Posted in Homeschooling
In years past, especially around family and other folks who weren't quite sure about our homeschooling, we would answer questions about our progress with statements like, "Oh, she's in third grade now." I hadn't really considered the implications of what we were saying until a year or two ago.
Grades like second grade and eighth grade, and year designations of freshman and senior are based on the egg carton principle. 7 Year-olds should flock with other 7 year-olds and 14 year-olds should flock with other 14 year-olds. Doug Phillips said in one of his speeches at our state conference this year that this concept was based out of Ernst Haeckel's theory of embryonic recapitulation of evolution. G. Stanley Hall took Haeckel's theory and applied it to child development. Answers in Genesis profiles Hall's theories in their article Evolution in American education and the demise of its public school system by Lael Weinberger.
Grades, as you can see, are based on evolutionary theory, where children graduate from one grade to another, recapitulating the evolutionary chain. Instead of a biblical model, our public -- and private -- school system is based on a framework devised from man's imaginative and quite false theories of origins.
Today, the closest we'll come to grades in addressing our children's progress is saying, "he's equal to a 5th grade level in reading and equal to a 4th grade level in math." I'm not even sure if we should use the comparison. Still, with family reunions approaching, I'm not sure we can avoid them. I'll close out with another quote from the same article, which has some excellent food for thought.
Grades like second grade and eighth grade, and year designations of freshman and senior are based on the egg carton principle. 7 Year-olds should flock with other 7 year-olds and 14 year-olds should flock with other 14 year-olds. Doug Phillips said in one of his speeches at our state conference this year that this concept was based out of Ernst Haeckel's theory of embryonic recapitulation of evolution. G. Stanley Hall took Haeckel's theory and applied it to child development. Answers in Genesis profiles Hall's theories in their article Evolution in American education and the demise of its public school system by Lael Weinberger.
While a public fight was going on over what would be taught in the public school science curriculum, evolution was being applied to the schools in a more subtle manner. In the late 1800s, Granville Stanley Hall was a prominent educator at Johns Hopkins University. He believed in evolution and was a leader in the developing field of psychology. In 1904, he published a book on adolescence, advocating a new theory of child development based on evolutionary recapitulation. This theory was soon to be applied to classrooms across America.
Halls recapitulation belief was that child development reflected evolutionary ancestry; certain ages, he argued, represented stages of evolutionary development. Infancy and early childhood corresponded to early pre-civilized mankind just grown out of its animal stage. Ages 67 were crisis years, where children could enter school and leave the pre-civilized state behind. Ages 812 corresponded to the world of early pigmies. Ages 1318 were what he declared to be the stage of adolescence. This period, Hall claimed, was critical, as the child entered a stormy ancient civilization stage, and finally grew into full civilization.
Halls recapitulation belief was that child development reflected evolutionary ancestry; certain ages, he argued, represented stages of evolutionary development. Infancy and early childhood corresponded to early pre-civilized mankind just grown out of its animal stage. Ages 67 were crisis years, where children could enter school and leave the pre-civilized state behind. Ages 812 corresponded to the world of early pigmies. Ages 1318 were what he declared to be the stage of adolescence. This period, Hall claimed, was critical, as the child entered a stormy ancient civilization stage, and finally grew into full civilization.
Grades, as you can see, are based on evolutionary theory, where children graduate from one grade to another, recapitulating the evolutionary chain. Instead of a biblical model, our public -- and private -- school system is based on a framework devised from man's imaginative and quite false theories of origins.
Today, the closest we'll come to grades in addressing our children's progress is saying, "he's equal to a 5th grade level in reading and equal to a 4th grade level in math." I'm not even sure if we should use the comparison. Still, with family reunions approaching, I'm not sure we can avoid them. I'll close out with another quote from the same article, which has some excellent food for thought.
Halls book was a major influence on the public schools as age segregation became more emphasized. Before Hall, the stormy period of adolescence was virtually unknown. John Quincy Adams, later to become US president, received a diplomatic appointment overseas for the federal government when he was only fourteen years old. For those who acquired a college education in the 1700s, thirteen-year-old freshmen were not uncommon. But Hall made little allowance for the fact that children mature differently. Now all six-year-olds, seven-year-olds and eight-year-olds get their own classes, learn to stick with their age group peers, and it is regarded as oddif not suspiciousif a ten-year-old associates with a fifteen-year-old. Today it is often a terrible thing for a child to be ahead of his peerspublic school children must fit into Halls evolutionary mold. (Perhaps this is why we dont see children like John Quincy Adams anymore.)
Oh, but you will...
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