Welcome again, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Freedom's Creed. Today's topic is one that I am looking forward to talking about. Education is something that is near and dear to my heart. And I'm not speaking only of formal education, but that education that we provide to ourselves by applying ourselves, by reading, by being informed, and by listening to other people, of course. That's the reason I'm calling this episode the creed of education, because certainly education can be a guiding principle and a fundamental belief in terms of our makeup, our growth as individuals, and how we progress. So, yes, education to me is certainly a guiding principle, a creed in and of itself. I want to start off by relating an experience that happened to me when I was in the fifth grade. And this would have been in the early 1970s. So, yes, I'm aging myself here. And this experience happened not only to me, but to my classmates as well. At the time, the elementary school that I went to, we were kind of an open concept. So we had one large classroom that was separated by some partitions. And we had two uh gentlemen who are our fifth grade teachers. Uh their names were Mr. Bond and Mr. Lewis. I had Mr. Lewis. And I don't exactly remember what part of the year, what time of the year that this experience was taught to the two classes, but its impact was profound upon myself and upon uh each of the classes uh at the time. And let me just say that I really loved both of our teachers, my teacher, Mr. Lewis, and the other uh teacher, Mr. Bond. They were just, to me, they were cool guys. In fact, I wanted to be like them when I grew up. At the time, we uh one of the other assignments that we had was that we would write what we wanted to do when we graduated from high school. And after I graduated from high school, the principal of the elementary school actually sent that little uh half page statement, I guess you could say, of what I had written. And I remember it distinctly because I had written it in green ink, and I thought that was cool. So one of the things that I said in that statement, aside from saying that I wanted to be a professional baseball player, was that I wanted to be a teacher. And I think it was because of Mr. Lewis and Mr. Bond that I had written that in there. So that was kind of cool. Well, here's the profound lesson that both of these fifth grade teachers taught to their classes. We came to school like any other day, and immediately they said, if you have brown eyes, go over here. If you have blue eyes, go over to the other side of the classroom. And then they proceeded to say that all the people with blue eyes, they were gonna get special treatment, and that's the way it was. And if you had brown eyes, then you had to play essentially second fiddle to the blue-eyed people. So all that morning, prior to lunchtime, they treated the blue eyed people much better than the brown-eyed people. Well, lucky for me, I have brown eyes, and so myself and my other cohorts who had brown eyes were treated crummy that morning. And I remember distinctly going out to recess. I don't even remember if we played on the playground like we normally did. I do remember, however, that there were a group of three or four of us that went it's as far as we could go on the playground and still be on school property when we went out to the chain link fence. And we were complaining about the circumstances that we had to deal with. And of course, we all had brown eyes, and so naturally we were uh essentially in our fifth grade way cursing out the teachers because we didn't care too much for what was going on. Well, they blew the whistle, they rang the bell, whatever, and we purposely took our time going up to the uh school uh to at the end of recess. And I remember when we got up to the doors and one of the teachers, I think it was Mr. Bond, who was there and said, you know, what are you guys doing? Recess has been over for five minutes. And one of my buddies said, Oh, we were too stupid to hear the bell and know that it was time for recess to be over. It was pretty funny at the time. That was about the most funny thing that happened that morning, that's for sure. So to say that we thought uh our teachers were cool then is would be a big understatement. We we we hated them at the time. So the day went on, lunchtime came, we went to lunch, people were complaining, people were upset, people were crying. We get back to the classroom after lunch, and they said to us, they got us all together and said, We have made a terrible mistake. We read this wrong. It's supposed to be the blue-eyed people are the people who are supposed to be treated horribly, and the brown-eyed people are the ones who are supposed to be treated fairly and equitably. Well, there was a sense of jubilation on my part since I had brown eyes. And all the blue-eyed people, of course, were what? So the rest of the afternoon, this went on where we were getting preferential treatment because we had brown eyes, and the blue-eyed people were getting treated uh crummy by both of the teachers. Well, an hour or so before the day was to end, the teachers brought us all together uh in both classes and apologized, first of all, that they had conducted this kind of experiment. And you can only imagine, as I do, that it took some doing to sell it to everybody, to keep a straight face, to to make it so that in our minds we believed what they were telling us. And so uh for their part, it was it was it was quite uh good acting. And also what you need to know is this was East Central Indiana in the early 70s. I went to an elementary school that was uh all one race, all the teachers were the same race. And honestly, looking back on it, it was a brilliant way to teach about the evils of racism, to teach how important it is to look at people not by what's covering their bones, the color of their skin, but what's inside. And that's exactly what they did in the classroom that day at the end of the day. They said to us, well, first of all, they asked a lot of questions of each of the students, and we all had an a chance to express ourselves, and again, there were people who were in tears, and there were people who were very upset, and we I hope that well, certainly I'm convinced that the lesson, at least for me, was seared into my consciousness. It was something that I'll never forget. And honestly, I don't know if that's something you could do today because there would be lawsuits, galore, and it would probably wouldn't go over very well. But at the time, it was it was a great strategy on their part to teach their classes this concept that look we may all reasonably look the same and look alike, but we're not the same. And even if we appear to look the same, we're not. Of course, the physical makeup, the outward appearance, if you will, looks reasonably similar. But does it really matter what color the person is or what facial characteristics they might have? Are we not all the same? Do we not all need the same things in our lives? We do. And we make too much of a big deal about the outward appearance. And I think we should stop doing that as a society. Let's fast forward to 2021. In the remaining time that I have today, I want to talk about something that you can yourself go and look up on the web. It's the California Department of Education. And I was actually led to that by another article that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about today. I thought it was, well, an egregious uh attempt by someone to sort of smear uh the