Reflections on God … Man … Life
It’s been three months since I lasted posted on the subject of the history of education and its effects on us today. I’d like to take a few days and develop that topic a little more. In a previous post, I spoke about a woman named Marietta Pierce Johnson who followed the teachings of John Dewey, Father of Progressive Education. Johnson set up a school that had no exams, no homework, and no grading system. No child was allowed to… Read more »
A couple weeks ago, I mentioned the push for the federal government to take over all student loans for college students. In case you missed it, that was tacked on to the healthcare bill. It’s now apparently going to be reality. For those unaccustomed to how Congress works, let me explain that it has become routine to attach unrelated items to a bill. Healthcare and student loans? They go together . . . how? I will repeat the major concern… Read more »
There’s another proposal from the Obama administration that hasn’t gotten much play in the media, but which I consider the death knell for Christian colleges, if it becomes reality. The proposal is simply this: put the government in charge of all student loans for education. Rather than simply guaranteeing loans obtained through private banks, Obama wants the government itself to be the source for those loans. Why is this a problem? Well, the current situation is already a burden to… Read more »
I’ve been commenting on the history of education on and off now for a couple of months. Recently, I’ve pointed out that John Dewey is considered the “Father of Progressive Education.” He had many disciples who put his ideas into practice. One of those was Marietta Pierce Johnson who started a school in Fairhope, Alabama, in 1907. She called it the Organic School. Here were her basic tenets: There were no achievement groupings for students Children were never be compared… Read more »
Meet Edward Thorndike, a follower of John Dewey, of whom I wrote a couple days ago. Thorndike also had a major influence on American education. His contribution was to take behaviorist psychology, which looked upon man as simply a higher form of animal, and apply it to his educational philosophy. He concluded that because man was just an animal, and not a unique creation made in the image of God, he should be treated as an animal. Rats were put… Read more »
Yesterday, I showed how John Dewey, the “Father of Progressive Education,” was one of the authors and signers of the Humanist Manifesto, a blatantly antichristian document. Today, let’s go a little further. Dewey’s educational philosophy can be summarized in four points, as follows: There is no such thing as an eternal truth. What happens when this is the starting point for education? You are left in a vacuum, morally and spiritually. Education should be child-centered. This sounds good. After all,… Read more »
Let’s take a break from purely political anaysis today. Instead, let’s look at one of the reasons we are where we are as a nation, and why some of our political problems exist. To do so, we need to recognize what has happened to our education system over the past 100+ years. We have to start with John Dewey, who has earned the title “Father of Progressive Education.” That “progressive” label is almost always poison. What were Dewey’s contributions to… Read more »