Here’s another post for the “Compulsory” basket. This one will be a little easier, since all you have to do is watch it. But that won’t make it any easier to stomach, unless you are a shepherd and enjoy watching the future dictators leaders of our country practice becoming little anarchists and informants (on their friends, then parents, then neighborhood, then the company they work for… if they can get a job.)
[YouTube pulled the video… but I saved the lyrics. The video of brainwashed children trying to rap this out was pretty sad anyway. It’s just as well it got pulled.]
Oh yes… urban powertry:
The sky is high and the ocean is deep,
But we can’t treat the planet like a garbage heap.
Don’t wreck it, protect it, keep part of it wild,
And think about the future of your great-grandchild.
Recycle, bicycle, don’t you drive by yourself,
Don’t buy those plastic products on the supermarket shelf.
Boycott, petition, let the big business know,
That if we mess it up here, there’s nowhere else we can go.
Don’t shrug your shoulders, say, “What can I do?”
Only one person can do it and that person is you!
Is environmentalism the new patriotism?
I put this in the Learning vs. Schooling category because this is a perfect example of the difference between learning and schooling. These children are being “schooled.” They aren’t learning anything of value, other than the fact they are helpless to truly impact their world by thinking for themselves.
Do people evolve into sheeple, or are they taught?
Will they be the future pollution-buster that comes up with some new invention that really might save the planet? Doubtful. They will be too busy protesting, pointing fingers (watch the “moves” of these future American Idols!) and writing letters to “Big Business” and their government to please, please, please stop wasting our precious resources. It’s almost like we are making environmentalism their duty, their new social compact. It’s like instead of linking freedom and liberty with the American experience, we are replacing patriotism with environmentalism.
These children will not be contributing to society. These children will only feed off society. And they’ll be pissed off in the process because society will be constantly doing things that they have been told to believe, pollutes and DESTROYS the planet!
The sheeple of tomorrow won’t have time to think for themselves, so why include critical thinking in their schooling? Best to use our E-M-O-T-I-O-N-S and feelings. Best to write cute songs that paint with broad brushes. Plastic/Bad, Blind Sheeple Activism/Good. This kind of emoti-think has been used in the environmental movement for decades. Remember the poor Indian Native-American sitting by the garbage dump, crying? We’ve been made to feel guilty for decades!
Maybe rightly so. And maybe it worked. Have things gotten cleaner in the past thirty years? Sure have! Are we better off over-all here in America because we cleaned up our act? Sure. But forget all that. We have a GLOBAL crisis to think about and worry about and cry about now! Something damn near impossible to prove, let alone solve.
When did weather reports become climate issues?
Reminds me of a phrase: What we expect, is climate. But what we get, is weather. And in Indiana, wait a few minutes and it’ll change. The point here, people, is that we are more susceptible to our emotions and feelings on certain rather large issues than we are likely to admit. Children are more open to this kind of mood teaching.
Teaching using feelings rather than facts leads to irrational and illogical conclusions no matter what the science might actually say. This is why “Global Warming” was changed to “Climate Change” a few years ago, because every winter, when it got real cold, people suddenly didn’t care about what environmentalists were saying (because it’s cold, doof!) even though the scientists were pretty darn sure that the coldest winter on record was, in fact, a result of global warming!!
If you care about your children at all, you’ll consider skipping public school and doing something–anything– other than allow your children to be schooled into the herd. Environmentalism is becoming the new patriotism.
“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
For an interesting article that includes an impressive valedictorian’s graduation speech… check it out here.
Posting a huge essay by Tolstoy was a little too much for most people to handle, I’m guessing. I know… homework that’s too hard can be a little tiring and really, who needs to know what some old dead white Russian guy said over a hundred years ago? All I can say is you got one thing going for you: Since this isn’t compulsory public school, you can CHOOSE to not enlighten yourself, and you won’t be punished with a bad grade or a detention.
In the school of life, you can choose to be as enlightened or as ignorant as you wish. Those who choose to become enlightened will take the time to read and think and make connections between what Tolstoy said in the past about tyrannical governments, and what’s going on today. In other words, the people with the most connections will be ahead of the game “educationally” because they took the time to enlighten themselves on something they weren’t assigned to learn by the State.
So don’t go crying about how some people are getting a better education than you or your kids. Some people are taking more liberties with the expansion of their knowledge than you are.
In case you missed it the point of the Skipping School blog is this: Government-run State Schools pour billions of taxpayer dollars into an assembly line model of citizen production. Government Schools do nothing to EDUCATE people… they SOCIALIZE people. State Schools dupe parents into believing their children are being taught to think, gain knowledge, become educated and thoughtfully prepared for the “real world” which–ironically–has been forcibly kept out of their common life experience eight to ten hours a day for twelve years! All I want to do is point this fact out and let you decide if this is what you want for your family.
