Righteous Lessons
I learned a lot in school. It’s impossible to tell how much I retained, but I do seem to have a pretty good memory. I generally do well in Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit, and I guess some of it came from formal education. But a lot of it was absorbed by osmosis from experience, media, and very limited social interaction (“osmosis” definitely came from school).
Public school in Texas wasn’t bad back in the 80’s (that was last century, kiddos). I wasn’t the best student…not by a longshot. I hated homework. I had much better things to do when I got off the school bus…mostly Atari, Commodore 64, and TV. But I managed to learn a thing or two.
Back then, public school was all about three things: babysitting, turning us into members of society, and giving us skills that were valuable to employers (that’s the “teach a man to fish” proverb attributed to Lao Tzu). Other than those three things, schools didn’t have any other agenda.
These days, education is a soft spot for political penetrants. Politicians have figured out the best way to get people on their side is to grow them from seedlings rather than trying to cross-pollinate (that’s either a terrible analogy or a brilliant one…not sure yet). Get ‘em young, just like the tobacco companies did when I was a teen smoker.
You know what I didn’t learn in school? Gender studies. I mean, yeah, we had Health class, and we were separated by which sex was checked in our school records, and we (boys) were taught what testicles were for (I didn’t know exactly what the girls were taught, but I was awful goddamn curious). We learned about sexuality later on…you know, during puberty! I don’t know if my college offered any gender studies in the 90’s, but I didn’t learn anything like that other than what they taught in Psych 101. Sure, we knew about homosexuals, and college was when you figured out where you fell on that scale. And there were plenty of people who didn’t understand it, didn’t want to understand it, even hated it. I think we’ve made a lot of progress since then. Schools are now teaching all kinds of genders we can’t even fathom. And because we don’t get it, we tend to make fun…just like we did with homosexuals back in the “before-times.” And the young folks call us homophobes, bigots, and nazis if we’re not “allies” and actively fighting for the rights of people we don’t know or understand. It’s really just a simple misunderstanding put on the front burner on high thanks to social media and politics. So, now they teach ‘em young and get ‘em on their side before they even know anything about puberty, or sex, or gender (other than the traditional boys and girls).
We also had no CRT back in my day. We learned about MLK, and we knew it was wrong to hate others because they were different. We made progress over the previous generation, although racism persisted here and there. We never dreamed racism was systemic…we didn’t even know what that meant. I wonder if today’s kids would know about racism if we didn’t teach it.
A couple weeks ago, the Texas Board of whateverthehell elected to include Bible stories in elementary school curriculum. Probably the Right’s attempt to grow their own seedlings. Get ‘em young before they have the capacity for critical thinking. This is in direct opposition of the First Amendment…first on the list of things the government is not allowed to do.
Let’s review:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Okay, true, they’re not establishing a law to include Bible stories in Texas curriculum (they also are not Congress). But aren’t they circumventing the spirit of the First Amendment? And they’re not establishing any religion, but isn’t this the next thing to it? Teaching kids about one religion over all the others? Seems like a violation of the First Amendment to me.
Oklahoma is now requiring teachers to include the Bible in lessons. And they’ve approved a charter school which will be run by the Catholic church. What? Really? How is this not a violation of the First Amendment?
Next thing you know, they’ll require the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Oh wait! That’s Louisianna’s recent play. Now that is certainly a violation of the First Amendment.
It should be noted that the Texas case allows for school districts to opt out of the Bible curriculum but includes a deduction to state funding. So, I wonder if I can opt out of my school taxes if my district decides to sell out and get paid for violating the First Amendment. I don’t usually get involved in local government, but this might be a good place to start raising hell.
You might think a simple Bible story wouldn’t constitute “an establishment of religion.” But consider this…what’s a little kid to think when hearing about Jesus turning water into wine, or healing a leper, or raising Lazarus from death? The kid might think, “these stories are coming from the teacher, and sanctioned by the school board which was directed by the state board of education…must be true, huh? They’re not teaching us anything about Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other of the countless religions practiced around the world. So, Christianity must be the one true religion. Right?” Sounds like “an establishment of religion” to me.
Honestly, I have nothing against Bible stories. The Prince of Egypt is my favorite animated movie. I went to Baptist church with a neighbor family when I was a little kid…voluntarily! I watched the PTL club and other televangelists (although that probably led to my atheism later on).
But I never heard any of that shit in school. What I learned in school was that Puritans left England for America to escape the Crown’s persecution of their religious beliefs. That is what America was founded on…not Christianity. We just happen to have a lot of laws that coincide with some of the Ten Commandments. Just because we have laws against murder and theft does not mean we are a Christian nation. It just means murder and theft are wrong. Every religion has those laws, dammit!
Settle down, liberals…I am not on your side. You started this mess implementing your agenda on our country’s most impressionable little people. What the hell else could Drag Queen Story Hour be about? These conservative states are just fighting back and attempting to balance the scales of elementary school politics.
You all know who should be teaching our children about gender and religion, right? C’mon, say it with me….
Parents should be the only ones teaching these controversial subjects to their own kids. If you want your kids to know about Christianity, go on with your righteous self and teach them. Take ‘em to church, send them to bible school, buy an actual bible (I have a dusty copy myself). Wanna teach them about the 100+ genders we seem to have these days? Have at it! There’s probably some weird gender cult you could take them to…mess ‘em up real good! The point is it’s your choice…not the government’s.
As soon as you start force feeding that shit to other peoples’ kids…that’s when you’ve become a real asshole. Just stop it, Uncle Sam!
-Big Steve