Environmentalism, Religion, Public Schools and the Filling of Vacuums

When I was a child in North Alabama in the 1970's, my public elementary school endeavored to pass on a rich collection of values. 

We were explicitly taught to love our country and were given the reasons why.  Men like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were lionized, as were the pilgrims.  We learned that America was a free country that cherished the civic equality of citizens and that our nation had acted heroically during the 20th century.

We prayed before meals in a simple way to which it would be difficult to object (God is great.  God is good.  Let us thank him for our food.)

We gathered weekly for a school wide assembly during which we sang a combination of patriotic songs, songs that celebrated Americana, and songs that reflected the big holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  (We may even have done the dreidel song!)

If you misbehaved, you were punished for it and felt ashamed.  Serious misbehavior earned a spanking with a paddle from the principal.

My son is six years old.  His school experience is VERY different from mine. 

He knows far more about Martin Luther King, Jr. than he does about either Washington or Lincoln.  (But that's okay.  At least he knows about one great man from American history.)

They don't talk about Christmas.  But they do talk about what people do around the globe at approximately the time of Christmas, even in Israel!  But they don't mention Christmas because of the church-state thing.

They certainly do not pray or talk about God at all.

The songs they learn are almost always silly songs relating to what bugs do or monkeys and alligators.

And lately, despite the fact that he is only six, he comes home VERY CONCERNED about the environment.  Young Andrew is worried about what will happen if we don't do a better job of concerning the earth's resources. 

Is there just a chance that these people in the public school system could allow my child to avoid worrying about global warming at least until he's ten???  Will he get the talk about STD's next year?

The whole situation reminds me of the late Richard John Neuhaus' statement about what happens when you remove religion from the public square.  Six secular demons enter in to fill the vacuum.  I see it now.

Those who will tongue lash me for sending my child to a public school should understand that I live right next door to a public school in our neighborhood and I thought this kind of worldview stuff would not yet be a concern.  I'm learning.

Comments

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

My daughter was 6 in fall of 2008. She saw all these lawn signs about Proposition 8. She asked me why people were sticking signs in their lawn.

I partially ducked. I said people just want to show their support for families with a dad and mom. She looked at me like "Duh, who wouldn't support that."

I didn't have it in me to tell her that there are men who want to marry men, and women who want to marry women.

She said some of her classmates and teachers were talking about Obama and how they hope he becomes President. I told her I couldn't vote for him. She asked why. And I just didn't have the heart to talk to her about abortion. And how Obama staunchly supports abortion. Ugh.

It's a challenge raising children to have Christian values in America today. (Eg. I turned off the TV quickly when a news channel played a news segment about the controversy of Miss California being blindsided by Perez Hilton's trap question. My daughter yelled, "Daddy, I want to see that!")

[Lee Herring]

Dear Mr. Baker,

As a conservative evangelical with three kids in public school, I can personally resonate with your concerns. However, I have seen where my children (along with their parents' diligent involvement) have presented a positive witness from another perspective to their classmates and teachers. Young Andrew needs your wisdom and protection that may eventually lead you to find another educational environment for him, but there are students and their parents that will benefit from his presence (and your witness) as long as he is in public school.

Thank you for your post.

Sincerely,
Lee Herring

[Clifford Simon]

I was in elementary school in the early 90s. In my science class, we watched a rap music video about the Brazilian rainforests, which told us, to a hip beat, that by the year 2000 they will all disappear. I was a college freshman in 2000. I had been waiting for the news announcement that the very last acre of rainforest had just been fire-cleared for farming. You can imagine my disappointment when that announcement never came. We also watched raps about recycling.

[Clifford Simon]

Another cute story: A handful of years ago, my little cousin was in saturday school with other tots and all their parents. This was in a Jewish temple (Reform). The class was first-gradeish or thereabout. The rabbi asked the kids, what do you think all those people were doing, that made God so angry at them that he sent a flood? Each youngster had to give an answer.

Said one youngster, "Cutting down trees?"

