I attended kindergarten, and public schools from K-12. The quality of the education could have been better, but could certainly have been worse. In public schools, I was introduced to a mix of people from many cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds. I would not have traded my public school experience for finer instruction at a whitebread, homogenous private school.

I learned that there's inherent value in getting an education alongside a mix of people who are jostling elbows in the marketplace of ideas. That's why, when it came time to choose a law school, I chose New York University School of Law, because among the top law schools, it had a higher percentage of women and minority students and faculty. And the experience of living in New York City, with all its diversity, is an education in itself.

by jhutson on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 03:57:08 PM EST

is part of the picture here. I don't see a conservative Protestant move to provide free parochial education to substantial numbers of inner-city poor minority kids, though a few middle-class minority children may get slots. In this, the conservative Protestant schools movement differs from traditional Catholic schools, though even they have dropped a lot of inner-city schools for lack of financial support and free teachers (nuns). My impression is that the current conservative Protestant promotion of private schools and defunding of public schools is aimed at sustaining middle-class Christian advantage and creating/expanding a class of peons. Not so different from the "desegregation academies" set up during the Civil Rights struggle. Rather Calvinistic (ie, spiritual worthiness is indicated by temporal wealth) as well as racist.

by NancyP on Tue Apr 25, 2006 at 11:39:35 AM EST

I'm not entirely surprised to see Dobson use "but they don't tolerate bullying" as an excuse, seeing as the initial chapter of "The Strong-Willed Child" featured him describing literally beating the hell out of the family dog--as a lesson on how children's wills should be broken.

(Dobson is actually somewhat of a liberal on this, as far as dominionist "child training" authors go; most are quite a bit more extreme.)

The point that the real goal in withdrawing kids from public school and correspondence-schooling them ("homeschool" is less an apt term than correspondence-schooling; most dominionist curricula, such as A Beka, Bob Jones University and the like are actually technically run as correspondence schools by dominionist churches or universities, and in fact in some states dominionist "homeschool" associations such as HSLDA have essentially locked out inclusive, non-dominionist homeschooling by this technicality) is to isolate and indoctrinate them is also a very, very valid one.

As I have noted in numerous essays, much of the point of especially hardline dominionism is to essentially recruit people early and keep them in a state of perpetual fear through the use of spiritually abusive methods.  Studies of dominionist homeschool curricula almost uniformly have shown it to be of very poor educational content and almost exclusively in some cases being a tool for indoctrination; I have covered this informally in a two-part  review of A Beka's curriculum (and am working on a similar informal analysis of the book "America's Providential History"); more formally, the subject of dominionist curricula packages as indoctrination has been covered by Dr. Frances Patterson's book Democracy and Intolerance: Christian school curricula, school choice and public policy (which, as an aside, is possibly the most thorough work on the subject) and has also been noted--quite damningly--by the University of California school system who has formally stated three of the most commonly used dominionist "homeschool" curricula are educationally unfit for high school credits for university admission.  (Despite multiple lawsuits, the courts have so far dismissed complaints against the University of California.)

It is probably unsurprising that these curriculum packages are so poor in educational content and so heavy on indoctrination; Pensacola Christian College, the publishers of A Beka, are an unaccredited college that has practices that have been criticised as spiritually abusive and Bob Jones University has had similar criticism re possible spiritual abuse (its only accreditation is through a dominionist accreditation mill).  ACE describes itself on its own website as a "ministry" rather than an educational curriculum.  


by dogemperor on Tue Apr 25, 2006 at 12:47:13 PM EST

David Berliner actually does a wonderful job in detailing how the spiritual abuse rampant in dominionist movements and the coercive parenting styles promoted in dominionism fit hand in hand with dominionist curricula designed as tools of indoctrination rather than education.  Of note, he quotes from a dominionist author in showing (in a pattern dating all the way back to Jerry Falwell in the 1980's) how the ultimate goal is the total destruction of the public school system, forcing kids to dominionist education:

In addition, advocates among the Christian Right argue that because public schools are inevitably used to promote secular humanism, they are iniquitous and should be abolished completely! Christian Right advocate and educator Robert Thoburn, of the Fairfax (Virginia) Christian School, said: "We believe public schools are immoral ... they breed criminals. They teach [children] they're animals, that they evolved from animals" (quoted in Gehrman, 1987, p. 14). Thoburn's goals are stated clearly in his widely read book The Children Trap (1986):

    I imagine every Christian would agree that we need to remove the humanism from the public schools. There is only one way to accomplish this: to abolish the public schools. We need to get the government out of the education business. According to the Bible, education is a parental responsibility. It is not the place of the government to be running a school system.

