“The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils.”

“The bright pupil this remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschytlus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.”

“And anyway the teachers- or should I say, nurses?- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste time on real teaching.”

“For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of sub literates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper a the first hint of criticism.”
Screwtape Proposes a Toast CS Lewis

I’ve been taking education administration classes this summer. The most important thing I’ve learned is that if I had children I would be wary to send them to public schools. I’m optimistic so I like to believe that most teachers have their student’s best interests at heart, but the bureaucracy and the general ignorance is astounding!

A few weeks ago we talked about “religion” in the classroom. By religion most of them meant denominations. Some of them argued that there was too much religious freedom in the classroom; others argued that there wasn’t enough. One high school lit teacher was saying how she doesn’t want to proselytize (actually, she kept saying “prostelytize”) in the classroom, she would just like to have the freedom to talk to her class about the Biblical and Christian allusions presented in the literature.

I told her that would be great, if she could also explain the Buddhist and Hindu and Jewish and Islamic allusions presented in the literature . . . oh, but wait, I’m sure she doesn’t use any lit that would have those types of allusions.

This same woman . . . I’m sure she thought I was pure evil . . . she was commenting on something another classmate had said, stated, “Well, I don’t understand why that girl was offended by a teacher wearing something that says “I love Jesus” why should that offend anybody? It’s not like it said, “You better love Jesus or else.”

I said, “Well, you probably don’t see why it’s offensive because you are a Christian. What if a student or a teacher came to class wearing a T-shirt that said, “Satan owns my soul.” Would you find that offensive?”

She said, “Yeah, but that’s extreme, besides, that’s not a religion, that’s a cult.”

I asked, “What do you think is the difference between a religion and a cult?”

She answered, “A cult worships something that somebody just made up.”

I said, “So, you think somebody just made up Satan?”

She said, “Well, I mean people like David Koresh, he said he was the Messiah.”

I said, “But, Jesus said the same thing! The established religious leaders thought he was crazy and they wanted to kill him, (and they did) they also persecuted and killed early Christian converts because they said the converts were part of a dangerous cult.”

She responded, “But that’s different, Christianity is old.”

Me: “So, if it’s old, it’s okay?!”

Her: “Yeah.”

Me: “Paganism? Animism? Witchcraft, Druids, Voodoo?”

I think she stopped listening just after she said, “Yeah.” That is if she ever was listening in the first place.

My PhD prof. was trying to make a point about how we do need to teach some points of religion in the classroom just as historical facts . . . he said, “I bet nobody in here even knows what century Mohammad was born in.” I thought, “I bet you’re wrong.”

Then he said, “I bet nobody in here can even name two or three of the six pillars of Islam.”

And I thought, “I’d like to hear you name the six pillars of Islam, since there are only five.”

I said, “There are only five.”

He said, “Five, six, whatever.”

And I thought, “Well, look there, you have proven your point quite well.”

I decided to be quiet the rest of the class time.
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