(But my cousin, smart girl that she is, gave her mom and dad the evil eye while she answered the rabbi's question, "Arguing!" And mom wanted to pull a bag over her head because she knew that she and dad had argued in the little girl's hearing. :) )

[David Gray]

Public schools were always exceedingly likely to drift towards functional atheism and I have no desire or intention to allow them, even in a small way, to shape my children's understanding of God or His world.

[James Kabala]

It wasn't just rap: The early 1990s was the era when even country artists recorded pro-environmental songs:

http://www.cmt.com/videos/alabama/54785/pass-it-on-down.jhtml

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

Here's what I wrote on this in last Friday's column:

Does a world without people raise a 'tantalizing question’?

It certainly appears to,
at least if you’re a fan of films
in which humanity itself
is the ultimate villain.

Wednesday was Earth Day, but today is the day I would rather celebrate.
It’s Arbor Day, a date more suited for an ethic of conservation and wise use of resources, in which one can advocate the preservation of wildlands along with prosperity, the increase of the common wealth and the overall betterment of the human condition (including health and life-span) that our country and culture can boast.
There’s nothing wrong with a parsimonious efficiency. I say this as a person with a CFL in every socket in my house in which the new bulbs will fit.
But there’s something gone very wrong with an environmental movement that has built itself on scaring schoolchildren about the future survival of the Earth based on a politicized form of science that demands we turn our backs on the very resources that have raised the standard of living of the average Westerner to unparalleled heights.
Still, one tries to avoid the term “self-hating” for much of modern environmentalist rhetoric, as it seems extreme.
I’ve found out a few things in the last few days, however, that make it seem that, at least for some in the “green” community, it’s not far from the truth.
I started down this path after seeing a promo on the History Channel for a three-part series titled, “Life After People.”
It didn’t take much viewing of Part 1 to get the idea. As the channel guide says: “Explore the tantalizing question of whether all the remnants of mankind will eventually disappear from our planet. What would happen to the Earth if humans ceased to exist? Would ocean life flourish, the buffalo return to the Great Plains and our skyscrapers yield to the wear and tear of time?”
Part 2 is more of the same, and Part 3 explores the “haunting question” of what happens to our bodies after a variety of disasters wipes us out.
It slowly dawned on me that the producers of this epic did not see the departure of the human race as an unmitigated disaster. Indeed, they see considerable benefits to our collective demise. Forests would return, covering our roads, homes and eventually even our cities.
Wildlife would flourish, the oceans would be unfished, the skies would resound only with the calls of birds instead of the roar of airplanes.
Whoa, I thought, these folks have a serious self-image issue. Can they really be that down on their fellow human beings?
Then I ran across a column on the Web by Wesley J. Smith, a pro-life writer whose speciality is bioethics. Under the intriguing title, “Homo Sapiens, Get Lost,” Smith noted that some Hollywood films lately have concluded the planet would be better off without us.
In the 2008 remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” for example, the intent of the aliens is to wipe humans off the Earth and return it to a “pristine” state. The film has a happy ending, though: They settle for merely destroying all our technology, which would only kill a few billion of us.
And in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” Mother Nature herself starts releasing “pheromones” that cause people to commit mass suicide.
Smith set me off researching something called “Deep Ecology,” which in its more extreme forms believes the Earth itself is a living organism devotees call “Gaia.” Some advocates compare humanity to a “cancer” or “virus” that requires “culling” to about 10 percent of the planet’s current population.
I suspect if I ever met an advocate of this philosophy, my reaction would be, “You first.”
If you’ve ever wondered how something could be viciously weird (or weirdly vicious), check out a Deep Ecology Web site. Tell them Gaia sent you.

M.D. Harmon is an editorial writer. He can be contacted at: mharmon@pressherald.com

[Fr. Bill]

The enviornmental and liberal-social agenda in the public school system which Hunter speaks of is at least as old as late 80's, and probably somewhat older than that. We encountered it when our children entered kindergarten in a small North Texas town in 1988, and we acively counter-educated our children for their entire public school careers over the next 20 years.

If anyone writes histories of these things, I would love to know when the tipping point came. Schools were not social-engineering institutes when I was going through high school in the 60s. They seem to have begun the change somewhere in the 70s, to judge by anecdotal evidence I've collected over the years. Even in public schools where it was possible to get a fairly good college-prep education, the social-political-environmental fog was always very thick and required constant refutation and challenge at home.