What you are about to learn today (if you are still reading, and if you are, God bless you!) is something you or your children will never learn in school. It’s just not available. And you won’t learn as much with this post, as you would if you had read my previous post with the full text of Tolstoy’s letter. But this particular point is important, so I’m paraphrasing in the event that Tolstoy’s name gives you a headache and makes you want to watch Discovery or History Channel for a break.
The government in Tolstoy’s day wasn’t allowing people to have much liberty and freedom. The people were complaining. Some thought violence was the key. Some thought that working within the system to make it better was the answer. Neither were working for reasons Tolstoy goes into in his letter. He notes that government will never allow its authority to be undermined. They will anything to keep the people thinking they are making productive changes, and ignorant of the fact that they are not changing things at all:
[Working within the government to bring about change is], in my opinion, even less effective or rational. It is ineffective and irrational because government, having in its hands the whole power (the army, the administration, the Church, the schools, and police), and framing what are called the laws, on the basis of which the [people] wish to resist it — this government knows very well what is really dangerous to it, and will never let people who submit to it, and act under its guidance, do anything that will undermine its authority.[The government will never consent to the people’s real enlightenment.] It will sanction all kinds of pseudo-educational organizations, controlled by itself: schools, high schools, universities, academies, and all kinds of committees and congresses and publications sanctioned by the censor — as long as those organizations and publications serve its purpose, i.e. stupefy people, or, at least do not hinder the stupefaction of people.
Note that State Schools are integral to the stupefying of the people. Think of every nation that devolved into a dictatorship in history, and you’ll find a state controlled education system, by which the youth were institutionalized by the state and not free to become educated outside of the purview of the state. I’m not saying we have that in America. What I am saying, however, is that we are close to a consensus among many Americans that schooling outside of the purview of the state is wrong and in some cases, should be illegal. How soon before that idea becomes actual law?
Tolstoy continues:
But as soon as those organizations, or publications, attempt to cure that on which the power of government rests, i.e. the blindness of the people, the government will simply, and without rendering account to any one, or saying why it acts so and not otherwise, pronounce its “veto” and will rearrange, or close, the establishments and organizations and will forbid the publications. And therefore, as both reason and experience clearly show, such an illusory, gradual conquest of rights is a self-deception which suits the government admirably, and which it, therefore, is even ready to encourage.
As long as the self-deception is encouraged, the people will blindly keep working hard against their own self-interests to infringe upon their liberties in the name of the peaceful democratic process.
The point he ended up making towards the end was that if moral people simply stood up, did what was right and ignored the State, then the State couldn’t do anything about it without tipping its hand to the fact that they were oppressive, violent and did not respect human rights.
What is to be done?
What Tolstoy came up with is simple, yet the hardest thing for many people to do:
[People must continue with] the simple, quiet, truthful carrying on of what you consider good and needful, quite independently of government, and of whether it likes it or not. In other words: standing up for your rights, not as a member of [some special government] Committee, not as a deputy, not as a landowner, not as a merchant, not even as a member of Parliament; but standing up for your rights as a rational and free man, and defending them, not as the rights of local boards or committees are defended, with concessions and compromises, but without any concessions and compromises, in the only way in which moral and human dignity can be defended.
And what can government do against such activity? It can banish or imprison a man for preparing a bomb, or even for printing a proclamation to working-men; it can transfer our “Literature Committee” from one ministry to another, or close a Parliament — but what can a government do, with a man who is not willing publicly to lie with uplifted hand, [work within the government, lying in order to get certain laws passed] or who is not willing to send his children to an establishment which he considers bad, [schools among other places] or who is not willing to learn to kill people, [conscripted for the purpose of killing state enemies] or is not willing to take part in idolatry, [the state sanction religion of the time] or is not willing to take part in coronations, deputations, an addresses, or who says and writes what he thinks and feel? By prosecuting such a man, government secures for him general sympathy, making him a martyr, and it undermines the foundations on which it is itself built, for in so acting, instead of protecting human rights, it itself infringes them.
And it is only necessary for all those good, enlightened, and honest people, whose strength is now wasted in revolutionary, socialistic, or liberal activity, harmful to themselves and to their cause, to begin to act thus, and a nucleus of honest, enlightened, and moral people would form around them, united in the same thoughts and the same feelings; and to this nucleus the ever wavering crowd of average people would at once gravitate, and public opinion — the only power which subdues governments — would become evident, demanding freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, justice, and humanity. And as soon as public opinion was formulated, not only would it be impossible to close the “Literature Committee,” but all those inhuman organizations — the “state of siege — against which the revolutionists and the liberals are now struggling would disappear of themselves.
