Another reason to Home School...


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So my son went to school yesterday just fine.  At noon, he calls me from the school clinic telling me he feels he has fever and asked me to pick him up.  So I asked him the regular questions - are you coughing, sneezing, runny nose, muscle aches, chills, difficulty breathing, etc. etc.  My son says, no, none of that but he has a headache.  So, I asked him what's your temperature?  And he says he doesn't know. 

 

So, I ask him to go put the nurse on the phone.  And he says, the nurse is only here one day a week but there's a school admin in charge of the clinic.  So I asked him to let me talk to the school admin. 

 

She gets on the phone and I ask her, "What's my son's temperature?".  And she replies, "The nurse is not in today."  So I ask her, "Please take his temperature."  And she says, "Only the nurse is allowed to do that.".  I ask, "Why?"... she says, "Because we might give you the wrong information and you'll have grounds to sue."  I tell her, "I promise I won't sue you.  I'll send you an email to guarantee I won't sue you."  And she says, "We're just not allowed to do that".

 

So I tell her, "Okay, fine... let my son borrow the thermometer and he can take his own temperature."  And she says, "We can't do that."  And I say, "Why?".  She says, "We're not allowed to let the kids borrow the thermometer.".  So I tell her,  "Put my son on the phone.".

 

My son goes on the phone and I tell him... "Stay in school and muscle through your headache.  If you can figure out how to grab that thermometer and take your temperature, you can text me what the thermometer says and I'll decide then if you should go home." 

 

A few minutes later, my son sends me a text, "The admin says there's no thermometer in the clinic."

 

Sigh.

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Fun homeschooling story from several years ago: A bad bout of flu flew through our family.  My wife and I were both in bed for an entire day, alternating between chills and sweats, lots of vomiting and diarrhea.  The kids did an excellent job of fending for themselves.  They came in twice - first they asked to be fed lunch, and then 6 hours later asked for dinner.  Older kid looked out for younger kid and they didn't burn down the house.  That's what success looked like that day. 

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Fortunately, homeschoolers never have to deal with a lack of equipment or stuff being lost.

Sarcasm duly noted.

But, for the record, the issue here was not equipment or its loss, but the rules that put common sense off limits.

Lehi

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Getting back to being a good parent, I think you did a good job Anatess.  I think, and I don't have kids, never did, but I think getting some information of why the youngster had a headache at school is a good idea.  Getting to the bottom of the cause might be a good idea. 

dc

 

My father taught me a lesson when I was a kid, he wanted me to not get into the same problem he had.

He related that he had a problem beating up other kids.  As is usual, the kids would make fun of his name, as they do with anyone.

And he would react with violence toward them.  He was a bigger athletic kid.

But that after a while (and lord only knows what else) he learned that if you don't react, if you don't let it bother you, they stop doing it.

So that was his advice to me.

I don't know if I ever took the advice to action, but I never beat up any of the other kids.  Unless they needed it by starting a fight with me.  Maybe I'm like Porter Rockwell, a little.

dc

Edited by David13
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Getting back to being a good parent, I think you did a good job Anatess.  I think, and I don't have kids, never did, but I think getting some information of why the youngster had a headache at school is a good idea.  Getting to the bottom of the cause might be a good idea. 

dc

 

 

It is!  Definitely.

 

I've gotten to the point when I can look at my kids' faces when I pick them up after school and know what kind of day they had, then by stealth deduction of previous stories as well as knowing my kids, I can pretty much guess what is happening.  It's become kind of like a "game" to me.  Recently, I picked up my kid and I see some kind of a feisty look in his eyes... so I said to him when he got in the car, "I guess your teacher found out you spent no time on that sonatina."  My kid got mad at me - "I told you I'm going to handle it!  You didn't have to talk to my teacher!"  And so I told him, "I never talked to your teacher... I just know."  And so our traditional convo starts... he asks, as usual, "how do you know?" and I answer, as usual, "you fed off of my placenta.  I know everything about you!".  HAH HAH.

 

About bullying... that's one cool thing about my kids.  They're both big boys (they look Asian like me but they're built like their Caucasian dad) and they are confident enough to not need validation by their peers.  Comes from having a ginormous extended family who they are secure in.

