Lead. Don’t Follow.

by Tammy Drennan

 

While I believe it’s wrong for the state to be involved in education no matter how good a product it produces, I think it is nevertheless telling to take a look at just what state schools are turning out in the way of scholars and human beings.

 

I don’t pay much attention to test scores and studies. I tend to judge things by more real standards. I have recently been immersed in close contact with a host of public-school graduates, most of whom also have varying degrees of post-high school education. It has not been an encouraging experience.

 

Here are some things I’ve learned:

 

• Very few people know where anyplace in the world is, including U.S. states. Out of one group of people with whom I played a geography game, not one could identify over 12 states on a U.S. map. Most could identify no more than five!
• There is no point in making any reference to history in a conversation; you lose your listener. Try pop culture instead.
• Common sense dies a long twelve-year death in school. There is almost no point in trying to reason with many people – the ability to see the absurd or irony in a situation simply does not exist for them.
• Personal responsibility went out with Horace Mann. If it’s officially someone else’s job, it’s no skin off your back no matter who is affected by the inaction. You followed procedure and that’s all that matters.
• Most adults operate on the level of ill-reared children – do as little as you can get away with; keep an eye out for the displeasure of an authority before you do an ounce more.
• Lie to get out of trouble, lie for the sake of lying, and don’t be embarrassed if you get caught in your lies.
• Don’t be embarrassed about your lack of education, which is easy enough when you don’t realize you have no education.

 

One thing that many homeschoolers learn when they begin to educate their children is just how shallow their own schooling actually was. They learn that all those A’s and B’s didn’t mean diddly-squat. But they’re the lucky ones – they make the discovery and proceed to correct the crime as they educate both themselves and their children.

 

Another thing they learn is how empty of morality their education was, how much it taught them, both deliberately and incidentally, that truth is relative, principled living adjustable to circumstances and personal desires and goals, and that satisfaction with self is just a shrug of the shoulders away. This, too, they find ample opportunity to understand and correct as they rear their children with purpose.

 

What of all the ignorant and marginally moral folks running around thinking they’re okay? Is ignorance bliss? Is unswerving, principled living only for fanatics? How much longer can freedom withstand ignorance and moral apathy?

 

It may be true that we cannot blame the situation entirely on state schooling, but this is the very institution that insists it has always and still does hold the key to a better world. Not only has it not delivered on its promises, it makes the situation worse with every generation.

 

Thomas Jefferson and many other American founders believed that ignorance and moral corruption were incompatible with the survival of liberty. But many of them mistakenly believed that a system of government education could safeguard the freedom they worked so hard to establish.

 

We now know that such a system is one of the greatest threats to the future. We must increase the number of people who understand this and work together to become strong, to become leaders.

 

“Lead, don’t follow” is a principle I’ve tried to impress upon my children from the time they were young. Even within the independent education community, it is a principle we’re still learning.

 

We may be rebels with a cause, but we must take the next step. We must stop pining for the approval and recognition of the state. That’s what followers do. Leaders set the standards; they do not fawn over someone else’s standards, regardless of the perceived authority or advertised expertise of those people. They are confident in their own definitions, in their own standards. They are the ones others wish to impress and emulate.

 

Our numbers are sufficient. 14% of children are educated outside government schools. It’s time to stop letting state schools define education and morality and possibility and the future.

 

It’s time to stop following and start leading. Teach your children: Lead. Don’t follow. And show them how it’s done.

 

Essay vs. Multiple Choice Thinking

by Tammy Drennan

 

Have you ever seen one of those tests that measures the knowledge of Americans? They’re always multiple choice, never essay questions (ya gotta have stats).

 

If I were to give a test, I’d throw the ability to compile statistics to the wind. My test would be 100% essay questions.

 

Here’s what I’d ask:

 

1. How did America become such a land of growth and opportunity in the 200+ years it existed before mass compulsory schooling became common?

 

2. Read over the journals or diaries of some American young people who lived from the 1600s to the mid-1800s. What do you think about their writing and the level of maturity in their thinking?

 

3. Thomas Paine’s long pamphlet, “Common Sense,” written in 1776 to convince Americans that they should choose freedom from England, was a runaway best seller when it was published. It was written at a time when there was very little government involvement in education; almost all schooling was a private matter. It sold more copies per person than the Harry Potter books ever did. Read it and summarize Paine’s main points.

 

4. Before the government takeover of schooling, education was a growing concern among citizens, and options for schooling were expanding at every level of education and society. Who were some of the major historical figures who were unhappy with this state of affairs and what reasons did they give for wanting to impose their own education ideology by way of government compulsion?

 

5. Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and Communist China, among other tyrannies, all considered government control of education essential to maintaining power over citizens. If a country finds itself in danger of losing its freedom and most children already attend state schools, what do you think are the odds that parents will remove their children before it’s too late? Support your answer with reasons.

 

6. Many people believe that education and values cannot be separated. For instance, if history is taught without judgments about the right or wrong of events or actions, children will come to feel that there really is no right or wrong. If science is taught without exploring the ethics of certain practices (i.e., cloning), children grow up with the risk of using science for harm. If literature is an exploration of the human condition, conclusions – and judgments — must be drawn about the authors’ world views. In other words, education has a purpose beyond simply knowing facts and gaining skills to make money. Do you believe this is true? If so, do you believe the government should make the decisions about what values should be taught in relation to the subjects being studied? Why or why not?

 

If my test-takers were short on time, I would ask them to answer, at length, just the last question.

 

We live in a time when the questions are always “What do you know?” and “How do you feel about it?” I want to know what people think about what they know.