And how should Christians proceed to dismantle public education? Thoburn (1986) urges Christians to run for school boards but not to reveal their motives or their strong Christian beliefs:

    Christians should run for the school board. This may sound like strange advice. After all, I have said that Christians should have nothing to do with the public schools. What I meant was that Christians should not allow their children to have anything to do with public schools. This does not mean that we should have nothing to do with them.... Our goal is not to make the schools better.... The goal is to hamper them, so they cannot grow. . . . Our goal as God-fearing, uncompromised ... Christians is to shut down the public schools, not in some revolutionary way, but step by step, school by school, district by district. (p. 159)

How will they shut down the public schools? After election Thoburn recommends that the new board members vote against all taxes, promote larger class sizes, reduce the salaries of teachers, harass teachers and administrators by demanding tighter accounting practices whenever they request reimbursement for anything, keep the board from making any decisions that might improve instruction, keep textbook adoption committees in turmoil, and so forth. Other committed Christians are urged to take all legitimate actions to hamper and discourage public schools, such as arguing against them in public debates and voting no in all school-bond elections.

Thoburn is not alone. Robert Simonds (1985), head of the Citizens for Excellence in Education (CEE), has written How to Elect Christians to Public Office. There he states:

    We need strong board members who know right from wrong. The Bible, being the only true source on right and wrong, should be the guide of board members. Only godly Christians can truly qualify for this critically important position. (p. 4)

A "stealth" strategy for gaining power was recommended by Simonds (1985).2 Simonds advised his Christian candidates to be up-beat and avoid saying things that could sound "kooky" and cause a backlash. He even noted that "the name 'Citizens for Excellence in Education' was adopted because it is a 'friendly' name to a school board. No one is against citizens, or excellence, or education" (pp. 30-31; emphasis in original). With Simonds's book you can also get a Public School Awareness (PSA) kit, which teaches how to organize committees to win school elections. Audiotapes in the kit have Simonds telling his listeners that there is demonic activity going on in the schools and that the schools are persecuting Christians. In fact, in his newsletter he claimed that "it now appears that Christians in America are beginning to share the treatment Jews received in Nazi Germany" (Kaplan, 1994). How effective have these efforts been? The CEE claims that its efforts resulted in the election of 7,153 board members in 1993, and the CEE appears to have had a budget of $710,000 in 1994 (Kaplan, 1994). By January 1995, 1,700 politically active committees had been set up in school districts to elect Christian school board members (Gaddy, Hall, & Marzano, 1996).

The goal of many Christian school board members and their constituents is to hamper the public schools so completely that another 2 or 4 or 6 percent of the parents of public school children will feel compelled to withdraw their children and enroll them in private or religious schools. This strategy rests on the belief that vouchers for private and religious schools will not come about until more parents enroll their children in private schools, thus creating a larger demand for vouchers. These Christian activists believe, and they may be right, that they are near the tipping point on this issue. That is, just a small increase in the percent of parents with children in private school will result in the change they seek--the end of state-run public educational systems. Because their goal is "pure," the Christian Right believes that the destruction of publicly supported education by whatever means is justified. So the first possibly irreconcilable issue between educational psychology and the Christian Right is that many in the Christian Right seek to destroy the public schools, while I believe that most in the educational psychology and broader educational research communities support public education.

