Why We Started this Blog

Several years ago, maybe a year before we started this blog, my wife and I were working on a book.  The working title was Judicious Christian Parenting, and we felt this blog would be a good way of promoting the book.  As we were writing, especially when we were ourselves struggling as parents, we sometimes asked:  "What makes us such authorities on raising children?"  In all honestly, the answer was, "Nothing, we are not particularly good parents."  Nonetheless, at the time, our children seemed to be on the right track and we felt we had a voice and something to say.  Turns out that, most of the time, we were the ones who needed to hear what we had to say.  Writing the blog and especially the book forced us to clarify our values.  As a result, some ideas that were more or less vague at the time have become crystal clear now.  If our mission statement was to clarify our Christian values, we certainly succeeded in that endeavor.  But I don't know if we strengthened our family or anyone else's.  As it says in the Scripture, our Christian values have sometimes turned "father against son, brother against brother (Matthew 10:35)."  Being a Christian is difficult.  So, in the midst of all this struggle, it's not hard to see why this blog and the Judicious Christian Parenting book fizzled out.  We wrote three or four tormenting chapters, hashing out the details.  But our message changed as we were writing, our audience narrowed, and we felt as though we were preaching to a very small choir.

If there was a good or genuine motive for writing the book, it was to argue against a trend we saw coming out of the Christian community.  Let's call it Reactionary Parenting, and the most extreme and dangerous advocates of Reactionary Parenting were the Ezzo's.  Essentially, Ezzo Parenting and its secular counterpart, Babywise, represented a rebirth of authoritarian parenting methods.  Based upon an Evangelical interpretation of Original Sin, the parents' job is to counteract the negative effects of their children's inherently sinful characters.  To this ends, the Ezzos instituted strict bedtimes and feeding schedules, and they discouraged parents from forming excessively emotional bonds with their children.  At best, the Ezzo method resulted in some well-disciplined and obedient children.  At worst, the Ezzo method was associated with numerous pediatric cases of failure to thrive, many adolescent examples of alienation, and perhaps many irreparable rifts in family relations.  Though Reactionary Parenting may have appealed to a number of Evangelical Christians, it clearly contradicted contemporary psychology and, more importantly, common sense.  Not to mention that it's based on a heretical interpretation of Original Sin.

Of course, there were reasons for the remarkable success of the Ezzo Parenting books, mostly as a reaction against the increasing prevalence of Permissive Parenting.  It seems that most modern parents want to be best friends with their children, and the results should be obvious.  Children, adolescents, and young adults are increasingly spoiled, insolent, and lazy.  They claim to be egalitarian judges of what they view to be right or wrong, and they dare adults to think otherwise.  They demand control over their own influences, lifestyles, religion, and morality, but without the requisite responsibility or self-support to make these decisions.  In their adult lives, they fail to meet developmental milestones at appropriate ages, but they argue that these milestones are simply outdated.  In the past, this form of adolescent relativism was strictly confined to those raised in non-religious families.  Today, even children who attend church-group several times a week will most likely develop these pagan values.  With each generation, children from Christians and pagans evolve from being obviously distinct to becoming indistinguishable.

For a solution to these parenting traps, we turned to an unlikely source, Diana Baumrind, an experimental psychologist with atheistic and socialistic leanings, who also happened to be of Jewish decent.   Baumrind had originally described three basic parenting styles:  Authoritarian (eg. Reactionary or Ezzo Parenting), Permissive (eg. modern Permissive or Democratic Parenting), and Authoritative Parenting (a parenting style that takes the best of either style).  According to Baumrind, Authoritative Parents are warm and open to the child's will, while also being directive and placing high expectations on their children.  Baumrind's three types of parenting proved an apt solution to much that was wrong with Ezzo Parenting as well as modern, Permissive Parenting.

We spent the first three or four chapters of Judicious Christian Parenting on Baumrind's three (actually four) different parenting styles.  It turns out that her categories are a good way of classifying different Christians.  Some Christians are Reactionary or Authoritarian, others are Progressive or Permissive, some are Laissez-faire or minimalist, and a few are Authoritative or Judicious.  We spent several years critiquing Progressive Christians and their Permissive Parenting styles, as well as critiquing Reactionary Christians and their Authoritarian Parenting styles.  But most of all, we racked our brains trying to figure out what Judicious/Authoritative/Interactive Christian parents would be like and how we could incorporate the best of these traits into our own parenting methods.  Implicit in all of this search was concern over the souls and futures of our children.  We wanted to raise Christian children, and we were well-aware that nowadays few  grown children follow their parents' religious practices.  We theorized that those children who do follow their parents' examples are not from Authoritarian or Permissive backgrounds, but from Authoritative families.

But we were also writing in a period of transition (or perhaps our writing and research led to that transition).  We went from being modern Catholics with ecumenical sensibilities (i.e. Progressive Christians with therefore somewhat Permissive Parenting Styles, virtually indistinguishable from most mainline Protestants) to becoming Traditional Catholics with a conviction that the Catholic Church, particularly the pre-Vatican II church, is the one true church necessary for salvation.  With this transition, our intended audience shrank to comparatively microscopic proportions.  We were no longer thinking about a generic Christian audience; we were thinking about Catholics, especially Catholics who, among other things, attend Latin Mass.  We knew that most Evangelical Christians, especially Christians attracted to Ezzo Parenting, would be unlikely to read our blog or book.  And we knew that the forces driving Progressive Christianity and Permissive Parenting had reached epidemic proportions, poisoning the modern Catholic Church, and therefore causing Western Civilization to lose its Catholic foothold on Christianity.  Increasingly, we were coming to see this modern form of Christian belief as "form without the content," or, as Kant might have said, "void."  In other words, in modern society, Christianity is merely a personal belief with only subjective value and no objective reality.  As such, Christianity without at least some reference to the traditional Catholic foothold is subject to caprice and abandonment.

The trouble for us as Catholic parents trying to raise Catholic children was that some of our children were already approaching adulthood.  Our older children's foundation in religious instruction was so weak that we stood little chance of raising them to be Catholic.  No, they had not been tainted by modern parochial education.  Instead, they had attended public school so they were brainwashed according to Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.  And while they had received modern Catholic Religious Formation, their knowledge-base was remarkably empty.  If they had learned anything of substance about being Catholic, they had learned it from us.  At CCD, they socialized, did a few good works, and became indoctrinated into feel-good Catholicism.  Hardly anything likely to have a lasting impact.

Our oldest son, now a Junior in college, has one distinct advantage.  His college program has an emphasis on the study of the Classics.  There's really nothing like a study of Plato and Aristotle to set a time bomb in a young mind, leading to a certain kind of conversion before the age of forty.  He's unlikely to become a flat-earth Evangelical, and he might not become a Traditional Catholic, but a study of the classics is the perfect antidote to everything that ails modern education.  So we have great hope in his future religious formation, even if he is currently in the hands of the clumsy Brethren.  As Erasmus said, "In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king."

