The Path of Shalom
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Nov. 18, 2005
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Herd Education and Youth Culture
I have been following and participating in a discussion on Spunky Homeschool's blog post - Our children as missionaries. This morning, my husband and I were discussing some things going on in the world, a person's reaction to his posting on And Such Were Some of You on Homeschoolblogger,
and the "coming out" of "gay" teens. I had one of those times when my
thoughts went "click." I entered my teens in the 1960's during the
"Sexual Revolution." I was raised in the government schools and
influenced very much by the "question your parents' value system" stuff
being promoted by my teachers and, of course, by my peer group.
I got thinking that the 1920's was another time that stands out as a
cultural shift that started in the "youth culture." It is called the
Roaring Twenties or the Flapper Era. It was a time that young people
challenged the values of their time. The girls started "bobbing" their
hair and wearing skimpy clothing (compared to the standard of society
then). Young people took up cigarette smoking, partying, and a
disrespect to their parents and the older generation. Women's
liberation made some real strides in that time period as well. Then in
my generation the "youth culture" started another revolution. It is
called the sexual revolution. Couples started "shacking up" without
marriage, illegitimate births increased, drugs and smoking pot were
promoted among the young. There was an even greater disrespect of
parents and the values of the older generation. The women's liberation
movement became very firmly entrenched in our society and the
"housewife" became something to look down upon. We have been
downward-spiraling as a society ever since.
Lets see - 1920's
to 1960's - forty years, right? Now it is forty years later again and
we are having an uprise in the "youth culture" again and, of course,
our whole society. This time it is an uprise in perversion. "Gay" teens
are "coming out" in record numbers. The courts are deciding that
parents don't have a say in their children's education (well, at least
one so far, but others will follow. You can count on that!) Bestiality,
child-adult sex, "gay" marriage and all sorts of perversions are being
pushed and legalized. Now the things that we were encouraged to embrace
by questioning our parents' values when I was in school, are the things
being taught to this generation of children. Now the schools outright
teach it, instead of encouraging children to question the values of the
older generation. They just are encouraged now to question the things
that even liberals found shocking when I was young.
Now, I
started thinking about the similarities and what might have helped make
them. I know I need to research more and if anyone has information that
would show a whole "youth culture" move in the 1800's, I would
appreciate it being brought to my attention. In my own research so far,
I have not seen that there was a rise of "youth culture" of any
significant proportion until the 1920's. The compulsary education
attendance laws were becoming more wide-spread by the turn of the
century in 1900, but it wasn't until 1918 that the 48th state adopted
compulsary education attendance laws. A wide-spread "youth culture" was
not really possible until that point. By the early 1900's, a
significant portion of the youth were herded into peer-groups where
they spent the majority of their time together. Other forces also had
an effect such as the rise of entertainment media, easier communication
and a world war. The combination brought about the first rise of "youth
culture" in our society in the 1920's. The youth of that day were
considered rebellious, as well as those of the 1960's and there are
those who see them in our day as rebellious, but our society, as a
whole, has accepted rebellion as being part of the youth culture.
I know that since "youth culture" has started having uprisings, that it
has happened pretty much continuously, but there have been major times
and they have seemed to be generational as far as running in a pattern
of forty years. Maybe that has to do with rebellion towards parents
that is encouraged. In the 1920's the youth had a liberal cultural
revolution so it would have gone to a conservative revolution in the
1940's. The same would be true of the 1960's again having a liberal
revolution and conservative in the 1980's. Now we are having a liberal
revolution again in this day. The one thing that is happening, though,
is that the immorality has progressed with each liberal revolution and
the only thing that has happened in the larger turns to conservatism
have just been maintaining the status quo, instead of a true revival
and repentance happening.
I am proposing that as long as
children are herded into an educational system on a large scale and
that parents are pursuing their own lives on a large scale because they
have someone to teach and "care for" their children, we will not see
any real change. Actually, I think that at this point and with the
global empasis on these things, that parents are going to shortly lose
the opportunity to have a real influence in their children's lives.