So, what would happen if all parents suddenly stood up, and stood against the practice of compulsory state schooling? What if they started educating their children otherwise? The Public Schools as we know them, would probably not disappear, but they would certainly change. Would they change for the good? I submit they would HAVE to, for if they didn’t, then surely they would disappear, as all things do that are not wanted, needed or worth purchasing — within the free market.
I’ve often talked about the situation I call Ex-Schooling–the “excommunicating” of some publicly schooled kids. Ex-schooling is when a public school administrator tells the parents of a poorly performing child, they can’t drop out, BUT they can’t stay at the school either. The ultimatum given to the distraught parent is this: she must homeschool their kids in order to take them out of the school’s hair, and BONUS! the kid that leaves, doesn’t count as a dropout against the school.
This is one mom that is willing to go public with her story. Rest assured, she’s not alone.
In a nutshell, some public school employees are exploiting the Indiana private education laws by suggesting that rather than dropping out of school, the parents of the problem child just say they’re homeschooling. The school doesn’t have a dropout on its record. Their graduation rates look better. Sometimes, if the student didn’t do well on his state tests, the school’s overall test scores will be affected positively.
Then, if something happens to the child or family that is “homeschooling” the school gets to point to the homeschooling community and remark at what a poor job they are doing. “Oh… they’re probably exploiting the law, just to get out of school!” See my posts on Richmond Community School Corp. and on the women who plead guilty to educational abuse for not homeschooling right. Two better examples of what I’m talking about can not be found, until now.
Read the words of one of possibly THOUSANDS of moms who are getting shafted by public schools that are looking out for their own bottom lines, rather than doing what is best for the children they are supposed to SERVE.
I’m sure there will be more to come. The question is: will the attacks on the homeschooling community come before the facts about the tactics of Government Schools are known?
ILLINOIS, INDIANA, MICHIGAN — The year 2010 is going to be the year of “The Hunted Homeschooler.” Some cities are considering new curfew laws, supposedly to counter truancy, but in practice, they will be used to harass homeschoolers. Some cities are just outright picking targets that they know aren’t really homeschooling, and nailing them. (I wonder how they know that education isn’t going on? Read more for my theory.)
My friend, Sue Ryan at Corn and Oil has been writing about what has been going on in Illinois this month, and combined with what we have been discussing here in Indiana and in Michigan, it almost appears like an all out frontal attack on homeschooling.
Parents are skipping school and ‘saying’ they’re homeschooling!
I’m sure there are more.
Conspiracy? Nah. But while I won’t give it that much credit, I do believe that what is going on of late is a result of the practice I’ve called, “Public School Excommunications, or Ex-schooling.” Public schools, in the desperate need to reduce the dropout rates among students (including those who are not old enough to legally drop out) have found that by encouraging parents to simply “say” they are homeschooling, both the school and the parents can conveniently get rid of a mutual problem.
We can all blame NCLB all we want, but the fact is, no matter what was required of public schools to meet the federal demands, teachers and school officials all across the country did everything they could, to either dumb down the requirements so more kids could ‘appear’ to pass, or they sabotaged their classes to prove the point that the Republican’s plan for school reform wouldn’t work.
Part of the sabotage plan (I would argue) was to indict parents for not holding up to their end of the bargain to educate their children after (school) hours. Stupid kids aren’t the schools fault… it’s the fault of parents who don’t appreciate education the way they should. The battle of who’s schooling whom stays on cruise control until those stupid public schoolers get too hard to handle and control; then it’s time to get rid of the problem.
It’s like a getting out of school free card!
The solution is obvious! The school gets rid of a child that doesn’t want to be there and is likely acting out in disruptive or violent manners (not to mention purposely tanking his or her state mandated tests) by forcing the parent to leave the school in the only legal way possible — they are forced to transfer out of public school to a private school. And since they can’t afford a private school, they are told their only choice is to homeschool.
It’s likely the parent is already frustrated with her child’s behaviors, and double-frustrated with how the school handles and miseducates her child. What concerned (or even neglectful) parent wouldn’t be glad to get out of the cycle of abuse and punishment inflicted by government schooling on her child?
There are questions that need to be asked of every parent from here on out that is accused of “pretending” they are homeschooling:
Did you recently decide to homeschool, or have you been doing it for a long time?
Why and when did you decide to leave public school to homeschool?
Were you told that you were required to homeschool?
Were you told that if you didn’t, CPS would be called on you?
Were you informed of the legal requirements to homeschool, or do you feel you were just tossed out?
Did you look for local and statewide resources for help, once you decided to homeschool?
Would you have rather gone to another school, if you had a choice?
These are the first questions reporters should be asking when they come across cases like this. But instead, we are going to get more and more articles indicting non-homeschoolers for no other reason than NOT going to a government school.
Therefore, this will be the year of The Hunted Homeschooler.
Remember the poor Indian Native-American sitting by the garbage dump, crying? We’ve been made to feel guilty for decades!
Skipping School 