A Deeply Fractured US

[Fishbone Jones]

We used to have the local Rabbi come down in the salt mine to do his thing at the mine face. Kosher salt.

 

[Brad Sallows]

To get back to voucher schools - its a back door way to circumvent the 1st amendment.

That may be true, but it's not the only purpose of voucher-based school funding.

 

[Kirkhill]

That only reinforces my point. If a parents "super tight and ancient bond" can't survive contact with conflicting ideas even prior to that/those point(s) of collision...

I had many stimulating conversations with my parents prior to the age of 14. About the nature of what was coming out of school. About the nature of what was coming out of Sunday school. Through the locker room environment of competitive sports. Different exposure levels to content via friends' parents' approaches to parenting. Conflicts, contradictions, carryover of lessons, etc. etc. etc. Some were difficult for them. I'm better for them having the courage to not try to lock me in box to spare themselves difficult conversations.

And who said anything about not having difficult conversations? Where do you think I learned to be so disputatious? It was common to be arguing one side on Monday and the other on Tuesday.

PS - I was 14 when my parents backed me in withdrawing my lines from their church. I had just been confirmed and as part of my lessons I was studying Buddhism in a study that saw me getting credits in both my secular High School and with my local minister. I did my turn as usher, handing round the communion plates and taking the collection. But after a while I found myself at cross purposes with the local elders so I decided to leave. Well, when your confirmed in those churches you went onto the church roster. Those were your lines. When I wanted to leave the elders (actually elder in singular which was my problem) decreed that I couldn't have my lines and leave the church, I was only allowed to transfer to another suitable congregation of her liking. My mother and father backed me and I got my lines. I was struck off the rolls and the transfer slip was handed to me in person rather than being forwarded to another congregation. I guess you could say that I became the sole member of the Church of Kirkhill. The journey has been my own since then.

 

[FJAG]

Those were your lines. When I wanted to leave the elders (actually elder in singular which was my problem) decreed that I couldn't have my lines and leave the church,

"lines"????

 

[KevinB]

"lines"????

Beats me too.

 

[Kirkhill]

The church register kept a record of every member of the congregation. It probably had something to do with taxes as much as anything else but each church kept track of it congregations and each congregation kept track of its members. The churches liked to know if their flock was increasing or decreasing.

Anyway, in the register, your name was recorded on a line. There were a couple of other lines relating to baptism and confirmation I believe. That group of lines were surrounded by perforations. If you moved congregations then they pulled the perforated lines and sent them on to your next congregation. I was demanding that those lines be given to me directly. I would then decide when or if I would join another congregation while holding the proof that I had been christened and confirmed. That permits me to take communion without having to be re-christened and re-confirmed. I still hold that status. One of these days I may find a congregation that holds my values and enjoys the things that I enjoy. Until that day I am a church of one.

 

[Kirkhill]

Anciently I was on a MITCP course in Orangeville. The Army had co-opted an Ontario Hydro training centre for the summer.
One afternoon we were on a parking lot in pairs hollering at each other across the width of the lot trying to get each other to turn to the left, stand at attention etc. After the exercise was over we were told to fall out. Everybody gathered on one side of the lot. Except for one guy. I'd had enough company for a moment. Needless to say I caught the eye of the instructors.

"Mr. Kirkhill! (name changed to protect the guilty) Are you an individual?"

My interlude was over. But the answer then as now was "yes". Although I was careful not to say the quiet bit out loud.

 

[IKnowNothing]

And who said anything about not having difficult conversations?

That would be me. Apologies, not trying to imply that the shoe fit you- but instead a broadside aimed at the parents that feel the need to cancel secular science, sex ed, and ban books, escape the public school system to enforce their values/beliefs/ what have you.

Using the 3 main examples
-If they can't instill their faith because grade school level science questions are too hard to navigate/reconcile with religious doctrine
-if they can't instill their sexual morality because grade school level sex ed makes it too hard to have "the talk" in a mature manner
-if they can't instill their disdain for "others" because it's hard too hard justify it without looking like an asshole when acceptance has been normalized from an early age

Then assuming that they have the capacity to parent and function as adults, what they're lacking is the courage and conviction to stand behind their beliefs and defend them to their children.

We're not talking about parents wanting to pay for a better education- lower class size, better teachers, more ambitious classmates, better learning methods, we're talking about parents wanting to pay to not be challenged, their kids' education be damned.

