Dangerous Material in the School Classroom
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Okay, at the risk of being too personal, I'm just going to run through a list of six individuals. Our oldest was homeschooled pretty much the whole way through. Our second was homeschooled and then did an early colleges program. Our third child did the same thing. Our fourth child did five grades of homeschooling, and then the balance of her education was in the public school charter system. Our

Our fifth child did homeschooling plus an early colleges program, and our sixth did private, public, classical. He did pretty much everything. Good job remembering. And about three weeks of homeschooling. So we've done it all, and there's no doubt that education is a big topic right now. There's a lot in the news, a lot of public conversation about what's going on. Yeah.

And this gets down to you, mom and dad, when your child comes home because they heard something or they were taught something, and now what are you going to do? Because you don't agree. I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta, who leads our Focus Parenting team. We're going to kick off today with a segment from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Jim spoke with Cynthia Tobias, who is an expert in education, and here she talks pretty plainly about what kids are facing today in school.

Cynthia, welcome back to Focus. Always good to have you here. Oh, thanks. I really enjoy it. You're such an interesting mix of background as a police officer and school teacher. Actually, there's more in common. I was going to say, did you find much distinction between the two?

It has its moments. Yeah. And in that context, what we were saying a moment ago, so true, right? There are wonderful Christian people working in public education. Boy, do we need them there. And we need even more people there. And all my eight years of teaching was in public education. Yeah. But it was an uphill battle in many times. And I think the key point there is there seems to be so much transitioning from the lockdown with the pandemic and

And I think parents really getting a deeper view into public education, what's going on.

And every district is different. We are generalizing in this broadcast about this, and I get it. But we want parents' eyes wide open. Speak to the revelation that seems to have occurred coming out of the pandemic. What happened? And why are parents all of a sudden alarmed? Well, 2020 was a huge wake-up call because the classroom became the living room. And suddenly parents realized what the kids were and weren't learning.

And it was obvious. You know, we believed that the public schools, all the schools were obviously student-focused and they cared about what kids learned and how they learned it. But we found out, actually, they don't. It really isn't about that. It's not even neutral about that. And I would even go so far as to say we uncovered the fact that really, in many ways, war has been declared on the American family.

that it's really more indoctrination of a lot of things that aren't even

For instance, 77%, it turns out, of kids who graduate from public school having been K through 12, 77% of them are not proficient in all the basic subjects. See, that right there is such a failing grade for public education. And we've heard that over and over again here in Colorado. We track that closely. We have good alliances with people who are trying to change that, starting with the school board.

Right.

Now it's all about, seemingly, all about more of an indoctrination, like you talk about social issues, the LGBTQ issues, talking about how kids need to think. And it's like somebody decided...

that if we have control of the children for eight hours a day, we want to do more with them than just teach them the basics or don't teach them the basics and start teaching them just social indoctrination. I can't tell you how many kids, including a couple of my great-nephews, I've asked, so what's your favorite subject in school? I don't have one. Really, because for one of them, I know that he was always interested in science and math, and for Christmas we'd give him...

really above his age level. And he said, no, it doesn't really matter anymore. He said, what kind of grades are you getting? I don't know. They don't fail anybody. So it's not like you really have to do it. Yeah. I was going to say, one of those examples, and I reference it now in speeches I give, but Edison High School, which is in Southern California, nearby where Gene and I went to high school,

One of the kids was simply using his phone to film an exchange in class. This is a math class. And the teacher was indoctrinating them in LGBT issues. And the students started to say, we're tired of this. Teach us math.

Don't teach us all this other stuff in a math class. And some of the kids got up and walked out. It's amazing that even students now are saying, we're up to here with this. Teach us what we need to compete in the world. Right. And it used to be, you know, you'd fail if you didn't get good grades and get a good GPA. Well, that's no longer an issue because that's not with social justice and equity. We can't really judge you by your grades.

grade point average. We can't because we don't want to say that you're smart and have somebody else be not as smart. And I have a very close college friend who just recently retired from public school teaching kindergarten.