Possibly uniquely, he links this and the punitive parenting styles designed to break the wills of children:

Adults get frustrated with young people and want to punish them--for disrespect, poor grades, graffiti, to say nothing of more serious offenses. Sometimes the desire to punish children is overwhelming among parents and citizens, despite the fact that almost all of behavioral psychology agrees that using positive reinforcement of alternative behaviors gains greater and longer lasting behavior change than does the use of punishment. Although much evidence can be mustered to support this principle, most Americans still believe there are times when it is right and proper to punish youth. It is the nature of that punishment that I want to discuss because some of the recommendations emanating from the extreme Christian Right include physical punishment. After almost a half century of research, creatively and convincingly carried out by Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura, most of the educational psychology community holds that physical violence against children is harmful. It is very difficult to ever justify scientifically, and most of the educational psychology community condemns it on moral grounds as well. The resolution on corporal punishment passed by the American Psychological Association (1975) sums up what psychologists know and believe, and this is provided in Exhibit 1. But in clear opposition to this resolution, members of the Christian Right claim it is good to physically punish disobedient youth because, they say, pain cleanses and the Bible justifies it.
. . .
The claim for biblical support is sometimes based on the aphorism "spare the rod and spoil the child," which is not biblical, though it often is claimed to be and easily could be (Greven, 1992). The King James edition of the Old Testament includes, among Solomon's proverbs, aphorism with similar sentiments:

    Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with th rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt delive his soul from hell. (23:13-14)

    The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. (29:15)

    Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (22:15)

    In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod for the back of him that is void of understanding. (10:13)

    Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. (19:18)

    My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. (3:11-12)

When the New Testament is examined there is no evidence that Jesus ever condoned violence toward children. The only statement in the New Testament that supports physical punishment comes from Hebrews 12, and that is a rehash of the Old Testament's "whom God loveth he correcteth." But in the New Testament God's chosen representative is designated: Acting for Him is the family's father.

The author of The Christian Family (Christenson, 1970), which over the last two decades has sold over one million copies, says, "The scriptural method of discipline is simple and unequivocal: the rod." And he reminds families that "God holds you accountable for the discipline of your children." Another book of advice to Christian parents (Lessin, 1979) says "Spanking is God's idea. He is the one who has commanded parents to spank their children as an expression of love. Spanking is not optional" (p. 30). And Christian pop psychologist James Dobson (1985), in his million-copy best-seller The Strong-Willed Child, interprets the teachings of the Bible this way: "A child learns to yield to the authority of God by first learning to submit to the leadership of his parents" (p. 238).

(In other words, this may be another reason Dobson wants parents to withdraw their kids--not only are public schools increasingly going away from knocking the hell out of kids, there tend not to be mandatory reporters for when "chastisement" gets out of hand.)

Later in the article:

Miller (1990, 1993) makes the point that saving children from evil is just one rationale for physical punishment, but a related goal is to promote obedience from children, a characteristic of a "proper" Christian household. In this view, man should not question God, and children should not question the adult who wears the cloak of divine omnipotence.

This view of family easily leads to child-rearing practices that are at odds with virtually all contemporary theories of the constructivist mind--one that actively seeks to make meaning for oneself The recent revolution in learning theories from behaviorism to cognitivism includes a profound change in the way we view children (see Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996). Contemporary constructivist and situationist views of learning do not begin with an "obedient mind"; rather, they start with a view of the mind as active and socially mediated. The new psychology has changed how learning and instruction are thought about in the different subject matter fields (e.g., De Corte, Greer, & Verschaffel, 1996; Linn, Songer, & Eylon, 1996 ). These various subject matter fields now require of a learner curiosity, agency, and thoughtfulness---characteristics that cannot develop well when obedience is the primary goal of child rearing.

(Again, noting--the goal of education in broadening a child's mind is different than the goal of dominionist correspondence-school programs (and dominionist "child-training" as opposed to non-dominionist childrearing)--the goal with dominionists is that people shall Obey and Not Question.  Interestingly, this also happens to be one of the most universally agreed upon "warning signs" of a spiritually abusive group; the BITE Model in particular discusses this in detail.  Another article from Hassan's site notes how coercive religious groups use these tactics to maintain control.)

