Why We Need More Home Schooling

Townhall.com posted an article today by Michelle Malkin about a new trend in education–teaching children social justice. One definition I found of social justice is, “promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity.” Sounds pretty good, but somehow I don’t think that is what they mean. Many of our colleges teach social justice, but do they value diversity? How many conservative Christians do you find teaching on the average college campus? But I digress.

The article reports:

In Massachusetts, the John J. Duggan Middle School will open on August 25 with a new name and mission. It is now a “social justice magnet school.” As a hiring advertisement for teachers explained earlier this year, the emphasis will be on “helping students develop the necessary skills to analyze and synthesize information and to generate empathy by looking at multiple sides of important issues facing the world, be that hunger, water quality, racial barriers, child labor or imbalance of power.”

Concise writing, as you can see, is not on the social justice pedagogues’ agenda.

Oh, and forget about memorizing times tables or mastering the scientific method. The new principal says the school’s primary job is teaching “fairness.” Duggan Middle School’s junior lobbying factory is “serious about creating 21st century global citizens, and it begins with understanding who we are as members of each of those communities.”

At the risk of being called a mean, old grandmother, when are we going to explain to our children that life isn’t always fair? When are we going to tell them that everyone encounters some sort of barrier in their life and that the goal is to learn how to overcome those barriers, not wallow in them. Imbalance of power has been with us since the stone age, does teaching the children multiple sides of the issue (assuming there are multiple sides) contribute in any way to their education? Good grief!

How about teaching the children how to read, how to do math facts, and how to solve problems? They will figure out the social justice on their own.

Just for the record, my definition of social justice is allowing me to keep what I earn and allowing you to keep what you earn. If the numbers are uneven, one of us needs to learn how to be a more valuable employee or how to start his own business!