Tag Archives: schools

Read It and Weep

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The many negative aspects of public schooling are well reported in the daily papers.
Schools were also becoming seriously affected by social problems becoming in the worst cases mere baby-sitting services. Do you want your children to go to a school where social problems rule the programmes?
–Massey University vice-chancellor Dr. Neil Waters, Manawatu Evening Standard, 21 June 1991

CHRISTCHURCH: A 3rd- former at Kaikoura High School has been suspended after he admitted giving drugs to fellow students.
–Manawatu Evening Stnandard, 28 June 1991.

AUCKLAND: Hundreds of South Auckland school children spent a tense two hours confined to their classrooms as armed police hunted for a gunman after a man was shot near their school.
–Manawatu Evening Standard, 8 June 1991.

WELLINGTON: An average of 980 primary school children were killed or injured in road accidents each year during the ’80s, the Transport Ministry says. One third of all the casualties occured between 8am and 9am and 3pm and 5pm. Accidents were more evenly spread during holidays.
–Manawatu Evening Standard , 23 February 1991

SYDNEY: Children who go to child-care centres are more likely to get coughs and colds than those who remain at home, an Adelaide survey says. A research team has found the risk of picking up respiratory infections increases the earlier the child starts attending child-care and the longer the child spends there.
–Manawatu Evening Standard , 17 June 1991.

The School Trustees Association has warned schools to check job applicants thoroughly after a Christchurch language aide was convicted of sexually abusing his pupils.
–Dominion Sunday Times, 12 May 1991

WELLINGTON: Hutt Valley schools were more vigilant today after a man with a knife threatened a six-year-old at Eastern Hutt School yesterday.
–Manawatu Evening Standard, 18 April 1991

What I would like to see in the political debate about education is a recognition that public education is an exercise in social engineering by definition.
–Phillip Capper, PPTA, Dominion Sunday Times, 14 October 1990

CHRISTCHURCH: Unresearched government-decreed practices in schools could socially, emotionally and intellectually deform children, says Christchurch Teachers’ College principal Colin Knight. Dr. Knight said the education system placed children at risk by continuing to neglect educational research. “It is of serious concern to me that, despite the far-reaching effects of teaching on society, few educational practices have a sound research basis.” He said changes in what went on in schools were mainly brought about by politically initiated reviews and reports on questionnaires and Gallup polls, by parliamentary debate and political expediency.
–Manawatu Evening Standard , 4 December 1990

The Auckland Lesbian and Gay Youth group has been approaching schools asking to talk to staff and students about the difficulties that young gays and lesbians face and to suggest ways to make schools a more supportive environment for homosexual students.
–Dominion Sunday Times, 8 July 1990

Ad in Manawatu Evening Standard of April 1991:
“IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PARENTS
Members of NZPPTA have voted to withdraw their labour for 24 hours on Tuesday, April 30, in accordance with the CTU day of action. The following secondary schools will be affected:
(nine schools listed)
Signed by:
Bronwyn Cross, Manawatu/Wanganui Regional Chairperson-NZPPTA”

WELLINGTON: About a third of Form 3 mathematics teachers are not qualified in the subject, a study of mathematics in secondary schools released yesterday says.
–Manawatu Evening Standard, 27 March 1991.

Only five percent of physics teachers in New Zealand schools were qualified in the subject.
–Massey University vice-chancellor Dr. Neil Waters speaking at SciTech 2000 conference in Wellington, and reported in the Manawatu Evening Standard , 21 June 1991.

Palmerston North’s Queen Elizabeth College Re-Invents the Wheel with “Achieve” Programme. Principal Alison Collett: “Teaching does not equate with learning when it is imposed on classes, and in one-hour slots in which students are controlled to conform, rather than empowered to learn.” (On the Achieve programme students) interact with each other in learning groups, which is unusual, as children at school ordinarily mix only with others from their own age group. Staff say this type of interaction results in improved interpersonal skills, by having children of not only different ages, but at different academic stages help each other. Co-operation is a big part of the programme.
–Manawatu Evening Standard of 23 March 1991 and 26 June 1991

Drug use among school-aged children is a major reason why achievement standards are slipping, according to Life Education national director Trevor Grice. Discussions with principals showed drug use was widespread in (NZ) schools and there were 500 drug- related expulsions last year.
–Dominion Sunday Times, 10 March 1991

TAURANGA: A playground game involving sinking teeth into an unsuspecting school mate’s bottom has left five students suspended. In the game, tagged barracuda, victims are forced to the ground and restrained while attackers bite a buttock.
— Evening Standard, 16 March 1991

During cross-examination, defence counsel Les Atkins QC played a rap tape made by the girl and her friend the same year as the alleged (sexual) offences (were committed against them). The tape contained obscenities as well as inferences about the girl’s current boyfriend’s sexuality. She said the obscenities on the tape sung by her had no meaning. Everyone at school used such language freely.
— Court Reporter, Manawatu Evening Standard, 19 February 1991

The School Trustees Association has warned schools to check job applicants thoroughly after a Christchurch language aide was convicted of sexually abusing his pupils.
–Dominion Sunday Times, 12 May 1991.

WELLINGTON: School insurance is proving too high a risk. Insurance of school furniture and equipment is proving too costly because of arson and vandalism.
–Manawatu Evening Standard, 22 Nov. 1990

Auckland: Detective Senior Sergeant Mark O’Connor said violence had been building up as one gang tried to move in on the other’s cannabis-selling territory. The gangs had been targeting schools in the area and the worst case was when they tried to sell drugs to 10-year-olds. Mr O’Connor said the gangs had caused problems for young people and their parents by peddling drugs in or around schools. Police knew that the dealers were waiting outside schools and in some cases getting into school grounds to sell to students.
–The Dominion, 16 Aug 1994

Author Alan Duff has questioned the motive of the primary teachers’ strike…(He) said (they) weren’t going on strike “for the kids, but for more pay. I have never known teachers go on strike in protest because there were no books in the homes, or because children were coming to school hungry.”
–Evening Standard, 11 July 1994.

