I was talking to myself this morning. (Don’t laugh, you probably do it too! I’m told it is a sign of high intelligence.) I had a lot on my mind, mostly large ideas about where our country is and where it is headed, and talking to myself helps me sort it out.
I was thinking that our last best hope for this country is our home-schooled kids. They are the next generation studying the truth about American history. Kids in public schools today get a left-leaning revisionist version, if they get taught American history at all. I’ve seen what passes for “history” at the elementary level in California public schools. I’ve read children’s literature and I’ve seen the subtle (and not so subtle) themes. The common thread in all of it is to portray whites as abusive slave owners and Christopher Columbus as a monster who brought disease and murder to indigenous Indians in America. I read my kids’ history books when they were in middle school. The information was so shallow it could have been condensed into a few well written paragraphs on the back of a cereal box.
This morning I was thinking about what I would tell a group of fourth and fifth-graders if I had the chance to speak to them from the heart. I would tell them that they couldn’t believe everything they read in a history book. I would tell them that some of their teachers would stand in front of them and run America down, and that it would only get worse as they got older - into high school and college. I would share the story of how my own kids’ chemistry teacher at Poway High was insinuating that Americans are stupid and told the class that’s why no American ever won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. (I looked it up – plenty of Americans have won.) I would tell them that I had this same person’s son in kindergarten and she would not allow her son to even hear the Pledge of Allegiance during Friday Flag.
Then I would tell the students that these same kind of anti-American ideas are found in newspapers, magazines and on TV news. There used to be a time when news was boring because every media outlet would try to be fair and present both sides. I would share how my journalism professor told me, “There is no such thing as objectivity in journalism. The best you can hope for is to be fair.” I have witnessed first hand how journalism has become corrupt because I used to be a newspaper reporter. Reporters now seek out people to interview and events to “cover” which support their own ideas. They make personal remarks about other events in an attempt to make those events look bad.
I would say something like: Today you live in the “information age,” a time when information travels so fast you don’t have to wait to hear it. It reminds me of the movie Lord of the Rings. Remember in the beginning when Gandalf had to ride to Minas Tirith and go deep inside the city to the library of ancient writings? He dusted off the cobwebs and read about a time three thousand years earlier when the ring was made and how man failed. Now, information travels so fast that “ancient history” is only 40 years ago. But, that information is being revised just as fast too. So, when you hear something on the news you have to really think about what you are hearing.
You all probably don’t remember when the Berlin Wall came down in the ‘80’s. Our President then, Ronald Reagan, was the main reason why that wall came down. But just last year, when Hillary Clinton went to the former Soviet Union to celebrate the event, the words "Ronald Reagan" were never even mentioned. Hillary Clinton re-wrote history in only 20 years.
If I could, I would tell the kids that America is the greatest country on earth and it is OK to be proud of it. When they hear their teachers talk about how bad this country is, I would remind them we were one of the first countries to help Haiti after the earthquake. And who did we send? Our Marines, because they get the job done. We were the first to help Indonesia after the tsunami. Who does the world look to for help? America, the shinning city on a hill as Reagan called us. That’s who we are; a decent, loving, strong, proud people.
One thing that makes America great is we are made up of folks from all over the world. People who left everything, their families and their homes, to come to the only country that offers hope and guarantees liberty for everyone. Go to a citizenship ceremony sometime, it will make you cry. These people, who sometimes risked their lives to leave oppression, poverty, and despair, put their right hands over their hearts and pledge Allegiance to America. They've earned their citizenship and they don't take for granted.
If I were talking to a group of fourth and fifth-graders, I would tell them they have a choice. They can take the easy road, sit back and believe everything they read and hear. Or they can think, research, and question what they hear, to make up their own minds about it. Then take that next scary step and stand up for what you believe, even if you are the only one in class. Anyway, it sounded good as I was saying to myself.
