When Less Education Means Better Christian Education (and Bonus Freedom)

And doesn't require tax money to fund, just tithes

There are a lot of issues about education that we could discuss. From underfunding to the load of paperwork required of teachers to over-emphasis on test scores, there are a number of problems that need solutions. However, I think we can all agree that destroying the whole system really is not the way to resolve the issue, or can we?

Well, Kevin Novak, the author of Abolition: Overcoming the Christian Establishment on Education, seems to think it's fine to let the system fall so that Christians can build it back up. He was on the Kevin Swanson show to discuss the education system.

By the way, his bio on Amazon says he's a former homeschool administrator and a lawyer who used to work in insurance, but there's no mention of any teaching degrees or experience beyond being a tutor. It's obvious from the few reviews that Novak thinks it's unconstitutional to use tax money to pay for schools. So there's that.

In any case, a couple of quotes by Novak caught my attention. After saying that Christians would reconstruct society, he says "We're gonna be the ones with answers, and that's already happening." I find this assertion very vague and unenlightening. Like I said above, education is a big, honking system with a lot of moving parts. What do these Christians have answers to? (Spoiler: it's paying fewer taxes and teaching the Bible message.)

On another tangent, one of my beefs with the way education is discussed has to do with the factory-style belief about learning. I've met lots of people who think it's simply a matter of presenting the right information with the right words and presto, students learn. But we are not on an assembly line putting a car together where the same screw will insert into the same piece the same way every time. At its core, education is about an educator and a room of learners. These are human beings with different personalities, backgrounds, needs, beliefs, abilities, and so on. Teaching and learning are very different from building widgets.

By the way, he mentioned several times that Christians have the answers, and  having to repeat this so many times smacks of a salesman with a poor product, but it also brings me to the next quote that caught my attention: "...and we're the ones that are going to save liberals from themselves because liberals actually have more freedom when Christians are in charge than when their own people are in charge, and let's let the civil government school collapse."

Okay, so first off, Christians and liberals aren't two separate groups, let's just get that straight. Nearly all of my Christian friends are actually left-leaning and are appalled by people like Kevin Novak. A lot of these Christian friends actually went to public school themselves and sent their kids to one. (And I know several people who went to Catholic school who are atheists, so there's that too.) So #notallChristians right there.

Second, will we really have more freedom? If Christian teaching is being forced on me and if science class is just a bunch of goddidit reasoning, what kind of freedom are you offering? If students bullies minorities and LGBTQ youth (and god forbid - haha - those minorities be LGBTQ or -gasp!- atheist), what will the good Christians do?

Here's the "freedom": "...less law and less taxation, less regulation, and complete autonomy to be able to educate in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

Okay, I don't know what "nurture and admonition of the Lord" means, but I don't think that letting public schools totally fail is a recipe for a good society. Sure, who wouldn't like to pay fewer taxes, but I am willing to pay taxes so that the people around me have a minimum of book learning so they can become self-sufficient workers who help make businesses function so I can do things like eat out, go to movies, travel, and basically enjoy my life. Sure, some regulations suck, but others like "Teach science in science class" are actually good, or "pay teachers some money to teach."

Public schools are far from perfect. Education will never be perfect. However, the solution is not to destroy the edifice so a bunch of superstitious, anti-education philistines can come in and teach arithmetic and reading the Bible while allowing Christian students to bully others in the name of "religious freedom."

(Via: RightWingWatch)