Wellington: School Trustees Association deputy president Mark Farnsworth (said,) “I have a personal sympathy with them (teachers) over the issue, but I’m dismayed they have to go on strike, because once more children are the pawns of the game.”
–Evening Standard , 12 July 1994.

Invercargill: Six children were taken to Southland Hospital …after a school bus and a…vehicle collided near Nightcaps.
–Evening Standard, 22 July 1994.

Christchurch: Acceptance of school bullying as part of growing up, to build character, and teach survival skills, is no longer acceptable (!!!!!), says Commissioner for Children Ian Hassall. Bullying included standover tactics to get another child’s lunch, and serious physical abuse. Teasing on the basis of race, sex, and disability was also a form of bullying.
–Evening Standard, 22 July 1994

The bus left the road and landed in a ditch with much of its floor ripped out. About 40 Hamilton secondary school students were on board. Ten teenagers were injured and were taken to a medical clinic with grazes and bruises. A 15-year-old German exchange student was taken to Hospital with a fractured letg. It was the fifth bus crash in the North Island in the past month. Four have involved school buses. Police said initially fears were held for the safety of the students after an LPG tank in the dead woman’s car ruptured.
–Evening Standard , 23 July 1994.

New Zealand still lacked a quality education system, Education Minister Lockwood Smith said last night. “It comes as no surprise to me that the work of our Education Review Office has shown we have little idea just how effective our schools have been,” he said.
–Dominion, 3 August 1994.

Auckland: Two students at Auckland’s Mt Albert Grammar School have been suspended for four years after they were involved in a fight in which another boy received stab wounds.
–Evening Standard, 23 April 1994.

Auckland: Fires destroyed classrooms at two Auckland schools yesterday. Police blame arsonists.
–Evening Standard, 27 June 1994.

An Auckland boy who will be five in October has been refused entry to his nearest primary school, even though his two sisters go there.
–Evening Standard, 27 June 1994

Wellington: The Education Ministry has resorted to television advertising in its fight against truancy. Ministry communications manager M Deaker confirmed ??.that the ministry had begun a $300,000 campaign to try to boost school attendance.
–Evening Standard, 27 June 1994.

Wellington: Children are being used as pawns in the pay dispute… says School Trustees Association president Les Maxwell.
–Evening Standard, 9 July 1994

A book, Challenges and Change , was launched by the Family Planning Association yesterday. (FPA spokesman Ms Hughes said,) “Young people will make their own decisions to have sex or not, and it’s necessary they have the knowledge to make informed decisions. Abstinence isn’t the only option.” A course called Challenges and Change was launched last night at Auckland’s Penrose High School by Health Minister Jenny Shipley. The final session encourages heterosexual students (!!!!!!) to accept homosexuals and aims to build self esteem in gay and lesbian students.
–Evening Standard, 28 June 1994.

Wellington: Large increases in the number of pupils suspended from school showed the education system was failing to meet the needs of its consumers, (Youth Law Project education advocate Tim Howard said.) The high level of truancy also related to schools not being able to meet their students’ needs.
–Evening Standard, 5 July 1994.

Children as young as four were being banned from early childhood centres and schools because they were likely to kill themselves or their classmates if they stayed, Special Education Service Manukau North area manager Chris Hilton-Jones said yesterday….The case of a Christchurch eight-year-old being suspended from school for terrifying teachers and trying to strangle other children was “the tip of the iceberg”….Schools were “unsafe” and it was time teachers and principals stopped pretending violence did not exist….Some children….had been banned from kindergartens and kohanga reos because they were “severely dangerous”. She said pupils were….taking knives and bits of wood to school and using them as weapons. A survey of 960….pupils in South Auckland schools last year showed sexual abuse, serious assault and extortion were common….But the survey showed only half the cases were dealt with by schools when students did seek help.
–Dominion, 18 August 1994.

Parents, pupils and teachers of Feilding’s Manchester Street School….contemplated three classrooms destroyed by arson. A Ministry of Education property officer at the scene yesterday estimated the cost of repair or replacement of the block to be as much as $500,000.
–Evening Standard, 22 Nov 93.

Wellington: The Teacher Registration Board knew of some teachers, struck off the teaching register for poor performance, who were back in the classroom, director Peter Barlow said yesterday. There was a danger teachers with criminal records could be re-employed, he said.
–Evening Standard, 11 April 1994.

City pupils are turning to weapons to guard themselves against bullying. Senior constable Bob Filbee….is aware of the amount of bullying in schools — three-quarters of students normally put up their hands when he asks how many have been bullied.
–Tribune, 15 May 1994 ?

Auckland: A 12-year-old boy was punched unconscious during a gang initiation rite at a South Auckland intermediate school yesterday, police said.
–Evening Standard , 9 April 1994.

Allegations of physical abuse at Eketahuna School are being investigated by Palmerston North CIB.
–Evening Standard, 26 May 1994.

Rotorua: A former Rotorua school principal who indecently assaulted his pupils to satisfy his sexual appetite had disgraced his profession, Judge Fergus Paterson said in the Rotorua District Court yesterday. He jailed retired teacher Colhoun John Wiseman, 57, for three-and-a-half years on 11 counts of indecently assaulting young girls.
–Evening Standard , 9 April 1994.

