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He also said that education majors go to the dumbest part of colleges and basically are not smart.
Now, president Larry Arnn can believe what he wants (and his statements were made in the presence of the TN Republican governor who has yet to distance himself from them) but he has packaged his beliefs for selling in charter schools to be established in the states. TN expects to start about 100 schools with his insights on learning. Wh else? Desantis in FL.
Arnn is correct. Education is not a challenging major.
Education majors have the lowest average SAT scores of any major. That is a documented fact. Additionally, education majors graduate college with the highest GPA of any major. Education majors often enroll at satellite campuses as well, and not their state’s flagship university.
Actually, you are wrong on the bold. Read Freethinkers: An American History of Secularism by Susan Jacoby. The founders made a conscious decision to not to include any reference to Jesus in the Constitution, although they met with considerable resistance to that decision.
I’m surprised you would say that. I would have thought by now you would have recognized the fact that I don’t just pull things out of my backside, and usually have plenty of evidence supporting my positions. In any case, and with all due respect, we have yet to find consensus among the experts regarding what “shall not” actually means with regard to the constitution, in spite of the obvious meaning most anyone should understand at face value.
I might also remind you that among the expert consensus, our lovely Covid vaccines are still claimed safe and effective, in spite of the fact that they don’t work, and the bodies of the vaccine victims continue to pile up to the heights of Mount Everest. So, you might want to use your own judgement and some discernment, rather than be hoodwinked with clever commentary, especially when it overtly screams it’s bias by the title “AN AMERICAN HISTORY OF SECULARISM” as if that wasn’t a dead giveaway.
With regard to America’s Christian roots, while there has been long standing debate on this matter, your presentation of one side of that argument does not automatically disqualify the other side, nor the clear evidence that exists in plain view, which destroys such frivolous claims.
I would first point to the most obvious piece of evidence, as Exhibit A) which in my opinion is the lowest hanging fruit, well within everyone’s reach …. on April 30th, 1789, George Washington was inaugurated the 1st President of the constitutional United States of America. At that inauguration he swore his oath of office on the King James Bible. Now, ask yourself a simple question …. why would a nation that is said to be secular, and non-Christian, require its highest office holder to swear his oath of office on a Christian Bible? I really cannot understand how anyone can make such absurd claims with that type of evidence staring them in the face. It makes no sense to me. But, a lot of things have made that list these days.
But, if that’s not sufficient evidence, our Declaration of Independence, which is actually our original founding document, notifying the King of England of our decision to separate from his authority, God is mentioned twice in the first two paragraphs. Since Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklyn and colleagues were to the best of my knowledge neither Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists, it’s safe to assume the frequent references to God and Creator were likely reference to a Christian God, just as ole George’s oath of office was obviously directed.
There are many claims that the founders were deists, and some were, but there have been all sorts of distortions regarding that. Numerous so-called experts have claimed that George Washington was not a religious man, and others have claimed he too was a deist in spite of the clear and unassailable evidence that he was indeed a life long devoted Christian. Now, if George Washington, who is referred to as the father of our nation was indeed a Christian, I don’t think he would have become that first face of our nation ‘if it were not reflective of the philosophical disposition of the country at that time, do you?
Lots of people mistake the absence of such Christian references in the constitution as evidence of the nation’s secular nature, but this is another obvious distortion, just as erroneous as it is to mistake the constitution as our founding document. But this document was the written contract establishing the government structure of the new nation whose birth certificate was indeed the Declaration. I suspect that because the founders understood the dangers of undue authority being seized by the church, for which England had already experienced hundreds of years of experience from the Catholic Church, and then later from the Church of England, they deliberately excluded any establishment of a national religion in order to keep separate the legal powers and authority guiding the nation.
The three branches of the federal government as codified in the constitution, define the limited powers of legal authority granted to the federal government which deliberately restricted these powers as defined. There is deliberately no mention of the church, because there was no authority granted to the church. All powers identified were either assigned to federal authority, or reserved to the states. There was, and still is no governing authority in the hands of the church. And in order to avoid any future confusion or later efforts by the church to seize a portion of power over federal/state affairs, the 1st Amendment made it unlawful for congress to pass legislation granting such recognition to any religious institution. But that does not mean the founders were anti-religion, or not Christians. They just didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, to which they were intimately familiar.
