Productive Confusions: Faith with Doctrine, Community with Church

"Hey, how 'bout them Phillies!"
"What? Two good games? Fuhgeddaboudit! I lost my faith years ago!"
--Typical fan comments in Philadelphia

**

Confusion, which relies on ignorance, naiveté or inattention, is a much used marketing tool, both for commercial and political purposes. Why? Because it works. ("Idealists" who think that everyone appreciates the value of providing a good education, should dwell on this point. See The Classroom Teacher: Who Wants Experts?")

Confusing "faith" with "doctrine" and "community" with "church" has its pay-offs, too. The question to be asked is the ancient, "Cui bono?," "Who benefits?" Do not jump to the conclusion that the answer is: the faithful or a community of faithful.

Confusing faith with doctrine is like confusing a baseball fan with a player, or a hunter with a soldier. The differences here rest on the fact that the behavior of players and soldiers is constrained by discipline, by "rules of engagement," which fans and hunters need pay no attention to.

But even more important, professional ball-players, like soldiers, have commitments to team or to armed service; commitments that amateurs likely do not have. Professionals come with agendas generally not shared with the laity or with civilians.

In the same way, community may be confused with church, even when it is capitalized, e.g. "Church." This is like confusing a home with a house, or love with marriage. They may sometimes coincide, but they are still critically distinguishable.

And who benefits from the confusions? Ask yourself the economic question: "From which persons to which others do transfers of wealth occur?" Who gets the loot? Look past the smoke and mirrors of claims of a "spiritual" transaction. Such may occur, but are they the point?

There are those who believe that such confusion could be cured to some degree if our public schools could include some religious components, a vision of something higher than individual success and happiness, or market competitiveness. Maybe.

But, let us shift our eyes, for a moment, away from celestial glory and salvation, down to the problems we have to deal with everyday in our worlds of commerce and politics. Down to where moth or rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Religion, Intelligent Design and the Public Schools: serving God to Mammon?


Cordially
--- EGR

** Bill Klem. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved August 02, 2016, from AZQuotes.com Web site:
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/648998

Stupid Opinion, or Free Speech? Which Should Teachers Have a Right to?

Should public school teachers have “the right to free speech” in their classrooms?

It is more likely nearer the truth to state flat out that no teacher at any level, whether in public or private education, is immune to reprisal for expressing to students (or colleagues) any opinion, however, well-founded or reasonable, that can be interpreted by his superiors as contrary to the “commonly accepted” beliefs of the institution he or she works in. Both so-called “liberals” and “conservatives” raise an easy cheer to “free speech” so long as it means “speech I don’t disagree with.”

Teachers have “free speech” so long as no one higher up objects. In public schools, “higher up” includes parents and general public to the extent that they can harass superintendents and school board members about it. In the name of good public relations “curriculum” becomes doctrine and “professionalism” becomes censorship.

This generates a stomach-churning reality, a deep hypocrisy, in the context of the concerns – often strongly expressed by the censors, themselves – for developing “critical thinking skills” in students. Critical thinking skills, by all means, but not any that subject my nearest and dearest to examination.

Public schools are in a peculiar position. Private and religious schools are assumed to come with a certain amount of ideological baggage: you can always go elsewhere. But, by some miracle of human nature, public schools are supposed to be free of it.

Too many communities define themselves in terms of events of questionable facticity, in terms of esteem rendered to persons of questionable repute, in terms of expectations of questionable justice. Critical thinking, and the freedom of speech that supposedly supports its development, awaits still, in this United States of America in the 21st Century, an educational forum that supports it.

To examine these issues further, see Trading-Off "Sacred" Values: 
Why Public Schools Should Not Try to "Educate"


Cordially
--- EGR