School as Tool

I have taught my six children at home these last 30 years. Over those years I became a collector of school books. When ever in town, 100+ miles away, I would scrounge through used book stores and thrift stores for text books. I began to notice that there was a difference in the books as they got older and older.
Vocabulary required in higher grades in the 1980’s was previously required in a much lower grade in the 1940’s or 20’s. Math skills in the 5th grade in the 40’s were equal to that of the 8th grade in the mid 1980’s.

The second thing I noticed was the content of the history books had changed. My discovery of history’s alteration began when my young son had read several kids books on George Washington. I quizzed him as to who this George W. was. I received the typical responses of the first President, a General, married to Martha and of course he had wooden teeth.

The answer seemed hollow. This was not who the man was. I felt we should look into this in greater depth.

I found some writings by Washington and began to read them. This is when I discovered I did not know who old George Washington had been either, what he thought and believed.

The more I began to read the actual record of History at its source the more I realized that the truth is not taught. The vission of the past had been presented to me different from what I was now reading. As I compared the more modern history books in school to the earlier record I realized that they had gone from basic omission to out right lies in less than two generations.

The most unsettling thing was that there seemed to be both a method and a purpose to the distortion of past historical reality.

“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies… It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family…”1

Could “…our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over education from Happening?”2 How could this be? Would we not notice the changes? “An ignorant people are easily betrayed, and a wicked people can never be ruled by the mild influence of their own laws.”3

“Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.” Plato

This is not a new problem but the scale is definitely of historical significance. A number of years ago a man familiar with a congressional investigation that uncovered some very interesting facts about the manipulation of the United States government and the educational system by major philanthropic organizations. These “charitable institutions” formed a powerful and influential network that wished to change the way Americans viewed history.

The fact is I had already stumbled across the results of this ‘conspiracy’. Some may not wish to call it conspiracy but the truth is often stranger than fiction. It is often more comfortable to believe in the lie than to admit that we are living our lives based on a lie, that we have been deceived and that we are letting others deceive our children on a daily bases.

To control the people it is essential to keep them ignorant. The best way to keep people ignorant is to give them a degree of knowledge as if it were the whole truth. Pile upon their minds and thoughts a mass of education but leave out those aspects of reality that would give them a grasp of the whole truth. It is a brave new world we live in today. 1984 came and passed us by and we didn’t even notice. Now we are trapped in a mental matrix of lies and half truths, a labyrinth built with bricks of prevarication but mortared together with our own pride.

“The Matrix is everywhere… It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”4

“What is the truth?” The truth is we are a slave to our own pride and arrogance which keeps us from seeing that we do not already know the truth. No-one can be told what the truth is unless they are willing to believe that they do not already know truth.

“The trouble with people isn’t their ignorance-it’s the number of things they know that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain

In the Bible there are many times when the people accepted a lie. Some men or prophets are given the task of shedding light upon the error and awakening the people to the truth.

Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, .... Revelation 20:8

The deceiving of the whole world and all the nations is something the Christian community has been forewarned of and should be forearmed. But are Christians really Christian. Deception can still take place as it did in the times that Jesus preached and walked among us. How could such deception take place and be so universal in its scope?

When men first began to publish Bibles in large numbers and the common man began to read and study history and its relationship to it there was a reaction to the this newly acquired knowledge. The people were not as easily controlled when they could begin to think for themselves.

It was quickly realized that printing was here to stay. The book burning that had accompanied the inquisitions and persecutions of anyone who questioned the exercising authority of princes or pontiffs was no longer a practical alternative. A new plan was devised. If you can’t beat them join them.

The best way to stop reform and protest is to join with it and alter its natural course. It was suggested to fight knowledge with knowledge. The motivation for this plan was not to discover or impart the truth but to maintain power, authority and control.

It was a masterful plan and has worked very well. It relies heavily on the vanity of the individual, insuring that they have a degree of knowledge. Once men believe they see the truth they may remain more comfortable with the lie, even defend it against reason.

Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. John 9:41

We need to awaken and peal back the world of deception that has been pulled over our eyes. We need to realize that we have become human resources in a more complete and devastating bondage than Moses redeemed us from in Egypt, more insidious than that which Jesus redeemed us from in the days of Rome.

“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.” 5

The reason education is so important in the rearing of children is because, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”6

This story is one of the most important subjects of study.

Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons; De 4:9

Home teaching may have been a freedom enjoyed by us but it may not be by our children because many believe that, “Fundamental, Bible believing people do not have the right to indoctrinate their children in their religious beliefs, because we, the state, are preparing them for the year 2000, when America will be part of a one-world global society and their children will not fit in.”7

“Throughout history, rulers and court intellectuals have aspired to use the educational system to shape their nations. The model was set out by Plato in The Republic and was constructed most faithfully in Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany…”

“One can see how irresistible a vehicle the schools would be to any social engineer. They represent a unique opportunity to mold future citizens early in life, to instill in them the proper reverence for the ruling culture, and to prepare them to be obedient and obeisant taxpayers and soldiers.”8

“By the early twentieth century, the school in fact had expanded its functions into areas not dreamed of in the early part of the previous century.... The school [became] a central social agency in urban America. The one theme that ran through all these new school programs was the desire to maintain discipline and order in urban life. Within this framework, the school became a major agency for social control.”9

“A small number of very passionate American ideological leaders visited Prussia in the first half of the 19th century; fell in love with the order, obedience, and efficiency of its education system; and campaigned relentlessly there after to bring the Prussian vision to these shores.”10 These American public school advocates “imported three major ideas from Prussia. The first was that the purpose of state schooling was not intellectual training but the conditioning of children ‘to obedience, subordination, and collective life.’… Second, whole ideas were broken into fragmented ‘subjects’ and school days were divided into fixed periods ‘so that self-motivation to learn would be muted by ceaseless interruptions.’ Third, the state was posited as the true parents of the children”11

“Social control” was the stated objective of the General Education Board (GEB), an institution created by John D. Rockefeller in 1902 that developed and promoted various radical schemes to reconfigure American society through the statist school system.

Fred Gates defined the GEB’s intent when he said: “In our dreams, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.”12

Norman Dodd was the chief investigator for the Reese committee in 1953. Dodd had worked in the elite halls of banking institutions in his early professional years and had made a moral decision to not play the game.

He was hired to investigate the un-American activities of large endowment foundations who most people could only imagine as institutions of charitable benevolence.

Dodd quoted Rowan Gunthor, the President of the Ford Foundation, who stated that they operated under directives to “use our grant making power so to alter life in the United States so it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.” Today, that merging might be defined as the New World Order.

Dr. Joseph Johnson at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace permitted Dodd to examine the fifty years of hand written minutes to their meetings. Dodd sent a well educated Lawyer by the name of Catherine Casey to examine the records.
Dodd realized that Johnson did not know what was in the records and he sent Catherine because she was skeptical of any wrong doing on the part of the trustees of these multi-million dollar tax exempt philanthropic organizations.

Her mind and her life was changed as she read the minutes of 1908 that discussed war as the best way to alter the lives and thinking of the American people. In 1909, it was discussed how to involve the United States in a war and decided that control of the State Department was essential.

Later, after America entered WWI a message was dispatched to President Wilson to discourage an early end to the war. This could explain Wilson’s interest in the UN (then the League of Nations), Federal Reserve and the income tax and his statement, “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s’ views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above a whisper in condemnation of it.”13

After the War it was determined that the key was the alteration in the teaching of American History. Noted and respected Historians like Charles and Mary Beard were approached but they rejected the overtures of this controlling benevolent enterprise.

The Guggenheim Foundation on the other hand agreed to supply fellowships to hand picked historians who began to write history with an new slant and delusive perception. The books published and underwritten by these altruistic organizations were quickly picked up by schools whose economic bottom line often determined the quality of the curriculum.