The progress has not been so clear with our second son.  We started home-schooling at the same time with all our children.  While the oldest was then a Freshman in college and escaped homeschooling, our second son was entering 10th grade.  He viewed homeschooling as a punishment, and his view of our motives was far from charitable.  So we have struggled with him.  There have been some hopeful moments.  But overall our relationship with him has been troubled.  We gave him plenty of time to get up to speed, but he only engages in short bursts.  Currently, he is showing no outward signs that he will either apply himself academically or religiously.  We have only two consolations.  One, we have been able to instill a small amount of religious instruction that he would not have otherwise received.  And two, homeschooling has forced his real level of motivation and adaptation to become evident.  In public school and later in a state university, he could have skated by until his Freshman or Sophomore year of college. Reality is sometimes painful, but at least we have not wasted years thinking he was okay when he wasn't.  Of course, we hope that he will eventually come around.

With the younger children, our optimism is almost inversely proportional to their ages.  As Lenin said, "Give me four years to educate the children, and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."  A big portion of our hope is that we have pulled them out of the public schools and daycare system (okay, the younger children were never in daycare) before the modernists could inflict too much damage.  Similarly, the Jesuits (not a group I currently admire, but historically among the best) have a saying, "Give me a child until the age of 7, and I will show you the man."  There's nothing like instilling a small child with traditional Catholic faith--the Baltimore Catechism, the lives of the Saints, Catholic history including the Crusades.  They devour this instruction.  And it takes root in their souls, their characters.  Everything they do in later life will be informed by their current education, whether they become scientists or religious, men or women of reason or of faith.  Not only have we removed them from the secular indoctrination of modern education, but we have been able to provide substantive religious instruction.

My clinical supervisor, a child psychologist, recently told me something like, "Once a child becomes a teenager, there's very little you can do."  He explained, "An adolescent can come up with more ways to mess things up than a parent can invent to control the situation."  This is not to say that there is nothing a parent of a teen can do, but it does imply that parents of teens should be realistic about their expectations.  Essentially, parents of teens should strive to portray themselves as allies, without taking responsibility for the adolescent.  To children, parents are simultaneously antagonists and protectors, punishers and guardians.  But to adolescents, reality is the real antagonist, and parents need to withdrawal from their role as protectors.  This can mean allowing teens to make some stupid choices.  It can also mean being there emotionally but not financially when the choices inevitably fail.  This is a difficult dance, one that we as parents of teens are just now learning.  Of course, this dance would be much easier if we had already thoroughly steeped the children in our belief system prior to their brains leaving their bodies in adolescence.

Another theme with which we have struggled is popular media.  Earlier in the blog, in a post called i-Think, Therefore i-Am, we talked about modern technologies and inferred some thoughts on popular music and movies as well.  This is a difficult area.  For us, excessive restrictions in this area can quickly cause strife with neighborhood children, extended family, and our own children.  Perhaps our biggest struggle in this area is with our own laziness.  Honestly, it's easier to let the children watch television or play video games.  And we don't wish to start an argument with, for example, a visiting uncle or another child's parent.  To us, it is amazing how few adults have any real boundaries for what movies or video games children can watch.  This lack of discretion is partly a matter of social class, but it's also about Christian values, or lack thereof.

When I sat down to write this blog, something was weighing on me.  Oddly enough, it's taken until now for me to get around to it.  Something has happened in our culture.  I see it everywhere, but it's really hard for me to explain to unsympathetic ears.  Perhaps the most obvious example is daycare.  Sometime in the 1970s, mothers started entering the workforce en mass.  This created a demand for childcare.  Oddly enough, churches, the same institutions that might have been conveyors of traditional Christian values, became in large part the providers of daycare.  At first, they had "Mom's Day Out" programs, and later these expanded into 5 or 6 day a week childcare facilities.  This was logical, in a way, since churches had Sunday school facilities that were in disuse throughout the week, and they could make economic use of these spaces.  At first these programs provided childcare for children ages three and up, but quickly they started accepting children as young as six weeks.  Almost overnight, the majority of American mothers (80%) were dropping their children off at daycare as they traipsed off to work.  Here's what really bothered me:  I could accept daycare (among many other things) if it weren't for one particular phenomenon--it's as though this is how it's always been.  Sure, modern mothers may joke about how things were in the 1950s, when women "had to stay home" and "live boring and empty lives."  But this characterization is inaccurate by thirty years.  There were virtually no daycare centers until the 1980s.  It reminds me of a secular movie I once saw, The Lathe of Heaven, in which the main character dreams the world has changed, only to awakened to a world that has change as in his dream, only everyone else believes the world has always been so.  I have conversations about some of these issues with people my age or older than me, and I am stunned.  Don't they remember?  Do they really believe that, prior to birth control, people had frequent casual pick-ups?  Do they really believe that single mothers were ever so common prior to welfare and child-support laws?  Do they really think that children have always been so detached from their parents?  I can accept that some people believe that the vast social experiment that has occurred since the 1960s has been beneficial, but I cannot accept that it's always been this way.  What kind of Orwellian dystopia am I living in?

This leads to my fundamental and disturbing insight.  My liberal family, friends, and associates and I can disagree about values, but we should be able to agree on the facts.  I may not value daycare or birth control the way that other parents do, but we should agree about the facts surrounding the issues.  But this is not my experience.  All of the agenda-items in the vast social experiment require much propaganda or marketing before they can be implemented.  What's really remarkable is how fast the change is taking place.  Essentially, for society to forget living history and to believe that life has always been as it is today is a marker of hypnotic suggestion.  Call it education, propaganda, indoctrination, marketing, or hypnotic suggestion, there are forces that are purveying these forces upon our children and our society.  Even our Christian religious institutions are becoming purveyors of these social experiment agendas.

There are a few antidotes.  As I stated earlier, a study of the Classics can be such an antidote.  I would include religion in this form of study, if religion is studied critically and in historical context.  Various forms of critical thinking can be helpful but probably not sufficient, especially Geometry and Algebra.  Removal from the sources of indoctrination, for example, withdrawal from public schools can be important.  Limiting exposure to modern movies and television is helpful, though I might say that with older children critical analysis can be quite instructional.  Entrenched education in traditional Christianity is indispensable.

The forces of change in our culture are strong and hard to resist.  Some of these changes are mostly good, for example, the civil rights movement.  Others are mostly bad, for example, the secularization of our culture.  In principle, not one of these changes is entirely good or entirely bad.  But for small children, it's just better to believe the men in the white hats are good guys and the men in the black hats are bad guys.  They can learn to differentiate when they get older.  The trouble is that nowadays the public schools, the media, and the entertainment industry teach children that there's really no such thing as good guys and bad guys, that bad guys are just misunderstood and good guys are just the one's on our side.  In such a relativistic world, young people don't stand much chance of distinguishing the good from the bad when they become young adults.  God help us all.  

