- Don Brehaut
You never know what you’re going to read in the newspaper. Last week in the midst of the debate on who is running Canada this blessed article crossed my desk, “Teachers file grievance over Christian Charity donations. Well this scrooge-like article demands a response so here goes.
Thank God (oops) for the Nanaimo District Teachers' Association. What in the world were the students at the Woodlands Secondary School thinking about? What is wrong with this generation? The nerve of those students helping children in Paraguay by filling shoeboxes with gifts and then giving them to Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian organization (ugh) to distribute. What is the world coming to? If these young adults start helping the impoverished children in Paraguay they might want to help someone else. Gasp!
Thank God (oops again) those two teachers at Woodlands Secondary School complained to their union bosses. Whew! Hopefully they can persuade these misguided youth to become self-centered whiners like the rest of society. But they have a bigger job than that. There are 22 caring schools filling hundreds of shoe boxes. The boys and girls at the Nanaimo District Teachers' Association certainly have their work cut out for them. Will they send the students for counseling? There are so many of them. In the words of that great philosopher Winnie the Pooh, “Help and bother.” This is a major problem. We could have an outbreak on our hands. What will we do if we have hoards of students wanting to help those who are less fortunate?
The president of the NDTA, Kip Wood said teachers from at least two other schools disagree with the charity because of its evangelical ideology. So what! Many parents disagree with the NDTA for their bullying attitude and their humanistic ideology. Many parents disagree with many things that happen in the little red schoolhouse. However this issue is much larger than a shoe box destined for Paraguay. This fiasco has exposed a major flaw in our thinking.
Parents often get confused on the issue of public schools. They mistakenly think the public school is for the public and thus by inference has public input.. Not so. It is a closed shop run by the state and administered by the unions. The social engineers will chastise us telling us that there is to be separation of church and state. To teach God in the classroom would constitute an introduction of religion in the “public“(there‘s that word again) school. Then by inference we are to make the great intellectual (duh) leap; namely, to help Samaritan's Purse Canada is to promote religion.
In the spirit of the season now is a good time to expose the fallacy of this the cornerstone of state education. The state school promotes religion. It supports the religion of godlessness a.k.a. humanism. Make no mistake, the moment you say, “I believe in God” or “I believe there is no God” you have made a statement of belief. You have moved into the area of dogmatics. The state school has no room for God. For them, God has nothing to say about ethics, history, science, arts or any other realm. It is no surprise that these caped crusaders of the Woodlands Secondary School have come to the fore to rescue these misguided students. These kids might get carried away and start asking questions. “Is there a God? “What is He like? “ “What happens when I die?” “How do you determine what is right and wrong? “If morality is relative who are you to impose your morality on me?” The possibilities of debate are endless. It makes one wonder what would happen if we started teaching students how to think instead of telling them what to think.
Well enough of that. I have a shoebox to pack.