“God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.” Mark Twain

What is truth and what is the lie? What has been removed and what has been supplanted? How does one find the truth of our History and where can we learn what has been hidden.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary Act.”14

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth… For my part, I am willing to know the worst truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it.”15

“For 140 years this nation has tried to impose objectives downward from a lofty command center made up of ‘experts,’ a central elite of social engineers, It hasn’t worked. It won’t work.... It doesn’t work because its fundamental premises are mechanical, antihuman, and hostile to family life. Lives can be controlled by machine education but they will always fight back with weapons of social pathology: drugs, violence, self-destruction, indifference, and the symptoms I see in the children I teach… [It destroys communities by relegating the training of children to the hands of certified experts - and by doing so it ensures our children cannot grow up fully human” becoming instead mindless automatons programmed by the state’s change agents. Rather than instilling in youngsters an appreciation for individual liberty, the system has brought to life “the ancient pharaonic dream of Egypt: compulsory subordination for all… Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid.” “It is a great triumph of compulsory government monopoly mass- schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the best of my students’ parents, only a small number can imagine a different way to do things,” laments John Taylor Gatto. To restore sanity to American education, to rescue the increasingly embattled family, and to preserve and perpetuate individual freedom, “a different way to do things” must be found.16

Like Aladdin and the magician who gave new lamps for old we have exchange the truth of history for the fables of liars and we have become ignorant of our own heritage awakening to find our blessing swept away in the night as we slumbered.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15 )

With this new learning came new ideas, “As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only precarious results. As we have pointed out, it is frequently the family that infects the child with extreme nationalism. The school should therefore use the means described earlier to combat family attitudes that favor jingoism… We are at the beginning of a long process of breaking down the walls of national sovereignty. UNESCO must be the pioneer.”17

“Regardless of motives, the people who foisted state education on us have committed a grave offense.... Using a variety of strategies, we must reclaim the right to raise our children and to help them educate themselves. In a fundamental sense, that is the American way,” contends Sheldon Richman. “The future of education, and of America as a free society, depends on the liberation of the American family from the grip of the public school,” There is no more important task, Richman concludes, than to build “a wall of separation between school and state” and restore a system of “family-based learning” in which children can develop their God- given abilities as free individuals.

Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. (Jn 15:20)

We must seek the truth with our whole heart, mind and soul. We must not assume we know. We must seek the truth no matter what discomfort it brings. For the truth shall set us free.

In the Bible Nebo is a Babylonian deity who presided over learning and letters. He corresponds to the Greek Hermes, the Latin Mercury, and the Egyptian Thoth. In the US Nebo is HEW, Health Education and Welfare.

The idea of mass institutionalized education is a modern phenomena. It has been a social experiment the result of which will be judged in the century to come. We live today in a time of decision. We must consider the viability, practicality and wisdom of education in institutions other than the family.

God created the family and education was the right and responsibility of the family as a unit. Today, the system of institutional education is often under attack and blamed for all the social ills of society. Accusations of a moral breakdown, ‘dumbing down’, lowering of educational requirements, test manipulation, lack of discipline are common enough. But is this fair? Is it the responsibility of schools to accomplish a job that was once the exclusive realm of the parents and the family?

According to many studies, some of the top professional educators and psychologists believe the problem is not simply with the efforts of teachers and administrations. The problem is that institutional education is fundamentally flawed. In order to educate children in mass one must set aside the natural parameters of child development. Institutional education abandons by its macrocosm the natural environment of child development and there is no way to restore what is lost with even the best efforts of professional educators, more money or advanced study programs.

Have parents neglected their God given rights and responsibilities by turning their children over to institutions rather than directly handling their children’s education and moral upbringing? “… the moral strength of a nation is only as strong as the moral strength of its individuals.”18 Individuals are a product of the family.

