Tag: homeschool

A Case for Emergency Preparedness – Public Disorder (Mob Rule)

In the aftermath of the destruction of across the country by anarchists, Prager University asks, “Is mob rule coming to America?”

Pertinent Law

PUBLIC LAW 85-425-MAY_23_1958

AN ACT

To increase the monthly rates of pension payable to widows and former widows of deceased veterans of the Spanish-American War, Civil War, Indian War, and Mexican War, and provide pensions to widows of veterans who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

CONFEDERATE FORCES VETERANS

“Sec. 410. The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval service of the United States.”

USCODE-2011-title18-part I-chap65-sec1369

(a) Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (b), willfully injures or destroys, or attempts to injure or destroy, any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

MOBS ON DEMAND

Various mobs that made sudden appearances at town halls and other public events are known to be hired thugs, some answering Craig’s List ads from recruiting firms like Crowds on Demand. Billionaire George Soros has invested tens of millions of dollars into various un-American organizations to disrupt public order, as he did in Ferguson, MO where he gave “at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grassroots, on-the-ground activists“, according to the Washington Times.

Your Plan of Action

Why do I write all the above? It’s to elevate your awareness of the risks to you, your family, and your property should a mob scene come to your area. Keep in mind the fact the City of Dallas has already had one devastating event this 2017 calendar year when a sniper ambushed a Black Lives Matter protest. The sniper murdered five Dallas Police Officers and wounded seven other officers and two civilians.

As NBCDFW reports, “In the blink of an eye, a peaceful protest in downtown Dallas turned to panic, as hundreds of people ran for their lives Thursday night.” (Published Friday, July 7, 2017)

I was in the Memphis, Tennessee area during the time of the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and subsequent Garbage Riot.  I was also there when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the peace march through downtown Memphis. I remember very well the disruption of public order and police curfews after the murder of Dr. King. It was a frightening and a dangerous time.

What Can YOU Do?

FEMA’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program trains volunteers to FEMA CERT Logoprepare for the types of disasters that their community may face. Through hands-on practice and realistic exercises, CERT members:

city of rockwall CERT logoMy wife and I received this training two years ago.

 

Here in Rockwall County, the Office of Emergency Management provides this training. Think. Prepare. Act.

Questions?

Submit your questions via a reply to this posting and I will promptly answer.

John White
Rockwall, Texas
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Boys will be _______ ?

Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise InstituteAmerican Enterprise InstituteAmerican Enterprise Institute, explains how boys are being deprived of natural boy behaviors in public schools. Her presentation discusses the problem and she articulates the ‘cure’.

Get your Google on and discover the consequences of the feminization of boys in American society. Here are search topics and counts of associated internet pages addressing this issue.

  • “negative effects of feminism on society” 743,000 pages
  • “how to raise a feminist son” 13,600,000 pages
  • “feminists and transgender activists” 701,000 pages
  • “how does the number of transgender boys in 2017 compare to 20 years ago” 1,680,000,000 pages

Feminism isn’t about promoting females; it’s a war on males. The facts and numbers are unmistakable: feminist activism is at the root of the transgender phenomenon.

  • “how does the number of transgender suicides in 2017 compare to 20 years ago” 92,300,000 pages

What’s behind the feminization of boys? Initially, feminism was all about raising the status of women to a level playing field with men in salaries, opportunities, etc. But, the redefinition of traditional (globally traditional) male-female roles was taken over by liberal feminists who moved on to promoting the LGBT movement.

Liberal feminism was aggressive then, but a quite different quality of aggression to the

spiteful malevolence we see now. – Ex-feminist Helen Pluckrose

 

girls-vs-boys-at-play
Image: Grandparents.com

 

Ex-feminist Helen Pluckrose describes how postmodernism has affected American society in an article written for Aero Magazine, 29 Dec. 2016.

“Very simplistically, [postmodernism] was an academic shift pioneered by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard which denied that reliable knowledge could ever be attained and claimed that meaning and reality themselves had broken down. It rejected large, overarching explanations (meta-narratives) which included religion but also science, and replaced them with subjective, relative accounts (mini-narratives) of the experiences of an individual or sub-cultural group. These ideas gained great currency in the humanities and social sciences and so became both an artistic movement and a social “theory.” They rejected the values of universal liberalism, the methods of science and the use of reason and critical thinking as the way to determine truth and form ethics.”

