By John Parcher
Christian News, May 14, 2000
Now our children are supposed to be the latest oppressed minority in dire need of liberation.
Since the ‘60s, children along with women are considered to be victims of patriarchy and an “ideology of control.”
Popular authors like John Holt, and famous like Hillary Clinton, say the government should free children from the “captivity” of parents and schools.
Today’s child development experts and family life counselors agree: Parents are to be bystanders in the lives of their children.
It’s the old philosophy of Jean Rousseau, widely hailed as a pioneer in the areas of human rights and child development.
Rousseau said the children are inherently good, and society is evil.
This explains why only 7 percent of education professors think teachers should impact knowledge, while 92 percent believe “students should learn on their own.”
This is also a whole lot easier than teaching English grammar, square roots and the location of Montana on a map.
And you see traces of this theory in the phony curriculum offerings, such as, “discovery learning” and “thinking strategies.”
Moses would probably be cited today for a “hate crime because he said “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
And charges of child abuse filed against the one who said: “He that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him.”
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”?!?
Such an attempt to mold the character of a child, or transmit values, is considered a misuse of power by the strong against the weak.
Most sane people know the difference between a spanking and a beating; between discipline and child abuse.
Rousseau, by the way, drew income from one woman and his connections from another.
That, while living unmarried with “a dull and unattractive servant girl” who bore him five children.
Then he crept through the streets of Paris by night to abandon his offspring, one by one, on the doorsteps of a foundling hospital.
If that qualifies a man as a “pioneer” in child development, well, you can have it.
Give me any day the humbling, and yet ennobling and inspiring teachings of the Bible.
4 comments:
What's your problem with this article? John Parcher is CRITICIZING those who follow Rousseau's philosophy of child development. His conclusion about Rousseau? "If that qualifies a man as a 'pioneer' in child development, well, you can have it. Give me any day the humbling, and yet ennobling and inspiring teachings of the Bible."
Did you post this because you thought Parcher was supporting Rousseau?
I think this article is outstanding!
It was hard to tell because 1) you posted it without comment, 2) the title was in red and 3) most of the stuff you post you place on your blog to criticize.
I guess I'm not sane because I don't support spanking. We do believe in discipline (which means "to teach") though.
One may spank if they want--it's legal to do so; however, we shouldn't claim it as something the Bible backs up...because it doesn't (remembering that the only verses quoted are from a book of poetry--the Psalms. Re-read every verse that speaks of the rod...put it all into proper context, that is what we as Lutherans are supposed to do!!).
The article is simplistic...picking at various secular ideas without any real scholarly citation or flow.
Having studied various psychological views on child development in a formal setting, this one is not truly reflective of the whole.
Personally, I despise these types of articles--so focused on tearing down that which they fear--what they are against, that we have no idea what they actually believe (because saying what you are against does not necessarily clarify what you believe).
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