Since there are a greater amount of professing christians that believe
in sending their children to public school than those that choose to
home educate, we are not going to see any change, but only a greater
and greater control and influence over children. Unless those parents
really take the time to study the history of our modern institution of
education and see the real danger of herding children into peer groups,
they will not see what is coming. It is impossible to regenerate the
public schools or to change their agenda. It is long-running over
generations and has a principality behind it propelling it forward. The
only way to have any effect is to resist and to take up what we have
been entrusted with - the training of our children to know the mind and
heart of G-d. At least, they will hopefully not fall prey to the mass
deception and delusion that is taking over in our day.
My
oldest daughter, who is now 29 years old, went to a christian school
for two years. She has always struggled more with peer group dependancy
than any of her other sisters. I started home educating in 1985, a year
after it was enabled by Nebraska law. My Father had been convicting me
to do so since before my oldest was school age. What really caused me
to take it seriously was the scripture in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 -
"Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD
thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in
thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,
and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be
as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the
posts of thy house, and on thy gates."
As I meditated
on this section of scripture, I could see no way to obey it other than
to have my children with me for the day. I have had my oldest in
private school and saw how much time that it took from her life and how
much less time I had to have input into it during those two years. Even
when my life fell apart at the breakup of my first marriage, I
continued to home educate as best I could as a single mother. I chose
to work part-time and trust my Father to provide and lived very
frugally to be able to live on what He provided. When I remarried, Rick
was not yet convinced about home education, so we enrolled my fourth
daughter and the only one still of school age at that time into middle
school. She did excellently that year and Rick got an education on
public education. He started becoming convinced and the next year we
were home educating again. When we moved to Missouri in early 2002, I
had a very young baby and we had been off schedule with the baby and
the move for a few months. When I tried to start up working with my
then 9 year old son again, he gave me some real problems and I told him
I was going to put him in school if he continued to do so. That was the
first time since I had started home educating in 1985, that I was the
one to initiate doing that. When Rick got home and heard how he had
acted, he declared we were going to put him in school. This was before
he even knew what I had said. We enrolled our son in school that week.
While we were doing so, the principal of the school was condescending
towards our having home educated our children. As we were given a tour
of the school, we saw their heroes posted on the walls - Whoopie
Goldberg, Eleanor Roosevelt, Che Guevera
and others. Then we were in the all-purpose room and saw the motto for
the school posted on the wall. I only remember this part of it, but it
was what really concerned us - "to prepare productive citizens of a
changing, global society." That was when Rick got a conviction. He said
our children were not being prepared to be part of a global society. He
decided that my son's days in school would be short and that it would
only be to finish out that school year. We now are both committed to
home education and Rick's time in a "Christ-centered and Spirit-led"
university has only served to strengthen his conviction about the
education of our children.
I was part of the movement from the
60's and if my Redeemer, Yeshua the Messiah hadn't rescued me, I would
be a strong proponant of all that was promoted during that time (if I
was even yet alive). He has given me a sacred trust in gifting me with
these children of mine. They are not to be squandered in herd education
or youth culture or sacrificed on the altar of duty to evangelize. My
young children still need to really have a relationship of their own
with their Creator yet. I am to give them a foundation so that when
they do have that relationship of their own, they will be sharp arrows
in His hand. I surely am not going to give them over to this strong
movement of this day that is going to result in the return of our
Messiah. From my experiences with public and private schooling, there
is not much time left in a day for parents to fulfill the command in
Deuteronomy 6, and if both parents work, I certainly don't know how
they will do it. For me, this is the only path to follow.
I
will respect the decisions of others as far as the educational choices
they make because I do not know G-d's will for their individual lives,
but I will also encourage them to study the history of education, to
study how herd education has effected societies in the past, to study
the scriptures and then to study the agendas of this day for our
children. In other words, I will encourage them to make an informed
decision and a prayerful decision. Personally, I believe that G-d is
calling us out of the systems of this world. We will not effectively
evangelize in the systems anyway, but only as we rub shoulders with our
neighbors and those He brings into our path. The time is very short
before our Messiah returns. We need to make sure that we are doing what
He wants us to do.
Love and shalom,
Serena
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• Nov. 23, 2005 - Untitled Comment