Auckland: A strip-search of teenage girls at Otahuhu College in Auckland could result in parents suing the school, and an investigation by the Commissioner for Children.
–Evening Standard, 4 June 1994.

Poverty is having a far-reaching affect on Palmerston North’s schools…. Five schools are supplementing the diets of some students by providing them with food. And with truancy and violence on the increase, several schools felt their educational role was being undermined.
–Tribune , 12 June 1994.

Large numbers of people were unable to read when they left school — Common theme presented to Employment Taskforce’s visit to Palmerston North.
–Evening Standard, 18 June 1994.

Good NZ image masks “pockets of illiteracy”. Research by Auckland University education lecturer Tom Nicholson….showed poor reading levels were linked not just with Maori and Pacific Island students but also with other children whose first language was English.
–Sunday Times, 12 December 1993.

Wellington: About 10 percent of schools had “serious problems” and only 14 percent were up to standard, the Education Review Office said yesterday. Almost a quarter of schools were failing to consult the community on health education, particularly sex education.
–Evening Standard , 10 December 1993.

Common Objections

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Obj: Our public schools can provide an education free from religious and political biases.
A: On April 19, 1987, the then Assistant Director, Resources Development, Dept. of Education, Wellington, met with a number of leaders of homeschooling groups in Auckland. This gentleman stated that his own idealism had been somewhat tarnished when, after years in the state education system, he had had to admit to himself that state education “was not only about children and learning, but also about money and politics.”
The Christchurch Press of November 5, 1985, had an article about the then Under Secretary of Trade and Industry, Mr. Neilson, and his 6-point programme to make Labour “the natural party of Government.” Point 3 of this programme called for the introduction “of peace studies into the education system to achieve this end.””
In a speech at Massey University in mid-1990, Finance Minister David Caygill was reported in the papers as saying that Governments should mould public opinion, not follow it. He said it was the politician’s responsibility to pursue policies that were in the public interest “even when the public disagrees.” (It would seem that both Mr. Neilson and Mr. Caygill have eagerly followed up the implications of a statement by Abraham Lincoln who said well over 130 years ago, “The philosophy of the classroom is the philosophy of the government in the next generation.”)
During the 1986 school trials of the draft programme Keeping Our Selves Safe , the Police Youth Aid Officer in Palmer son North, Frank Mault, chaired a public meeting to explain the programme to interested parents at Central Normal School. He was asked why the KOSS programme was targeting potential victims, school aged children, and educating them to understand and recognise perversions such as incest, sexual molestation, rape, exhibitionism, etc., rather than targeting potential offenders and educating them in self control. The constable answered with a shrug of the shoulders and the words, “I guess the children are easier to reach. They are a captive audience in the classroom each day.”
A few years ago Massey University Education Professor Ivan Snook said that the furore over sex education, morals in the schools, etc., was only a smoke screen. The real issues were power and control: whose are the children and who will control their education?
And it must be pointed out that Karl Marx identified free, compulsory and secular state education as one of the tools through which the proponents of Communism would take over the world.
One powerful force at work is the philosophy of humanism. Webster’s International Dictionary, 1926, defines it as “A system, mode, or attitude of thought or action centering upon distinctively human interests or ideals, esp. as contrasted with naturalistic or religious interests.” The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1975, says humanism is “Belief in the mere humanity of Christ. Any system of thought or action which is concerned with merely human interests, or with those of the human race in general; the ‘Religion of Humanity’.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1975, says, “Though humanism gradually became identified with classroom studies of the classics, it more properly embraced any attitude exalting man’s relationship to God, his free will, and his superiority over nature. Philosophically, humanism made man the measure of all things….In recent years the term humanism has often been used to refer to value systems that emphasize the personal worth of each individual but that do not include a belief in God…..The American Humanist Association publishes a quarterly magazine, The Humanist , and propagates the humanist point of view.”
This magazine, The Humanist , conducted an essay contest and published the prize-winning essays in its Jan/Feb, 1983, issue. One of them entitled “A Religion for a New Age” by John J. Dunphy, is startling in the openness with which it lays all the humanist cards on the table. Part of this essay reads as follows:
“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.
“These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the education level– preschool, day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new–the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of “love thy neighbor” will finally be achieved.”
For anyone to suggest that our state schools are not politically influenced is to display a large measure of naiveté.

Obj: It is not legal.
A: It is most definitely legal. The Picot report of 1988 confirmed that it is a right guaranteed to parents.

Obj: Parents are not as qualified as teachers. They should leave it to the experts.
A: Unfortunately most of us are aware of cases where teacher certification has not meant the same as teacher competency. In addition, there is the almost unrecognised fact that classroom logistics can make even the best teacher’s efforts an exercise in futility: over-crowded classrooms, lack of discipline, unsupportive administration, inability to give needed individual attention, time restraints which force them to move on to new material before the previous material is comprehended. Teacher certification does not ensure a quality education. In fact, many students who do not catch on at school must go home and get their parents to help out. There are already many parents out there who do the real teaching at night after school while the certified teacher gets the credit. Even Massey University Education Professor Ivan Snook was quoted in the Manawatu Evening Standard of 9 July 1990 as saying that teachers cannot be held responsible for students’ learning because there are too many factors beyond their control. So it would seem that although parents have to make sure their children attend the schools, the schools do not have to make sure that the children learn to read or write.
Click here for more info about parents vs professionals https://hef.org.nz/2007/parents-vs-professionals/