Homeschooling Dad, Year One Progress Review

July 2011: I would like to give an update on the progress of our homeschooling project, both the successes and the shortcomings, after starting last summer. Overall, I must say that the homeschooling experience has been an eye-opener for my wife and me. While homeschooling has been more difficult than we anticipated, it has also offering greater rewards, though the outcomes have not been equal across the board. With the younger children, we have implemented homeschooling with greater facility and enjoyed more obvious benefits. With the older children, especially our 10^th grader, we experienced glaring difficulties while the benefits were more subtle. Nonetheless, we continue undeterred--with a few battle scars, better strategies, and a lot more resolve.


 
For me, the homeschooling process became clearer after my wife had our seventh child in November and I took over as substitute teacher. Taking over the reins as pedagogue, I was determined to show my wife how to structure homeschool activities. I feel obliged to say that I was generally humbled by my inadequacies, while my wife gave respectful audience to my meager achievements. Mainly, I learned that homeschooling is essentially self-paced. Like they do in public school, I tried to breeze through lessons, administer the test, and move on to the next topic. If the children didn't do well, they needed to try harder. My wife explained that my approach was flawed and that education is cumulative. Each fundamental skill is used in building up to the next level of skills. The failure of public school education is due, in large part, to pupils moving on to the next skill without mastering the last lesson. As mastery of the next skill often requires competence in the prior lessons, they cannot consistently move beyond a basic skill level. In the United States, for example, a performance gap begins to emerge in public schools around 4^th grade as students move beyond basic arithmetic to general math skills. By the time they reach middle school or high school, the average student is so lost in math class that any attempt to understand Algebra is futile. And so, ironically, as much of my frustration was that public school was holding my children back, the best way for me to help them to move forward was to take my time and ensure that they understood the material.


 
The pace of our progress this year was slow at first, and the older the children, the slower the progress. I strongly suspect that the cause was not chronological age or socialization, but prior conditioning from their years in public school. For our 10^th grader, the most obvious problem was that he expected someone to go over each lesson with him individually. For the most part, homeschooling doesn't work this way. Homeschooling, especially the program in which my children are enrolled (Seton), is reading intensive. The children, especially the older ones, read a lot of books and write many reports. Compare this to public school where they have few reading or writing assignments, and where there are ample teacher lectures and multiple-choice tests. Our tenth grader was simply unprepared for the amount of reading and writing that his homeschooling program required. Concerned, I had him read aloud a paragraph, and his reading was fluid and appropriate. This is a boy whom the public school will miss for his PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) scores. Though he is not a leisure reader, he has been consistently above-average throughout his public education. But to rank above-average from a pool of mediocrity doesn't say much. Quickly, it became apparent that his reading comprehension was sorely lacking. Sure, he could read aloud fairly well. But when asked to summarize what he just read, he was stumped. He couldn't remember. He was waiting on someone else to tell him what it meant, explain the significance, and tell him what he needed to know for the test. In short, he had been conditioned not to think for himself. Though we have met with considerable resistance from him, this scenario has only strengthened our resolve to continue homeschooling. For him, progress has moved at a tectonic pace, but he is gradually developing some skills as we become less tenuous. We are optimistic that he will have a major breakthrough this coming year.


 
Part of the reason we suspect a pending breakthrough with our 10^th grader is the trajectory of our 4^th grader this year. A very bright boy, our 4^th grader struggled until after Christmas time, began to catch on during the third quarter, and ended the year on fire. He, too, had major problems with reading comprehension, though he too was considered above average by the public school system. It was easier for us to figure out why he was struggling. Rather than read material from A to Z first, he went straight to the review questions and tried to find the answers in the text. For eighteen weeks, he told us, "But that's how they told us to do it in [public] school!" During a break home from college, our oldest son confirmed that, during this era of teaching-to-the-test, teachers are actually discouraging students from reading and encouraging them to scan the text for the answers first. That, our older son explained, was the only way to pass the test on time. Speed was another problem we encountered with him. For the past several years of public school, he has been repeatedly drilled on his basic arithmetic skills using timed exercises. He developed a degree of pride because he was usually the fastest in his class. A side effect of all these timed exercises has been a decrease in accuracy. His papers, especially in math, have been riddled with simple mistakes. Another problem we encountered related back to the "No Child Left Behind" and the "Do Away with Ability Grouping" mentalities. This problem, we figured out toward the end of the year, when he was already devouring his assignments. In the 3^rd grade of public school, he used the Saxon Math 2/3 text. We enrolled him in regular 4^th grade at Seton and received the Saxon Math 4/5 textbook. We assumed that they simply printed these books to be good for two years of school. We were mistaken. The Saxon 2/3 text is actually a second grade text, with some material for the next year previewed. In an effort to keep every caught up, the public school was a year behind, included my "gifted" son. So, when we enrolled in Seton, our 4th grader skipped 3^rd grade math, covered 4^th grade, and previewed 5^th grade. This turned out to be fortuitous because he eventually caught up, and as he became more challenged, his simple mistakes assuaged. And on a measure of achievement that I've been tracking, he showed amazing improvement in his math skills, as well as marked improvement in his reading.


 
His younger sister entered the 1^st grade this year, and oddly enough I entered the year perhaps most anxious about her progress and ended the year the most confident. Her reading, especially, was markedly improved. As a substitute teacher, I could easily see why teachers often prefer girls. She was on-task and enthusiastic. She took to her coursework like a frog in a swamp. She has been especially receptive to her religious education. We also did some pre-school work with her younger brother and some arts and crafts with the two-year-old. Juggling everything can be quite daunting, but overall the children have been enthusiastic and hungry to learn.


 
An ongoing concern that has gone mostly unspoken by my siblings and mother is that the homeschooling program is heavy on religion and light on science, and I have had the opportunity to ponder this objection. My general observation is that children have a tremendous aptitude for religion, but little comprehension of science. Conversely, teens and college students—especially those with little or no prior religious education--have almost no interest or comprehension of religion. And a scant few are motivated to learn about science. It seems to me that, while some ongoing exposure to science is important, saturating early education with science is a bit like teaching monkeys how to type. Not everyone IS a scientist. Children with natural scientific proclivities will naturally gravitate toward science education as they complete high school and enter college, unless their education takes the life out of the subject.


