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Skanky Movie III

Education - Education
Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, July 30, 2010

One trap that parents fall into is the trap of not wanting sin around their kids. But I suppose this requres some explanation.

The mistake arises because there are a bunch of sins that parents should keep away from their kids -- kidnappers, for starters, and cocaine dealers, and pornographers, and seducers, and Cartesian dualists. One of the accusations leveled against private Christian education is that conservative parents are sheltering their kids. What next?! Parents sheltering children! We feed them too.

But here is where the mistake come in. There is a question of degree here. We are not supposed to keep our children away from the presence of all sin whatever. And that's a good thing, too, because it is impossible. There is a type of sin, common to the human condition, that your children will encounter (on a daily basis) on the playground of the finest Christian school imaginable. If you don't send your kids to that school (because of all the sin there), they will encounter even more of it at church, in their relationships with their siblings, in their bedroom all alone, and in the midst of all the dirty thoughts between their ears. The task of parents in this is not to avoid this kind of sin, but rather to teach their children how to battle it. You cannot learn to battle something if you are constantly endeavoring to stay away from it.

In short, with this kind of sin, there are two errors -- equally bad. One is to accommodate yourself to the presence of this kind of room temperature sin, in such a way as to assume room temperature yourself. That is the way of spiritual death. The other is to pretend to yourself that the choices you have made have somehow successfully distanced you from all that icky stuff. But it is as close to you now as it ever was, but is now invisible because you have daubed your eyes with a special Pharisee salve. This is another way of spiritual death.

The mere presence of sin discredits nothing and no one. A school is not a poor school because junior high girls are catty at lunch, because one of the boys in the fourth grade makes earthy observations about certain bodily functions, or because some blonde named Kimberly gets great grades and the word among the kids in the back row who don't like to study is that she might be the teacher's pet. Welcome to earth, everybody. This is not the kind of sin parents are required to keep their kids away from. They are in fact required not to try. This is the kind of sin that parents need to teach their kids to handle, and avoidance is not a biblical strategy. Because it will be necessarily unsuccessful, avoidance is simply a pretence of avoidance, with the down side -- because you are too busy kidding yourself -- of having children who are not learning how to respond and resist.

Suppose your child is in the classroom of a fine Christian school, one with a great reputation. You know the teachers and administrators, and they really love the Lord. But you know for a fact that two/thirds of the kids in your son's class are all hot about the latest skanky movie. Just last night, after the youth group get together, they all went to see Skanky Movie III, one that has set records for both kinds of box office gross. What will your temptation be? Your temptation will be to think that however well-intentioned the folks running the school might be, the "tone" of the school is not nearly "high enough," and that all these families clearly have poor standards. You regret having to do this, but you are considering pulling your son, wrapping him up in cotton batting for two final semesters of Mom School.

You think the problem is low entertainment standards, when the actual problem is that no Christian parents -- including you -- are teaching their kids what moral leadership looks like. About a third of the kids who went to that movie didn't really want to, and wouldn't have gone if someone in the class -- I am thinking of your son in particular -- had done more than simply studied his shoelaces when the subject came up. You are tempted to think that the others have low entertainment standards, when the real lesson is that your son is not a moral leader. The response ought not to be to do something that will make him even less of one.

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Schooling and Self-Esteem

When a culture turns away from God, such as our own has done, it becomes rootless. It does not stand for anything and so falls for everything. Each generation is subjected to the latest "bright" idea--particularly ideas about human beings, family, marriage, an raising children--that comes down the pike. Then within a generation, the unintended side effects of these "trendy" concepts begin to show up, and society says, "Oops. That was a bad idea". But by then the damage is done.

One really bad idea in our generation has been the notion that children must have their self-esteem constantly reaffirmed and reinforced. This has led to a praxis in the home and in the classroom of constantly affirming children, and minimising criticism--particularly telling children and pupils they are wrong, or allowing them to fail. But now the results are showing up from a generation's application of this half-baked idea to children. They are not good.

A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald documents the problems and the emerging consequences.

The belief that regular praise will improve the self-esteem of students has backfired, with educators urging over-anxious parents to let their children fail so they can learn from their mistakes. Parents were also doing too much for their children who were becoming less resilient and unable to cope with failure. Some were even too scared to put up their hand in class and risk giving the wrong answer.

As new research shows that members of Generation Y are entering the workforce with an inflated sense of their abilities, principals are warning ''helicopter parents'' against putting too much pressure on children to be successful, which could discourage them from risking failure.

One Sydney principal has stated bluntly that the principle of educating to build a child's self-esteem is the most damaging educational concept that has ever been thought up.

Rod Kefford, the headmaster of Barker College, has warned: ''We are creating a generation of very fearful learners and the quality of our intellectual life will suffer as a result.''

Today's students are let down lightly by teachers and wrapped in cotton wool by some parents. But in the 1960s, it was not uncommon for teachers to tell students bluntly that they had given a wrong answer.

''Then someone invented the concept of self-esteem,'' Dr Kefford said. ''In some ways it has been the most damaging educational concept that has ever been conceived.
''We couldn't do anything that would upset or harm the self-esteem of students, which was very fragile, we were led to believe … That is when we stopped our proper work in the character formation in young people. If we are serious about building resilience, we have to let them fail. It is only through our failings in the learning process that we learn anything.'' He said schools needed to give children the confidence to risk failure to encourage more creative thinking.