Obj: Home educated children will not be properly socialised. They will never have any friends if they are kept at home all day.
A: Home educated children will most definitely be socialised in a completely different way than conventionally schooled children. The whole question of what constitutes proper socialisation and who actually socialises whom is dealt with at length here:
socialisation (The present writer asked his own children, who have never been to conventional schools, to respond to the idea that they, being home educated, would not have any friends. The writer was not prepared for their answers. The nine-year-old son said, “It’s a lie. We’ve got millions of friends.” The six year old son said, “We’ve got heaps of them.” The ten-year-old daughter laughed, then stopped suddenly and said, “That’s about the dumbest question you could ask anybody in the whole world. Is school the only place you can make friends?” The three then came up with the following list of places and ways to make friends: walking down the street, in a playground, at the A & P show, at a fair, visiting the neighbours, at camps, at the supermarket, at Boys and Girls Rally, joining sports, at Sunday school and church, while travelling on the Wellington-Picton ferry, on the beach, at home education meetings and field trips, playgroups, your own cousins and brothers and sisters, bicycling down the street, at the BMX track, you meet your friends’ friends when you visit their house, and you get to know the children of your parents’ friends and workmates.)

Obj: Home educating children is being far too overprotective. It is like keeping them in a hot house.
A: Home educating children is most definitely one way of protecting them from the evils and dangers of NZ’s disintegrating post-Christian society. Virtually any parent would wholeheartedly agree that a vital part of parenting is protecting the children. Parents who take up the home education option often believe they need to protect their children from the falling academic standards, the discipline problems, the negative peer pressure, the wasted and potentially dangerous time spent travelling to and from schools.
And they aren’t the only ones. The Manawatu Evening Standard of 1 October 1990 quoted the Manawatu District School Trustees Association chairman Ruma Karaitiana as saying the threat of abduction or molestation of children on their way to school had prompted most primary schools to introduce a policy of ringing the homes of any pupils who had not arrived at school by about 9:15am.
If accused of keeping their children in a hothouse, many home educating parents would unashamedly and enthusiastically respond, “Yes, I am. That’s my job. Why? Aren’t you doing the same?” A hothouse is for growing young plants in an ideal environment until they are strong and healthy and mature enough to be transplanted out into the open. The objective of the hothouse is to prepare the young plants for life outside on their own. How can anyone accusingly charge parents with doing the same for their own children, as if there was something wrong with it? Home-based education is an endeavour to rear young children in an ideal environment until they are strong and healthy and mature enough to face the world on their own. The objective of the home education is to prepare the young child for life in the real world where they are responsible for themselves. Can anyone come up with a comparable commitment on the part of parents toward their children than the loving, sacrificial and vital involvement of home education?
Many home educators see their task as a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week lifestyle. The spectre of a neurotic suburban-bound housewife whose tentacle-like apron strings entrap her pale deprived waifs indoors away from all contact with the outside world just doesn’t match the reality of the situation. Home education is a serious commitment, and the work involved would soon have those with phobias and neuroses happily sending their children off to school where someone else could worry about them.

Obj: What about those irresponsible parents who would keep their children at home with no intention of teaching them anything, but just using them as unpaid servants?
A: Such irresponsible parents would be just the people most likely to send their children off to school to get them out of their way. If not, their irresponsibility would surely keep them from going through the process of gaining the necessary Certificate of Exemption from the Ministry of Education. In this latter case, there are truancy laws already on the books to deal with such irresponsibility.
What’s worse is those irresponsible parents who send their children off to school expecting the schools to teach them everything, from toilet training to social graces. This is a logical result of over 100 years of compulsory schooling in this country: parents, having been relieved (so they think) of the education of their children, and in fact of the care of them for a huge part of each day, perceive themselves to have less and less responsibility toward their children. As they get more involved in their own personal pursuits, they actually desire to have less and less responsibility toward their children. The fact that the state seems to be eager to nanny us all from cradle to grave only serves to accelerate this process.
But the compulsory schooling isn’t educating the children. It is incredible that as much as 25% of children end up in reading recovering programmes. This is nothing less than an admission of total failure to teach the simple skill of reading, the most foundational and basic of all skills for an education. In addition an unacceptable number of students leave school in a state of function illiteracy. The prisons are full of conventionally schooled inmates, many of them illiterate.

Obj: Home educating children is sheltering them from the real world.
A: When you stop to think about it, it is the conventional school which shelters children from the real world. Schools segregate children by age and sometimes even by sex. Do you find this situation anywhere in that real world for which schools are supposedly preparing these peer segregated children? The home and family, the neighbourhood, the community, the workplace, the marketplace are all composed of integrated mixtures of ages and sexes. To be prepared for the future, children must learn to live within the age-integrated NZ society at large, not the age-segregated classroom situation.
Classroom logistics demand that instruction is in the form of theory and practical busy-work; there is rarely if ever any ultimately useful or value-creating function involved. Public education’s great philosopher, John Dewey, said as much himself: “The educational process has no end beyond itself….. (Education is) vital energy seeking opportunity for effective exercise.” On the other hand, home educated children observe and take part in the day to day routine of real life situations: a trip to the supermarket is a lesson in stock taking and stock control, menu planning, budgeting, evaluating price differentials, etc.; helping dad build a treehouse is a lesson in design options, architecture, measurement, spatial estimations, geometry, etc.
In fact home educators are ideally situated for turning their hobbies, crafts and special interests into cottage industries so that the children run their own businesses with practical experience in costing, production, marketing, banking, accounting, taxation and profit. When even 8-year-olds see that profit money sitting in their hands, money they earned by their own intellectual and manual labour, money which they can spend however they like, they are really motivated to relearn those old lessons and keen to learn some new ones.