Read the full article via this link: WHY I NO LONGER IDENTIFY AS A FEMINIST

As is socialism, postmodernism remains forever a theory because it can never be proven to work.

A second reference was written in 2010 by Arthur L. Petterway, a Houston ISD principal.

IMPLEMENTING POSTMODERNISM IN CHANGING THE ROLE OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS IN AMERICA’S SCHOOLS

“Gone are the days when school administrators merely functioned as principals or head teachers who are revered and feared at the same time by their subordinates. Today, the work of administrators has moved away from leadership and towards management and has continually posed problems so challenging and daunting enough to erode the very core administrative values that they were trained to embrace in the first place.”

Public schools have become the laboratories of postmodernists where social engineering replaces academia, scholarship, and critical thinking.

What’s the cure? Get your children out of public schools and into private Christian schools or, better still, homeschools where boys are allowed to be boys and girls allowed to be girls, all while on an equal footing for leadership opportunities.

John White
Rockwall, Texas

Results of Critical Thinking Standardized Testing | Discouraging Results

critical thinking faliures of large universities

WSJ: A Closer Look at CLA+ Test Results

Graduates not ready for employment: “A survey by PayScale Inc., an online pay and benefits researcher, showed 50% of employers complain that college graduates they hire aren’t ready for the workplace. Their No. 1 complaint? Poor critical-reasoning skills.”

Ill-equipped for problem-solving: “International rankings show U.S. college graduates are in the middle of the pack when it comes to numeracy and literacy and near the bottom when it comes to problem-solving.”

Small vs. Large Colleges: “Some of the biggest gains occur at smaller colleges where students are less accomplished at arrival but soak up a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum.”

How does the college where your freshman son or daughter plan to study compare?

Small colleges and home schools are made for each other.

Build Upon a Solid Foundation

My grandchildren excel under Classical Conversations homeschool education.

classical conversations.png What is Classical Conversations homeschool education? A Forbes article dated 25 April 2017 says, “The first disruptor is Classical Conversations. This home-school curriculum charges less than $1,500 a year for high school. Classical Conversations was founded by Leigh Bortins in 1997 with 11 students and the aim of restoring Western civilization, memorization, recitation and strong science and math to lesson plans. You won’t hear this too often on National Public Radio, but Classical Conversation’s curriculum now has more than 100,000 “seats,” i.e., registered students, and an academic performance most public schools only dream of. The curriculum is Christian but can be adapted to serve those seeking secular classical education.”

The Core - Leigh Bortins.PNG
leigh_bortins Purchase from Amazon

Leigh A. Bortins: Founder and Chief Academic Officer, Classical Conversations

In an age when many are telling parents who they aren’t … Leigh Bortins reminds parents who they are.

Leigh Bortins is a nationally acclaimed educator, perhaps best known for her ability to demystify the fundamental tools of learning. As a teacher, author and commentator, Leigh is credited with helping to launch the “home-centered learning” education movement.

Leigh is the author of The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education, The Question: Teaching Your Child the Essentials of Classical Education, and The Conversation: Challenging Your Student With a Classical Education.

Will your children and grandchildren fall into the ranks of the Snowflake Generation or will they be equipped to lead our nation?

facebook symbol Follow Classical Conversations on Facebook

John White
Rockwall, Texas

Attention High School and College Graduates – Congratulations (maybe)

Are you either a high school or college graduate? I write this for you.

America’s greatest CEO Jack Welch says,

“Congratulations! Or perhaps we should say, “Congratulations*” – with a footnote reading:

“This salutation is reserved for graduates who majored in engineering, computer science, or finance at a top-tier school. All others, enjoy a primal scream.”

“Because, hello, it’s hard to get a good job out there. Make that very hard. With four kids in their 20s, we get that. The facts are: the economy is just not growing fast enough to absorb 1.8 million entry-level employees a year, with the noted brainiac exceptions. As a result, the vast majority of graduates – 73 percent by some estimates – end up in jobs not in their areas of study, too many at minimum wage.

