In the previous Q&A of this series, we noted that the teaching of evolution has long been a false basis for indoctrinating the young, and with a preponderance of teachers with left-leaning views, we have a completely different picture to that experienced by students in decades past. We also started to look at the influences now at work in education.
One conservative student wrote that “To survive college you keep [your mouth] shut when it comes to left versus right. That is the way it goes in USA colleges.”
There is no doubt that if anyone wants to influence the young of today, start the process as early as possible at school, and continue this through college and university.
Going back some years, we can see how perversion infiltrated the teaching profession and society.In 1970, in the UK, Margaret Thatcher was appointed education secretary and was elected as Prime Minister in 1979. In 1988, under her leadership, there was a classic case that can be seen from its inception to where we are today in terms of bringing and promoting perversion into schools. This would never have been countenanced in previous decades. Wikipedia reports as follows:
“Section 28 or Clause 28 was a British law that prohibited the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by local authorities. Introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, it was in effect from 1988 to 2000 (in Scotland) and 2003 (in England and Wales). It caused many organizations such as lesbian, gay and bisexual student support groups to close or limit their activities or self-censor.
“The law is named after Section 28 of the Local Government Acts 1988, which added Section 2A to the Local Government Acts 1986. Enacted on 24 May 1988, the amendment stated that a local authority ‘shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality’ or ‘promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. It was repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland by the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, one of the first pieces of legislation enacted by the new Scottish Parliament, and on 18 November 2003 in England and Wales by section 122 of the Local Government Act 2003.
“In December 2005, homosexuals were allowed to marry when new same sex civil unions became law and this was the inevitable outcome of years of pressure.
“In 2009, David Cameron, then leader of the Conservative Party, apologised for his party supporting the law. In 2013, after he became Prime Minister, his government passed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, legalising gay marriage in England and Wales. In 2013, the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher prompted critical comment from many LGBT organisations and individuals such as Peter Tatchell about her legacy on gay rights, including Section 28.”
We can see from just this one issue how a 180 degree-change can be achieved over a sustained period of time.
The BBC reported in April 2019 that the UK Education Secretary had said that it was up to primary schools in England to choose what they teach about same-sex relationships. They reported that the UK Education Secretary had written to head teachers saying they are encouraged to teach children about LGBT issues if they ‘consider it age appropriate’. He said head teachers should consult parents but reassured them parents had no right to veto what was taught. Some parents said they believed the lessons “undermined parental rights and authority.”
It is interesting that the “Stonewall” organisation boasts on its website that “Over the past 30 years we’ve made a big difference to the lives of LGBT people here and around the world. In the UK, the LGBT movement has won employment rights. Parenting rights. Partnership rights. An equal age of consent.”
They, and many others, have been very clever at manipulating public opinion over the last half century, and through the continuous promotion of the need to accept homosexuality as normal, their constant, energetic, resolute, tireless and indefatigable work has paid handsome dividends for their cause. Of course, they have lobbied and persuaded media, politicians and others in influential positions at the highest level of the “rightness of their cause,” as they would see it, and this has resulted in a gradual acceptance of this as “mainstream,” as we clearly observe in society today. Having created the current climate, we have now arrived at the sorry state where saying that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God may be a punishable offence in certain countries, as it may be considered hate speech.
The “Stonewall” organization then asks the question: “What is LGBT-inclusive education and why does it matter?” They answer it as follows: “For every young person to be prepared for life in modern Britain, it’s vital that their curriculum reflects the full diversity of the world they live in. This includes teaching about LGBT people and themes.”
Those who have used the right to free speech in the first place are happy to have done so in pursuit of their agenda, and when that has been achieved, they then try and close down any comment, discussion or debate on that very same subject. What is worse, as we will see, they who claim to have been persecuted are now becoming the persecutors. What a sorry state of affairs we now have in the UK and elsewhere.
This now leads us to review the role of government in schooling. In April 2019, the government in the UK announced new regulations for teaching relationships and sex education in England. [In other countries in our Western societies, it is not much better; in certain cases, such as in Germany, it is even much worse.] For secondary schools the guidance states that (amongst other matters):
“RSE (Relationship and Sexual Education) must be taught in all schools in England: Sexual orientation and gender identity must be explored at a timely point; Same-sex relationships should be included within lessons discussing healthy and stable relationships.”
For primary schools (ages 5-11), the guidance says that: “All schools should teach about different families (which can include LGBT parents), along with families headed by grandparents, single parents, adoptive parents, and foster parents/carers, among other family structures.”
