The courage to educate

Picking up on the theme from the time-before-last, let me just say that school choice is a red herring. All that I can advise any of you is to follow the money. I mean, if you want you children to be a certain way and you find a school that will make them that way, well, then I suppose you are perfectly free to put them there. But it's really just a form of child abuse. Harsh words? Not really. Think about it.

Let's say you're one of those parents who believes the Creationists. It's your right as an adult, but at some point, whether you like it or not, your child has to go out into the world and live on its own, makes his or her own living. You can hide the child away until well into their 20s, maybe even 30s, but then? OK, you're safe if you stay in America where such nonsense is not only tolerated, but promoted, and then? Whether we like it or not, we live in an increasingly globalized world and sooner or later your child is going to have to face the world. What have you done to prepare them for that? Nothing. In fact, you may have lessened the child's real-world survival skills, and why should you get tax dollars for that?

Or, what about you supposedly upward-mobile types. You're betting the bankers and rich folk are going to get away with it in the future like they have in the past. I have the feeling that this isn't where the smart money is. No, those with the money are doing everything they can to ensure that you folks are firmly entrenched between them and the unwashed masses. When it gets down to it, they'll be in the Caymans, you'll be here and your kids ... well, they won't know how to think for themselves or do much of anything for themselves because you've just brainwashed them a different way.

Personally, I think we should give kids a chance, the chance to be themselves, to become what they might be able to be, not what we want. The leading cause of screwed up kids is screwed up parents. Period. But it takes courage to be a real parent, just like it takes courage to be a real teacher, but we're doing everything in our power to ride those types out of town on a rail. If we want to have a chance in the future, and if we want our children to have a chance at all, then we have to have the courage to raise them to be able to survive on their own ... not just physically, not just socially, but mentally as well.

We need to be teaching our children to think, and the most effective way to do that, IMNSHO, is to teach them to question. They need to be able to ask the tough questions that need to be answered if we're going to get anywhere any time soon. But, as the story of Socrates shows us all too well, those who question will question authority, and authority, by and large doesn't like being questioned. This is so because at bottom it knows that it is in place not because it deserves to be but because it exerts enough force to be there. Questioning people tend to unmask force's inadequacies, and we can't be having that, can we?

True parents, true teachers allow their authority to be questioned because they know that the only true authority is that which can withstand the scrutiny of the most penetrating questions. They are not afraid of what might be found. They have the courage to educate.