 
We did have one interesting science field trip in the break this summer. We went to the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Walking through the huge hangers and displays, I was struck by the speed at which the technology progressed, especially from Wilbur and Orville Wright until about the end of World War II. Then, it seemed to me, that the rate of change slowed down, at about the time of Sputnik and the dawn of so-called modern education. Even the Apollo rockets were designed and built by people who read Shakespeare, wrote in cursive, and learned long division. Since then, most of the advances have been in size, electronics, and puzzle-solving. My observation probably contradicted the gross number of patents during recent years, but it seemed to me that most of the changes since the seventies have been refinements on technologies that already existed. It seemed to me that Alvin Toffler was wrong and that we are less shocked by the future than we are oblivious of the past. Again, at the Air Force museum, I saw an interesting contradiction between the progress of technology and the atrocities of WWII, Vietnam, and the Cold War. Though science may be an important topic, perhaps it was best understood by people who had a more classical education first.


 
On another note, our eldest returned from his first year of college having made the Dean's List twice and having studied Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, deTocqueville, Dostoyevski, and Tolstoy, among others. Though his public high school education was lacking, he is nonetheless a reader and his first year of college has filled in some of the gaps. And I think not coincidentally, he is a changed man. He has acquired a newfound determination, seriousness, and work ethic. I believe his newfound maturity comes from his classical education. So, it does appear that for some at least, homeschooling is not the only path toward the moral and intellectual development of young men and women.

The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read, Book Review and Springboard

    I was browsing recorded books when I came across this title, The Teacher Who Couldn't Read, by John Corcoran and Carol C. Carlson. A few days prior, an old friend and new acquaintance on Facebook had posted this priceless piece of doggerel to which I wanted to reply (especially about education), but resisted. In the background, I have been preoccupied with our own children's first year of homeschooling, the difficulties and the progress they have made. At first, I passed over the book about the illiterate teacher, opting instead for light science and history during my daily commute. But the title got in my craw for several days. I looked it up on Amazon and read the reviews. To my amazement, eleven of twelve reviews were positive. Only one review in twelve criticized the author for his checkered past, particularly for lying and cheating his way through his own education. The rest treated the author as a hero who had overcome adversity, and if he had done anything wrong in the past, it was only because he was a victim of inattentive parents, poor schooling, and—presumably—dyslexia. I thought about my own U.S. public school education, the drivel that passed for education and the focus on anything but book learning. I thought about a recent college visit my 10^th grader and I made to my alma mater, one of the better state universities in the country, and to which I wouldn't send my dog unless he wanted to be a linebacker. The more I thought about education, both our recent experiences as homeschooling parents and my own education, the more I realized I had to read that book. I went back and got it several days later.

     My instinctive response to the title was, "What nerve! What a fraud!" I did not approach this book with a sympathetic ear to the author. Not surprisingly, though the book was written in the first person, Mr. Corcoran was not the author; he had a ghostwriter, Carol C. Carlson. I did not protest the use of a ghostwriter except for the pretense of the story being told by Mr. Corcoran himself. The recorded book version was also read by a professional reader. My suspicion was that the title character bore a Glamour Shots-type of resemblance to the real person. Okay, this was Hollywood or Madison Avenue—actually it was Colorado Springs (Focus on the Family). No big deal. A little shining and buffing never hurt anyone. But the smooth and polished writing bothered me enough to go to You Tube to hear Mr. Corcoran speak. Well, the real person and the recorded book were similar enough to hear the resemblance, though the book's author came across as more nuanced and intelligent. Nonetheless, because Focus on the Family had listed the coauthor/ghostwriter on the cover, I was satisfied. It seemed that the now literate and born-again John Corcoran had some integrity. I decided to read/listen on.

    Immediately, it struck me that, though Mr. Corcoran was eager to provide excuses for his parents, they bore the brunt of the responsibility for his illiteracy as a child. His parents were both literate and reasonably educated (his father was a college graduate and teacher, mother was a high school graduate; both were readers). But it seemed like they didn't take enough time with his reading as a young student. Mr. Corcoran's early education involved multiple moves, three different schools in first grade alone. At school, he slipped through the cracks, understandable in his circumstances. But at home, no one appeared to be paying attention—neither his brooding mother nor his capricious father. Of course, Mr. Corcoran was hesitant to use harsh words concerning his parents' shortcomings. With the general public and Evangelical audience in mind, this was a prudent choice for this book. To me, however, his tone came across as sour grapes, simultaneously justifying his parents' inattention and inwardly wishing they could have done better. I'm not so inclined to excuse his parents from culpability. I found his father's behavior particularly troubling and self-serving. For example, his father was frequently changing jobs, and it was hard to imagine these moves were always necessary or beneficial. As much as Mr. Corcoran tried to sugarcoat his family, the facts seemed to shine through. I got the impression that, if it weren't for his parents' self-involved obliviousness, young John Corcoran would have learned to read.

    His school life was worse than his home life. Mr. Corcoran grew up in the Southwest. He started in the public schools, which failed at launching his education. After several years and relocations, he eventually went to parochial school. There, he attended class with many Hispanic children who were not only struggling with learning to read, but also grappling with learning English. In accord with the anti-Catholic tone of Focus on the Family, he told several negative experiences with Catholic schools (though the tales of being hit on the knuckles with a yardstick were missing). Mr. Corcoran recounted learning something about God in Catholic school, but he didn't understand the ritual or the Sacraments. And he told one obligatory tale of sexual abuse in which nothing actually happened but could have occurred had he not been vigilant. I was neither surprised nor unsympathetic nor convinced by the story of sexual abuse that wasn't. It was merely as predictable as his father's next move, which typically occurred just as the boy was starting to make progress. Toward the end of elementary school, John Corcoran went to a public school where progressive education was the norm. Under the tutelage of progressive educators, Mr. Corcoran was freed from the shackles of literate education. He was free to explore learning as experience, as social interaction, as group discussion. Though he retained some fondness for progressive education, he also admitted that progressive education virtually eliminated the expectation of literacy.

    By middle school and high school, Mr. Corcoran capitalized on, in my opinion, the biggest travesty in the American educational system—school sponsored sporting teams. Though he downplayed the advantages of sports, playing football and basketball helped him to be passed over from one grade to the next. Again, he had a stint of Catholic high school, which sounded a bit more arduous. But by high school, Mr. Corcoran was adept at flirting and getting girls to do his homework.

    After high school, he spent several years in community college, though he was still unable to read. I would guess that he as at that time was around a 2^nd or 3^rd grade reading level, though he insinuated that it was much worse than that. Undeterred, he developed various strategies for getting through, some legal and others not. By the time he went to a college in Texas on a basketball scholarship, he was a full-fledged cheat. He broke into teachers' offices and stole tests. Again, his athleticism likely allowed professors and administrators to overlook his behaviors.