Last but not least, given the fact that the vast majority of our founders were former Subjects of the British Crown, and England had for hundreds of years previously been a Christian country, it stands to reason that the majority of those British colonists who later became the first American citizens were also Christians. So, claims that this was never a Christian nation is nothing more than agenda driven nonsense.
Truthfully your smarts don’t come from the education system. It comes from internal drive to learn from the child, genetics, and parents/family. The homeschooled kids I grew up with were generally smarter than average kid who went to public school because they had more active parents. Schooling needs to be individualized with the parents heavily involved. Not every kid learns the same, different kids need to learn different subjects and at different speeds. A school in Wyoming where every kid is going to be a rancher needs to be totally different than a school in Manhattan. I don’t see a problem with a public school in say Mississippi, where every kid is a practicing Christian, Incorporating religion. Federal government shouldn’t be involved at all.
I don’t see the downside in having school choice where you have different school offering different methods of teaching. One school can be totally secular another can incorporate some religion and you have the choice with a voucher where to send your kid.
Any person that runs against the Uber Left in '24 is going to be visously attacked, slandered, & threatened...& their families and friends too...even kids.
I don't know about attack and slander but a person running for the bully pulpit needs to be thoroughly vetted.
Or do you think that was too much when they started the rumors about Obama's mama?
I've taught on the college level and teaching in general is not for amateurs. We are no longer a frontier nation.
I think homeschooling is more of parental selfishness than a better education for the child. One important part of education is dealing with others on a daily basis.
Would you disagree that any competent adult who graduated high school easily (performing at grade level) should be able to teach K-3 math, reading, and writing?
No I would not. How much dyslexia goes undiagnosed by professionals who should have picked up on it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyebee Teepee
And for the few students with an inability to learn under "traditional" methods, you could have 1 class/grade with extra-qualified teachers?
Easy to say. Who is trained to pick out those 'few students'?
I've taught on the college level and teaching in general is not for amateurs. We are no longer a frontier nation.
I think homeschooling is more of parental selfishness than a better education for the child. One important part of education is dealing with others on a daily basis.
If you look at outcomes, homeschooled student do much better than students in gov't schools.
Gov't schools trap millions of urban kids in failed gov't union schools where the union votes and campaign cash supercedes the students education. That is why the Uber Left fights magnet schools, school choice, & alternatives of any kind.
The uber left has sold out students in urban areas, which has led to the declline of our major cities.
NOTHING DeSantis supports is extreme, but the destruction of our education system by the Uber Left is radically extreme, & has failed on an epoch scale.
Proof? Look at the USA's global ranking over the past 20 years....class dismissed.
Last but not least, given the fact that the vast majority of our founders were former Subjects of the British Crown, and England had for hundreds of years previously been a Christian country, it stands to reason that the majority of those British colonists who later became the first American citizens were also Christians. So, claims that this was never a Christian nation is nothing more than agenda driven nonsense.
To expand on just one part of your excellent post, it’s worth noting that it was Protestant Christianity that made a success out of the colonies. Catholic France and Spain were in North America for decades before the English (and Dutch) but did virtually nothing with their lands in comparison.
But really, the founding documents, particularly the Declaration of Independence, have their roots in Protestantism. It is reasonable to conclude that without Martin Luther, there would be no Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, etc. in terms of their philosophies.
This sums it up better than I can:
Quote:
It has often been said that, fundamentally, Luther gave us “modernity.” Among the recent studies, Eric Metaxas’s “Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World” (Viking) makes this claim in grandiose terms. “The quintessentially modern idea of the individual was as unthinkable before Luther as is color in a world of black and white,” he writes. “And the more recent ideas of pluralism, religious liberty, self-government, and liberty all entered history through the door that Luther opened.”
When lefties (erroneously) claim that America is not a Christian nation, they make the mistake of thinking in terms of Jesus Christ and not thinking in terms of establishing a Protestant republic fundamentally different from European Catholic Monarchies.
I could go on for pages, but hopefully this conveys my point.
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