Statement about feminism, by author Doris Lessing, Edinburgh Book Festival Aug. 2001,
(shows that motherhood and child-rearing are commonly viewed as a bondage, not a privilege)

"Great things have been achieved through feminism. We now have pretty much equality, at least on the pay and opportunities front, though almost nothing has been done on childcare, the real liberation."
 

Excerpt from Brian Cox’ article "Making home-based education a normal and available option for all" published in Education Now, Special Report, "Learning from Home-Based Education". Ed: Roland Meighan, 1992.
(Showing us HE is not an easy choice in such a climate)

"Imagine a society controlled from the centre through a vast bureaucracy. Its leaders see themselves as benevolent, but the masses for whom they makes choices seem strangely sullen, responsive to voices of dissent and symbols of resistance.

The leaders decide to clarify the rules. Acting in the same spirit as those who use volume as an aid to understanding for the deaf and foreigners, they stake out the path the ideal citizen must take through life. Supervision is tightened. Dissenters are marginalised, harassed, labelled as crazy or dangerous or failures.

Now, is this a sketch of Eastern Europe before the thaw … or … of British education?

How ironic that a government that prides itself on freedom of choice now introduces policies which ordain both the ends of education (the national curriculum), and the means by which they are to be achieved (schooling), whilst simultaneously inveighing against the "nanny" state. The Economy is to grow by leaving people alone, abolishing central controls and letting the market decide. The education system, whose primary aim for the state is the servicing of the Economy, is increasingly to be controlled from the centre. We may have any breakfast cereal we choose, and have any form of education we fancy, so long as it is a school.

…But our society is not structured to make home-based education an easy option."
 

Source: article entitled "Where is Great Britain Heading?" by Tony Pearce, in Light for the Last Days bulletin, summer 2003.    (www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk)
Shows how godless thinking dominates our national consciousness

"For the past 30 yrs I have noticed a process taking place which has accelerated rapidly since New Labour came to power. It is the takeover of our institutions by the liberal/left humanist way of thinking … What are the characteristics of this way of thinking, which I will call "New Humanism"?

• All religions are equally true and equally untrue. There is no absolute right and wrong. People who claim there is one way of salvation through Jesus are narrow minded, and a barrier to human progress and understanding.
• If it feels right, do it. No-one has the right to claim that any lifestyle is morally wrong. The two parent family is one of many ways of bringing up children, no more or less valid than single parent families, unmarried and homosexual couples.
• Criminal and anti-social behaviour should be understood, not punished.
• Britain’s past history is dominated by hypocrisy, pride, racism and discrimination against women, homosexuals and minority groups. It is to be derided at every opportunity so that young people will be more easily moulded into accepting the new multi-faith, multi-racial one world political system.
• Values of integrity, commitment, self-control, politeness and consideration for others are old fashioned, In their place there is a culture of rudeness and self-assertion at the expense of others. The philosophy of "me first" is to be indoctrinated into children who should not be disciplined by their parents as this inhibits their emotional development.

The remaining quotations challenge us on the question, What is our overall aim? and the final one also reminds us of the "control mentality" which accompanies compulsory schooling.

From William Barclay’s book, "Educational Ideals in the Ancient World" (Baker)

"The Hebrew concept of education was not "to impart knowledge" or "to prepare oneself intellectually". It was to produce holiness and to impart a distinctive lifestyle. The measure of effective teaching is not how much a person knows, but how well he or she lives."
 

From "Training of Children" by Bishop J.C. Ryle

"A true Christian must be no slave to fashion, if he would train his child for heaven. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world; to teach and instruct them in certain ways merely because it is usual …. He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? The time is short – the fashion of this world passeth away. He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth, for God rather than for man - he is the parent that will be called wise at last."
 

From John Taylor Gatto’s book "Dumbing Us Down – the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling"

"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important: how to live and how to die.

What’s gotten in the way of education in the United States is a theory of social engineering that says there is one right way to proceed with growing up. That’s an ancient Egyptian idea symbolised by the pyramid with an eye on top … Everyone is a stone defined by its position on the pyramid. This theory … signals the worldview of minds obsessed with the control of other minds, by dominance and strategies of intervention to maintain that dominance."