    After college, Mr. Corcoran taught and coached in the California public school system for seventeen years. He developed a variety of techniques for hiding his illiteracy. Mostly, he used teacher's aides--smart students who led class, took role, and graded tests. (Many of my own public high school teachers employed these same methods.) He also taught a variety of courses through group discussion. He was a strong practitioner of progressive education. For example, he recorded the mini-series "Roots" and showed it in class. Discussion followed. (My own teachers used similar tactics.) Mr. Corcoran was hard-pressed to say that he was a "bad teacher," simply because he couldn't read. I felt that he lacked the courage to make this leap.

    After teaching, he went into real estate and property management, made a lot of money, but eventually filed for bankruptcy. In a period of despair, he finally entered an adult literacy program and learned to read. He learned to read through phonics, and he made a strong case for teaching phonics, proper English, and English-language education. On these points, he was clear and genuine. A few years after developing his basic reading skills, he became engaged in something like a combination of speech therapy and literacy combined. He had to learn and relearn his basic phonemes—watching his lips and tongue, listening to the sounds, and reading the letters simultaneously. (Oddly, this was the same technique I used to teach myself how to pronounce French phonemes.) It seemed that, without literacy as a youth, Mr. Corcoran had developed his own idiosyncratic ways of speaking and hearing. Working on these basic skills proved a major breakthrough for him. He reported that his reading level is now somewhere around the 8^th grade equivalency, hardly commensurate with his education but similar to an average adult American today.

    On the whole, the book was better than I expected. I left with a greater appreciation for the struggles of people, young or old, who cannot read. But I also had two serious misgivings. First, this book was an unabashed advertisement for the adult literacy movement. This I didn't mind, so much, except I didn't think that's where the focus needed to be. Adult literacy, it seemed to me, was like fixing recalls on automobiles without changing the manufacturing process of new ones. As important as remediation of adults who cannot read is, clearly there is something seriously wrong with the public education system in the United States. If there were only one teacher in America who could not read, then we would have serious problems. I suspect there are others. A teacher who cannot read cannot teach students to read, thus my dismay at the eleven in twelve positive reviews for this book. I applaud John Corcoran for learning how to read at age 48. But I cannot reconcile his audacity for being a teacher for seventeen years. I kept imagining what my grandparents' generation might have said about such a teacher. They wouldn't have been so kind or offered excuses. In recent decades, Americans have lost both common sense and common decency. Yes, John Corcoran has redeemed himself as an individual by conquering the demon of illiteracy. But as an educator, he has not even begun to reconcile the damage he has done. He was not merely a victim of illiteracy; he was a perpetrator of illiteracy.

     My second misgiving related to the testimonial aspect of Mr. Corcoran's story. As a traditional Catholic, I found Mr. Corcoran's conversion from lukewarm Catholicism to non-denominational Christianity both disappointing and predictable. Mr. Corcoran found vague generalities and feel-good spirituality more palatable than the ritual and dogma of Catholic faith. He's not entirely critical of the Catholic Church because clearly the priests and nuns did teach him about God. Throughout the story, even as a young child, John Corcoran prayed to God to learn to read. But the young John Corcoran was loathe to do precisely what Martin Luther first sought to destroy—he could not confess his sin, not to another human being, and certainly not to a priest in the confessional. Yes, I meant to say that his illiteracy was a sin! After all, it was his illiteracy that led him to a lifestyle of lying, cheating, stealing, and defrauding. John Corcoran was able to talk to God about his problem, his not being able to read, but he was unable to utter a word to another human being (except later his wife). This, it seems to me, is a fundamental flaw of not only Protestantism, but most Protestants. By doing away with the human intermediary for confession and the divine personification of reconciliation, Protestants warp the essential meaning and value of Christianity. In practice, this does not necessarily mean that Catholics are better people than Protestants, but it does imply that Catholics are more apt to admit when they are wrong. This corresponds with my life experience. In all honesty, I have scarcely known a Protestant who was readily willing to admit when he had done wrong. And so it seemed with John Corcoran.

     For example, I was amazed when Mr. Corcoran admitted that he had been married almost twenty years before he ever apologized to his wife. This was his primary character flaw—the inability to admit his weaknesses. Though his parents, schools, and language impediment may have been responsible for his not learning to read initially, the responsibility for his illiteracy through nearly a half a century was clearly his. He was not able to address his problem until he got honest—not just with himself and with God, but also with another human being. He credits his religious conversion for his increased honesty. I would say that his religious conversion may have been a step in the right direction because he was never really Catholic from the start. Clearly, a schoolboy who could have said, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa," would have addressed the problem much sooner.


 
    

Poverty Builds Character

Money problems have invaded my normally philosophical mind and taken over as of late. It seems like I worry about money all the time. Now, adding a new expense into the mix, we just sent our oldest son off to college. An already tight family budget has shrunk to ridiculous proportions.

For me, struggles with money can be especially acute because I grew up in fairly affluent circumstances. I often wish that I could provide for my own children a similar lifestyle that I took for granted growing up. As a youth, I went skiing in the Alps and the Rockies, and I never questioned whether my parents would pay for college. Now, as an adult, trips to Alabama and Ohio are budget-busters, and I'm beginning to see parents paying for college as just another mistake coming out of the sixties.

My wife and I have had more than a few arguments about paying for college over the years. She sees college as the student's responsibility, and I have seen college as largely the parents'. Like usual, I have resisted her viewpoint and learned the hard way that she was right. Aptly, our eldest son seems to have settled on a mid-ground between my wife's position and mine. To his credit, he has earned several academic scholarships through his university. But, partly due to his expectation that we would help, he didn't apply for additional scholarships or awards. For us, the bottom line is as follows: according to student aid, with six kids on a mental health income our total expected family contribution is $0.00. (Who am I to question the Federal Government?) Reality check! I am not my father. I do not make a six-figure income. I cannot afford elaborate ski trips, and I cannot afford to send my children to college. We will manage, somehow. But from this point forward, if my kids want to go to college, they have to hit the books and study, research educational institutions and opportunities, and apply for independent scholarships. Otherwise, they will be forced to accrue excessive student loans that an undergraduate education scarcely justifies. Or they can join the military. Or they can get a job.

Coming from my background, this perspective on paying for college is somewhere between heresy and high-treason. My mother and siblings believe that one should not have more children than one is able to send to college. (Eh Gads! My mother and her other children actually think Margaret Sanger was right!) Often, being a Christian, especially a traditional Catholic, can put a person at odds with parents and siblings. For me, this struggle has been at times quite painful. My family has made some very cold remarks about my large family and small income. Their most frequent criticism is this: "How are you going to afford to send them all to college?"

But, really, what's so wrong with expecting young adults to pay for their university education? Perhaps there is something inherently flawed with seeing higher education as a parental obligation. Financial responsibility begets personal responsibility. If the student is footing the bill—either through scholarships or loans or cash—he or she will be more apt to study hard and to learn something. But if Mom and Dad are paying the tab, the student will be more prone to partying and goofing off. Too many parents today see college as a transition period into adulthood. In reality, most college students are technically adults, 18 years or older. For those who approach college life seriously, college is just another variant—like the military or the workforce—of early adult life.