 

Which is another thing about homeschooling... people always say... they're gonna grow up anti-social!  Hah, they're only going to become anti-social if the only interaction the kids are having is schoolmates.  Kids have siblings, cousins, ward families, neighbors, etc. etc. etc.  They don't need schoolmates to color their worldview.  Their arguments with their cousins (from Catholic vs Mormon to Regal vs AMC) provides them with enough diversity - and they are free to stand to what they believe without some authority figure throwing the school handbook rules at them or kids threatening to beat them up at the lockers.  It builds better self-confidence in their self-identity, I think.

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It has been said, maybe even by me, that public school is a place where kids go to be raised by other kids, and that thus they they receive a lowest common denominator of culture.

And I think that is true.

I have a lady from Mexico, strongly JW, and quite successful in business.  With four adult children.  Who are rather good kids, tho' not so financially successful.

They said no discipline was ever necessary with them.  Their mother gave them a certain look that brought them into order fast.

dc

 

It reminds me of my wife.  She said, before she married me, that I had a look where she thought I was looking right through her. 

She could not keep any secret from me.  That look would bring it out.

I do look at people with the attempt to look inside them (their head and thoughts).  Sometimes it works, sometimes it's way off.

Edited by David13
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I hope someday I can love my kids as much as you guys love yours.

 

I'm getting a little sick of the "throwing kids to the wolves" rhetoric. You don't have to agree with our decisions to send our kids to school, but a little respect would be nice. I don't see anyone here going on the multiple (lately) threads lauding the superiority of homeschooling and spouting off the many stereotypes about homeschooling families that exist. 

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The flip side is: When you keep pushing schools to cut costs, and you've got powerful teachers' unions preventing cuts to their own pet programs--sooner or later, people start asking if it's really worth paying an RN $50K/year to stay on a school site and tell one or two vomiting kids per week that yes, they'd better go home.

If my child calls me from school and tells me (s)he's too physically ill to carry on, I'm not sure it's the school's job to tell me if there are physiological signs that my child is stretching things.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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The flip side is: When you keep pushing schools to cut costs, and you've got powerful teachers' unions preventing cuts to their own pet programs--sooner or later, people start asking if it's really worth paying an RN $50K/year to stay on a school site and tell one or two vomiting kids per week that yes, they'd better go home.

If my child calls me from school and tells me (s)he's too physically ill to carry on, I'm not sure it's the school's job to tell me if there are physiological signs that my child is stretching things.

You don't need an RN to administer first aid and check a kid's temperature. In fact, a Middle Schooler can administer his own first aid and check his own temperature.

Kids are not allowed to have medicine on them except for doctor prescribed inhalers and the like. So they have to go to the clinic for health issues.. even if it's just to take their prescribed dose of probiotic before lunch...

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I hope someday I can love my kids as much as you guys love yours.

 

I'm getting a little sick of the "throwing kids to the wolves" rhetoric. You don't have to agree with our decisions to send our kids to school, but a little respect would be nice. I don't see anyone here going on the multiple (lately) threads lauding the superiority of homeschooling and spouting off the many stereotypes about homeschooling families that exist. 

 

 

Eowyn

I could agree with you if the ratio was 50% in public school and 50% home school.  However I think the ratio is about 9 to 1 or so, so of course the vast majority of complaints will come about from public school.

dc

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Well David, I refuse to label my child or any child as "lowest common denominator", and most people I know are doing the best they can and staying involved with their children's education, and absolutely not sending their children to be "raised by other children". Meet my kids, and then dare to tell me they're not being raised and taught well by their parents. 

 

That post and others I'm reading here lately "e.g., ("What person in their right mind would send their kid to public school?") smacks to me of building a sort of homeschooling Rameumptom. "Oh Lord, we thank thee that our children are superior to others, and we love them enough not to let them associate with the riff-raff of the world. We thank thee that we are wiser and more loving than 9 out of 10 parents. We thank thee that our children are smarter, and more special, because of the superior choices we're making. . ."

 

It's disgusting. God is no respecter of persons. All children are equally valued. There is no lowest common denominator. There are situations that some children are in, at no fault of their own, but from my experience that's not the "common" situation and they are the ones who need more love, not noses turned up at them. My children bring fantastic children from fantastic families home from school, and now and then there's one who maybe doesn't have the support they need at home, but boy am I glad they can come here for some love. We have actively volunteering parents in the classrooms all day, and most teachers I've come across are wonderful and going above and beyond. I have children through my home every day after school, and I wouldn't ever look at any of them as less than my children in value. 