Later in the article:

Contrasted with these visions of teaching and learning that have been shaped by educational psychologists is a quote from a nineteenth-century fundamentalist tract on child rearing:

    Just as we must act with humble faith in the higher wisdom and unfathomable love of God, so the child should let his actions be guided by faith in the wisdom of his parents and teachers and should regard this as schooling in obedience toward the Heavenly Father. Anyone who alters these circumstances is flagrantly replacing faith with presumptuous doubt and at the same time overlooking the nature of the child and his need for faith. I do not know how we can continue to speak of obedience once reasons are given. These are meant to convince the child, and, once convinced, he is not obeying us but merely the reasons we have given him. . . . The adult who gives reasons for his orders opens up the field to argument, and thus alters the relationship to his charge. The latter starts to negotiate, thereby placing himself on the same level as the adult; this equality is incompatible with the respect required for successful education. Anyone who believes he can win love only if he is obeyed as a result of explanations is sorely mistaken, for he fails to recognize the nature of the child, and his need to submit to someone stronger than himself. (in Miller, 1990, p. 39)

These strategies for child rearing are at direct odds with contemporary views in educational psychology. But this centuries-oId penchant for obedience over thoughtfulness, for commands rather than explanations, reappears in the child-rearing advice given by many past and current religious counselors, and such guidance has affected American social life and schooling (e.g., McCaslin & Good, 1992). The language used in recommendations to parents is strong--it has to do with breaking the will, and the destruction of the independent intellect during childhood. For example, here are the views of John Robinson, the minister of the Puritans, in Holland, before they left for America:

    Surely there is in all children ... a stubbornness, and stoutness of mind arising from natural pride, which must, in the first place, be broken and beaten down; that so the foundation of their education being laid in humility and tractableness, other virtues may, in their time, be built thereon. (quoted in Greven, 1992, p. 65)

The mother of John Wesley, Susanna, expresses similar thoughts in a letter to her son:

    A child must be conquered. . . . And when the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies ... may be passed by. . . . I insist on the conquering of the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education ... [and] when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents. (quoted in Greven, 1992, p. 66)

Modern advice for child rearing reflects the same themes. The Reverend Jack Hyles, in How to Rear Children (1972), says it this way:

    The parent who spanks the child keeps him from going to hell. . . . A child who is spanked will be taught that there is a holy God Who punishes sin and wrong. Hence he will learn to heed authority and obey the laws and rules. When he hears the Word of God he will obey what he hears and will accept the Gospel as it is preached. (pp. 95- 96)

    The spanking should be administered firmly. It should be painful and it should last until the child's will is broken. It should last until the child is crying, not tears of anger but tears of a broken will. As long as he is stiff, grits his teeth, holds on to his own will, the spanking should continue. (pp. 99-100)

More currently, William Bennett, our former Secretary of Education, in his introduction to Children at Risk (Dobson & Bauer, 1990, p. xvii), says he has "long admired Jim Dobson. Few Americans have done more to get all of us to 'focus on the family'." Dobson, a popular Christian Right psychologist, has sold over two million copies of his 1970 book Dare to Discipline (Gaddy, Hall, & Marzano, 1996). In that book, Bennett's esteemed colleague advises that "pain is a marvelous purifier" and that parents ought to use spankings to control their children's willfulness and rebelliousness (Dobson, 1970). Although claiming to be a psychologist, Dobson has not distinguished well between physical punishment and punishment resulting from response cost or time-out, methods of punishment for children that are more compatible with the beliefs held by most educational psychologists. In another of his books that sold over one million copies, The Strong-Willed Child (1985), Dobson says:

    If punishment doesn't influence human behavior, then why is the issuance of speeding citations by police so effective . . . ? Why, then, do homeowners rush to get their tax payments in the mail to avoid a 6 percent penalty for being late? If punishment has no power then why does a well-deserved spanking often turn a sullen little trouble maker into a sweet and loving angel? (p. 38)

In that same book he writes, "Should a spanking hurt? Yes.... a small amount of pain for a young child goes a long way" (p. 53). And for those parents who cannot think of how to administer pain to a child, he has advice: "There is a muscle, lying snugly against the base of the neck. Anatomy books list it as the trapezious muscle, and when firmly squeezed, it sends little messages to the brain saying, 'This hurts; avoid reoccurrence at all costs' " (p. 138).