Unfortunately, very few students coming from public high school will have developed this level of serious scholarship, and if they do, they inevitably miss the most important aspect—the love of learning for the sake of learning. Today, most of the serious students are too busy chasing after grades or careers, and they denigrate the study of wisdom or general knowledge. Instead, they quickly jump on the merry-go-round of technological training and external reward. Whereas in high-school, their reward was good grades, in college their reward is looking forward to a lucrative career. Of course, there is nothing wrong in-itself with a profitable career, but when money is the only goal, there's a problem. The world really doesn't need any more smart accountants, lawyers, doctors, or CEOs. What the world really does need, however, are smart accountants, lawyers, doctors, and CEOs who understand the importance of values and ethics. These future ethical leaders are not simply chasing a carrot and stick, they genuinely love learning about their fields simply for the sake of knowledge.

Lately, I've been really worried about our oldest as he goes off to college, not just the whole finances aspect. I'm especially concerned about whether he had the commitment and perspicacity. Then something happened that gave me tremendous hope. Looking at his dorm room he said, "It's not as small as I remember it." Then he said, "I can't believe I have a whole dresser to myself." Wow! What gratitude! It was rather humbling for me, but all the sudden I saw that all of our struggles have been worthwhile. I've been really hard on myself for now being able to provide a better life for my children, and yet that very lack has helped to shape their characters in a positive way. I compare my oldest to myself at his age, and he outshines me in so many ways. At that age, nothing was ever good enough for me; he's incredibly grateful for a small dorm room. I expected things to be handed to me with little effort on my part; he works harder than I did at this stage. And what I did earn, I quickly squandered on the next amusement; well, not everything is all that different. But he's making progress.

More Than NOT

"Did you sign [name omitted] up for the 'Voluntary Drug Testing' program?" she asked. (My child and her child were both entering 7^th grade.) The other parent was referring to a program that was new to the public school at the time, "Voluntary Drug Testing." Starting in 7^th grade, parents could sign their children up for random urine drug screens and be notified of the results.

"No," I immediately responded. "I'm not going to have my teens subjected to random drug tests or mandatory counseling."

Her chin dropped. "Why not?"

"I've worked as a drug and alcohol counselor," was the only answer I could muster. Sensing that anything I could say would fall on deaf ears, I simply walked away. But a myriad of thoughts occurred to me. "What if the results are positive?" I thought to myself. "Does that then allow the school system to mandate drug and alcohol treatment? And if so, do the parents get a choice in which treatment provider the children see?" Though I am concerned and quite vigilant about ensuring my children do not use drugs or alcohol, in many ways I'm even more frightened of the drug and alcohol treatment industry. Often, especially in relatively mild cases of substance abuse, the status quo of treatment in the United States does more harm than good. Confrontational counseling—now unequivocally debunked (Miller & Rollnick 1991)—continues to be all-too prevalent. Watered-down theology and new-age spirituality are mainstays, and genuine religious practice is discouraged (eg. Bradshaw). No, I'm not about to turn over the decision-making process regarding my children's lives to the school system, police, and treatment industry. For me, declining the "Voluntary Drug Testing" program was an easy decision.

Nonetheless, that other parent's remark did bother me enough to talk about it later with my wife. Her response was something like, "If our teenagers don't think we trust them, then they might as well be doing drugs or whatever else we suspect them of doing!" My wife sees trust as a two-way street. The children need to know that they can rely on us, but we also have to trust them. Of course, we are cautious not to provide too much freedom, and we try to make sure they are not abusing their liberty. For example, when they come home from being out with friends, we talk to them for a few minutes. Occasionally, we may even check their breath. Most importantly, we do this in a nonintrusive, non-accusatory manner. In the words of Ronald Reagan, "Trust, but verify."

Recently, during a break, I discussed this "Voluntary Drug Testing" program with my clinical supervisor, a psychologist who specializes in the behavioral treatment of children. He had a different take on the subject. He had two major concerns with a school program such as drug-testing of teens. First, parents who sign up for this program are relinquishing their parental role and allowing the school-system to pick up the responsibility. Second, these parents are assuming that the school-system is competent to take over the task adequately.

My clinical supervisor compared the "Voluntary Drug Testing" to an ecological study on Driver's Education (Robinson 1980). The gist of this study was that, back in the late 1970s, the state of Connecticut cut funding for school-based, Driver's Education. Some of the school districts dropped the program entirely, while other districts chose to continue funding Driver's Education from their own coffers. This led to a natural or ecological way of measuring the effectiveness of Driver's Education, by comparing the motor vehicle accident rates between these large populations of youths, with or without school-based Driver's Education. The results were interesting. The school districts that opted out of the Driver's Education actually had lower accident rates, and the school districts that continued to have Driver's Education had higher rates. Did this mean that the Driver's Education was somehow to blame for the higher accident rate? No, that wasn't the problem. Upon closer analysis, it turns out that the students without the Driver's Education class waited longer to get their licenses and that delay accounted for the change in the accident rate. My clinical supervisor interprets this difference as a change in parental involvement. The parents of students with Driver's Training assumed that their teens were ready to drive. They relinquished the decision of when to allow the teen to get a license over to the driving instructor. The parents of teens without Driver's Training had to make the decision themselves. With first-hand knowledge of their teens' driving performance, they were more apt to delay the licensure, resulting in fewer accidents.

In a similar way, his concern about a "Voluntary Drug Testing" program at the school was that parents would become prone to relinquishing their parental role. These parents might be less apt to keep a watchful eye and nose on their children, and more prone to trust that the school's drug-testing would pick up any misbehaviors. Anyone with a slight knowledge about drug and alcohol screenings knows that these tests can miss a lot. There is no substitute for parental mindfulness. Besides, if circumstances warrant, parents can now purchase these tests over-the-counter at the local pharmacy. At least then, the parents (and students) can decide for themselves how to proceed and not be at the mercy of the school, police, and treatment providers.

This discussion is timely. President Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is now talking about expanding the role of public schools. With single parents and dual-career families, parents are time-strapped to provide the kind of activity, supervision, and assistance that many students appear to need. Amazingly (to me, at least), many parents are more than willing to allow the school-system to pick up the slack. Couple this with an elitist attitude toward the families of "at-risk-youth," and many of these programs are likely to get the green light.

Meanwhile, we traditional Catholics and conservative Christians are pulling our children out of the public school system by the droves. It occurs to me: This "Voluntary Drug Testing" program can be seen as a metaphor for public schooling in general. By dropping our children off at the doors of the public school, we parents relinquish control. We leave the education of our progeny to people we barely know. By allowing the school system to educate our children, we trust that they are competent to do so. Yet, in the back of our minds, we know that the United States has one of the worst-ranked educational systems in the civilized world.