 

[RangerRay]

We're not talking about parents wanting to pay for a better education- lower class size, better teachers, more ambitious classmates, better learning methods, we're talking about parents wanting the government (i.e. other people) to pay to not be challenged, their kids' education be damned.

In the case of school vouchers, if my understanding on the subject is correct.

 

[CBH99]

And who said anything about not having difficult conversations? Where do you think I learned to be so disputatious? It was common to be arguing one side on Monday and the other on Tuesday.

PS - I was 14 when my parents backed me in withdrawing my lines from their church. I had just been confirmed and as part of my lessons I was studying Buddhism in a study that saw me getting credits in both my secular High School and with my local minister. I did my turn as usher, handing round the communion plates and taking the collection. But after a while I found myself at cross purposes with the local elders so I decided to leave. Well, when your confirmed in those churches you went onto the church roster. Those were your lines. When I wanted to leave the elders (actually elder in singular which was my problem) decreed that I couldn't have my lines and leave the church, I was only allowed to transfer to another suitable congregation of her liking. My mother and father backed me and I got my lines. I was struck off the rolls and the transfer slip was handed to me in person rather than being forwarded to another congregation. I guess you could say that I became the sole member of the Church of Kirkhill. The journey has been my own since then.

Sorry if this was covered somewhere above and I missed it, but did you grow up LDS?

 

[Kirkhill]

That would be me. Apologies, not trying to imply that the shoe fit you- but instead a broadside aimed at the parents that feel the need to cancel secular science, sex ed, and ban books, escape the public school system to enforce their values/beliefs/ what have you.

Using the 3 main examples
-If they can't instill their faith because grade school level science questions are too hard to navigate/reconcile with religious doctrine
-if they can't instill their sexual morality because grade school level sex ed makes it too hard to have "the talk" in a mature manner
-if they can't instill their disdain for "others" because it's hard too hard justify it without looking like an asshole when acceptance has been normalized from an early age

Then assuming that they have the capacity to parent and function as adults, what they're lacking is the courage and conviction to stand behind their beliefs and defend them to their children.

We're not talking about parents wanting to pay for a better education- lower class size, better teachers, more ambitious classmates, better learning methods, we're talking about parents wanting to pay to not be challenged, their kids' education be damned.

As I have tried to point out, without getting into more religious debates, there is already a long standing tradition in the English speaking world of separate education systems being subsidized by public funds.

Maynooth college established the pattern as far as I can see.

The Maynooth College Act 1795 (35 Geo. 3. c. 21) was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland that established and arranged the funding for St Patrick's College, Maynooth as Ireland's Catholic seminary.[1]

Irish Catholic priests had traditionally been educated on the Continent in seminaries but in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during its ensuing wars many of these seminaries were either closed down or became inaccessible. Bishops were also worried that students on the Continent might become exposed to the "contagion of sedition and infidelity".[2] The Dublin Castle administration had supported the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 but was opposed to full Catholic emancipation.

The Maynooth Grant was a cash grant from the British government to a Catholic seminary in Ireland. In 1845, the Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, sought to improve the relationship between Catholic Ireland and Protestant Britain by increasing the annual grant from the British government to St Patrick's College, Maynooth, a Catholic seminary in Ireland in dilapidated condition. It aroused a major political controversy in the 1840s, reflecting the anti-Irish and anti-Catholic feelings of the British Protestants.[1]

The first grant was in response to the French Revolution and its impact on the French Clergy. There were a lot of nuns and priests looking for asylum in those days. The second grant corresponded with the uptick in Roman activity following the abandonment of the Test Acts that permitted non-Episcopalians in England and Ireland and non-Presbyterians in Scotland to hold public office and have their own schools.

Catholic schools have been subsidized from the public purse, as have private schools, since that time. The amount of the subsidy has constantly been in debate.

In Canada the issue created one of the early constitutional crises of the young Dominion -

Manitoba Schools Question

The struggle over the rights of francophones in Manitoba to receive an education in their mother tongue and their religion is regarded as one of the most import...

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

The struggle over the rights of francophones in Manitoba to receive an education in their mother tongue and their religion is regarded as one of the most important “school crises” in Canadian history, with major short-term and long-term consequences.

That crisis involved not just Canadian voices but also French, British, Roman and American voices. It was reflected in everything from the Northwest Rebellion and the hanging of Riel, to laicete arguments in France to press censorship in the US to liberal backlash in the UK against the re-establishment of the conservative Roman hierarchy in the UK.