Department of Education in California, K through 12, uh, more so than I might be doing now, depending on your perspective, of course. But the question I would ask is what is the responsibility of the school system in teaching, let's say, history or any other discipline? Uh, can a school teach all the aspects of a particular discipline throughout the course of a K through 12 education? I think the answer to that question is a resounding no way. But what they can do is teach a solid curriculum, a base, and engender in students the desire to study on their own, to explore on their own, to find out more on their own. I think that's one of the proper uh sort of essences of education in the K through 12 grades. Furthermore, at any level of formal education, real teaching actually requires teachers to teach students how to research, how to have an open mind, instill in students a love of learning and a thirst for knowledge across every discipline. I remember learning about all aspects of history, the good and the bad. And like most people, the most important lesson, or at least one of the most important lessons I learned as far as history goes, is not to repeat history that's horrible. So the old saying is true that if you don't know history, then you're doomed to repeat it. And if there are good qualities and good things about our past that are worth and worthy of repeating, then by all means, we should do that. And forget about trying to repeat those things that were negative and that were a detriment to society and were the antithesis of actual real growth and progress. Okay, so back to the education system in the state of California. And it may seem like I'm picking on the state of California. I'm really not. I'm just using this as an example. I happen to live there for a few years, so I do have some connection uh to the state. And certainly nothing against educators in the audience, but I tell you what, the state of California is such a bureaucratic mess when it comes to education. They have a state board of education. The state board of education is made up of 11 members, one of which is actually a student who serves for a period of, I think, one year. The other 10 members are appointed by the governor. So unelected bureaucrats, not accountable to the people because they're not elected. There's actually another organization, it's called the Instructional Quality Commission, the IQC, that is an advisory board to the State Board of Education. They have even more members, 18, all of whom are appointed by someone who is elected by the people in most cases. So you have a bureaucratic mess, as far as I'm concerned, in the state of California when it comes to education. So that's the backdrop, that's the foundation that we're looking at right now for what I'm about to talk about in the next few minutes. The State Board of Education recently passed the ethnic studies model curriculum, and I'm going to read to you what that is, as defined by the State Board of Education itself. Quote: Ethnic studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that encompasses many subject areas, including history, literature, economics, sociology, anthropology, and political science. It emerged to both address content considered missing from traditional curriculum and to encourage critical engagement. As a field, ethnic studies seeks to empower all students to engage socially and politically and to think critically about the world around them. End of quote. At first glance, you might think, okay, that seems pretty reasonable. It seems like a reasonable approach to take when it comes to education. But I want to continue reading from the same document. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this field, ethnic studies courses may take several forms. However, central to any ethnic studies course is the historic struggle of communities of color, taking into account the intersectionality of identity, gender, class, sexuality, among others, to challenge racism, discrimination, and oppression and interrogate the systems that continue to perpetuate inequality. Now, to me, we've taken a drastic leap to helping students want to think critically to then sort of politicizing the idea of education. Now, I want to read one more quote from the document. Again, this is from the State Board of Education in California. It says this quote At its core, the field of ethnic studies is the interdisciplinary study of race and ethnicity, with an emphasis on the experiences of people of color in the United States. People or person of color is a term used primarily in the United States and is meant to be inclusive among non-white groups, emphasizing common experiences of racism. The field also addresses the concept of intersectionality, which recognizes that people have different overlapping identities, for example, a transgender Latina or a Jewish African American. These intersecting identities shape individuals' experiences of racism and bigotry. The field critically grapples with the various power structures and forms of oppression that continue to have social, emotional, cultural, economic, and political impacts. End of quote. And to be sure, I'm convinced that a lot of the states in the United States probably have something that is similar to the California State Board of Education, but I'm merely using California as an example for this podcast. But listen, I understand, I get it, that after the establishment of our country via the Constitution, that there was racism, there was sexism, there was oppression of the worst kind. And those things must be talked about in the context of history. But to continue to talk about these things as if it is a preeminent part of someone's life in 21st century America today is a bit unfair. Well, to be sure, there's a lot more to talk about with regard to this curriculum that's now a part of the uh state board of education, hence K through 12 education in California regarding uh ethnic studies. But I'm going to leave it at that for today and today's episode. But the bottom line is this with respect to education. Let's teach everything that we can teach regarding history or any other topic. Let's not leave out significant factors. We all know that it's impossible to talk about every aspect of history in grades K through 12. That is why I say that it's important for the individual to take the time on their own to be educated about those things that really matter to them. With that, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to bring this episode to a close. And as always, I want to share my positive thought for this episode. It comes actually from a book written by David Barton, and it's a book called American History in Black and White. And in the book, he chronicles some of the successes that many of the former slaves had in the political arena, and none other than the Republican Party. He talks about a gentleman by the name of uh Richard Allen, whose mother was sold separately from him as a slave, and he never saw his mom again after that. But at some point he converted to Christianity and he had this to say. And keep in mind that these are the words of a former slave. He said this, quote, Let no rancor or ill will lodge in your heart for any bad treatment you may have received from any. If you do, you transgress against God, who will not hold you guiltless. And you think he will allow it unto us? I am sorry to say that too many think more of the evil than of the good they have received. And remember, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.