As obvious as the homeschooling decision seems to me now, our family has only recently joined the trend of Christians fleeing from the public schools. Five weeks ago, we started homeschooling. As such, I'm still sorting out various aspects of the whole decision. Initially, for me, the decision had a lot to do with setting more rigorous academic standards. This is clearly the case. Our homeschooling program, one of the largest, substantially challenges our 4^th and 10^th graders, who were both superb students in the public schools. In certain skill areas, particularly reading comprehension, they are struggling to pick up the pace in homeschooling. My dear wife—who does the lion's share of the teaching—is finding that homeschooling is more work than we anticipated, but with even greater payoff.

Increasingly, though, I'm becoming aware that academics are not the main reason that we or most parents are homeschooling. Children can learn math, science, and reading all day long, but if they don't develop moral character, all that education is for naught. On the subject of values, however, the public schools are mostly silent. Public schools try to create a values-neutral type of environment, but this approach has three fatal flaws as follows: First, values are the most important thing, and any teacher who tries to be mute on values often leaves out the part that gives the lesson meaning. Second, the goal of being values-neutral is a lie; individual values always seep through. Third, increasingly the public schools do endorse a set of values, those of the liberal-progressive, elitist movement. The result is an education that lacks meaning (eg. few modern children can explain the significance of the Pilgrims), lacks integrity (eg. teens will always pick up on their Health teacher's individual belief about premarital sex) and lacks justice (eg. school boards are increasingly banning books that exert morally upright values while making others of reprehensible value required reading). This situation is extremely dire. There is no way to remain in the school system and work from the inside to make things better. The only solution for Christian parents who are serious about their children's moral education is to withdraw them from public school.

The root of the problem regarding values for public schools is they cannot speak positively about character education. For example, public schools cannot rightly espouse the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. These are positive values, and as such relate to a specific set of religious beliefs. The only things that public schools can talk about in regard to values are feelings and behaviors. All of these behaviors are expressed in the negative. Public schools frequently address the importance of NOT using drugs, NOT getting pregnant, NOT treating homosexuals unkindly, and NOT being bigoted towards other groups of people. Thus, the fruit of modern education is a student who is generally nice and gentle, but otherwise lacks real personality or character. These students know nothing of vice or virtue, but only of avoiding bad behavior and hurting other people's feelings. Morality to these young people is not objective or open to debate, but absolutely subjective. Do not challenge their point of view; their pleasant façade will turn vicious. The best that modern education has to offer—if all of these NOT lessons are heard succinctly—is a two-dimensional person, a paper cut-out. These students cannot develop real moral character, as that requires rigorous thought, self-criticism, and positive moral instruction.

And so, as a newly franchised homeschooling parent, I have little fear that my children will use drugs, get pregnant, treat people unkindly, or behave in bigoted ways. My bigger concern is what types of positive traits they will develop and nurture. I want to raise children of moral character. And that's why I think parents choose homeschooling.

Future Homeschooling Dad—Blogpost #2

Public schools stink! I went to public school and public universities, and it's a miracle I know anything at all. Most of what I know today, I learned on my own or from my family.

Lately, I've been wondering: If my own education was independent and family-based, is that typical of most students? I've concluded the answer is yes. Smart, motivated parents tend to have smart, motivated students. I think that the public schools are secretly aware that children learn more on their own and from their parents than they do at school. Proof? Exhibit A: The increased quantity of homework that today's teachers assign students. This past year, my grade-school children frequently brought home one to two hours of homework per night. With so much homework, I often wondered if my children were learning anything at school. So I asked them, "What did you do at school today?" Frequently, they said they watched Lion King or had a party. Exhibit B: Testing. In our state the tests for No Child Left Behind are called the PSSAs. Our oldest actually quoted one of his teachers saying, "PSSAs are more important than SATs." Translation: the school exists not to educate our children, but to perpetuate itself. The teachers care more about their jobs than our children's futures. As a result, the teachers stress achievement on testing, but rarely educate on topics that might inspire the children. One elementary school teacher informed us that they only cover new material for two months out of the school year. The rest of the year they are reviewing old material and taking standardized tests. I would add watching movies and having parties.

Our family's days of public education are now over, marked by our eldest graduating from public high school last week. Presently, my wife and I spend a lot of time trying to undo the damage a public school education has inflicted upon him. This senior year, the teachers and administration were not focused on academics, but on ritual. Homecoming, painting the field, winter ball, senior trip, student council, band, clubs, sports, prom, and graduation ceremonies were the focus. I initiated contact with both the principal and the vice principal this year. Both times, they changed the subject and discussed one of these rituals. As traditional Catholics, our family gets plenty of ritual at church. We do not appreciate the secular administrators of the public school enforcing empty rituals upon our children. Just because the rest of society is starved of rituals does not mean that we are. We are already full.

Our second son will be entering 10^th grade this coming year. Because of his age, we allowed him to decide whether to stay in public school or to start homeschooling. We were somewhat surprised when he selected homeschooling. His reasons were as follows: 1. He said, "They [we] don't do anything at school." 2. Our school district will still allow him to participate in sports. 3. He can work at his own pace, and he hopes to be attending community college while his peers are still attending high school. He didn't care about all the rituals. He expressed a desire to get away from the social meat grinder. And he felt that most of the teachers are just overgrown kids themselves. Lately, however, he's expressed some misgivings. Partly, he realized how much work homeschooling would be and got cold feet. He's also brought up the number one excuse for not homeschooling, "socialization."

Having raised a child all the way through high school, I'm beginning to wonder what parents and teachers really mean by "socialization." High school, especially today, is brutal. As an adult, if I encounter a boss or coworkers who are unbearable, I can always look for a new job or quit. But public school students seldom have the option of changing schools or quitting. Instead, these students are stuck and need to learn how to brush off criticism. Is this what parents and teachers mean by socialization? No, I don't think so. High schools do not orchestrate social stress in order to develop their students' stress tolerance. High school is not West Point. Rather, high schools go out of their way to eliminate stress, often creating more stress in the process. High school is more like a cult. Today's students learn to socialize in an environment of rigidly defined rules and standards. Does this eliminate bullies and discrimination? No, quite the contrary. Much like my work-experience with bright criminals in jails and prisons, policies that are too rigid allow a few mean-spirited but bright students to figure out ways to bypass the system. Zero tolerance policies are a particularly useful tool to these clever students, who back administrators into a corner and force them to forget common-sense. In this way, a handful of "mean kids" actually run the social milieu of high school.

