What are we really doing to our children? | Eastern North Carolina Now

In the days we live in, I don't believe it surprises anyone to see young children with their own tablets, cell phones, or some other device glued to their face. At the same time we see this we also recognize growing mental health concerns appearing in young people.

Do we think that maybe there is a correlation?

I'm no one special, just a man and a parent perplexed with the state of reality as I see it. This article is by no means a condemnation of teachers. I believe the majority of teachers do want the best for their students, but a few bad apples ruin the bunch.

Many school systems around the country received funding from the federal government under the guise of covid relief. Beaufort County School applied for these funds, was approved for, and was projected to receive almost 27 million dollars from the federal gov. That sum of money is almost double the annual budget of the entire county school system.

Did we really need all that money?

It is apparent that the money received from these covid relief funds, is the same money now funding the pushing of technology on children in the schools. While I believe limited technologies in classrooms are needed for the day in age we live in, the fact that every student is issued their own laptops, along with electronic profiles housing personal information is very concerning. I first found out that students were each assigned their own personal laptops, and what a waste that was, when I saw a young girl hanging out of the back seat window of a car in the McDonald's drive thru laptop in hand.  The child couldn't have been older than first or second grade and I remember thinking "oh man, she's got mama's computer bout to drop it on the concrete." Then I saw the tag on the front identifying it as a school supplied device. People today no longer value or respect things the way we should. Instead it seems we feel entitled to everything and consume endlessly with no thought or thanks. So from the very get-go, my conclusion on the matter was it being a huge waste of time, money, and resources.

We were contacted one day by our child's teacher to inform us that he was acting up and not staying on task in the classroom. That night, we had a family discussion on what was expected of him when he went to school. We made sure he understood that his work and education were his responsibility. If he was not responsible, and continued misbehaving when he should be working, then there would be consequences. I investigated his school laptop wanting to see really how it was used in the course of a day. What I found on the computer alarmed me.

A school day is roughly 7 hours 8am-3pm. The history in his browser showed that he would log onto some educational program in the morning for a few minutes, and maybe another school site sometime after lunch, but by and far the rest of the day was spent browsing nonsense online. He is not even in middle school and I mean it was hours upon hours daily. It literally showed me there could not have been much learning or teaching taking place, much less any chaperoning of what the children were doing.

When the cat's away, the mice will play.

We can only blame the children so much when we hand them devices of distraction and then they get distracted.  I also found webcam videos he recorded of classroom interactions and this is what sent me over. I witnessed some of the most chaotic and disrespectful behavior I had ever seen. When I saw my son taking part in this behavior as well, I couldn't believe it. I had never seen him behave that disrespectfully toward his elders and I told him I was ashamed to know that behavior had come from my household. This was when he lost his video games. While I was watching these "cringe" videos, I did however notice that the desks in the classroom were not arranged in the way I was familiar with. Instead of being individual desks all facing the front of the room towards the direction of instruction, they were arranged in small groups that resembled cubicles in an office building. Isolating the student to their device. Some students were actually facing away from the direction where the teaching should be occurring.

This would lead one to assume then that there is no formal teaching happening. Yet rather young children getting their instructions from a soul-less device.

A few weeks later I was researching a few of these many programs that the schools area now apparently implementing. In one promoting video from a program called iReady, it says to the teachers, “Imagine how much time you’ll get back to do other things”. Referring to the children being occupied on devices and getting their instruction from a consciousness in the abyss. Therefore reducing the teaching position to like that of the associate who works the self checkout in a Walmart.

The following is a excerpt from the iReady website on Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching:

“If you take a moment to imagine “acceptable behavior” in most classrooms, you might picture students sitting quietly while they work, being encouraged to raise their hands before speaking, and perhaps only talking to each other when they have their heads together in a small group. This may be a model of order for many teachers. Our answers come from deeply personal experiences that inform the way we interact with the world. That is, they come from our culture or, as our advisor Dr. Sharroky Hollie puts it, our rings of culture. More than just food, holidays, or ethnicity, these include gender, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, religion, and others (Hollie, 2017).
Now think about 30 students—with equal capacity and excitement to learn—who have different answers to those and many more questions that result in “unacceptable classroom behavior.” Some of these students might exhibit behavior such as interrupting, not sitting still, or attention-seeking. Rather than viewing these students and behaviors through the deficit model of unacceptability, CLRT validates and affirms them.”

You read it right folks, it just said to validate and affirm bad behavior. The same behavior I was appalled to behold, is what this program says to validate and affirm, notice the terminology.

Is it wise to affirm bad behavior? Spare the rod, spoil the child.

In another quote from one of the pdfs supplied on their website, the experts at iReady call mathematics a “Human invention". Do they really believe mankind created math? I say they consider not the things of God.

"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" (Matthew 6:27)

Who can make 2+2=5 and it not be a lie?

Math, like quantities (numbers), is designed into the very law of the universe in perfect mathematical proofs. If there is a law, then there is a law giver. Order doesn't come from chaos. Now it seems we have arrived at the very foundation of this doctrine and it has set it self against objective truth, thus in turn making itself to be a falsehood.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3)

Most of these digital learning programs are in video game format. They say this makes learning more fun and enjoyable and allows each student to get thoroughly engaged in their lessons. While that may be true, I'm sure playing games all day is fun and engaging but at what cost. Ive watched children play video games. They seem to always click rapidly through the words and instructions to get to the action. Then once the game begins, they don't know how to play, or what they are suppose to do because they skipped the instructions. Does anyone see where I'm going with this? These platforms reinforce short attention spans and justify instant gratification in a group of persons who already have the attention span of a gnat.

Don't we know patience is a virtue?

Children now have to have bright lights, flashing colors, and moving pictures on a screen at a click in order to stay engaged. Plain words and numbers on paper might as well be hieroglyphs this day in age.

How will we raise adults who can read and perceive the Bible? 

They promote social-emotional learning; what emotions are needed for academics? They state their goal is to form close personal relationships between teacher and student, but the ideologies at the cornerstone of these implemented programs is perverted. With no foundation and a doctrine of falsehood, how can children's minds not be corrupted. The very material that is provided to children in the form of assignments or word problem, is itself a door for subliminal corruption to leak in and affect the thinking process.

This is the grooming of children to accept false doctrine and I cannot over emphasize the danger of this, because if you get minds, you get hearts. Which reminds me of yet another program which is called "Capturing Kids Hearts". The informal word "kids" being used here to describe your children as goats. It to is unsound doctrine. For the mind is the battlefield and the enemy of humanity has one power that is deception.

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:" (Matthew 25:31)

There’s a reason the apple on the back of an iPhone has a bite taken out of it. It represents the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. The same tree from the Garden of Genesis that mankind ate of and brought forth the curse of death on the Earth.

God is good, he speaks only truth and wisdom, for he is the author of it.

The serpent deceived Eve when he said "Hath God not said you could eat of any tree in the garden?" Which he did say, save the one tree they should not. The serpent said "Surely the moment you eat of it you shall be like God, knowing Good from Evil", but they already knew good, because they knew God. Therefore the fruit of the tree being filled with only evil.

Shall we also let our children eat of this tree? Even before they know to choose good and refuse evil?

-Bourne Freeman