And when I asked her, I said, what do they do in kindergarten these days? At first, she said, well, they have to write a position paper before they can graduate from kindergarten. And I said, what kindergarteners, how can they even write? A position paper on what chocolate they prefer. Yeah, well, it turns out it's more like a position paper on who I am and what gender. And I was at a homeschool co-op not long ago, and one lady came up to me and she said, you know what did it for me? She said, just this fall, I went to register my kindergartner.

in the public school and she said I was filling out the form and the question was what gender would you like your kindergartner to be called and she said I put the pen down and I walked out and I said I'm going to do anything I have to do to not have my child in a system like that

Okay, Danny, maybe it'd be instructive if we did a little bit of role-playing here after hearing Cynthia and Jim. My child comes home from school, and I really disagree with this perspective on history or on economics or faith or sexuality. How do we kind of compose ourselves and take some first steps toward good action? And let's say this is the scenario. Hey, Dad, I learned today in history class that X, Y, Z, and...

you've never told me that. And so I kind of feel like you should have told me about that because that seems right. Yeah. Yeah. So son, this is an interesting perspective that's been brought your way. What do you think about it? Well, I think it's probably right. How do you know that? What is it that you resonate with? I don't know. The teacher just made it seem like that's probably the right thing. At least my friends and I were talking about it. So tell me more about what you learned.

Well, we learned whatever. And so that's the kind of situation that people are going to find themselves in. And I love how you, obviously, we're not role-playing anymore. I love how you tease it out with questions. That's not natural for me, Danny. I naturally want to point out, here's the right answer.

So I'm really intrigued by the questions. This is good. A lot of times teens come in potentially with this feeling of distrust, which is definitely a strategy that Satan has used for so long since the garden, where it comes in and your trustworthiness all of a sudden is brought up into question. Isn't that part of the teen experience anyway? Sure. Mom and dad really don't know. I'm kind of enlightened now. I know. And I love God's response in the garden. He led with questions.

When things happened, he came in with questions. So tell me, where are you? That's what he asked. He didn't ask because he didn't know. And so in that moment, you know your teen is in a place of confusion, of distrust, of maybe upsetness. And so coming in with your facts is not going to help anything. No. What you're going to do is help me understand more. And you're getting more details, more information. And you go, well, let me tell you about why I disagree with this. This is my belief about this.

then you're owning your belief and with confidence. Not with, now I need to convince you. You want to have grace on the fact that your teen's trying to figure things out and they may trust this teacher. And it may be information that they feel is, man, this is a new revelation. It's new. You're misinformed, mom and dad. You have to come in with confidence and with peacefulness because that's kind of, that throws a teen off balance, right?

It's very stimulating for some teens to go into conflict. It's almost like they're self-medicating at the moment. Don't go for that. Don't become their medication. Don't take the bait. And once you're done with that conversation, I would recommend going to the teacher and saying, hey, help me understand. You gave some things that you said were fact.

Help me understand this whole thing. I want to understand this because I feel very uncomfortable with this being taught this way. And if this doesn't go well, you can go to the administrators, depending on what the topic is, and say, here's where I'm struggling with this. And in a very respectful way, loving way, make sure you know what you believe and bring it in a very graceful way and in a loving way.

And maybe the thing is, is that you say this is a theory that's being presented as complete fact. That can't be. And so when you come in, if there's no resolution there, and maybe it's something having to do with Christianity or something that has a protection to it.

Then you can call ACLJ and see what options you have. And you can ask the school, are there some options for my child regarding this, whether it's sex education or other things where you can opt out and have another option for them? And if there isn't resolution there, no, there's homeschooling and other charter schools. There are a lot of options. You're not stuck there.

But it begins with that conversation that can go deep and can create a lot of trust with your teen when you don't react, you choose to respond. And sometimes maybe it's stepping away for a moment, breathing a few times, drinking a glass of water, coming back to it.

and engaging in a very important conversation. - Yeah, don't react, ask questions, gather up information, and prayerfully have conversations if you need to with the school. Now, Danny, you and your team have created a resource called Equipping Parents for Back to School, and it really is a year-round kind of toolkit. It's got downloadable PDFs that address a variety of issues, and it's a good kind of tool to have at your disposal to be prepared.

If you have a specific situation and we're touching on it maybe here, give us a call. We have counselors that could help you figure out how best to proceed. And our donor community makes it possible for those counselors to give you a call back and find out what's going on and offer some insight and direction and resources.

And then finally, Cynthia Tobias is always great when it comes to education. And she's got this excellent book, Reclaiming Education, Teach Your Child to Be a Confident Learner. We're making that available today for donation of any amount to the show and the Ministry of Focus on the Family. So donate today, either a monthly pledge or one-time gift of any amount, and we'll send that book to you to help you really develop a lifelong learner in your home.

Next time, we'll hear from Lucille Williams. She'll talk about why your kids need to know you believe in them. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and our entire team, thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

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