For more information about what a family really is, please see our Q&A on this subject.
On the website of brighthorizons, it is stated:
“Literature is a wonderful way to expose children to the world. By sharing books such as the ones listed below, you are communicating that diverse families and people are all acceptable. There may be different values and structures, but in the end… it’s about family.” The sort of literature that they present are:
“The Great Big Book of Families,” by Mary Hoffman. This book features a diverse variety of so-called family structures, what family members do, and where they live.
“The White Swan Express,” by Jean Davies Okimoto and Elaine Aoki. This story is about a quartet of parents adopting a quartet of Chinese orphans. It just so happens that the four families consist of a single mom, a heterosexual couple, a lesbian family, and an interracial family.
“The Family Book,” by Todd Parr. In this book, the author celebrates all types of “families” in a funny, reassuring manner. He includes diverse “family” structures like adoptive families, step-families, single-parent families, two-mom and two-dad families, and families with both a mom and a dad.
They go on to say:
“Find out how to teach acceptance to pre-schoolers. Read why it’s important for one of our bloggers to teach her children about all kinds of families…”
It is interesting that they talk about “teaching acceptance,” which means a form of brainwashing, and that is what modern education is doing to our young people. It is important to understand the state of play with the educational system in 2021.
We must realize the situation we find ourselves in today. Modern “educators” give us this solution – indoctrinate the very young to their perversion as early as possible. It has all the hallmarks of Satan’s handiwork indelibly stamped on it. And, it has created so much confusion with over 70 so-called different gender definitions (and growing) that many young people have had normality snatched from them with all the problems that we now see. The fruits of all this activity are evil.
At the same time, they are eagerly determined to censor and prohibit books or movies which do not agree with their desired agenda. Well-loved classic children books have been erased from the school curriculum or warning labels have been attached to them, and many Disney movies for children have been included in the rubric of undesired categories, as they allegedly teach racial discrimination or make fun of gender neutrality.
And then we have the ridiculous, superfluous or even outright dangerous courses offered in the UK and USA universities. On the website of goconqr, we read about some of the weirdest university courses that are available:
“The Simpsons and Philosophy” – This peculiar course offered at the University of California in Berkeley;
“David Beckham” – The Staffordshire University in England offers this unique course and will, study, amongst other things, his different haircuts;
“The Sociology of Fame and Lady Gaga” is available at the University of South Carolina;
“Harry Potter and the Age of Illusion” is offered by the University of Durham in the UK;
“Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way” is taught by the Queen’s University in Belfast;
“Maple Syrup” – The Alfred University in New York teaches a course focused exclusively on the process of producing maple syrup;
“Zombie Studies” – This University of Baltimore course analyses zombie movies and shows.
And there are many more, including courses on Transcendental Meditation and other Far Eastern “methods” to achieve personal “enlightenment.”
If anyone had predicted this state of affairs 50 years ago, it would have been seen as an impossibility, but the impossible is now a reality and is now the mainstream of today.
Let us consider further erosion of sound principles in the area of education.
In the UK, prayers and assembly at schools were a staple of daily school life, but that has now been badly eroded. We hasten to state that we do not propagate public prayers in school either, but for very different reasons. While modern “educators” want to eradicate God and the Bible from their schools, or are concerned about not offending non-Christians, we in God’s Church realize that school prayers are addressed to the wrong Entity—either the false concept of the Trinity or the “Virgin Mary” or certain dead saints in heaven. We would not want our children to participate in such prayers or worship services. But that is not the reason why “Christian” societies prohibit prayers in school.
In February 1998, the BBC reported: “Daily worship for schoolchildren could soon be a thing of the past if the government acts on a report. A review panel set up a year ago suggests scrapping the daily ritual of hymns and prayers because they alienate some children from non-Christian faiths.”
In December 2005 the BBC reported that: “Prayers and assembly at schools which were a staple of daily school life but that is now a thing of the past.”
The Independent newspaper reported in December 2015: “Schools should no longer be forced by law to hold daily acts of Christian worship, as part of major reforms reportedly outlined by an influential commission. A report by the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, which includes the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, said the arguments for mandatory Christian prayers in secular schools was ‘no longer convincing.’”
We can see how, over just a few years, things have changed drastically.
Wikipedia writes that in the UK: “Despite this statutory requirement for schools to hold a daily act of collective worship, most do not. Ofsted’s 2002-03 annual report, for example, stated that 80% of secondary schools were not providing daily worship for all pupils.”