Obj: Home educated students cannot enter institutions of higher learning as these institutions cannot assess what level of competency has been achieved.
A: It is a relatively simple matter of the prospective student chatting to the university’s or polytech’s admissions officer and gaining entry on a “Provisional Enrolment” basis. The student may want to bring along a portfolio of examples of essay writing skills, work records, character references. No paper qualifications of any kind are needed for such enrolment, which is virtually the same as one with impressive bursary scores. As long as they pass most of their chosen papers the first year, there is no longer any question of their enrolment status. If they fail most of their first year papers, they cannot apply to enrol again until age 20, when anyone can enrol without qualifications of any kind.

Jesus is Lord: Lord of ALL and for ALL Time

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Jesus is Lord: Lord of ALL and for ALL Time

Posted in The Faith of Us Fathers

(The following is an email conversation with a friend who sends his children to state schools. My friend’s words are in italics.)

We still need reminding from time to time… “The end of all things is near; therefore be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.” 1 Peter 4:7 “Watch and pray”.

Reminding, yes, but too many folks I’ve met seem to have allowed this to become a form of escapism from this present world, from dealing with the real issues all around us. The whole area of end times is not an open and shut case, but is fraught with all kinds of controversy. I personally think it comes down to two concepts: be constantly ready, confessed up to date, and at peace with all men, as far as it is possible with you personally; and also preparing yourself and your children as if the Lord were not coming back for another 100 years. It’s a “both/and” scenario rather than an “either/or” deal. If I was convinced the Lord was definitely going to return in my lifetime, I would never have gotten married, that’s for sure. I Corinthians 7 talks about that. But I believe He should be Lord of all no matter when He returns….that’s why we have always been keen on overseas missions as well as a thoroughly Christian education at home. You cannot send people overseas as on-fire Christians who have been trained six hours a day by the agents of paganism in our public schools; the idea is laughable.

A disadvantage, but God is mightily able to heal and change peoples hearts, minds and souls.

So why should we cause our children to be hurt so that God has to heal and change them? Why don’t we give them the advantage of a consistent Christian upbringing and training and allow God to make them into Christian witnesses the like of which the world has not seen since Whitfield, Wesley, Edwards and others who were thoroughly trained and nurtured in the faith since childhood.

OK, schools are dangerous, but so are the roads. By prayer and the grace of God they can be protected.

We don’t put our children on the roads and pray for God’s protection. We teach them to avoid the roads and cross them safely. We don’t teach them to play with fire or mess around with hot elements or walk right on the edges of cliffs so that we can pray for God to protect them. No. We ourselves take all the steps we can to protect them from the dangers we know exist and then pray that God will protect them from those unseen dangers and those dangers we cannot personally deal with…..this is our obvious duty and responsibility as parents. It is easy and within our power to remove them from the anti-Christian, thoroughly secular state school environment they sit in for hours every day and to replace the secular and political indoctrination they are fed while sitting in that environment with the Biblically oriented and Scripturally based truths they will need to know to take dominion of this world physically as He commanded us in Genesis 1:28 and spiritually as He commanded in Matthew 28:18-20 and II Corinthians 5:17-20. So why don’t we do it? Do the Scriptures tell us anywhere that our children will be better Christians, more healthy spiritually, by being trained up in the enemy’s camp?

 

I know that as Christians we should try to alter/influence things. We can’t do it by force, and the vote is too small (pity about the Christian Coalition)…, the only lasting way is by changing hearts.

Amen! Salvation is through Regeneration, not Revolution. (Conversions through the message and ministry of the Gospel, not by force or political activity…..as if conversions could happen like this anyway.) However, if politics is not an inherently immoral activity, in the way that running a brothel is an inherently immoral activity, then it is right and proper for Christians to be involved, according to their calling from the Lord, endeavouring to bring the principles of God’s word to bear upon the public policies of the nation. I mean, the alternative is just to abandon the whole thing to the devil. And why do that?

 

The devil is “the ruler of this world”, but his rule is limited to whatever God’s will allows and is also limited by the time he has been given. God is Lord of all. What He says goes. He allows the devil’s “rule” for His ultimate good purposes.

I’m not satisfied that the “ruler of this world” is the devil. The early Christians were tortured and executed because they would not compromise on the tiny declaration, “Jesus is Lord”. They only had to say, “Caesar is lord”, put some incense on the altar, and they were free to go. But they instead insisted that Caesar would one day bow the knee before the Lord Jesus Christ, that Ceasar would be answerable to how he executed his responsibilities while in the flesh, on the earth. That is to say, the Christians who were tossed to the lions believed very much that Jesus is ruler of this world, now, as well as ruler of the next. Can you find a Scripture to support your idea?

I’m happy to report that I can’t find a verse to support it after all. The closest is that he is the “ruler of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2). In fact even now, “Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5).

Amen, brother! Amen!! Actually John makes three statements close together which indicate that maybe the devil was prince of the world to some degree, but that Jesus ended that: John 12:31, 14:30 and 16:11. The Lord also indicates that He was entering the strong man’s — that is, the devil’s — house and plundering it, first binding the strong man! (See Matthew 12:29, Mark 3:27 and Luke 11:21-22 and their contexts.) Yes, the devil does appear to hold sway over many (I John 5:19), but it is only through deceit and the fact that the unregenerate heart has a tendency to lean satan’s way. In Matthew 4 and especially Luke 4:5-6 the devil is quoted as saying he could give the kingdoms of the world to Jesus, for they had been given to him (the devil) to do as he would. Now I’m sorry, but I’m really sceptical at this point, for the Scripture tells me that the devil is a liar and the father of all lies and that there is no truth in him (John 8:44). I’m convinced he was telling Jesus a whopper in these passages.

