institutionalization that measures-out time into Mondays, TGIF’s, and blessed weekends, so much of our so-called work, from which we pine to escape and dread to return, is a natural extension of schooling: the schedule, the divided walls, the authority and compulsion, the mindless curriculum and assignments, the homework called “working from home,” the rules and the stupid, palliative reliefs that make life barely livable. The television shows that show us how schooled we are and then ask us to laugh at it and ourselves, with advertising in between. * Society itself can at times seems like nothing other than a school. The world has become a school, with discipline and pedagogy everywhere. We are taught how to shop and how to live and where to go to have a good time on billboards and flashing textbooks. Our cars and our glasses and our toilet paper are all included. The world as a school is a place where no person can be trusted — everyone must be trained and formed and protected from themselves. Algorithms predict our desires. Oracles. Someday, we too will become programmable computers. The generic idea of school is harmless and old. The modern version, beginning with the Prussian research university, followed by the Prussian compulsory schooling system, the first of its kind and a blueprint for the United States and now the rest of the world, is an extension of the now-failed political project of protestantism, modernity, colonialism, and (neo)liberalism. You can see school in the prison, the hospital, the buildings and programs that divide and herd and apply newfangled technologies of disciplinary cafeterias. The sort of schooling that now exists is much more vast than the local schoolhouse and its students, staff, teachers, and administrators. Today’s schooling is an ideology, a metanarrative, a messianic axiology that tells us that without schooling we will be left jobless, wretched, and unredeemed. Salvation today is given in degrees and diplomas and credentials. God is dead because we sent him to school, too. * In our parishes and churches, the sacraments have been thoroughly schooled. We treat them as we would a high school diploma. A religious credential. A passing grade. Catechesis, then, has become the required schooling for the credentialing of the sacraments. This is the logic of most religious education nowadays, even the ones that seem to be thoughtful and alternative thinking. Even the nice people who give up their time. Volunteers. There are no alternatives to schooling today. Our Church itself, the ecclesial structure and bureaucracy and petty ethics, has been schooled. Francis is radical because he is an unschooled pope. * Religious education has become religious schooling. Mystagogy has been emaciated into pedagogy. We do not have good religious education because we do not intend to educate in the first place. Plus, religion itself has been schooled into argumentative sets of rigorisms and sentimentalisms. What we want is “learning”: skilled recitations and formulaic mastery of the Catechism’s words, forgetting the Rabbi who taught in silence, story, parable, and aphorism. This is why today’s religious education must ignore the mentally disabled, the illiterate, the ones who schooling has condemned to nothing. A creed and a confession have been reduced to mental epistemologies, lacking soul and devotion. The school is Cartesian, it is a cognitive institution. It has no place for lepers and for poor people who only see a priest every two months, because they live in seclusion. Nursing homes will school the dying. Religious education is failing because it is not education. It is schooling. * The solutions are themselves problematic, repackaged as “reform,” and sold in bulk. Or given away, for free, like Matthew Kelly. There are no solutions to schooling because it is a false problem to begin with, it works on assumptions that are as fake as they are pernicious. The first rule to deschooling is this: to change everything you must work to change nothing. No externals. No blog posts or books or time to contemplate the contradiction. The work of deschooling is a work of the heart, a return to what is real and lasting in the midst of a world we have turned into a school because we cannot run the mutual risks of love and suffering, a forest we have burned and neutered to save the trees. * Those who worship a living God, a God beyond all the gods and idols of our era, a God who cannot be named or contained or described, a God who is a terrible student, a God who is beyond the intellect, a God who is not “smart” or “successful” or a CEO, a God who dwells in darkness and pain and misery, who doesn’t forget the needy, a God who is not a catechist or a dog trainer, those who worship this impossible God, already know that CCD and catechesis and adult formation and all the classes and courses and old cassette tapes are nothing, and must remain nothing, in comparison to the real stuff of mystagogy: the Liturgy, prayer, life and work, and love. Conversion. There is so much we already have and do that is religious education, the real version, the kind that cannot be schooled. The world is not a school. We live in a Divine ecology and economy. Find it. Beauty. Cherish it. Embrace, forgive, dwell, and maybe keep going to school for the sheer fun of it — or not. Sam Rocha

More Stand Up Against Common Core!

This lady eviscerates Common Core in 3 minutes! It is ridiculous to think that our kids have to be exposed to this. And don't buy the excuse that state legislature is making changes, they don't have they education to make changes and they are only promising that to calm the "few" until all is forgotten and things settle back down. In other words, until the sheep are orderly again, believing anything that comes down from the top. It is like so many who hang their very life on every word of their doctor, when most of the time their doctor is just guessing and taking pot shots at a diagnosis. Copy this into you browser and watch this young woman decimate the smug proponents of Common Core! http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/12/18/arkansas-mom-destroys-common-core-in-four-powerful-minutes-89152

MODERN CHAOS

This is the learning environment for hundreds of thousands of students in American schools today. Utter chaos: Disrespect for teachers and disrespect for each other: Secret bullying, stealing clothes, pencils, food and threatening family: Campus fights nearly everyday: Never knowing when one of those dramas will turn into a gun battle: A classroom noise level that is unbelievable: Great grades given if you are a favorite student: Extra points given that you didn't earn: Report cards revealing a child's true progress? No! Parents are so deceived by report cards today. Is this what you want your child to grow up in? Learning will not be the priority I can assure you. Academics are only a shadow, and a faint one, in schools today. The only way change will happen is when massive numbers of parents pull their children out of brick and mortar schools, form co-ops, whatever it takes, and teach their own precious children and school them in a wholesome value system which this country is sorely lacking. If you can't teach, then let internet videos do it for you. There are many free sites and resources. If you can afford it, place them in a small home school; one that doesn't operate on the herd learning mentality.(This eliminates many private schools-as most of them have adopted the disaster that is Common Core). The result will be a better educated student who feels loved instead of daily rejection and manipulation. Then the fun club that American education has become will come tumbling down, just like her international averages have come tumbling down until she is lower than Zimbabwe in some subjects! If you love your children, you will extricate them from the train wreck of MODERN CHAOS - American Education - while it is still legal to do so.