 

Maybe I don't agree with most people who homeschool or how they do it. Maybe I think they're selling their kids short. Maybe I think the needs of every family and every child are different, and rejoice that we can choose what we think is best with the help of the Spirit.  Either way, I'm going to respect your choice and I wish all of you would stop thinking the worst of us "lazy" parents who send our kids to school and consider that we are also doing our best, and what we think is best for them.

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I'm getting a little sick of the "throwing kids to the wolves" rhetoric. You don't have to agree with our decisions to send our kids to school, but a little respect would be nice. 

 

I'll restate what I said here.  There are tons of valid options besides homeschooling.  Yeah, we hear about public school horror stories, sometimes an entire building seems corrupt and vile.  But no, homeschooling is NOT the only valid choice out there.  

 

Yeah, a parent picking a mainstream educational option for their kids does NOT mean they don't love them as much as homeschoolers.  That's just a silly notion.

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You don't need an RN to administer first aid and check a kid's temperature. In fact, a Middle Schooler can administer his own first aid and check his own temperature.

Kids are not allowed to have medicine on them except for doctor prescribed inhalers and the like. So they have to go to the clinic for health issues.. even if it's just to take their prescribed dose of probiotic before lunch...

 

Unfortunately, the state of our litigious society is such that once you do a thing--particularly around children--you can quickly get yourself into a heap of trouble if you do that thing wrong.  Better not to attempt CPR, then to do it wrong, crack a rib and puncture a lung.  Better to publicly acknowledge that you don't know the signs of--say--meningitis; then to know the symptoms and fail to diagnose them in a child who winds up dead by dinnertime.  It is, pathetically, the world we live in.

 

I guess my thought is--if I really want to be able to get my child's body temperature data while he's at school, I can send him with his own thermometer and there's no need to involve school staff (if they're confiscating thermometers, then yeah--that's crazy).  If, on the other hand, I think my child's self-diagnosis may be suspect and I want the school's opinion as to whether (s)he is really sick enough to come home--it strikes me that merely by letting him/her call me, on the school phone, to ask for a ride; the school has already given its opinion on that issue.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Guest LiterateParakeet

Well David, I refuse to label my child or any child as "lowest common denominator"

Eowyn, Im sorry about those hurtful comments you refer to. If I were you I would find the offensive too.

I would like to say though that's it unfair to lump all of us into your Rameumtom category. No offense intended but this kind of generalization is the very thing you are complaining about.

I have friends who put their kids in public school (most of my friends do), even my homeschool friends can be "hybrid" homeschooling one and putting another in public school. Further some of my friends are public school teachers.

So like you, I am very careful to be respectful of people who make different choices than my own.

Perhaps you should direct your comments directly to the person or persons who said offensive things rather than lump us all into the Rameumtom category.

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Unfortunately, the state of our litigious society is such that once you do a thing--particularly around children--you can quickly get yourself into a heap of trouble if you do that thing wrong. Better not to attempt CPR, then to do it wrong, crack a rib and puncture a lung. Better to publicly acknowledge that you don't know the signs of--say--meningitis; then to know the symptoms and fail to diagnose them in a child who winds up dead by dinnertime. It is, pathetically, the world we live in.

I guess my thought is--if I really want to be able to get my child's body temperature data while he's at school, I can send him with his own thermometer and there's no need to involve school staff (if they're confiscating thermometers, then yeah--that's crazy). If, on the other hand, I think my child's self-diagnosis may be suspect and I want the school's opinion as to whether (s)he is really sick enough to come home--it strikes me that merely by letting him/her call me, on the school phone, to ask for a ride; the school has already given its opinion on that issue.

Pathetic is an apt word.