 

It’s thinking that results in action. John and Jane Doe may know all about the drawbacks of state schooling and they may not feel very good about having their children in those schools, but until they actively apply their brains by intentionally thinking about the life-long implications of being educated by the state, until they start thinking about what it means to be educated, their knowledge and feelings will probably not result in much action, just a little regret.

 

Unfortunately, one of the gifts we’ve received from state schooling is the gift of not thinking, the gift of shrugging our shoulders and saying “whatever” when asked to truly exercise our brains. The only thing that’s important is making sure we fill in the correct bubbles on the tests so we can move on to the next stage.

 

Short-term memory is vital to our institutional schooling “career.” Long-term memory less so. Thinking – hardly at all. To any degree that thinking is necessary, we’re told what to think – no effort required.

 

It’s time to start answering some essay questions and thinking and coming to some conclusions. Conclusions are not etched in stone. As we learn and think and mature, they may change. If we reject them, though, we can be sure that our politicians and social activists will help us, via compulsory state schooling, to embrace their conclusions.

 

People who like controlling others think a lot – they think about what they want and how to force others to accept it. They count on lulling the majority of people into enough dullness to keep them from thinking for themselves. There is no better vehicle for control than compulsory state schooling.

 

The majority of people are not driven to control others. Mass schooling ensures that they are also not driven to resist being controlled.

 

In our busy world, especially one in which school consumes so much of our children’s lives, it’s hard to make time to think and discuss.

 

A good way to begin is around the dinner table or for fifteen minutes before you start that movie or for fifteen minutes before you get out of the car after school. Discuss a quotation or a news event or a decision made by someone you know or by a well-known person. Talk about school and how your children might learn if the school system collapsed. Read something out loud to your children – the Declaration of Independence, parts of the Constitution. Listen to a great speech or book on tape, a segment at a time. Discuss question #6.

 

Once you start your brain on a roll, it gathers momentum, and before you know it, you start to feel ownership over that brain; it starts to feel capable and independent, even free.

 

Do essay thinking, not multiple choice thinking.

Before It’s Too Late

by Tammy Drennan

Is there a window of opportunity for choosing freedom? A window that, ignored, will close and open again only by force?

 

Andre Trocme was a courageous man who rallied his village and risked his life to save the lives of thousands of Jews during Hitler’s Holocaust. He was also a life-long pacifist.

 

When Andre was a young man, he served in the French army during World War I. One day he was sent on a mapping mission with 24 other men. He was issued a gun for the mission but left it behind because of his pacifist convictions.

 

When the mapping crew arrived at its location, Andre’s commander discovered that Andre was without a weapon. He reprimanded the young soldier for endangering the entire crew with his belated commitment to his conscience.

 

“The lieutenant told Trocme that his refusal to bear arms had come too late. He already embarked on a military campaign; he was already committed. He should have refused at the very beginning, when he could have avoided making the march into the desert. With his whole mind and his body he should have made his choice sooner, in time.”

 

Trocme did not forget this lesson of his youth. Timing matters. The sooner you stand on your convictions the better the outcome. The longer you wait, the harder you make it on yourself – and often on others. Sometimes the hardships are disastrous.

 

When Hitler took over France, Trocme’s home village of Le Chambon fell under the Vichy leaders who worked at the behest of Germany. Citizens were commanded to take an oath of absolute allegiance to this new government. Trocme refused from the outset. He did not give the government time to feel its strength. He did not give it a chance to become accustomed to bullying him.

 

Not only did Andre Trocme position himself with an advantage over the people who wished to crush all he stood for, he strengthened his own resolve with every act of independence – and there were many to come. Further, his early and uncompromising actions set the tone for the entire village – it showed them it could be done and it infused them with courage.

 

The greatest illegitimate authority in America today is our public school system. It robs us of our independence, of our children and our future.

 

Those who say no to this system from the outset, who never entangle themselves with its demands and controls, are the ones who suffer the least from its aggressions. These are the people who set an example for others, who show that freedom is doable and that any sacrifices involved are well worth it.

 

But most people find themselves compromised and entangled early on, and they come to embrace convictions late in the game, when acting on those convictions is hard – hard because they have little practice, hard because they are already ensnared by a system that doesn’t want to let them go and that assumes its authority over them because they have conceded it for so long.

 

It is certainly best to know your convictions early and to stand on them from the start. But we all make mistakes. The best time to remedy our mistakes is now, before the situation gets any worse.

 

And the situation is getting worse. Every year, government at all levels assumes more authority over the lives of our children and thus over the future that will be America. We are no longer a land “of the people, by the people and for the people.” We are a land “of the government, by the government and for the government.”

 

But the window of opportunity is still open a crack. We still live under the protection of our Constitution. It’s not as strong as it once was, but it’s still just strong enough to shield us so we can take that first step into freedom.

 

As more of us choose freedom, our community and solidarity will protect us from usurpers of legitimate authority, and it will strengthen our Constitution and the laws of our land that guard against tyranny of both body and conscience.

 

Many have stepped into the war innocently, not thinking ahead about the repercussions of government schooling. Others have lunged head-long into the war, thinking they can shape into their own image a system that shares none of their values or convictions. And a significant number are simply trapped by default – they have no choice at the moment.

 

We need more Harriet Tubmans in the world – those who see the wrong for what it is and take daring risks to right it. We need more Andre Trocmes – those who say no to illegitimate authority from the outset, then stand by their convictions come what may. This is how freedom is won and kept.

 

We can be thankful for those who ease the suffering of the enslaved, we can even try to ease that suffering ourselves, but ultimately, bondage only turns into freedom when it ends.