“First, don’t think about finding a job. Think about finding your “Area of Destiny.”

“Have you ever known someone who’s blown up their career at 40 or 50 to do something totally different? Ever notice how much happier they seem?

“Area of Destiny is all about getting to that place long before a midlife crisis sets in. It’s a simple but powerful construct that posits career satisfaction and success are most likely to occur when you work at the intersection of two “super highways,” if you will. One is what you’re uniquely good at, and the other is what you love doing. Thus it was that our daughter, a poetry major who was always preternaturally adept at picking Oscar winners, and who (much to our chagrin) who loved nothing more than watching TV, landed in Hollywood in the casting business, where she is as happy as could be.” Read the full ‘salutation’ from Linkedin.com http://ow.ly/MQngz

What say the pollsters? No two agree, that’s for sure. You are somewhat on your own to get reliable statistics, but one place to start is the Bureau of Labor Statistics: THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — APRIL 2015 http://ow.ly/MQnZc

Allow this old man to give you a statistic you can rely on. The price of oil. Yes, the price of oil is the best benchmark on the labor market. When oil goes up, layoffs follow. When oil price goes down, people go to work. Cost of fuel directly and indirectly affects the profitability of a business.

In 2008 oil price per barrel shot up to a record $147. Subsequently, we had the most significant economic collapse in history. What can you do?

First of all, have faith in God, pray for wisdom and pray for all people in government from your city to the office of president.

Second, embrace fracking and every means to increase oil and gas production in this country. Lobby for the Keystone Pipeline.

America runs on energy and oil is that and more. Oil is the raw material from which plastics and rubbers are made. We use oil byproducts to build highways. Distillates are components of paints and medicines. Our financial future rests on the price of oil. It’s truly that simple.

I’ll save my rant against leftist environmental freaks for another posting. Just know they are NOT your friends.

John White​

Home Schooling – A new idea in 1693

English philosopher John Locke's works lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism.
English philosopher John Locke’s works lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism.

John Locke was a thinker, philosopher, a selfless man. His two most important publications brought him not one cent of profit. In fact, he did not admit writing them until after his death, as a footnote to his will.

His “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” published in 1693 promoted what was then and now, the revolutionary idea of home schools. Locke believed education was for the purpose of promoting liberty, a contrarian view to Thomas Hobbes who believed education should promote submission to authority.

He held in great disdain teachers who worshipped power. “All the entertainment and talk of history is,” he wrote, “of nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerors (who are for the most part but the great butchers of mankind) further mislead growing youth, who . . . come to think slaughter the laudable business of mankind, and the most heroic of virtues.”

Yes, but can homeschooled people be successful? The list of highly successful people who were homeschooled will amaze you as it amazed me.

Photographer Ansel Adams
Founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange
Inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison
Novelist Pearl S. Buck
Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson
Founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale
A host of popular entertainers, mathematicians and at least one law professor.

Homeschoolers don’t have multi-million dollar football stadiums. Their “school bus” is mom’s car. Unlike geographical limitations for public school students, the world is classroom for homeschooled students; it’s school you can take with you, even on a Caribbean cruise.

Home school students do have something, something of tremendous value, not available to public school students: liberty. Liberty to worship God every day, every hour of the day. Liberty to probe and question.

Yes, homeschooling was a new idea 322 years ago.

John White

Eric Holder Persecutes Homeschoolers

AP Photo Romeike Homeschool Family teaching their children
AP Photo
Romeike Homeschool Family teaching their children

Remember the plight of a German family that fled Germany to be able to homeschool their children? Why would Eric Holder NOT investigate Chechen Islamist terrorists, but choose to forcefully repatriate a Christian family to certain criminal prosecution in Germany for the “crime” of educating their children?

In arguments over the deportation of the Romeike family, Holder defended Germany’s statist policy saying,

“Banning homeschooling does not violate rights.”

ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE

  1. Pray earnestly for the Romeike family to be able to remain in our country where they can freely educate their children.
  2. Contact Eric Holder’s office to state your opinions (be polite, specific and unemotional).
  3. Contact your Congressional delegation to ask each of them to openly intervene on behalf of the Romeike family’s immigration status.

Learn more about the Romeike family from this video produced by the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association):