4 Comments

I often bemoan my kids lack of enthusiasm at church- elementary to high school- and I remember that they have a mind of their own. But they do mirror our attitudes to a certain extent, and I ask myself, is my attitude really that bad? Could be.

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Indoctrination, exploitation and manipulation lead to subjugation!!!!

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True about the indoctrination instead of education. As we can see indoctrination is everywhere outside the classrooms too. As we can also see. Worthless indoctrination isn't contributing to better people nor a better world.

When I attended the public school system. Teachers generally stuck with teaching the contents of the textbooks. I don't recall having one teacher from kindergarten to the 12th grade that were trying to lead anyone astray, or indoctrinate any student in any form or fashion. I'm not saying that my teachers were perfect people by any means. However, to the best of my knowledge. My teachers left the parenting of their students in the hands of parents where it belongs.

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Left (ran away from) public school teaching 2 years and 4 days ago. Had begun in '74, retired in'77, returned in '2000. I observed in this latter period the rise of parent-teacher hostility. Of parents absolutely refusing to accept teacher's observation of child flagrantly cheating. Or lying. And, gosh, it was hard to make those phone calls. This morning it came to me that these parents did not truly know their children. How many of these children currently in public school are products of day care? How well do parents know their children when they have farmed out the child-raising to a paid-by-the-hour human? What stake has that human in the child's ultimate development? Visiting my grandchildren, in November, observing how 'tightly' their time is scheduled, made me aware of yet another place where parents are surrendering their influence over their own offspring: to the Brownie leader, to the dance teacher, to the music teacher, to the swim teacher. This is a bee in my bonnet; it has been buzzing around up there for 50 years. I am positive that this post will engender some hateful comments. And yes, in that interim '77 to '00, I was staying at home, raising my children. No, I was not 'lucky'. My husband and I planned for this, and if you will, 'sacrificed' for this--though it hardly seemed sacrifice.

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