One of the best arguments for pulling your kids out of the system and educating them yourself, IMO. My kids go with me to the polls every time I vote, and they have been since they were born. The older two have plenty of questions about what I'm doing and why, and my hope is that after 18 years of watching me vote every time there's an election, they'll be voters too. And if Cruz keeps up the good work, I'm thinking we may just volunteer to help in his reelection campaign in a few years and call it a study of our election system.The Annoyed Man wrote:I you have kids, you've been preparing them for this. I have, and he now sees it without my having to point it out for him. A generation raised like that could stop this from going any further.
Unfortunately, the majority of parents seem content to let their kids absorb whatever version of "history" the schools seem willing to teach them. Consequently, there is no general backdrop of knowledge against which the current cultural war is taking place.
Think about it for a minute..... Children born after 9/11 are now entering middle school. It's the only world they've ever known. They've never known a time when there wasn't a DHS or TSA. For all of their budding political awareness, Obama has been POTUS, Monkey Brain has been VPOTUS, and Toad "Woman" has been head of DHS. Their teachers make them sing songs of praise to Obama, just like they do for Dear Leader in North Korea. At least two generations now have graduated from high school without once ever having read the Bill of Rights, let alone the entire Constitution. They actually believe that the words "separation of church and state" appear in the Constitution, and they're pretty sure that it's in the 1st Amendment, and—believe me, I KNOW this is true because I've tried it—they are genuinely surprised when you prove to them that those words are not there. Just yesterday, Obama told Ohio State grads to reject voices that warn of government tyranny (SOURCE). The war is on. Apathy got us here, and apathy will kill us. There is no more room for apathy. The only way to win it is to make sure that new generations are properly taught. The lost generations will stay lost because it is too comfortable NOT to stay lost.
One of my favorite tools for discussing American history right now is a CD of American and patriotic and folk songs that also includes quotations from foundational documents and great patriots from our history. At almost 3 and 5, my boys are learning that American values are freedom, independence, integrity, hard work, etc. They're learning about the great people and events in our history, and I hope when it comes time to teach them more about current politics they'll be able to look at them through that lens. On my bookshelf for a few years down the road is a book called "Our Documents" that includes the text of 100 of the key documents in American history. We will be doing extensive reading (and probably memorization) from that book as we study our nation's history. The Bill of Rights will be required memorization, as will be at least part of the Declaration of Independence.
As regards "separation of church and state," I can confirm that level of ignorance. I graduated from college in 2007. My freshman year, in one of those mass lecture classes, the professor asked who could tell her what the Constitution said about separation of church and state. I raised my hand and said that phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution but originated from correspondence from Thomas Jefferson. She asked what it did say about religion, and I quoted the First Amendment. After class, she stopped me excitedly and asked if I was pre-law. I remember being puzzled that being familiar with the Constitution would be anything unusual. If I had been able to quote a passage directly from Marbury v. Madison or something, maybe, but I always figured the Constitution was kind of a big deal and knowing what it said was nothing special. I later took a class with a girl who didn't even seem to get the concept of three branches of federal government -- even AFTER that was covered in class (American Constitutional Development). I remember her asking questions like, "what year did the Supreme Court pass that law?" and "what's a roveywade?" (Roe v. Wade). And this was at a private university that supposedly only accepted some top percentage of applicants. Made me wonder who had been turned down, if they were admitting students like that.
I can't change the world, but I've got three kids to raise and I can at least do the best I can with them and let them change their little corners of the world when the time comes.