No, the whole idea of the devil being ruler of this earth gives too much power and glory and honour to the devil, it seems to me. He deserves none. He will get none from me. He’s just a squatter here, one who knows his time is short. To Jesus alone is the power and glory and honour and dominion now and forevermore. Amen.

And anyway, He Who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (I John 4:4). I know the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (I Peter 5:8), but the Scripture tells me I need only resist the devil and he will flee from me (I Peter 5:9). What have I to fear from him? Nothing. What have I to fear from the even less powerful schemes of men? Even less than that. As the Scripture says, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for good works (I Peter 3:13)? And as earlier saints have said, as long as we are walking in the will of the Lord and until the Lord plans for us to go, we are effectively immortal!

I remember people at church used to be fond of saying, “If Jesus is not Lord of all He is not Lord at all”.

 

What verse is that? Anyway, I think this means Jesus being Lord of all areas of a person’s life. Nothing to do with the world.

Oooohhh….I reckon you may have just compromised the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There are plenty of verses that emphatically teach the Lordship of Christ over every atom in the universe. I mean, isn’t the earth the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Psalm 24:1)? Were not all things created in Him, through Him and for Him, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities (Colossians 1:16)? Does He not uphold all things by His word of power (Hebrews 1:3)? How about the Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me. Go therefore…” (Matthew 28:18) Sounds pretty inclusive to me. So are you saying that as long as I keep my personal life free from worldliness, the world can go where it will, I don’t care, ‘cause Jesus and I have this wonderful relationship? So if the world includes the schools, is it ok to send our kids to institutions which by law must be anti-Christian (Section 77 of the Education Act 1964, still in force, says all instruction must be entirely of a secular character, and secular is taken to mean without any religious instruction or observance…interpreted to mean Christian instruction or observance, for as we both know, occultic instruction and instruction in immorality is fully accepted)? Are you saying that our little ones, for whom Christ died, can be immersed in a grossly secular environment everyday of the week and yet somehow it is not a challenge to Christ’s rightful dominion in every area of their lives, not to mention our Christian duty as parents that our children’s every thought be taken captive to obey Christ (II Corinthians 10:5)?

My parents had a hands-off approach to parenting, wanting us to decide things for ourselves. I think they read Dr Spock. It seems some Christians have a similar godless approach. When our Genevieve was 11, the Sunday school teacher was doing a lesson about choices. He told the whole class (it was all printed in the lessons) that they had choices to steal or not to steal, to obey their parents or not to obey their parents, to go to church or not to go to church, to sleep around or not to sleep around. These were 11 year old children, remember. Some of us parents were hopping mad at some of this stuff. But Genevieve went to the heart of the matter: she told the teacher that as Christians they should never even be given such options. Of course we Christians don’t have such choices, she said. It’s a lie to say that we do, for where God has spoken, the issue is settled. Christians don’t have choices because they are supposed to be slaves of their Master, Jesus Christ, and He is supposed to be their Lord. (I was impressed with her answer and clarity of thought: I couldn’t see or think past the reference about kids having the choice to sleep around or not.)

 

Ultimately they do choose for themselves. We can help them a very great deal with wise guidance and advice.

The point Genevieve was making was, “Why focus a child’s attention on the things he shouldn’t do and then tell him he has a choice to do that? Why not major on all the right things to do, which so few people seem to be doing anyway, and keep reinforcing the message that Jesus — including everything He commands us to do — is the only way?” Why do we keep compromising our message, giving young, impressionable minds (who are actually looking to us adults for clear, unambiguous guidance) mixed messages that, well, we would like them to follow Jesus, but we know they will be drawn to this and to that and will want to experiment around a bit, but one day we’re sure they’ll want to come back, so why don’t they just decide to stay here with us, please? Heck, I don’t have to tell my children about the sin in the world: they see it all the time, in every TV show, newspaper, magazine, radio show, movie….and they experience sin in their hearts all the time. I don’t have to reinforce that message; I need to reinforce the Lord’s message and obedience to His word. The Lord told us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. Ain’t much left over for messing around in other areas, I reckon. So why do we say, “You get to choose”, when the Lord commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30) and to love and serve and obey Him with everything we’ve got? If I am sounding an indistinct note on the bugle of warning, who is the Lord going to hold responsible? Yeah, me! And this is double so with my children, for they would not be on this earth if it had not been for a deliberate act on my part. As fathers we men perform a conscientious, willful, both-eyes-open act, one that we desired and strove to do…and obviously accomplished….which put our children on this earth. I don’t believe we can now hold them at arm’s length or remove ourselves even the slightest and say, “Well they ultimately have to choose for themselves”. For crying out loud, I will be doing all I can to totally bias my children a certain way, to completely bend their hearts and minds and wills to move only in one direction — toward submission to Christ — knowing only too well how much their own natural sinfulness, inherited from me, will be easy to work in the hands of the devil. So I will not do anything to make the devil’s job any easier than it already is. No, sir!!

Christians have both the old and a new nature. Sometimes we “give in” to the old nature. Do you not call that a choice? Only robots have no choice.

We adults, or perhaps I’d better say “I”, give in because I am so used to sinning. But generally we have been sinning since the day we were born. If we were raised in nominally Christian homes, we were never taught to submit our sinful natures to Christ, to allow Him to crucify the old nature on the cross, to think His thoughts after Him. No, in nominally Christian homes we were taught to be our own bosses, to do our own thing, be master of our own fate, exactly the same as non-Christians, but with this difference: we had to act within a certain prescribed code of acceptability. Our minds and hearts were still in rebellion against God, but we simply did not manifest it by participating in (all of) the gross sins of others round about us. But we were headed in the same direction….straight to hell.

