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.
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 »
A proposal is being considered in North Carolina to change the history program in state high schools. Under this proposal, freshmen would no longer take world history, but would instead take “global studies,” which allows a lot of latitude in what can be included. Already we’re told that one of the “studies” to be emphasized will be environmentalism. You can be sure it won’t be a balanced approach. The change to American history comes in the junior year, when rather… Read more »
Last night, I spoke to a group of Christian educators from all over the state of Florida, meeting in Orlando. The subject was the role of principles and character in American political history. My goal was to show when Christian character and Biblical principles came to the forefront of public policy and when they were ignored. Blessings flowed from the first; consequences from the latter. It was a survey from the time of Woodrow Wilson, who championed the false idea… Read more »
John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a church in Woodstock, Virginia, prior to the American Revolution. His interest in government was evident—he was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1774 and was known as a follower of Patrick Henry. As events unfolded into 1775, a year that saw the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill initiate colonial resistance to British policies, Muhlenberg sensed that as a pastor he had a responsibility to challenge his flock to put… Read more »
Protestant evangelicals, toward the middle of the nineteenth century, sought to set up state-controlled education because they thought they would be the ones to control it, and then be able to keep America fundamentally Protestant in spite of the new Catholic immigration. They looked for a model for how to do this—and they found it. In order to find it, they had to travel to Europe to a country called Prussia, which forms the nucleus of modern-day Germany. Prussia, at… Read more »