Again, we hasten to add that laws of mandatory collective school worship are wrong and even destructive, for the reasons stated above, but these are not the reasons as to why these laws are now either not followed or repealed.
While this is still allowed legally in the UK, it is nothing like it was in former times. Wikipedia states that “Countries that prohibit school-sponsored prayer include the USA, Canada, France, Turkey and Singapore.”
Corporal punishment in British state schools, and also in private schools receiving any element of public funding, was banned by parliament in 1987. In the remaining private schools it was banned in 1999 in England and Wales, 2000 in Scotland, and 2003 in Northern Ireland. Most had anticipated the legislation and abandoned CP voluntarily several years earlier. A few Christian private schools held out, and fought the ban through the courts, ultimately without success.
One teacher remarked that “when the change came, they took something away without anything to replace it with that was a real threat. You would threaten detentions, but some of the most disruptive just didn’t turn up to them. And if you excluded them from school, they took it as an extra holiday.” In fact, we have seen particularly in the USA, that many schools have become a battleground with many shootings in the last few years. That sort of frightening environment is not the sort of place where students will be happy and do their best work.
We don’t deny that in certain cases, corporal punishment, including in schools, has been horribly abused, and it is still abused in a most gruesome way in certain countries right now. But to eliminate it totally is not the right course of action either, nor is it biblical.
Our booklet “The Keys to Happy Marriages and Families!” covers discipline in the home on pages 23-26. We read on page 24:
“There is never a justification for physical abuse. On the other hand, to totally ban spanking and define it as physical abuse only shows how liberal and anti-biblical our Western society has become. This is of course the fruit of the anti-authoritarian education that has brought about a curse on our Western world. Note what the Bible clearly teaches in regard to corporal punishment in Proverbs 13:24, ‘He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who LOVES him disciplines him promptly [or early].’ Since using the rod is compared with prompt or early discipline, it is clear that this passage includes the concept of spanking, where and when appropriate. Of course, we don’t spank a teenager or an adult, so the spanking needs to be done early in the life of the child. But note, again, we discipline our children, because we LOVE them.”
“Proverbs 23:13–14 reads, ‘Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod, And deliver his soul from hell.’ The Ryrie Study Bible comments, ‘A wise teacher warns of neglecting child discipline… Discipline may deliver a child from an untimely death.’”
Because of all the changes in schooling today, is it any wonder that home-schooling is now the choice of many more parents than in the past? Of course, in certain countries, such as Germany, home-schooling is totally forbidden.
Further, when Church of God parents want to take their children to the godly annual Feast of Tabernacles, they have to request time off and, in certain countries such as Germany, which have government-imposed mandatory school attendance requirements, this request may be refused with fines or other punishment doled out to those who defy the system and keep God’s Holy days anyway, while refusing to lie by pretending that their children got sick. In contrast, the world’s pagan holidays, Christmas, Easter and others are state holidays!
In summary, so far, we have seen the following in modern education:
It is underlined by the false teaching of evolution. In addition, there is ample proof that the overwhelming number of those teachers, lecturers and professors who have the responsibility to educate young minds are liberal and left wing purveyors of information.
There is the sexual revolution where anything goes, and wrong examples are now the norm for very young minds from a very young age with the unacceptable use of books highlighting different “lifestyles.” Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 in the UK which restricted the promotion of homosexuality in UK schools was overturned, and we now have the indoctrination of the very young in schools. Literature showing different “lifestyles” and “family make-up” in schools are now commonplace.
There is the “dumbing down” of some university/college courses.
Prayer in schools is not allowed in some countries; in others, while it may be allowed, there seems to be little take-up of that activity.
Corporal punishment of any kind is now not allowed, with the inevitable increase in disruptive students.
There seems to be more home-schooling taking place in some countries to remove children from a climate of wrong teaching and, in many cases, because of bullying that can happen when children don’t conform to the world’s and their teachers’ and co-students’ norms.
What are the fruits of all of this “so-called” progress? The stress on children, their parents and teachers themselves, can lead to physical, mental and psychological problems that may last way beyond the time spent in the educational system. It is not a happy scenario but has been the result of many bad decisions made over a sustained period of time and there is no end in sight in its current form.
For those who are interested, there is a timeline of all the events that have transformed the educational landscape in the UK from 1910-2015. See https://www.tes.com/news/timeline-history-education .
(To be Continued)
Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)
