OPINION — On Wednesday, March 5th, Southern Utah parents of children attending K-12 grades will be afforded the opportunity to be educationally fed and informed on all things Common Core.
Common Core is a little known set of common standards that the state of Utah along with 45 other states and the District of Columbia adopted back in 2009.
One drawback to a national curriculum is that local control of education is no longer local, but instead controlled and administered by government far away from where your children attend school.
Albert Einstein said “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” In other words, those who created the problem cannot solve it! So who did create this problem? More importantly, who will solve it?
The problem was created by state school boards and governors who put the obtainment of federal education dollars over constitutional principles, limited government, and most importantly, what is best for our children.
What we have today is a crisis and those who helped create it are being protected by many in our state legislature. We have strayed so far from what our founders intended as ends to education: knowledge and virtue.
Classroom learning has been replaced with high stakes testing. Teachers are also being hurt by the new curriculum- art and history are being replaced with testing and more testing. Many teachers love for teaching is diminishing but they are afraid to speak out.
Utah’s politicians cannot solve this problem alone, the wisdom from We The People is required, that is where you come in. Man is not capable of solving the education crisis in Utah simply because we were not endowed with the sacred responsibility given from on high to nurture.
The answer lies in mothers! Mothers who understand Natures Law. Natures Law is found simply by observing nature. No sane person would question a mother bear attacking a hiker that strays too close to her den of cubs. You have the right to protect your cubs, will you sit down for one evening to learn of the dangers threatening them? Mothers who firmly believe that “Parents are, and must always be, the resident experts of their own children.”
It will take a little sacrifice to learn the issues and become involved, you are busy, you perform little miracles each day raising up your children. Alisa Ellis, the presenter, is a Utah mom of 7 who has done her homework and you will be well informed by the time you leave. Our Founders gave us a Constitutional Republic, a system that works best when the citizenry are engaged, informed, and aware.
I am happy to be a watchman on the tower but a watchman is useless without cavalry and archers to heed the call. Each of us has benefited from sacrifices and efforts that our parents made while we were still too young to understand. Now it is time for us to be willing to do the same for our children.
Submitted by Ryan Schudde
Ed. note: Letters to the Editor are published “as is” without edit. The opinions stated are those of the writer and may not be representative of St. George News.
Event details
- When: Wednesday, March 5, at 7 p.m.
- Location: Dunford Auditorium, Browning Building, Dixie State University
- Contact [email protected] for more info
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Only Mothers, though, no fathers allowed….
You are kidding right? Fathers need to be educated on this issue so he can support his wife.
sarcasm my friend, sarcasm…
Thanks for clearing that up for Karl!
The conclusion being drawn from that quote by Einstein is erroneous and equivocal. Also, it is all well and good to trumpet knowledge and virtue, but what definitions are being assumed by this article? Is it too much to ask for specific definitions in this case? I don’t think so.
One great definition of virtue is found in the Massachusetts School Law of 1789, the Commonwealth being referred to was started by John Adams:
“Whereas the Constitution of this Commonwealth hath declared it to be the duty of the General Court, to provide for the education of youth; and whereas a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue is necessary to the prosperity of every State, and the very existence of a Commonwealth.
Section 4. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That it shall be and it is hereby made the duty of the President, Professors and Tutors of the University at Cambridge[Harvard], Preceptors and Teachers of Academies, and all other instructors of youth, to take diligent care, and to exert their best endeavors, to impress on the minds of children and youth, committed to their care and instruction, the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity, and the universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation and temperance, and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society, and the basis upon which the Republican Constitution is structured. And it shall be the duty of such instructors, to endeavor to lead those under their care (as their ages and capacities will admit) into a particular understanding of the tendency of the before mentioned virtues, to preserve and perfect a Republican Constitution, and to secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote their future happiness; and the tendency of the opposite vices to slavery and ruin.”
First, notice what the economic and political well-being of the Commonwealth depends on, according to the Massachusetts law: knowledge and virtue.
Second, not only did the founders use the word virtue, but they defined what VIRTUE means: “piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity…chastity, moderation and temperance.”
Lastly, notice what happens when young people do not acquire the ennobling virtues that “preserve and protect a Republican Constitution”: slavery and ruin.
As Plato said through Socrates in the Meno, the enumeration of supposed virtues is still not a definition of virtue. Also, one of the virtues listed is also in one sense considered to be the whole of virtue, viz. justice. Virtue cannot mean piety, justice, yadayada, because these are virtues themselves…the argument is circular. Furthermore, what is meant by Nature’s Law? Taking the lack of real definitions and the examples you give, I am going to suppose Nature’s Law, and for that matter an understanding of virtue, is what is normally called Common Sense. Well and good, except who among us will admit that the Common Sense so prevalent to the founders is the same Common Sense prevalent today? Finally, let me say that the Civil War is an example of real young people saturated with ennobling virtues and at the same time crippling vices fighting on both sides to protect a Republican Constitution, and the result was both slavery and ruin, as well as freedom and rebirth.
I’ll say it loudly, so the letter writer can’t miss it…
COMMON CORE IS NOT A NATIONAL CURRICULUM
Grab some popcorn and make be sure to watch the entire video. Data Mining is one of the biggest dangers of the national curriculum. It is against the law for the federal government to house a national database, so they made each state build a SLDS and shredded the FERPA laws that protect data. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9OAYBu3qUo&feature=youtu.be