Catholic parents wanted their own teachers to teach their own values. Protestant parents wanted their teachers to teach their values. Neither side were much interested in teachers making up their own values and teaching whatever they saw fit.

Now? Who decides what values get taught?

 

[Kirkhill]

Sorry if this was covered somewhere above and I missed it, but did you grow up LDS?

No. I grew up Scots Presbyterian. When we came to Canada, my parents joined the United Church. I guess that was because it was close and it had a Presbyterian faction. The parents were actually a mixed couple. Although my mother was Scottish and a Presbyterian my father was born in England and raised in Scotland as an Episcopalian. Both of them came from very tolerant traditions. Religion was a personal belief and a personal relationship that my Scottish grandfather, Presbyterian, Elder and Mason, characterized as "We all go to hell in our own way - We'll all gang tae hell oor ain gait." My father also instilled in me the belief that it was never right to mock another for their beliefs. Nobody knows the answer to this experiment.

You could kill somebody you disagreed with. But you shouldn't make fun of them.

 

[IKnowNothing]

As I have tried to point out, without getting into more religious debates, there is already a long standing tradition in the English speaking world of separate education systems being subsidized by public funds.

And I have ignored that, because "long standing tradition" isn't a argument in and of itself.

Now? Who decides what values get taught?

Parents. While schools educate. If the parents "values" get challenged by grade school education, that's a them problem.

 

[Kirkhill]

And I have ignored that, because "long standing tradition" isn't a argument in and of itself.

Parents. While schools educate. If the parents "values" get challenged by grade school education, that's a them problem.

And that is precisely the argument that the Roman church had with State schools throughout the Protestant world. What got taught to whom when and for how long? The Roman church had opinions on the universality of education, whether or not liberal economics and philosophy should be taught. Sex education. Creationism. Standards of obedience. Degree to which authority should be questioned. Standards of debate. Suitable reference material.

Those opinions were at variance with liberal Protestant thought that was mainstream opinion in most English speaking countries. The Roman church did find echoes in some more conservative, often evangelical sects. And in the Jewish community.

And I am careful to reference the Roman church rather than the Catholic church because, aside from a number of protestant churches considering themselves members of the Catholic community, the Catholic churches in England and Ireland survived as native churches even after the Reformation. Some of Elizabeth Tudor's senior Court, notably the Howards, despite the odd execution, largely remained true to their Church and were tolerated to the same extent as the Quakers, Methodists and Puritans. The Roman influence only really reasserted itself between the French Revolution of 1789 and Garibaldi's Italian revolution and the 1879 Fall of Rome.

 

[Brad Sallows]

It would help if the schools would vigorously police the egregious people who insist on pushing boundaries. No "Yes, but...". There's no substitute for the principle of shooting one's own mad dogs.

 

[Kirkhill]

It would help if the schools would vigorously police the egregious people who insist on pushing boundaries. No "Yes, but...". There's no substitute for the principle of shooting one's own mad dogs.

How mad is mad? And who is holding the gun?

 

[Brad Sallows]

How mad is mad? And who is holding the gun?

When a guy with fake balloon tits shows up to teach shop, the school system should be first in line to stop it, immediately.

If an organization can't or won't police itself with a degree of common sense and abdicates the duty to others, others have the choice to fight with the organization or simply remove themselves. Vouchers are an equitable way of removing the power of monopoly from school systems and giving them an economic incentive to clean up and perform.

 

[Kirkhill]

When a guy with fake balloon tits shows up to teach shop, the school system should be first in line to stop it, immediately.

Roger that.

If an organization can't or won't police itself with a degree of common sense and abdicates the duty to others, others have the choice to fight with the organization or simply remove themselves.

And again.

Vouchers are an equitable way of removing the power of monopoly from school systems and giving them an economic incentive to clean up and perform.

And again.

I was thinking more about the students having free reign than the instructors but you are dead right on the instructors. And the curriculum.

If children, or their parents, aren't being served to their satisfaction by their school then they should have the option of shopping around and going somewhere else. The parents pay taxes to the government to supply their children with satisfactory educations. The vouchers allow the parents to direct their tax money to their preferred school.

No different than being able to select your own doctor.

 

[GR66]

When a guy with fake balloon tits shows up to teach shop, the school system should be first in line to stop it, immediately.

To be fair he might just self identify as the Hindenburg

 

[IKnowNothing]

To be fair he might just self identify as the Hindenburg

My guess is that they identify as a lawsuit trap with no shame, and several different angles of attack.