“Textbooks today are trapped in an ideological straitjacket that, in contrast to
the surrounding popular culture, restricts content and sterilizes social
realities.” –
The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption
I've always enjoyed learning about history. When I look back on my history
classes, it wasn't because I was interested in reading the textbooks, it was the
teacher who made history come alive, by inserting anecdotes that made it “real,”
showing footage of actual events, or by connecting what happened in the past to
the present. As a matter of fact, most of the textbooks I used put me to sleep.
I loved to read and often wondered why we couldn't just read books instead of
textbooks to learn about people, places, and events.
During my senior year of high school, learning was a little more fun because we
read news magazines and newspapers for Current Events class and because we read
works of fiction and non fiction in Language Arts. In college, history classes
as an upper classman were the most compelling because there were no textbooks,
just books on a particular aspect of history. All things considered, it is
somewhat surprising that I majored in history without reaching the conclusion of
many of my peers who believed history to be completely boring. I have to credit
the teachers who made it a subject worthwhile.
When I taught history, the yardstick against which I measured myself was being
able to emulate my best teachers by inserting anecdotes into discussions,
finding relevant footage, or providing the etymology of words so students could
better understand what was being discussed. I realized my students and I were at
a disadvantage when I had to teach about something in which I wasn't well read.
I remember a friend telling me, always provide your students a text with less
information than the teacher's resource; this way, you can always fill in the
gaps and appear more knowledgeable. While this was good advice at the time, as I
have matured and have become more well-read, I realize that there are gaps of
which the very best teachers aren't even aware. This is because there is an
ideological battle being fought which has impacted many students' and teachers'
ability to see the big picture.
At the
We The People National Academy, I received a much more balanced and complete
presentation of the political theory leading to the Constitution. There was so
much information that I am still reading about and researching, some of the
ideas to which I was introduced during this three week study seminar. Perhaps
more importantly, I realized that I was at a serious disadvantage in my previous
learning compared to colleagues who understood much better than me the influence
of religious doctrine in the development of our founding documents and its
relevance today. The epiphany that I had not been working with all the pieces of
the puzzle was disturbing, to say the least. Without critical examination of all
the information, it is much harder to see the parallels between the past and
present and to hone in on what is most relevant at any given moment. Sometimes
entire sections of the puzzle are kept from students and teachers because of the
misguided notion that there must be a wall of separation between church and
state. There are important differences in religious thinking of which one must
be aware to make sense of our history and current events and which are critical
to understanding the role of We the People in the governance of our country.
According to Aristotle, there are three good systems of government: monarchy
“government by one;” aristocracy “government by the best ones;” and polity, the
other two together with the participation of all the other (freemen) citizens.
(It wasn't until the advent of Christianity when St. Paul said that all people
are one in Christ that all other citizens was meant to be all inclusive.) When
the above mentioned systems of government fail, “it is because they are
degenerating, viz. monarchy into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and polity
into democracy. Democracy is the term Aristotle uses for what we nowadays would
call mob-rule.” Just like marriage doesn't mean happily ever after (a couple has
to work at it for it to succeed), implementing a form of government doesn't mean
happily ever after either. It takes work to maintain the balance necessary to
evolve and function in a country's best interest.
(A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of Modern
Democracy, on the American) Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Sovereignty or
political authority within civil society lies ultimately in the people, who
holds it from God and for whose benefit all civil authority and government is
instituted. Not all theologians agreed with Aquinas' conclusion. According to
Luther, original sin “had totally corrupted human nature, completely depriving
man of his freedom. Therefore authority rested with secular rulers, who received
their power directly from God, making the king sovereign. The Catholic Church
rejecting this view at the Council of Trent maintained that mankind is not
totally corrupted and “retains his freedom both to sin and to accept the saving
grace of God.” Calvinists claimed sovereignty lay with some of the people,
“specifically in the honest hardworking and thereby hard-earned property people,
who were the predestined members of the Church.” It's important to note that the
political philosophers Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau, were all influenced by
Calvinism. (IBID)
The French Revolution differed from the American Revolution because the
sovereignty of the people was absolute (beginnings of socialism), given to the
people from a God, whom it was believed did not intervene with the affairs of
human life or the natural laws of the universe (Deism). The French attempted to
sweep away established churches and other institutions of government and start
from ground zero. The French ended up with what Aristotle would have considered,
“mob rule.” Although some of the founders were deists, the Declaration of
Independence affirmed the self evident truths that, “sovereignty comes from God,
to whose moral law all are subject, and to whom all are accountable.”
Sovereignty was given from God to the people who vest it in the King or other
form of authority. (IBID)
It is important to understand that whether you believe in a
higher power or not, the sovereignty of the American people rests on the idea
that it is given to us from God and that we are all held accountable to God.
Should established ideas of right and wrong in this country be changed to
reflect the notion that moral truth or justification is relative, in other
words, moral relativism, despite the fact that according to the
Pew Research Center, an overwhelming majority of Americans (78%) view the
Bible as the word of God? Should a minority of Americans decide on what our
sovereignty should be based? Those who believe we are all members of a global
society believe that our system of government is subject to a global system of
laws. Should they have the power to undermine our Constitution, the rule of law
established by the Framers? There is a minority that is attempting – and in some
cases succeeding – in systematically erasing all reference to God in this
country.
This is having a negative effect on how we learn history and how we
approach current events. It has also skewed the way we approach science. Rather
than pose a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis, there are many atheist
scientists who begin with the idea that because there is no proof that God
exists, that God doesn't exist. There is no scientific consensus on this idea.
Scientists who would like to continue investigating the idea of intelligent
design are not given the academic freedom to do so. They are blacklisted. In our
textbooks, the approach has been to take religion out of our history and out of
our scientific inquiry. This is no different than the blacklisting of
ideological liberals in Hollywood during the McCarthy era, back in the late
1940s and 1950s.
When academic freedom to test hypothesis is taken away, we are left with
ideologically driven texts and consensus. This is very dangerous to freedom. We
have already seen this occur with the idea that there is a scientific consensus
that global warming is caused by man and that global warming is bad. The more
ideology directs us to one world Socialism, the more it undermines our
capitalistic driven economy. As the facts present: the more freedom in an
economy, the more prosperous a country. At this moment in time, the issue of
academic freedom is probably more far reaching and is as great a threat to our
liberty as limited school choice, dumbed-down curriculum, lack of
accountability, or unsafe school environments, which typically dominate when the
topic of education is in the news.
Thanks to Ben Stein, the issue of Intelligent
Design, which falls under academic freedom is garnering renewed attention and
hopefully people will tune in and learn more about the importance of presenting
a balanced curriculum in our schools, but even more than that, allowing for a
more balanced coverage of issues, such as global warming, so that scientific
consensus truly means consensus, not just a group of like-minded people
furthering an agenda.
Should the religious influence in our founding documents
be erased from our history? Should scientific consensus continue to be based on
hypothesis, instead of testing hypothesis to build scientific consensus?
And if,
people continue to give their sovereignty to an elite group of people for a
handout, then every freedom for which our Founders dedicated their lives, and
for which our soldiers continue to fight and die, has been in vain.
It is with
every ounce of my intellect that I will continue to fight for my country and I
enlist others to do the same. The preamble to our nation's Constitution is
written in the present tense for a reason. |
