Tag Archives: It Takes a Village

The Government is NOT a Village

Have you decided what the most important long term issue is? I know we have a LOT of issues. Fake news is assaulting us on every hand. Outrageous things are happening everywhere. Long term, however, what we teach our children may be the most important. What will they think when they vote?

While I study educational methodology, I hear a vastly contrary method propounded by … good people. For instance, I am reading and studying how reducing college down to job training is stealing the soul building, skill cultivating, citizen formation from the students, thus ensuring a slave workforce, unable to critique the government. Not a new idea. Then, I hear, from a Canadian, proudly, that their government and colleges are focusing more and more strictly on job skills. Sounds prudent, except in relation to the broader concerns about soul and society. These were the original ideals of public education when founded in the colonies and the new nation here.

For years, I learned Sociology, and made the assumptions that government programs were charitable. Looking back, I see that there was quite a bit of evidence to the opposite. Bureaucracies tend to goal displace toward self-preservation and growth. Nations that had a healthy business environment had less poverty than countries with directive governments. I have been reading a history of Canada, and comparing New France with the Hudson Bay Company. We all know that Canada is today in the British Commonwealth, and not a protectorate of France .. or Spain. So, yes, let’s have less poverty. Of course, let’s have charity where necessary. Why not let’s do some comparisons to inquire what might work along those lines. (O btw, doing comparative studies is frowned upon in American Sociology as racist — even at the country level. But it is common in Indian Anthro/Soc, but so what?)

We were so pleased back in the 1990s that Mrs. Clinton took up the concern for children. But the statistics that she rightly pointed to, if not entirely coherently, have gotten much worse. The solution, to put more children into failed government schools, is increasingly pushed. Surely no one still misquotes that children have their IQs raised when put into group care. NO! That is not what she said. She said IN THE BEST CARE, the child from the worst situation COULD have their IQ raised. But the fact is that the middle class child ends up with a higher IQ and fewer illnesses when kept at home. Of course, we will have to have many children in group care. Many more, now that we have so many young women giving birth without being married. So we ought to make that care better. But the government run Head Start programs and public school pre-Ks are the worst. Guess what are the best. Replicated, robust research says: congregationally affiliated schools.

Today, let’s consider the problems. Next time, the solutions. But be aware, science does not line up with what politics has been insinuating. No surprise anymore. To get the full book, The Government is not a Village, go to www.lulu.com. Do that, and you might get a discount, too.
Please share with your friends and anyone interested in educational policy.

BE The Village

Is Hilary Clinton right that it takes more than just a parent or two to rear a child? Is she right in her plans to extend government reach in order to serve more children? Is this the best way? Let’s consider this. A more in depth and point-by-point consideration is in my book. And guess what? There is a 15% off sale TODAY. Just use the code: FIFTEEN.

Looking back at the stats, I am very confused. Do you like Bible Studies or interviews with providers more? Is there a pattern about what is liked? Is there a pattern of hits by month? I just can’t tell. Anyway, here is a very popular episode, one that matters to me a lot. I am following up on this idea, and the book I wrote in 2012 (The Government is not a Village available on www.lulu.com), at the command of God, with another book, now on Amazon (How to Start a Daycare/Preschool as a Mission), with an online course.

It turns out that there is robust and replicated research that congregationally affiliated preschools have a much better academic outcome than any other type of preschool, far far better than Headstart — get this : even controlling for income in the home. This is huge. No one is talking about it. I was even told in one state by the person who controls the training for preschool teachers that I may not mention it. So much for science based education.

So if you want to make the most major impact the world, start a preschool in your church. Personalities are formed before 7 years of age. More than half of America’s children must be raised in group care. Take the lead in that group care. If you don’t know how, get my course.

Please please please, contact me. Let me know what you like about this podcast. Let me know what you are looking for that you are not finding. Please, just say hello, okay?

Be the Village

One side says, “It takes a Village to Raise a Child.” The other side said, “NO! It takes 2 parents!” Well, here is the truth about rearing children. Leaders know that we need to help children and help parents rear children. However, all out efforts are resulting in worsening statistics. So maybe we need a new plan. Let’s first get some correct, scientific facts. Then let’s consult some time-tested wisdom. If we keep wandering around in “left field” or “gridlock” our kids will continue to falter. There is a way through the wilderness to the Promised Land. I’ll give you a map in less than 30 minutes.

