The voice mail message from my son's seventh-grade Language Arts' teacher was earnest and polite in a pleasant Jamaican woman's accent. She was sincerely concerned about my son's "responsibilities" in turning in several homework assignments recently. The fact that my son was obviously "bright" and had "advanced" language arts skills did not sit well with getting a "D or possibly an F" in her class. He gets nearly straight A's including doing well in advanced math classes. But again, my son needed to meet his "responsibilities" to make the grade in her class. My heretofore obviously naive assumption that benign propaganda from the government operated school system was harmless immediately swelled up hideously. I came through a similar government school system, I had told myself, and I was OK. But what I have learned is that this isn't dad's benevolent local government school system anymore.
There are always signs along the way pointing out a hazard to us, but the signs do not become clear enough to understand until the hazard is upon us. My son reads a lot today and has since he was a toddler. When he was in first grade we moved to a neighborhood with the best "public schools" in the region. I also eliminated cable television from my family's household about ten years ago and it was the third most important decision that my wife and I have ever made concerning our children. The number one most important decision was our being committed to loving each other for life; and the second was to having dinner together as a family every night. Well, I try to read at least one book in the many series of books that he reads and sometimes I read several to keep up with what he is reading as well as for my own enjoyment. My son has always liked my reading his books, magazines and web sites and we often discuss them. He also shares the required reading in his official Government School System Language Arts Book with me.
The reading assignments are an ongoing parade of planks in the Government School Agenda including stories suggesting the evil nature of guns, hard work, profit and, of course, white people are always the doers of evil. He has easily been able to understand the blatant absurdity of such absolutes as both the inherent evil of all white people and the inherent victimization of all non-white people. Although the stories were laughably silly at best, they become ominously horrifying when you are an intelligent, sensitive and well-read white boy stuck in the Government School System's Seventh Grade Language Arts Grading Machine. The moral dilemma became one of three choices for my son: whether to 1) turn in his views of the truth and be castigated or even castrated for not being politically correct; 2) turn in politically correct bullsh-words to make the grade and lose self-respect or 3) don't turn in anything and take the heat for getting bad grades. So far the fear of going it alone against the powerful authorities backed by the ignorant mob of followers in his class has stymied his courage to stand up and let the truth be heard, but he has also stood his ground refusing to buckle under to the System stoically awaiting the consequences.
At this point you should be wondering why I am such an ogre punishing my children by sending them daily into the belly of Leviathan. Indeed, this is the question that haunts me. Besides my earlier admitted naïveté, it was partially a Boy Named Sue bit of reasoning and trying to help others. Like the character in the old Johnny Cash song, I believe that one must be challenged and tempted by tough circumstances to build character, to get tougher growing up. I also think that one should try to help the less fortunate poor souls lost in the belly, to provide hope and a beacon to help them float through with you. Finally, I basically felt that sheltering my children would be nice for a while, but their worlds would become more fragile the longer the bubble lasted. They needed strong medicine to be ready for a tough world.
Further I do home-school my children already by giving them books, articles and stories to read, math problems and riddles to solve; we go to museums and historic sites, and often discuss the events and people of history. They swim in a club two hours a day, six days a week and attend a weekly chess club that I help out with. We are all currently taking a weekly dog training class with our two puppies. My children like to sing and play piano, guitar and the drums among the many musical instruments that we have in the house. They are exposed to a wide range of educational opportunities and strive to meet most of them with vigor. My children also know how much my wife and I love them. But to learn about "the world" without my blinders on them, I rationalized that the Government School System was the beast to help me forge their character by challenging their spirit. It would be a supplement to their overall education for "socializing purposes" and as I would not expect too much from it, I couldn't be disappointed in the small amount that they were learning from Big School because they learn so much more at home anyway. Besides, my wife and I would be there to help them if they got in trouble.
Well, my son is in trouble now. In trouble with The System for being too well-read, too smart and too honest. I am going to school him to turn in what he thinks is the truth and to take the consequences of doing something, rather than for not doing anything. I am going to have a conference with the educational experts in authority positions representing the Government School System about their curriculum to show my support for him, even though I know it may stir up more trouble. If the Government School System flunks a seventh grader who reads at a twelfth grade level but turns in politically incorrect answers in Language Arts class testing his level of political correctness; then that grade is meaningless and he will have learned his lesson in spades. My son probably already has learned this lesson well and it appears that I am the slow learner. I think I had better go check out some more home-schooling websites.
February 26, 2002