They took out the lockers. So kids have to carry their stuff with them. They're not allowed backpacks unless it's the mesh or transparent kind. Those kinds we not designed to hold much weight. My son, therefore, doesn't carry a pack at all... Rather, he carries a Trapper Keeper which is basically a fancy binder... He used to have a medical bag with his nebulizer, meds, and epipen, which also has a first aid kit (no thermometer unfortunately)... that is in the clinic. The pediatrician certified the use of such things on my son and that he is capable of self-administration. Funny thing is... He's not allowed to carry the epipen... So if he goes on shock, he'll have to run to the clinic while in shock (haha) and self-administer the epi (haha). Anyway, he grew out of that, fortunately.

The school policy is... If the kid claims he's sick, he is going home regardless of what the teachers/admins/ even the nurse thinks unless the parent decides otherwise.

Anyway, common sense is far from common in American Public Schools. And I guess it's true for Colleges now too.

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Without comment, enjoy.

Joseph Smith

If children are to be brought up in the way they should go, to be good citizens here and happy hereafter, they must be taught. It is idle to suppose that children will grow up good, while surrounded with wickedness, without cultivation. It is folly to suppose that they can become learned without education. (Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 273)

John Taylor

It is pleasing to notice the increased feeling of anxiety on the part of the Saints to have their children educated in schools where the doctrines of the Gospel and the precious records which God has given us can be taught and read. Our children should be indoctrinated in the principles of the Gospel from their earliest childhood. They should be made familiar with the contents of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. These should be their chief text books, and everything should be done to establish and promote in their hearts genuine faith in God, in His Gospel and its ordinances, and in His works. But under our common school system this is not possible... In no direction can we invest the means God has given us to better advantage than in the training of our children in the principles of righteousness and in laying the foundation in their hearts of that pure faith which is restored to the earth. We would like to see schools of this character, independent of the District School system, started in all places where it is possible. (Messages of the First Presidency, 3:86)

Shall we employ teachers that will turn the infant minds of our children away from the principles of the gospel and perhaps lead them to darkness and death? … I would like to know if a Methodist would send his children to a Roman Catholic School, or vice versa? I think not. Do either send their children to "Mormon" schools, or employ "Mormon" teachers? I think not. Do we object to it? No, we do not; we accord to all classes their rights, and we claim rights equal with them. Well, shall we, after going to the ends of the earth to gather people to Zion, in order that they may learn more perfectly of His ways and walk in His paths, shall we then allow our children to be at the mercy of those who would lead them down to death again? God forbid! Let our teachers be men of God, men of honor and integrity, and let us afford our children such learning as will place our community in the front ranks in educational as well as religious matters. But would we interfere with other religious denominations? No. Prevent them from sending their children where and to whom they please? No. Or from shipping where they please? No. I would not put a hair in their way, nor interfere with them in any possible way; they can take their course, and we want the same privilege. (Journal of Discourses 19:249-250)

Karl G. Maeser

Judging the educational system in vogue in the United States by its fruits, we need only refer to the statements made by many thinking men of this nation to the effect that evil results accrue from the practice of excluding Diety from textbooks and school rooms, and thus tacitly encouraging a feeling of infidelity, which is rapidly growing among the youth of this land. That system of Godless education has proven unsatisfactory and we will have none of it. (Revealed Educational Principles and the Public Schools, p. 114)

Heber C. Kimball

I am not what the world calls a learned man; neither is President Young. We never went to any college except the one sustained by the Latter-day Saints, and we have been in that from the beginning. Let me tell you, gentlemen and ladies, if we had been brought up in palaces, and been sent to school all the days of our lives to get all the education of the world, and were practical men only in these things, would we be of any advantage to this people? A man may pass through a course of education designed to fit him for a doctor, a minister, or a lawyer, and it is often the case that he comes out an ignoramus, or worse than useless member of society. When the flowers begin to bloom on the mountain sides, the ladies try to imitate them with artificial ones. Which would you rather possess in education—the real flower, or the artificial one? Would you not rather have true education, direct from heaven, than the artificial one of the world? The one educates the head and the heart, the other the head alone. (Journal of Discourses, 3:106)

Brigham Young

I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property from one man and giving it to another who knows not how to take care of it... I do not believe in allowing my charities to go through the hands of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves and give one tenth to the poor... Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No! (Journal of Discourses, vol. 18, p. 357)