“If we want better people to make a better world, then we will have to begin where people are made --- in the family.”19

The modern family unit struggles as it has for centuries to grow and develop. Parents raise their children according to the standards they themselves have been taught or have come to believe is best for their family. In the last century families have undergone an ever increasing degeneration and disintegration. Divorced, broken and single parent homes have been linked with an increase in under achievement, antisocial behavior, suicide and violence.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Ez 16:49

The sin of Sodom and Gamorrah was in part that they did not strengthen the poor. “The poor” were not merely poor financially but also poor in virtue and strength. Virtues like faith, hope and charity, patience, love and understanding are the strength of the character of mankind. We must exercise these spiritual muscles or loose them and the best place to begin is within the family.

Homeschooling children has become a modern phenomena that is overturning faith in institutional education. Over 2,000,000 children are being home taught today. The Homeschool growth rate is from 7% to 15% per year. Why are children coming home? What is the results of this massive return to home teaching of our youth?

One of the first and foremost reasons for homeschooling is the desire of concerned parents to teach deeply held beliefs and values to their children. Many values, beliefs and principles brought down through the ages are now banned from public schools. Although children may be exposed to these principles in other ways the bulk of their learning and educational experience is devoid of these precepts. Contradictory values and messages are being subtly brought into the minds of children. What was once shockingly intolerable or even unheard of in education is now common place and even promoted.

Close family relationships are maintained in the daily activity of teaching your children at home. These bonds and the self sacrifice required in homeschooling send a positive message of concern to children. While, sending your children to others to obtain an education is consigning the psychological message to the child that the parent is less than adequate to teach their children.

If parents want the best for their children they should began to look at homeschooling as a viable option. Based on the evidence from a series of studies that have critically scrutinized homeschooling for decades, institutional education appears inadequate for good intellectual, psychological and emotional development of children.

On average children who are home schooled score 30% higher in all subjects and also score higher than private school children. Some believe that the high scores by home taught individuals is due to the education of their parents. Although it is true many professional teachers do homeschool their own their children they did not score higher than low income or average middle class parents.

Dr. Steven Duvall compared the academic engaged time (AET) and basic skill development of learning disabled students who were home educated to those in public school special education programs. Higher rates of AET and greater academic gains were made by the home educated. “… parents, even without special education training, provided powerful instructional environments at home…” (p. 11).20

Dr. Rhonda Galloway found that the home educated performed as well or better than public school or conventional Christian school students when examined and compared for college academic preparedness and college academic achievement.21

Social myths

According to studies by Dr. Taylor (1986), Dr. Montgomery (1989), Dr. Johnson (1991), and Dr. Shyers (1992) home educators carefully address the socialization needs of their children in every area studied. The home schooled are as well adjusted socially as their institutionalized counterparts, however, they are less peer dependent than the private school students (Delahooke, 1986). The home educated have significantly higher self concepts than those in public schools and have significantly lower problem behavior scores than do their conventional school students.

Dr. Gary Knowles, of the University of Michigan, interviewed adults who were home educated. None were unemployed and none were on welfare, 94% said home education prepared them to be independent persons, 79% said it helped them interact with individuals from different levels of society, and they strongly supported the home education method.22

In Oregon in 1997 alone, it appeared that homeschooling had a savings to the taxpayers of at least $61 million per year.23 And commendably the average homeschooling families have no covetous desire for access to tax-funded resources. Their children are learning well, they do not need or want more state regulation and will strongly oppose it.

Patricia Lines of the U. S. Dept. of Education concluded that home education families “have not turned their backs on the broader social contract as understood at the time of the Founding [of America]. [They are] asserting their historic individual rights so that they may form more meaningful bonds with family and community. In doing so, they are not abdicating from the American agreement. To the contrary, they are affirming it.”

And, ye fathers, … bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

Why should parent turn their child over to a public or private schools now that the facts are in? Children taught at home get a better academic education, they are well adjusted socially with significantly higher positive self-concepts about themselves and perform as well or better in college academic preparedness.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. De. 6:7

“History is the torch that is meant to illuminate the past, to guard us against the repetition of our mistakes of other days. We cannot join in the rewriting of history to make it conform to our comfort and convenience.”

Claude G. Bowers,The U.S. and the Spanish Civil War

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider… Histories make men Wise.”24

 

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