So then we got converted to Christ. Our children are being reared in Christ-honouring homes, a far cry from our own experience. We should not expect the same kind of thing from them as what the world got from us. No, their lives should be miles different from our own at their age. In fact, if they were to be completely and consistently trained according to Biblical standards (something my past disqualifies me from doing, for I have all this garbage left over from my non-Christian days), but if my children were so raised, I believe they would be like nothing we have ever seen on this earth in our lifetimes. Now, Lord willing, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren should really be something, for they will be starting on a much taller and far more solid foundation than what I had. My children will stand on my shoulders, my grandchildren on their shoulders and so on. It would be too easy for me to allow my children to grow up into the Christian mediocrity that was the only option given me as a child. No way! My wife and I have always intended that they be launched into an orbit much higher than that.

Why settle for anything less? Why make it easy for them to choose second best? No, hang on, choosing sin is not second best…..it is death. Why make it easy for my children to choose death by making them used to sinful and compromised standards all around them all the time, by allowing them not to be shocked by it, by not hating it myself with such a passion that they are likewise horrified by any association with it? Why not make them love righteousness (as far as we are able, by God’s grace) and be so uncomfortable and ill-at-ease in the tents of the wicked that they flee from it….just as the Scripture tells them to do (I Timothy 6:11, II Timothy 2:22)? And yet all this time we must also be preparing them for an adult life lived in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation to whom they are to be offering the words of eternal life.

As Christian home educators it seems to me our task is not just to train up our children so that they can cope with this sin-cursed and fallen world, remaining faithful until the Lord’s return. No. The Gospel would seem to demand that our children make disciples of all nations, going as ambassadors of Christ, preaching a message of reconciliation and personally ministering reconciliation in all that they do. That is to say, they will be turning the world upside down! Now that’s the kind of task, long-term and with objects in view such as seeing the king of Saudi Arabia so soundly converted he influences much of the Muslim world to do the same…..that is the kind of thing we men can really sink our teeth into. Right dads? Let’s get to and do it!

From Keystone Magazine
July 2001 , Vol. VII No. 4
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

Hold Your Family Together

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Hold Your Family Together

Posted in The Faith of Us Fathers

The Industrial Revolution took dad away from the home where he traditionally worked with the entire family on the family business. Community Schools and then State funded Compulsory Schooling took the children away from home for longer and longer periods of time each day and for more and more weeks each year. Social pressure, increased mobility and erratic economic opportunities separated the nuclear family from the extended family, especially the grandparents. State subsidised Early Childhood Educational institutions supported by aggressive promotional campaigns drew the little ones out of the home. At last it was Feminism and the pressures of the economy that took even mum away from her home. I was a door to door salesman, wholly dependent on commission sales for an income, for 13 years until 1995. I can tell you honestly that I didn’t bother to start knocking on doors until 3:30pm each day, for prior to that time there simply was no one at home. Our cities have many streets lined with lovely houses — but all of them empty for much of the day.

It is rare to find a family unit where each member draws strength and purpose from being part of that larger entity (the family) perceived by each member to be of more worth than him or her self. The politically correct propaganda of egalitarianism has transformed the definition of “family” in some quarters to a mere ad hoc collection of individuals — such as flatmates even, with no legal or blood ties at all — wherein each demands his or her own rights and autonomy.

Christian families composed of Mum and Dad (who are legally and happily married) and their natural and/or adopted and/or fostered children are becoming increasingly uncommon. Then to find such an entity living in the same town as both sets of grandparents and any other relatives, all of whom are on more than just speaking terms, where the grandparents would never dream of sporting the bumper sticker that reads, “We’re spending our grandchildren’s inheritance”, is most unusual indeed. And should a Christian family actually find itself in such an advantageous position, what is most likely to be its lifestyle? The children are at school and after school activities, and Mum and Dad are run ragged each week with various church and community commitments on top of their regular jobs. Even on Sunday the children are often off to creche, children’s church or Sunday school, or sitting with their friends in the back pews and then off to join the youth outreach. Hands up those who remember seeing an entire family sitting all together for an entire worship service?

Such separation is demonstrably unhealthy for the family unit. Many of us have difficulty seeing exactly why this is so, for we have very little idea of the forceful powerhouse an integrated family unit could be, since few of us have ever seen one in action. I’ve only seen wee glimpses….but enough to whet my desire to see more.

If our family experience is anything to go by, there is a direct relationship between time spent with the family as a whole and family harmony and happiness. My mother is 77 years old. She has lived and travelled extensively on every continent except Antarctica. Yet those 14 months she spent on the road, being recently widowed, with every thing that meant anything to her — us five children and those possessions we could carry in the VW Combi — were the happiest and most carefree of her whole life. We five siblings developed from a pack of squabbling brats who fought each other at every opportunity into a well-organised team who could find directions, secure lodgings and buy groceries in four different languages and tote our own considerable volume of belongings (while holding the 2-year-old’s hand) from vehicle to hotel room in one trip!

Our 9-year-old is a particularly good barometer of family unity. When we are too busy to spend a good amount of focussed time with him, he acts up. Oh, he is great at absorbing the “I’m too busy right now” line without causing a problem, for he understands the pressure of deadlines. But he also knows a fob-off when he gets one, and he then becomes a right royal pain. It is usually then we notice that those daily rituals of all being present at meals, not answering the phone during the devotions, washing dishes together, reading aloud together, having some daily formal and/or informal instruction time, etc., have been either totally abandoned or compromised beyond recognition. Re-establishing them also re-establishes sanity and harmony and security and happiness.

