Reflections on God … Man … Life
Thoughts on history and the historical profession. Clio is the muse of history–this category title is a play on that concept.
There was a time in the 20th century when it appeared that a president was setting up a virtual one-man/one-party rule. That time was the 1930s; the president was Franklin Roosevelt. He took office in the midst of the Great Depression and immediately began signing bill after bill to ostensibly take care of the disastrous economy. Many of the bills he signed had new agencies attached to them. They were called his Alphabet Agencies, and his New Deal marked a… Read more »
Let me clarify something today. I can almost hear some readers of this blog thinking, “He criticizes the president and Congress so much that he can’t really have any respect for the government.” The opposite is true. I have the highest regard for the federal government. This comes from a reading of the Constitution, the debates over its ratification, and the character of many of those who helped bring it to pass. I believe the form of government set up… Read more »
Let’s pause briefly for a recalibration of our thinking. We spend a lot of time contemplating what Congress is doing—new pieces of legislation, the strategies for passing them, etc. Stop and remember something: Congress was originally set up with very limited powers. The United States Constitution did not erect a tribunal that could legislate on any matter it deemed fit. In Article One, Section 4, we find the following wording: “The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year.”… 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 »