We had to pay our own schoolteachers, raise our own bread and earn our own clothing, or go without; there was no other choice. We did it then, and we are able to do the same to-day. I want to enlist the sympathies of the ladies among the Latter-day Saints, to see what we can do for ourselves with regard to schooling our children. Do not say you cannot school them, for you can... I understand that the other night there was a school meeting in one of the wards of this city, and a part there —a poor miserable apostate—said, "We want a free school, and we want to have the name of establishing the first free school in Utah." To call a person a poor miserable apostate may seem like a harsh word; but what shall we call a man who talks about free schools and who would have all the people taxed to support them, and yet would take his rifle and threaten to shoot the man who had the collection of the ordinary light taxes levied in this Territory—taxes which are lighter than any levied in any other portion of the country? (Journal of Discourses 16:19-20)

We want to make our own school books. We are paying now from thirty thousand to sixty thousand dollars a year for school books that can be made here just as well as to send and buy them abroad. This is carrying out the plan and principles of building up Zion, whether you know it or not. We may preach until Doomsday, and tell how Zion will look, how wide her streets will be, what kind of dwellings her people will have, what kind of carriages and what fine horses they will have, and what a beautiful looking set of people they will be, but it is all nonsense to talk about what we will never reach if we do not stop our folly and wickedness. We have the privilege of building up and enjoying Zion, and I am telling you how to do it. We want the women, from this time forth, to go to work and save the paper rags, and we will make the paper for them. And they can learn to make type. I can pick hundreds and hundreds of women out of this congregation that could go into a shop and make type just as will as men, it is a trifling thing. And they can learn to set type, and they can learn how to write for our school books. We have plenty of men and women that know how to write books, and how to teach too. We have just as good school teachers here as any in the world. (Journal of Discourses 16:17)

Wilford Woodruff

Neither you nor your parents can be too careful to see that your young and fruitful minds are fed and stored with good principles. You want to learn that which is true - when you learn anything about God, Jesus Christ, the angels, the Holy Ghost, the gospel, the way to be saved, your duty to your parents, brethren, sisters or to any of your fellow men, or any history, art or science, I say when you learn those things, you want to learn that which is true, so when you get those things riveted in your mind and planted in your heart, and you trust to it in future live and lean upon it for support, that it may not fail you like a broken reed. (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 266.) 

We want to save our children, and to have them partake of all the blessings that encircle the sanctified — to have them receive the blessings of their parents who have been faithful to the fullness of the gospel. We do not want them to wade through all the routine of false doctrines and erroneous systems that we have had to wade through in our generation. (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p.268)

We feel that the time has arrived when the proper education of our children should be taken in hand by us as a people. Religious training is practically excluded from the District Schools. The perusal of books that we value as divine records is forbidden. Our children, if left to the training they receive in these schools, will grow up entirely ignorant of these principles of salvation for which the Latter-day Saints have made so many sacrifices. To permit this condition of things to exist among us would be criminal. The desire is universally expressed by all thinking people in the Church that we should have schools where the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants can be used as text books, and where the principles of our religion may form a part of the teaching of the schools. (Messages of the First Presidency, 3:168)

It would be better for us not to be able to cast up a single sum in addition and be humble before the Lord than to have ever so much knowledge and permit that knowledge to lead us to destruction. (Wilford Woodruff's Journals 5:428.)

Our children should be indoctrinated in the principles of the Gospel from their earliest childhood. They should be made familiar with the contents of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. These should be their chief text books, and everything should be done to establish and promote in their hearts genuine faith in God, in His Gospel and its ordinances, and in His works. But under our common school system this is not possible.(Messages of the First Presidency, Jun. 8, 1888, Vol.3, Pg.166-169)

Lorenzo Snow

What did we come here for? We came to build up Zion, not to build up Babylon. The voice of the Almighty called us out from the midst of confusion, which is Babylon, to form a union and a lovely brotherhood, in which we should love one another as we love ourselves. When we depart from this purpose, the Spirit of God withdraws from us to the extent of that departure. But if we continue in the extent of those covenants which we made when we received the gospel, there is a corresponding increase of light and intelligence, and there is a powerful preparation for that which is to come. And because of our faithfulness and our adherence to the covenants we have made, the foundation upon which we stand becomes like the pillars of heaven — immovable. (The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, p. 179)