This advice to families given by Secretary Bennett's friend stands in sharp contrast to that offered by the American Psycholological Association and professional educational associations. Dobson's interest is in blind obedience. That is his bottom line. Independence of thought must be stopped, even beaten out of the child if necessary. Many other advisors to contemporary Christian parents are in complete agreement on this point. For example, Hyles (1972, cited in Greven, 1992) asserts that

    obedience is the foundation for all character. It is the foundation for the home. It is the foundation for a school. It is the foundation for a country. (p. 145)

    Require strict obedience. This obedience should always be immediate, instant, without question or argument. When the father says do, the son does. He does it well, he does it immediately, and he does it without argument. The parents allow no exceptions to the rules. Hence, obedience is the law of the land and the child should not deem it necessary to have an explanation for the orders he has received from his parents. (p. 144)

Yet another child-rearing specialist, Roy Lessin (1979) says:

    Obedience from children should be unquestioned; it should not be based upon how reasonable a command sounds to a child. A parent's directive does not have to be reasonable to the child in order to be obeyed. (p. 44)

And the best-selling Larry Christenson (1970) says:

    The bible ... does not say, "Children obey your parents when they are right." It says: "Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right"--even if they are wrong! (See Ephesians 6:1.) The child who obeys a "wrong" command will bask in the light of God's approval. In the long run, he will be a happier and better adjusted child than the one who is given freedom to challenge and question the parents' authority. For the obedient child is living according to Divine Order, and therefore, participates in a deep sense of harmony and fitness. (p. 55)

(I have written in part on Lessin in an article regarding "chastening" in the dominionist community; one of the victims of Roy Lessin's "chastenings" has written a poignant letter on the longterm consequences of their tactics.)

(It's also interesting to note that scripture-twisting yet again takes place as well as a bit of dominionist "bible code"; Ephesians 6:1 is "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." and is in a larger context of people told to "chin up" as people who oppress them will karmically "get theirs"--it is of interest here that the author describes himself as an "ambassador in chains", thus showing the context of "things will right themselves in the end".  (Ephesians 6 in general is also possibly one of the chapters of the Bible most commonly scripture-twisted; Ephesians 6:5 has been historically used as a Biblical defense of slavery, for example, and Ephesians 6:11-12 has been used to justify "spiritual warfare" movements including "Third Wave" pentecostalism and dominionism itself.)  Interestingly, Ephesians 6:4 (which commands parents not to drive their children to wrath) is NOT quoted.)  

In fact, often the goal is explicitly coercive:

Nothing can help make the Gablers' opinions about textbooks clearer than Mrs. Gabler's own words:

    Too many of today's textbooks leave students to make up their own minds. Now that is not fair to our children: What some textbooks are doing is giving students ideas, and ideas will never do them as much good as facts. (quoted in Parker, 1981, p. 13)

With the Gablers and others like them on the alert for nontraditional teaching materials and methods, it is not likely that the curriculum of a Christian Right school will be rich in the ways educational psychologists and the new standard-setters in mathematics, science, and social studies might hope a curriculum to be. And that seems to be the case.

The curriculum of many Christian Right schools includes packets of materials from the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) program. In many of these schools the students work on the packets in their own small offices or cubicles. The work consists of low-level cognitive tasks that emphasize simple association and recall activities, as is typical of instruction from workbooks. Despite the reviling of B. F. Skinner by the Christian Right, the materials make heavy use of behavioral objectives, programmed learning, and rewards (Hunter, 1987, cited in Speck & Prideaux, 1993). Students are not supposed to communicate with other students, get up, or turn around without obtaining permission from a supervisor. Students who are having difficulty are expected to raise a small American or Christian flag signaling that they need help. In many of the Christian Right schools interaction between students has been cut off and intellectual activities in groups rarely occur because group work is not valued. Cooperative learning, which invests some power in and attributes some wisdom to the group, is seen to undermine the relationship of subservience of children to adults and to God. Cooperative learning is considered bad learning.

The article continues with a criticism of the ACE curriculum (in similar fashion to my own criticism of A Beka), showing the curricula packages have similar fatal flaws.  In addition, "The Diary of Anne Frank" and much of the works of Shakespeare are completely redacted as being too "sexual" and "Othello" is also banned on grounds of (in a claim straight out of the Jim Crow days) promoting miscegenation (O_o).