A generation of pampered, cosseted, self-indulged children are now entering adult life. They are failing!

''[Through] this fear we have of ever allowing them to fail, we are selling them short as human beings and as future adults,'' he said. One of the first empirical studies on generational differences in work values shows Generation Y or the ''millennials'' (born between 1982 and 1999) are entering the workforce overconfident and with a sense of entitlement. The research, led by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University and published in the Journal of Management, shows this generation wants money and the status of a prestigious job without putting in long hours. When they do not get the marks they expect at university or rise quickly enough in their jobs, they turn into quitters.

''More and more students are reaching university not knowing how to do things for themselves. Parents think they are helping young people by doing things for them but they are actually making them less independent,'' Professor Twenge said.

''It is now common for parents and teachers to tell children, 'you are special' and 'you can be anything you want to be'.'' While such comments are meant to encourage students and raise their self-esteem, experts say they can inflate students' egos.

''Feeling special often means the expectation of special treatment,'' she said. ''Your parents might think you're special but the rest of the world might not. This can be a difficult adjustment.''

Our parents raised a previous generation on the maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child". Our generation has reversed this, replacing it with the faddish, "Spoil (aka, build self-esteem) the child, and spare the rod." The fruits of this indulgence are now becoming evident.

Successful parenting and educating must above all be grounded in honesty and integrity. When a culture turns its back upon God, honesty and integrity quickly become seen as old-fashioned concepts, well past their use-by-date. Instead, parents and teachers want to be loved and liked and replace tough, honest love with cheap psycho-babble "love" which denies their children access to the truth that hurts, but also builds character and resilience and appropriate self-respect that does not tolerate in oneself a perpetual narcissism, believing that the whole world exists to serve me.

We thank God that He has delivered us, through His Son, from such folly and self-deceit.

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Three New Partial Scholarships Awarded

Donations for scholarships have continued to come in to the ACS Endowment Trust. As a result the Trustees have been able to award three partial-fee scholarships to pupils this term.

This is in addition to the two full-annual fee scholarships awarded, and a donation from the Trust's income of $4,500 towards funding the multi-child discount. The Trustees wish to thank our generous donors.

Please contact Geraldine if you know a person or business interested in making a contribution to the Endowment Trust.

All contributions are fully tax-deductible.

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The Term I, Newsletter 2, 2010 . . .

has just been published. Read it here:

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Two Full Tuition Scholarships Awarded

Owing to the generosity of some private anonymous donors, the ACS Endowment Trust has been able to award full fee tuition scholarships to two pupils at Manukau Christian School for the 2010 school year.

This is in addition to the $4,500 annual grant to MCS general operating expenses which the Trust will make to the School this year.

The Trustees wish to thank the donors for their generosity and support of these two pupils and of the School in general.

Donations to the Endowment Trust are fully tax deductible.

If you wish to assist with providing full or partial scholarships to present or potential school pupils, please contact Geraldine.

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Solving Non-Existent Problems

Background:

Two years ago, the Law Commission, in response to a request from Green MP Sue Bradford, undertook to review the law relating to private schools. The role of the Law Commission is to review older legislation with a view to updating, modernising, and rationalising. In due course, the Law Commission published an extensive review of the law relating to private schools.

The Commission acknowledged that substantially the law as related to private schools was working well and there were no substantial or systemic problems with the operation of private schools in New Zealand. Nevertheless, many of there recommendations sought to address what the Commission saw as potential or possible problems in the years ahead. The Commission's recommendations largely sought to solve problems which do not exist.

At the end of 2009, the Ministry of Education undertook a process of consultation with private schools, seeking comment from them on the recommendations of the Law Commission. Specifically they were interested in how practical, expensive, or feasible some of the recommendations were likely to be.

The document reproduced below is the response of MCS to the Ministry of Education. It provides useful insight into how the gradual imposition of state education bureaucratic management is likely to strangle the private school sector in New Zealand.

The Submission of MCS:



What Happens Next?

The Ministry of Education is considering all the responses of private schools to the Law Commission's recommendations. It will in due course decide whether to put the amending of the law with respect to private schools on its work agenda. Even if the current government were to decide to let the matter lie because it had more pressing and urgent business to focus upon, we expect that some government, some time in the future will take this matter up again.

Eventually, a bill will be put to the Education Select Committee, and submissions will be sought from the public. MCS will make additional submissions at that time. In the meantime, we are thankful that the present government appears far more supportive of private schools and the cost-effective contribution they make to the education industry in New Zealand than was the previous government.

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Good Counsel

At the end of last year, 2009 a survey seeking evaluation of key aspects of the MCS programme, and general comments, advice, and suggestions was sent to all parents of the School.

The questionnaire is reproduced here:

Responses are compiled, together with summary comments and suggestions, here:

Thanks to all those who took part, and for all the thoughtful and helpful comments and suggestions. They have already set us thinking and planning along some productive lines.

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Another Great Year Begins

As the 2010 school year commences, MCS has published the first edition of the 2010 Newsletter.

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