The First Classroom Is the Dinner Table

Just the other morning, I came across the movie Windtalkers. I remembered watching it on TV when I was growing up.

I only watched it briefly and was a little surprised that my mom let me watch it as a kid. My mom told me the version I saw had language edited out.

Windtalkers basically tells the story with Nicolas Cage taking a center role, of a unit of Navajo Marines in WW2 who used their native language as code for the US military that the Japanese couldn’t crack.

It also highlighted some of the discrimination they faced for being native Americans in units that were often mostly white. Their role in communications was integral in the war effort against Imperial Japan, kind of like the Tuskegee Airmen were in bomber escort missions against Nazi Germany.

Both groups likely felt awkward in fighting for American freedom when they themselves didn’t feel free. But they still did it.

I recently read an opinion piece on the Daily Wire that complained that schools teach that America and its institutions are inherently racist and discriminatory, and therefore America is evil.

Moving away from core fundamentals and classical education to promote leftwing politics.

Thereby enlisting foot soldiers for leftist ideologies.

I agree with him. However, my answer is to either enroll kids in private schools that offer a classical education or homeschool them. K-12 public schools are government schools. Plain and simple. There’s been communist infiltration for decades and decades. Dating back to probably the 1920s. Unless someone forces change with some heavy laws, it’s not going anywhere.

When I was in school, patriotism consisted of two things that remained consistent after 9/11, the pledge of allegiance every morning and a moment of silence on September 11th.

By the time I was in high school, it had become so routine that many of my peers no longer cared about it. Some teachers might bark at the kids who didn’t want to stand up and then give them a mini-lecture on why they should.

The defiant kids might say something about being black in America and why they didn’t need to stand, but that was usually only around election time.

I’m a firm believer that education begins and ends at home, not in school, especially in this day and age. For most kids, the voices of their parents, family members, friends, media, and culture will be louder than the voices of the public school system.

I learned a great deal on my own through self-study than I ever did in school. My mom encouraged patriotism in me, but she also encouraged me to think critically. So I learned that America was great in some things, good in others, but never perfect. And that was ok.

I was allowed to watch movies like Windtalkers and The Patriot at a young age, both of which were rated R, because they were about American History.

There were certain video games I wasn’t allowed to play. But my mom had no problem with me putting 20 bullets in a Nazi soldier and then sawing off his head with a knife in Call of Duty!

The same applies to my faith. My mom did not shy away from the gritty stories in the bible, especially Jesus’ crucifixion. She took me to see The Passion Of The Christ the night before I took state exams in 5th grade. By high school, I was doing apologetics.

My mom took my education very seriously. While I didn’t always enjoy it at the time, I’m a better person today because of it!

If kids are not encouraged to think critically at home and manage the information that enters their minds, they will not do so in school.

Many kids want to get through the day in public school. I was one of them.

Kids will default to truths that can’t be ignored or challenged, such as skin color, gender, ethnicity, culture, etc. That’s what socialist ideology attacks. It invites children to build identity on the unchangeable and then to accept or challenge it according to a “self-empowering universal narrative.” It’s an offer that speaks to the core of our humanity, which is why it’s so seductive.

Information and narrative overload can be rough. Make the cycles work for you. Click here to found out how.

Classical education requires more work. Analyze history, art, language, science, music, etc., objectively. And then form your own ideas and opinions around that by yourself. How to think, not just how to merely feel.

To discover what’s real and why you believe it.

Or like my mom used to tell me all the time. “Know why you believe what you believe.”

Which is based on 1 Peter 3:15.

Real education should teach us to love what is good without pretending that it’s flawless. That’s critical thinking.

That’s the thinking that families should instill in kids at the dinner table. That’s the thinking that will create good leaders and good American citizens, regardless of what they look like or where they came from.

Do you think today’s schools can still teach real critical thinking, or does that work now fall mostly to families?

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