This is not the type of socialization that most parents desire. Many parents have an idyllic recollection of high school. With the error of euphoric memory, they forget the painful events and only remember the good times. In truth, adolescence is a painful time of life. Being stuck in a box with hundreds of other youths struggling with the same issues does not prepare a young man or woman for adulthood. Teachers and administrators who have likewise not resolved these same issues—hence perpetually in high school—only exacerbate the problem. In reality, socialization begins and ends in the family. Children learn their values from their families, from their primary relationship bonds. At the extreme, children who fail to make those bonds with their primary caregivers may later be unable to form meaningful attachments to other human beings. More commonly, children who do have loving parents but spend much of their lives shuffling from daycare to elementary school to middle-school and to high-school come to identify more with their peers than with their families. Under these circumstances, public schools start taking on characteristics of gangs or cults.

Luckily, our children have done well despite public school. I'm proud of our eldest for graduation. Frankly, academics were a minor part of his accomplishment. Surviving the "mean kids" (and I hope he wasn't one of them) was an amazing feat. He's a better kid than I ever was. If I had to go to public high school today, I doubt I'd graduate. So, with the past twelve years under our belts, for many reasons, my wife and I have decided that public schooling is not worth it. My advice to parents of public school children: Caveat Emptor.

[Future] Homeschooling Dad--Blog Post #1

Dear wife has been wanting to home-school for the past several years. I've resisted. Gradually, though, I have started to see the sense in teaching our children ourselves. Over the past thirteen years, we've had both good and bad experiences with schools, public and private. I don't think the schools or the experiences have changed as much as our perception. For me, the tipping point was this past fall when our four school-aged children got the flu. It turns out that the school district has a rule that, if the children miss three or more days of school, they have to go to the doctor before returning to school. If not, the parents will be fined $350 per child. Well, three of our children met their criteria, so that would have been $1050. The cost to take three well-children to the doctor was $75. Begrudgingly, we took the children to the doctor. The timing was especially difficult as we had just replaced the transmission in the minivan and Christmas was fast approaching. The school, of course, was unswerving, bureaucratic. And we're lucky. We have health insurance. What happens to the families less fortunate than we are? Perhaps typical of men, my opinion about homeschooling didn't change until public schooling hit my pocketbook and I felt the yoke of tyranny.

Since then, nearly every day something has happened that has reaffirmed my opinion about homeschooling. And nearly every day, I've thought about blogging about the most recent episode that tips the scales even more in favor of taking over the education of our children. Dear wife tells me that she, too, wants to blog about homeschooling. I think, though, that she wants to talk in more general terms, most likely in terms of how it relates to Christianity in particular. I'm thinking more about some ongoing, short, anecdotal posts. I think the topic allows plenty of room for discussion and comment.

Today's anecdote relates to our oldest, a high-school senior, and his upcoming college decision. Regarding his status, we have reason to be thankful. He's been accepted to five universities, two public and three private. He's also been offered scholarships by all three private schools, making their cost on par with the state schools. He's leaning toward one of the state schools, my father's alma mater. He's also been accepted to main campus of the university where I got my undergraduate degree, a school with a much venerated octogenarian football coach. But, barring making the decision for him, we're hoping he chooses one of the private schools. We are particularly interested in a Catholic school recommended by the Cardinal Newman Society. The whole college preparation and selection process has been long and exhausting. Our son has been resistant to our guidance, but our perseverance has largely paid off. His grades have improved. He put some effort into his SAT and essay, and now he has options. The problem is that, for the second time, he came home telling us that his high-school teachers were trying to persuade both him and his classmates that public universities are better than private colleges. Not only do I disagree, but they are specifically undermining what we are trying to tell our child. If we were homeschooling, this would not be an issue.

Some people might say, "Sure, that's why you want to home school. You're afraid of having your children exposed to different points of view." This is not a fair criticism. My concern is not exposure to a variety of opinions, but exposure to only one viewpoint—that of mainstream secular society. Furthermore, the prevailing opinion is presented with no room for debate. For example, in regard to the private versus public universities debate, any discussion of character education is off limits. The prevailing wisdom is that character education is the parents' job. The status quo in university education today is a technical education peppered with an indoctrination into the sacred cows of modern academia—feminism, civil rights, and liberalism. Though these issues may be important, they do not fit under the rubric of a traditional liberal arts education because open debate and exploration of the truth are not allowed. Don't believe me? Try going into a Women's Studies class and talking about the drawbacks of daycare. The same can be said, with scarce exceptions, for any of these curricula. Furthermore, the gist of these courses carries forward to the social milieu of these universities, from COED dorms to house parties. On most secular campuses (and, to be fair, in many religious schools), mainstream secular opinion is as sure to mold the student as the Colorado River was once poised to form the Grand Canyon.

Perhaps a specific example would be instructive. I went to a large, state university during the Congressional debate on censorship of rock music. From a 400-level course (which many of the Grad Students in my major audited), I was acquainted with a graduate student who was teaching Freshman English. He asked his students to write a pro/con paper on the music censorship debate. He had around 30 students in his class. Troubled by his students' rigid stance on the topic, he advised that anyone arguing for censorship would be more likely to get an A. His papers came back, and to his great disappointment, all 30 came back against censorship. The point is not that censorship is good, but that these students were incapable of perspective-taking or arguing from another point of view. My point is that these skills are unlikely to be learned at a large university, especially in a predominately technical emphasis of study.

I think the problem of conceptual rigidity and lack of character education is epidemic in our society. I saw an example the other night while flipping through the channels. The show was Private Practice. Yes, of course this was merely a T.V. show, but it was quite believable. In my experience, many doctors really do act like this. In the show, two doctors were struggling with a romantic entanglement because the female doctor's best friend was the male doctor's ex-wife. In other words, these were highly educated people struggling with an issue that they should have understood in 10^th grade--you don't double-cross your friends or throw salt in the wounds of break-up. These were characters with 12+ years of technical higher education, but who lacked a basic education in character development. In my view, all the money in the world, all the high-end jobs, cannot possibly make up for the interpersonal mayhem and emptiness that invariably follow in the wake of spiritual poverty. No, I'm not arguing for Bible-college in lieu of science education, but I am asserting that values are the most important facet at all levels of education, from elementary to post-doctoral.

So, in response to my son's Chemistry teacher: Yes, education is what the student makes of it. But a real education is more than understanding electron configurations, the most important aspects of education are the values the student learns in the process. As Christian parents, it is our responsibility to provide our son with some religious instruction. We would also like him to continue his studies. Personally, I would like it if he chose to take a few courses in religion and ethics while at college. I might recommend that he take a course in Eschatology or Exegesis or Theology. It is my hope that he will develop an understanding of his faith commensurate intellectually with his expertise in his chosen field of study. In retrospect, our eldest may have been best guided in this direction by a course of home-study rather than a public-school education.