Back to School?

As teachers and children mourn the end of summer and parents anguish over the impending adjustments to their weekly schedules, it can only mean one thing: It’s back-to-school time again.  

I vividly remember the rush of excitement when the last bell rang, declaring the freedom of summer had begun.  I also remember, in what seemed like just days later, the surge of dread when the alarm clock blared that the first day of school had arrived again.

As a kid of the ’60s, I walked to school, was both the bully and the bullied, and was afraid of every adult that worked at my schools, except for our Elementary school custodian, Maurice.  Maurice could place both hands on top of his head and make his biceps dance like a pulsating pair of beating hearts.

When I say afraid, I don’t mean in a cowering sense.  I mean it in the most profound sense of respect and reverence, and sure: With a healthy dose of fear and fret.

I don’t remember teachers sharing much about their personal lives, and I don’t remember wanting to know much about their personal lives.  They were there to teach, and we were there to learn.  I played with my friends; I listened to my teachers.

Today, the ecosystem of education has drastically changed.

Today, far too many teachers have become activists who inappropriately want to be their student’s advocates, allies, and besties as they coerce students to engage with topics unfit for the classroom.  These new trends and paradigms compel teachers to share their personal views on politics, religion, and race as they creepily harp on gender, sex, and abortion.  

It’s 2024.  Do You Know Where Their Children Are?

There is also a growing confusion about who our children belong to.  Politicians, board members, and educators act in a manner that besmirches family values and relegates parental authority.  What might be the goal of this decades-long assault to usurp control of your child’s development systematically? 

Give me four years to teach the children, and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.

~ Vladimir Lenin 

Laws are being passed right now to grant teachers more authority over children than their parents.  As is already happening in Canada, parents now risk going to jail for daring to resist the state. These so-called professionals think they have been endowed with some make-believe power over your children; otherwise, why would they treat parents with such disdain?

The juvenile speech writers for the Democratic National Convention got plenty of mileage out of this line; “And we will never ban books in our children’s schools!”  While the herds whistle like walruses and bleat like sheep, I review the “textbooks” that are being banned right now in multiple states.  They are nothing short of explicit cartoon porn.  

I remember when I accidentally found a copy of The Joy of Sex in Junior High School.  I have time-tested confidence to say this:  The first explicit images a child sees will remain prominently influential into their adult life.

Two of the kiddie-porn textbooks I reviewed are distributed to school libraries for grades 4 through 6.  It is nothing short of a XXX rating and can hardly be classified as education.  Indoctrination is even too kind a word.  It is traumatizing, destructive, and shameful for adults to promote and provide vivid depictions of sexual acts to innocent children.  And it’s not only Health curricula that are replete with shocking sexuality, but sex and gender are now routinely used to teach Math. 

The more I learn, the more I realize that our schools today no longer resemble the public education system my mother taught in, and many of us attended. Let’s call it what it is: harmful government brainwashing, although in this case, it is more specifically brain defiling.

Three Three-Letter Words Every Parent Should Know 

Public education has injected a triumvirate of Marxist theory into the classroom.  The first, Critical Race Theory (CRT), has reaped an enormous harvest of cable news debate cycles.  Always take note when you see establishment media present a harmonized message across the outlets like a team of synchronized swimmers.  It’s their way of hailing your attention to the makeup and smiles above the water so you don’t see the frantic maneuverings beneath it.

While CRT keeps adolescents mired in privilege, equity, and melanin, the other two corners that complete the Bermuda Triangle are Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).  If you have school-aged children, I urge you to learn about these Marxist doctrines of thought quickly because children’s precious minds are disappearing as the triangle is lowered upon them.  

But here’s the headline:  The epicenter of government education is no longer reading, writing, and arithmetic but instead; race, sex, and self. 

While some concepts from this unholy trinity can be helpful, they should never be presented as the central tenets of education, especially for minors. For much of the West’s history, the Lord and His Word were the centerpieces of public education. Today, activists have scrubbed these sacred centerpieces and propped up a bevy of broken, narcissistic replacement theories that are damaging the hearts and minds of His children.

Who will stop to ask: Are these post-modern constructs of classroom education serving the best interests of our children?  As young children are inwardly traumatized by these advanced developmental topics, who will stop to consider the long-term effects?  And more importantly, is anyone listening to what our children might be afraid to ask us out loud?

Late in his public ministry, Jesus asked his disciples the question of all questions:  “Who do you say I am?”  When Peter boldly answered, “You are the Christ!  The Son of the Living God”, Jesus commended him for not parroting someone else’s answer but listening in his soul until he heard the real answer.

In these days of madness, when teachers encourage boys to use the girl’s locker room, place litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate the furries, and share their sexual preferences with students, are you listening? Can you hear the silent cries of our tender, young children as they ask each one of us the same question Jesus asked?  The answers may shock you.

Hear the Children Ask: Who Do You Say I Am?

To those for whom abortion is nothing more than a contraceptive convenience, the answer is a diabolically revolting, “You are no one.  You are not even alive.”

To those for whom child pornography is aesthetically satisfying, the answer is a demonically saturated, “You are nothing more than a stimulating array of pixels.”

To those for whom children are glamorously trafficked for the consumption of the rich and famous, the answer is a sacrificially satanic, “You are here for my pleasure.”

To those for whom innocent children remind you of the pain and trauma of your broken childhood, the answer is a selfishly retributive, “You will suffer because I suffered.”

To those for whom heteronormative sexuality is anathema, the answer is a subtly hissing, “You are not who you think you are.”

To those for whom Judeo-Christian principles and the Western-prescribed traditional family require disruption and deconstruction, the answer is a hopelessly nihilistic, “You do not belong.”

Parents, you are 100% responsible for getting to know each of the adults, coaches, and educators who spend hundreds of hours each month with your children.

We have to ask the question:  Why are education activists trying to confuse and contort school children’s minds when it comes to race, gender, and sexuality?  When I watch heavily tattooed, pin-cushioned, twenty-something-year-old teachers pretend to find joy in queering their students; I see pain, trauma, and woundedness in their eyes. Could it be the innocent children are making the broken adults look bad? 

It’s easier for broken adults to break the children than to look in the mirror and repent.

How, Then, Shall We Proceed?

Gone are the days when parents could send their kids off to school without any involvement with the system.  So, the first step is to pray.  Pray for the teachers and administrations by name.  (If you don’t know their names, see step two.)  Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal anything that your child is exposed to that is offensive to the Kingdom of God. And as the Lord gives you wisdom and understanding, ask The Lord to increase your confidence in your authority to speak out. And then go speak out loudly.

Second, be that parent.  Be the parent who volunteers, assists in the classroom, and chaperones events.  Be the parent who visits, lingers, and discerns their child’s home away from home.  Be the parent who knows the teachers, reads the books, and has detailed debriefs often. 

Third, spend more time with your kids than their teachers do.  If you view the school day as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind event, you may be shocked when ideological capture has taken root in your kid, and you become the one out-of-sight, out-of-mind.  Raising strong, confident, emotionally healthy children is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.  And the most important.

Lastly, I am grateful for the education professionals who perform their jobs with integrity, sound mind, and excellence.  I am particularly thankful to those who see public education as a mission field and release the salt, light, and seeds of the Kingdom every day.  I wish you were paid more!  But your most excellent payment is coming when you will watch your students join the generation that ushers in the greatest move of God our country has ever seen.  

Father, this year, may back to school be for the Kingdom.

An edited version of this piece first appeared at Intercessors for America