[Occasus]

Fr. Bill said: If anyone writes histories of these things, I would love to know when the tipping point came. Schools were not social-engineering institutes when I was going through high school in the 60s.

Father, I'd take a look at The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto, as a good starting point for the mess we've got now in public schools.

[Ethan C.]

>>Father, I'd take a look at The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto, as a good starting point for the mess we've got now in public schools.<<

I also recommend that book. It's been many years since I read it, but I recall finding it very persuasive (and I was myself in public high school at the time).

[Sherry Early]

I grew up and attended public schools in the 60's/70's. I came home, maybe not from elementary school, but certainly from junior high and high school all concerned about the "population explosion." I remember being taught very explicitly that having more than 2 children was immoral and irresponsible. Social studies as a subject changes hobbyhorses about every ten years: overpopulation, rain forests, global warming. Soon it'll be something else.

[Julana Schutt]

I like Gatto's book, too.

Our son's elementary school currently has paper grocery bags lining the halls with large blue-and-green Earths drawn on them, and epigraphs in large print: SAVE THE EARTH!

Yesterday the tables inside the entrance had art projects piled on them. One had a man in a cage. The note beside it stated that the only difference between a man and a dog is the dog is smaller and has fur.

[Susan]

Sherry, I was thinking exactly the same thing. When I was in high school in the late 70s, our social studies teacher instructed us about the ideal of "Zero Population Growth". The next wave of students was warned about rain forests and mass extinctions, and today's kids are being frightened with the spectre of catastrophic climate change.

I'm currently reading Gatto's book, and it's giving me even more reason to be glad that we've decided to home educate our children.

[Benighted Savage]

>>> They seem to have begun the change somewhere in the 70s, to judge by anecdotal evidence I've collected over the years. <<<

Your account accords with my schooling experience in the Fort Worth-Dallas area in the 70s and early 80s. One way "content" was snuck in was through standardized tests. I remember taking tests which had questions based upon "neutral" readings about the environment (including change in climate).

[Benighted Savage]

This just in: a Florida high school history teacher is found guilty of insulting Christianity:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/corbett-religion-court-2387684-farnan-selna

That's funny. Back in the 70s, my high school physics and math teacher routinely insulted/ridiculed Christianity and Christians, and no one batted an eyelash. I guess Texans are a tolerant bunch.

[Bryan]

I dunno, Hunter, it seems like a great opportunity to teach your son the lesson that what gets passed around as "true" isn't always true, that you have to ask questions. So next time he mentions how he's worried about the environment, just have him ask his teacher if the air and water is cleaner now than it was when he/she was a child.

Never too early to get 'em skeptical about state authority, I always say...

[TED]

At our public school they have 'discouraged' the use of the categories Mom and Dad because they presume a particular family structure. As part of the 'diversity' curriculum, kindergartners are taught about same sex marriage, sex-changes, and same sex parents. The exclusivity of the diversity curriculum is particularly abhominable.

[James]

This was an interesting post. I don’t want to tell men with more knowledge and experience (in life and in family matters) than me what is right or wrong as I have so much to learn. I am 30 with two one year old twins. Most of my friends have children in the same age range. I too attended a fairly conservative public school growing up and always thought until recently that I would try to put my children in the same situation so that they could grow and be challenged the way I had, in the “world.”

However, over the last few years I’ve began to rethink my position. My friends and my wife and I recently finished a book study in our small group about this topic. The book is Standing on the Promises by Douglas Wilson. To stay away from numerous quotes I will only site one summary. Basically, the premise of the book is that the education (with everything being brought from a biblical perspective) is the role of the father (and vicariously through the mother as well but with the father’s direction). We should prepare our children for the world, not throw them into it before they are prepared. That stuck with me.

I also believe strongly that we should be actively working in our society and culture to win all things for Christ (with His power leading of course.) So the desire to not abandon the public schools is a strong one. However, for me and my family, the desire to prepare our children for the world and its challenges is winning out. Perhaps circumstances will change and my children will be the generation that will reclaim education for Christ’s kingdom.