One ritual we established a few years ago was to have devotions after every meal, not just once a day, and to include the singing of Psalms & hymns. This has at times, when I have been sharp enough and with it enough to capitalise on the opportunity, allowed for our family as a unit to discuss eternal truths, debate current events, face and weep over personal shortcomings, evaluate Biblical ways of dealing with conflicts, etc.

Another ritual we took up with great gusto was for me to read to the children in the evenings. Let me tell you, it is very exciting to see a 20 year old daughter and an 18 year old son getting out sewing or model kits in eager preparation for an extended time of listening to their “old man’s” voice. It puts the battle over the “tyranny of the urgent” (“I’ve really got too many deadlines facing me to spend an evening reading”), and over the conflict between “the one and the many” (“I was looking forward to spending some time alone, not entertaining a crowd”) into perspective…..especially now that those two older ones are gone overseas. What happened to all those plans I had of things I was going to do with them but never had time for?

Make time for your children, dads. Cultivate an attitude as in Longfellow’s poem below. Plan in the time, guard it jealously, so that, as it says in Psalm 127:5, you will not be put to shame when you speak with your enemies in the gate, for your children will all be standing shoulder to shoulder there with you.

From Keystone Magazine
May 2001 , Vol. VII No. 3
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

What Are Public Schools REALLY Designed to Do to Our Children?

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What Are Public Schools REALLY Designed to Do to Our Children?

Posted in Tough Questions

Our public schools are staffed by well trained professionals who teach according to a modern up-to-date curriculum which is designed to bring children to their full potential that they may easily integrate into today’s society and the workforce. How can you deny them these great advantages?

This is a typical statist comment, the kind that would also go on to say that children are our nation’s greatest resource and therefore demand the best money can buy. You see, they quite quickly equate children with sides of lamb, butter and other “resources” of our nation which are sometimes sold to the highest bidder , sometimes bartered off to reduce debt and sometimes given away. I resent my children being spoken of in those terms. Thy also assume that money buys the best.

Well, what exactly is behind the National Curriculum? On April 19, 1987, the then Assistant Director , Resources Development, Department of Education, Wellington, met with a number of leaders of home schooling groups in Auckland. This gentleman stated that his own idealism had been somewhat tarnished after years in the state education system when he realized, in his own words, that education “was not only about children and learning, but also about money and politics.” The Christchurch Press of November 5, 1985, had an article about the then Under Secretary of Trade and Industry, Mr Neilson, and his six-point programme for making Labour “the natural party of Government.” Point three of this programme called for the introduction “of peace studies into the education system to achieve this end.” The idea is to train children in the schools to think a certain way so that when they become voters they will just “naturally” think along Labour political lines and just “naturally” vote for Labour. At a speech at Massey University in mid-1990, Finance Minister David Caygill was reported in the papers as saying that Governments should mould public opinion, not follow it. He said it was the politician’s responsibility to pursue policies that were in the public interest “even when the public disagrees.” What better way to mould public opinion than when the public within the state education system is not yet old enough to have its own opinion?! Apparently , both Mr Neilson and Mr Caygill understood what Abraham Lincoln said over 100 years ago: “The philosophy of the classroom is the philosophy of the government in the next generation.”

During the 1986 school trials of the draft programme Keeping Our Selves Safe, the Police Youth Aid Officer in Palmerston North chaired a public meeting to explain the programme to interested parents at Central Normal School. He was asked why the KOSS programme was targeting potential victims, school aged children, and educating them to understand and recognise perversions such as incest, sexual molestation, rape, exhibitionism, etc., rather than targeting potential offenders and educating them in self control. The constable answered with a shrug of the shoulders and the words, “I guess the children are easier to reach since they are a captive audience in the classroom each day.”

A few years ago Massey University Education professor Ivan Snook said that the furore over sex education, morals in the schools, etc., was only a smoke screen. The real issues were power and control: whose were the children and who will control their education? Karl Marx was committed to seeing communism take over the world. He worked out a 10-point plan to see this objective succeed. One of the points was the establishment of free, compulsory and secular state education systems in order to train up the next generation in the philosophy of the state.

Many Christians and other concerned parents were thrilled with the way parents were promised a lot more say in running schools as a result of the changes brought about by the Tomorrow’s Schools document. But most were totally misled. It turned out that what Tomorrow’s Schools did was to off-load much of the expensive administrative headaches onto volunteer Boards of Trustees who receive token remuneration, while the core curriculum, what was actually being taught in the classroom, remained even more tightly in the control of the Ministry of Education. A quote by Phillip Capper of the Post Primary Teachers Association which appeared in the Dominion Sunday Times of 14 October 1990 is one of the most straightforward and honest statements by a professional educationalist one would ever hope to read. He said, “What I would like to see in the political debate about education is a recognition that public education is an exercise in social engineering by definition.” And here is a snippet from the Manawatu Evening Standard of 4 December 1990. “Unresearched government-decreed practices in schools could socially, emotionally and intellectually deform children,” says Christchurch Teachers’ College principal Colin Knight. Dr Knight said the education system placed children at risk by continuing to neglect educational research. ‘It is of serious concern to me that, despite the far-reaching effects of teaching on society, few educational practices have a sound research basis.’ He said changes in what went on in schools were mainly brought about by politically initiated reviews and reports on questionnaires and Gallup polls, by parliamentary debate and political expediency.’

The New Zealand public school system is designed and operated according to political considerations. I have no qualms about keeping my children out of such a system.

From Keystone Magazine
March 1996 , Vol. II No. 2
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz