By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
The communists knew that whoever controls education controls the future of that nation. We must say that truer words were never said. As we pull back the curtain on what is happening in our society, it is abundantly clear to us that our society is on the wide path of destruction. We are in a spiritual war of good versus evil.
If we are truly objective (We know that is asking a a lot of most people), we cannot accept the current state of our public education system in Ohio. This is not a condemnation of teachers, but rather of a governmental system that appears to be out of control. Like many other taxing authorities in Ohio, “mission creep” has taken over, and is impacting the lives of youngsters, families and society.
Here is a letter we received from a patriotic Lake County resident that responded to a previous article on education.
Hi Brian,
No one can influence a child and accelerate their development more than a caring parent. If a family accepts the challenge, home schooling will always provide great results with knowledge learning. What may be lost is the social skills learned from interacting with peers.
My wife and I chose a hybrid approach and our children have followed our method, using our public schools and being actively involved.
We feel the social interaction available in our public schools was a big part of a child’s education.
Our 3 of our children, and our 6 grandchildren went to, or are in, public schools. We actively monitored their progress. We believe and found that most teachers are sincere and skilled educators. As in any profession, there are always some teachers who are not as skilled or interested. We assumed all teachers were sincere and supported them fully unless they proved otherwise, and then we figured out a work-around on how to create the optimal result under the circumstances.
We recognized the teachers’ challenges working with a wide range of student skills and personalities, and we communicated our support to the teachers to know we recognized their challenges.
Graduating from high school in 1968 & 1969, my wife and I grew up at a time where our parents and the parents of my friends demanded we respect and follow the authority of the teacher. In other words, for me a male, there was nothing a teacher could do to me that was worse than what my mother would inflict if I misbehaved and she found out. This was also the case for most of my classmates.
My wife and I explained this to our children and that we expected them to behave. We never had any big issues. We attended all teacher conferences and explained that the teachers had our support, we wanted our children to learn and if there was anything we could do to help or support the teacher and their process, we would be part of the solution. We could sense the teachers appreciated our cooperation. There were only a few times we were called upon to help. There were a few situation where we had to design a work-around. Overall this approach worked for our children and is working for our grandchildren.
I have seen a shift from the parents siding with teachers for their children’s behavior and siding with their child when the child misbehaves and they are not as involved and supportive as we have been and the education process for these children is more challenging with an increase in disruptive behavior over what I experienced. This has likely been a reason for the rise in home schooling.
It seems home schooling families need to be sure there are activities to give their children the social interaction with their peers to provide this part of their education, whether through sports, their faith or an activity such as Scouting.
Who is responsible for the education of a child? Very clearly the answer is “the family”,
The breakdown of the family and a collapsing birth rate are major reasons we say that we are on the wrong path.
In 1957 the birth rate in the United States was 25.00 per 1,000 people. In 2025 the birth rate was 10.55 per 1,000 people.
Our declining birth rate will be negatively felt in our nation in the next couple of generations.
My favorite question these days:
“Is our 250 year experiment as a constitutional republic over?”
My answer:
“Not on my watch!”
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Categories: Community Activism, Uncategorized