Also, if you like, you may sign up for a free ebook on how to start a full time preschool — as mission. I know of no other mission that can change the world so dramatically or so quickly. I know of no other mission that can pay for itself. Please consider this and please pass the ebook around!

The Government is Not a Village

 

Hilary Clinton’s book, It Takes a Village, shares very real concern sof a mother combined with that of a Democratic politician. This is of course entirely reasonable for Hillary Clinton of the 1990s. Then I would have agreed with most of her suggestions. Well, really they are arguments. We suspect a political agenda that is decorated by personal stories, but that is surely forgivable. However, from the vantage point of 2014, her thesis seems naïve, if not dangerous, because the government is not a village.

 

 

 

The work was most criticized on the basis that children need parents more than government policies. To her credit, she does say clearly, early on, that children need parents. Furthermore, it is true that parents are best supported by extended family and “the village.” She mentions small towns of yesteryear. Many of my friends talk about tribe, the people they run with. I think of the congregation. Clinton jumps very quickly, however to national governmental policy. To jump so quickly from the assumed lack of parents directly to the need for government intervention is a logical error, misses the hope of having consensus social values, and today is dangerous due to the increasing authoritarianism, secrecy, and corruption of the government.

 

 

 

Clinton did valiantly, first as a lawyer in Arkansas, and then as governor’s wife, and then later as First Lady, working for what she saw as the benefit of children. It is no wonder or fault hat she might write on behalf of policy aimed at improving the lives of children. There is a giant gap, however, between a mother’s concern and the immediate leap to government policy. This involves many of her suggestions in real errors, which we might take up individually elsewhere, but the overarching error is to miss the need for a consensus value set, such as our nation was founded upon, and which the Clintons partake of personally inasmuch as they go to church and pray with their child, but which their policies omit. Societal values can do more than laws. Societal values are the only hope that laws, law enforcement, public policy and social programs have of being salutary. Without responsibility, personal and public, – and more than that, altruism, policies will at best fall short. A social turn toward righteousness and love (exactly what Judeo-Christian values centrally teach) is all that can save us.

 

 

 

Love is What it Takes (Along with Righteousness)

 

 

 

Parents always have had the option to consider themselves before their children: in distribution of goods, safety, and attention. Some truly loved. Most, through the history of our country, did a reasonable job of parenting. Many did it because it was expected; because it was what being a parent meant in their society; it was the only Christian, or “civilized,” thing to do. For those more educated, the history of family recorded in Jewish scripture gave great grounding to wider aspirations. The extreme centrality of teaching one’s children to Biblical faith in Deuteronomy 6 lends great spiritual importance and commands teaching as a primary duty.

 

 

 

“ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

 

“ 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. Deuteronomy 6: 6&7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, the very rudiments of parenting are commanded in the duality of Proverbs urging discipline and Ephesians and Colossians urging moderation.

 

 

 

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

 

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Proverbs 23:13

 

The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.

 

Proverbs 29:15

 

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6”4

 

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Colossians 3:L21

 

 

 

 

 

As out of favor as these scriptures may be, and indeed as quoting scriptures in a work such of this undeniably is, it is equally undeniable that parenting was grounded in precisely this during the founding of our nation through the 1800s and up until there was a general changeover, beginning with the educated elite after 1900. When we were colonies, our academic achievement was second to none. Our health, was better than Europe’s. Our economy was growing dramatically. And while there are isolated cases of extraordinary tragic judgment in parenting documented, overall, our nation led the world in concern for children if one judges by the fact that the first bill providing for general public education was penned in the colony of Massachusetts. That was 1674. By the way, it was called the “Old Deluder Satan Act.”

 

 

 

The Old Deluder Statan Act was a law that provided that any town of 50 households was to levy a tax in order to provide for a school. It provided that the tax should not be so onerous that a family would be tempted to send their child to another school, or I presume, move, to avoid the tax. Notice first that the government itself did not try to take up the money itself (avoiding expense and the possibility of corruption), nor did the government try to control the outcome (showing some humility). Notice more importantly, that the law was based on a public consensus values. In this case the value is clearly spelled out. The act is so named because it explains that in order to continue to be free, it is necessary that the citizens first read the Bible and then compare that to the laws they must read, in order to strike down any non-Biblical laws. Thus, the need for freedom is based in Scriptural literacy, and thus there is a need for schools.