June 8, 2001, revised October 19, 2006
My friend Gary B. reminded me about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Gary and I were both school children in the 1950s. We remember those words our teachers placed on the blackboard for the children to read and re-read. I understand that the Golden Rule is hard to find in schools today because in reality it is a paraphrase of the words of Jesus Christ:
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." [Matthew 7:12]
School teachers in the 50s may not have fully realized that even the paraphrased Word of God is amazingly more powerful at touching a child than some moral truism like "Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me." -- Immanuel Kant
Even some of the churches back in the 1950s, didn't know that the Word of God held supernatural powers beyond anything that had been written in fantasy children's tales. Looking back at the 50s I know the churches were in a problem condition because when the Word of God and prayer were removed from schools, the churches of that era had no unified Holy Spirit directed response. The churches were shaken by what went on and they became somewhat distressed, but they were powerless and so unconnected with Heaven that they had no clue what God would have them do! I was there in that day as a regular church attender and listener to many, many sermons. Oh, there were some sermons and some calls of warning...but the people of God couldn't move to their knees, in unison, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They frowned and went on about life. Today's modern visible churches are no better and in my opinion much worse!
The word of God IS NOT MAGIC!! The Word of God is beyond such human imaginations of vanity! Nevertheless it has power that puts the energy of the Universe to shame...that is, when it gets coupled with the Power of the Holy Ghost. That combination is like Nitro-Glycerin (dynamite).
Well, all this to say that I remember the Golden Rule on classroom blackboards and today scripture is seldom found on any school whiteboard, or computer projection screen. The absence of the Word of God in Schools, and the absence of prayer has, in my perception, precipitated earth shaking changes in the school scene.
We believe this because, at the core of educational thought, little else, basically, has changed in public education. There are many new technologies that have entered the classroom. There are many improvements in many areas of education. But the core flavor of public education has not changed, other than an intolerance toward Christianity, and a greater tolerance of most other religions.
We still pour large amounts of money into schools. We still train teachers vigorously. We still build classrooms. We still have school assemblies. We still teach reading, writing, math, history and science. The only major core difference is that the Word of God and prayer are no longer welcome in the classroom. In first, second and third grade I remember we said a simple prayer each morning in public school!
On June 25, 1962 the Supreme Court of the Land ruled against a New York school prayer. Those schools asked children to repeat this prayer: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee and beg Thy blessing over us, our parents, our teachers and our nation."
From the day prayer disappeared from the U.S.A. public classroom, things in school began to get chaotic. If you would like to look at some graphs of what happened go to this web site:
http://www.linda.net/graphs.html
I thought the most interesting graph was the deep dive the S.A.T. or College Board exams took. Suddenly the U.S.A. public education system was losing ground, big time, when it came to College Board scores. The blessing left because God was no longer acknowledged in schools and HE was no longer asked for help. God's help was important after all. However, even to this day educators don't like to deal with these statistics. Those of us who point to those stats are laughed at as those who put forth fake science.
Here's another web site on the subject that I find very interesting:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/usadecline.html#table
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the removal of prayer probably threw a bomb into public education. The Word of God and Prayer had an invisible, but nevertheless gigantic effect on education...and removing them brought in chaos!!
clint