Joseph F. Smith

Any man who will question the divinity of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, or will deny the so-called miracles of the scriptures is unfit to be a teacher of Latter-day Saint children. (Improvement Era Vol. 21, p. 104)

Do not let your children out to specialists... but teach them by your own precept and example, by your own fireside. Be a specialist yourself in the truth. Let our meetings, schools and organizations, instead of being our only or leading teachers, be supplements to our teaching and training in the home. No child in a hundred would go astray, if the home environment, example and training were in harmony with the truth of the gospel of Christ, as revealed and taught to Latter-day Saints. (Gospel Doctrine, p. 302)

Heber J. Grant

It is a duty we owe our children to see that they get an education; but the education of the heart—education in the Gospel, a testimony of the plan of salvation—is the foundation that we should lay in the breast of every child. … I have often admired the Roman Catholics because of the training of their children. In this respect they show a consistency that we might pattern after with credit and profit. … If we will do our duty, and be as liberal in devoting dollars and cents to the education of the children as the Elders are in devoting their time as missionaries to foreign countries, there certainly will be a wonderful growth in the knowledge of the Gospel among the youth of Zion. I hope to see the day when the Latter-day Saints as a community will be awakened to the importance of this question, and when they will as readily use their time and means to propagate faith in the hearts of their own flesh and blood, as they are to go and preach the Gospel to the people of foreign lands. (Collected Discourses, Vol.1, September 1, 1889)

I will thank the Lord when the public sentiment of America shall say that a man who does not believe in prayer cannot teach our children, at the expense of the public. Why should my money be used to employ a man to teach my children infidelity and a lack of faith in God? I remember as a boy, when we had our small common schools, that they hired a non-Mormon to teach in the Twelfth Ward school. He got up and said: "I understand that in the past you have prayed in this school. We will not have any more prayers, because we do not know whether or not there is anybody to pray to." I consider it an outrage that the money of people who believe in the Lord God Almighty can be spent to teach our children that kind of "rot." I endorse Nicholas Murray Butler's words, "The fool who says in his heart: 'There is no God,' finds his god when he is looking in the mirror." (Conference Report, April, 1922: 167.)

Unless we provide better means of religious instruction for the rising generation, I fear that many of them will turn away from the truth. (Gospel Standards: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Heber J. Grant, 163-164.)

Heber C. Iverson

If you want to know what has de-Christianized the country, I point my finger to the provided school from which Christ has been turned out and the door slammed in his face. The thought of it makes me bury my face in my hands and sob with sorrow and shame. (CR, April 1920, p.85)

George F. Richards

The public schools, maintained as they are by public taxation, are by law forbidden teaching religion in those schools. The result is an exclusively secular education, an education godless in its character; and such an education is most imperfect. What, then, are the schools going to do for us in the proper education of our children ? Who has not looked upon his little boy or girl, five or six years of age, the child approaching the years when he or she will be expected to enter the district school, but experiences a great deal of concern and anxiety, fearing that the morals of that child may be weakened, instead of being stimulated and encouraged, by attendance at the district schools. The restrictive influence in the schoolroom is scarcely sufficient to overcome the unhallowed and unwholesome environment often encountered on the playground. The church, then, has something to do as also the home, for they are to supply the entire moral needs of the child. (CR, April 1910, p.80, 82)

J. Reuben Clark

It does seem to me that we parents have not only lost all control as to what out own flesh and blood - I use that term instead of children because I should like to make the ugly fact as poignant as possible - I say we have lost all control as to what our own are taught... and also we are not even consulted about these matters. Now as a matter of principle, surely we who pay the costs and furnish the students might with propriety have some voice in what they whom we pay shall teach those students... I am willing that every man shall believe what he wishes, print what he wishes, and say what he wishes within his Constitutional rights, but I am not willing that he shall exploit all his idiosyncrasies in teaching my flesh and blood while I pay the bill! I insist that he shall have all the personal freedom he can carry, but I am not willing to extend that full and complete freedom into a gross license and then pay him to abuse that license to distort and debase the minds and hearts and bodies of those who belong to me and are dearer to me than life itself. (Prophets, Principles and National Survival, p. 188.) 