In the ACE curriculum, and in most other dominionist curricula, the punitive parenting styles and punitive household arrangements are taught as the ideal:

The ACE social studies curriculum pays homage to capitalism and contains a great many patriotic messages. These themes are often blended with Christianity, communicating the message that this is God's chosen country. An equally important message conveyed by the materials is that women have their place. In one story that is part of the Social Studies ACE packet, a mother says to her son:

    Your father is the head of our home. It is God's plan for the father to be head of his family. I talk to your father about things, but he is the one who decides what we must do. I would do wrong not to obey your father because he is the head of our home. God is pleased when a mother obeys the father in the home. (Speck & Prideaux, 1993, p. 287).

In social studies materials in use at the Center Road Christian Academy of Buffalo, New York, students learned that

    men are often better at math and science because of the way their minds work. . . . To fulfill their duties as protectors and providers, men usually have stronger, heavier muscles. . . . Men usually enjoy work outside the home, while women usually find greater enjoyment working within the home. . . . Some vocations are distinctly for men, while others are distinctly for women. (Gehrman, 1987, p. 16)

Interestingly, and somewhat paradoxically, at the Dade Christian School in Miami, Florida, students must pledge not to "draw, wear, or display in any way the 'peace' symbol" (Gehrman, 1987, p. 16). Other social studies materials vociferously condemn the United Nations and the evil people who are trying to create one world order, subjugating this nation, God's nation, to a greater authority. The United Nations is abhorred because it has as a working premise the tolerance of, and respect for, other religions. That becomes intolerable for some of the Christian Right since there is only one true God and those that do not find him are damned for eternity.

(As an aside, speaking as a survivor of a "spiritual warfare" church, I can describe why the UN and the peace symbol are banned.  In "deliverance ministry" groups it is a popular urban legend that the peace sign is a covert Satanic symbol comprised of an upside-down cross with two broken arms (in fact, the peace symbol derives from the semaphore for N and D in a circle, hence, "total nuclear disarmament"); the UN is often seen as the tool of "one world government" that the Antichrist will establish in premillenial-dispensationalist conspiracy theories (and quite often it is even frankly asserted that the Russians control the UN).)

The goal is to essentially have kids brought up from birth as "God Warriors" so set in their ways as to never be able to break from the dominionist mindset:

After eighteen months of intensive study of a Christian fundamentalist school, the "Bethany Academy" (a pseudonym), noted anthropologist Alan Peshkin (1986, 1987) was in a good position to discuss the kinds of total institutions the theologically pure would have us develop. Educational psychologists and other educational scholars would agree that these are not good places for youth, though the parents of those students and the students themselves would heartily disagree. Peshkin, with obvious compassion and concern for the people he studied, expresses his worries eloquently:

    I am concerned by a group whose beliefs permit no uncertainty, whose members frequent, accordingly, a polarized world where things are either this or that, not this and that. Scriptural truth, as Bethany holds it, rejects negotiation; compromise is unthinkable; purity of doctrine is the scriptural standard. To me, such Truth is awesome, its implications intimidating. (1987, p. 9)

    I feel anything but indifferent to the Bethany Baptist Academies of America because I fear people who believe they know the Truth and are convinced that everyone else should adhere to this same Truth. Their implacable logic is never moderated by the need to be pragmatic, to find compromise, or to see things in terms of degrees. (1987, p. 10)

by dogemperor on Tue Apr 25, 2006 at 12:55:55 PM EST

Do any of these people have dogs? Try going to ANY dog training classes and they'll tell you this is NOT the way to discipline and train dogs - never mind children. If you treat a dog this way he'll grow up to bite you; it's no wonder so many kids are so messed up.

This reminds me of the simple reduction to authoritarian vs. anti-authoritarian personality types. Fundamentalist religious types are authoritarian (but which came first?), and treat everyone this way. Beyond any moral or religious issues, I believe this basic description explains most if not all of the human race and its problems.

by joelp on Tue Apr 25, 2006 at 05:32:11 PM EST