John A. Widtsoe

We have given our public schools a great trust; and have endowed them with tremendous power. Our children are in their keeping during most of the formative years of life. As the schools teach so will the coming generation think and act. The conditions in our land today, good or bad, may well be laid at the doors of our schools, which nourished us in our immaturity with ideals which in our maturity are being translated into action... If the schools shall be powerful factors in building defenses against evil, and in preparing against the enemy, they must face about from traditional views and give undivided attention on the one hand to moral and spiritual training, and on the other to practical education. Such teaching, for that matter, has been the counsel and advice of the Church from the beginning. Never was it needed more than now. (CR, October 1940, p.62-65)

George Albert Smith

Now, fathers and mothers, appreciate your children. Don't turn them over to somebody else to train and educate in regard to matters of eternal life. That is your privilege, and it is a privilege. Teach them to pray and walk uprightly before the Lord, and then in time of need they can go to him and he will answer their prayers. It will be astonishing to you the great happiness that will come into your home that you theretofore have not enjoyed, if you will follow this counsel. (Conference Report, October 1948, p. 166)

Joseph Fielding Smith

Parents are commanded by revelation to teach their children these principles of the gospel... Then they go to school and find these glorious principles [ridiculed and denied by the doctrines of men founded on foolish theories which deny that man is the offspring of God … These theories so dominate the secular education of our youth. They are constantly published in our newspapers, in magazines and other periodicals, and those who believe in God and his divine revelations frequently sit supinely by without raising a voice of protest. Under these conditions, is it any wonder the student is confused? He does not know whether to believe what his parents and the Church have taught him, or to believe what the teacher says and is written in the textbook. Naturally, students have confidence in their teachers and as confidence increases, there comes a lack of confidence in the doctrines of the Church and the parental instruction. (Man: His Origin and Destiny, p.2-3.)

I regret exceedingly that courses in study in the public schools, in the colleges and places of learning throughout the land, are in conflict with fundamental truths of the Christian faith; and, for one, I desire to express my feelings, and to declare that I consider it an outrage against the liberties of the people, when we are denied the privilege of teaching principles of eternal truth in the realm of religion; when we are denied the privilege of praying to our Heavenly Father in the schools, or referring to the Supreme Being for fear that we will offend someone; and at the same time instructors are permitted to advocate that, in the schools, which the teachers themselves profess and declare to be in conflict with the fundamentals of the faith which I believe, and which thousands of others accept throughout this nation and other nations of the world as divine truth... There is no knowledge, no learning that can compensate the individual for the loss of his belief in heaven and in the saving principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. An education that leads a man from these central truths cannot compensate him for the great loss of spiritual things. (Doctrines of Salvation 1:321-322)

David O. McKay

Still fresh in our memory is the fact that a paranoiac, with a native ability to influence the masses, demonstrated through concentrated effort by specially trained instructors and leaders, how the minds of youth could be directed within 2 decades to accept even a perverted ideal. How near he came to the realization of his aim within a few short years is now a matter of history. If youth can be so influenced to degenerate to the jungle, it can also be trained by united purpose to ascend the path of spiritual attainment. (Gospel Ideals, p. 430.)

Academic scholars who are shaping the thoughts of youth are declaring that one religious faith is just as good or just as useless, according to the professor’s particular viewpoint, as another, “Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, all spring from the same source, and in the ultimate analysis mean the same thing.” This is one of the things which I call unstable, and which threaten young people with an influence that will throw them into the fatal channel of wrong thinking. In customs and fashions, what was considered bad taste yesterday has become quite acceptable today. (Gospel Ideals, p. 412)

Alvin R. Dyer

I think that by the end of the millennium, for those who will occupy the celestial kingdom, the home will be the only media of teaching children. Teaching will be through the family. You may note that Jeremiah said that the time will come when no man will teach his neighbor. To me this means the teachings will come fundamentally through the unit of the family. But I think there will be central places where instruction will go forth, directed to the family level. Thus there will no doubt be sources of information for the family. It will be the father and the father's father who will be doing the teaching. In ancient times the fathers were the Instructors, meaning the patriarchal fathers—it will be the same during the millennium. (Education: Moving Toward and Under the Law of Consecration, BYU Studies, Autumn 1969)

Spencer W. Kimball

Adam spent much effort being the school teacher for his children. He and Eve taught their sons and daughters. He taught them the gospel in their home evenings, and he taught them reading and writing and arithmetic. And they kept their books of remembrance. (Ensign, Dec. 1980, p. 60)

Parents should not leave the training of children to others. There seems to be a growing tendency to shift this responsibility from the home to outside influences such as the school and the church and of a greater concern, to various child care agencies and institutions… Constant training, constant vigilance, companionship, and being watchmen of our own children are necessary in order to keep our homes intact and to bless our children in the Lord's own way. The Doctrine and Covenants makes it very clear. It is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children. All other agencies are secondary. If parents do not teach their children - THEIR children - they will be held responsible. (Ensign, May 1979, p.5)

As parents read the newspapers and magazines and see what the world is trying to teach their children, they should become all the more determined that their children not be damaged by such sin and error. Parents should then provide the home life, the discipline, and the training that will offset and neutralize the evil that is being done in the world. As children learn of the ugly things in the world, they must also learn of the good things in the world and the proper responses and proper attitudes. If parents understand that many children are denied family prayers and spiritual attitudes and proper teaching in their lives, then those parents should redouble their energies and their efforts to see that their own children receive good, wholesome training. (Ensign, Apr. 1978, 2)

Harold B. Lee

One of the greatest threats to the work of the Lord today comes from false educational ideas. There is a growing tendency of teachers within and without the church to make academic interpretations of gospel teachings - to read, as a prophet leader has said, 'by the lamp of their own conceit.' Unfortunately, much in the sciences, the arts, politics and the entertainment field, as has been well said by an eminent scholar, 'all dominated by this humanistic approach which ignores God and his word as revealed through the prophets.' This kind of worldly system apparently hopes to draw men away from God by making man the 'measure of all things' as some worldly philosophers have said.  (Conference Report 10/68 p. 59.)

Boyd K. Packer

I am restless over the possibility, ever present, that education may fail to achieve a righteous purpose and be perversely used. We have many examples in the world where the misuse of this power has degraded men rather than exalted them... The voice of atheism, of corruption, of faithlessness, of dissention resounds from a thousand platforms. It is subsidized from public funds. It is invited to the forum in public institutions, tolerated by most, and encouraged by many. The voice of faith, on the other hand, is fading. Few places are left where it might speak. (BYU Speeches of the Year, 29 April 1969, p.3)

In a review of what a student has gained at school, or in a class, he should give attention to things he may have lost. If he knew the value of some things he may have discarded, he would dig frantically through the wastebasket and trash can to rescue them before they are hauled away permanently. He came to school basically to learn an occupation, and likely he has. But as always, there was a price to pay, and occasionally students pay an exorbitant price... Did they come with patriotism and replace it with cynicism? Did they come free from any binding habits and now leave with an addiction? Did they arrive aspiring for marriage, a home, and a family and now have abandoned those aspirations? And critically important, did they come with virtue and moral purity and now must admit to themselves that while they were here they have lost it?" (Teach Ye Diligently, p. 184-185, 1979.)

In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools - and it's becoming almost generally true - it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools. Look back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies, pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face. (Charge to the David O. McKay School of Education at BYU, October 9, 1996)

The ultimate purpose of the adversary, who has “great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time,” is to disrupt, disturb, and destroy the home and the family. Like a ship without a rudder, without a compass, we drift from the family values which have anchored us in the past. Now we are caught in a current so strong that unless we correct our course, civilization as we know it will surely be wrecked to pieces. Moral values are being neglected and prayer expelled from public schools on the pretext that moral teaching belongs to religion. At the same time, atheism, the secular religion, is admitted to class, and our youngsters are proselyted to a conduct without morality. (Ensign, May 1994 P. 19)

Our garden has gone untended and the weeds have almost choked out any concern for values from our system of public education. Beginning in the teachers' colleges in the universities, prospective teachers, bombarded with humanism, and secularism, and pragmatism, and atheism, have been graduated with a noticeable breach in their preparation. Concern for standards at colleges of education is reserved mostly for academic standards, and the students graduate to seek employment in schools that in some instances now have been described, and not without some truth, as jungles... Any system of schools in our society that protects the destruction of faith and in turn forbids the defense of it, must ultimately destroy the moral fiber of a people. (Let Not Your Heart be Troubled, p. 171-172)

Lehi

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