Chapter Ninteen
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
"By the rivers of Babylon
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion
My personal experience with the American education system, which does not at all seem to be
particularly unique, is one of instructional downward progression. That is, my elementary school teachers
tended to be better at actually helping me learn than those in junior high and likewise, those
who attempted to instruct me at the middle-school level were more successful than the educators
I drew for high school. And after sampling a few colleges, I found the majority of the
teachers and professors at this level to be rather puffed up in their own arrogance of erudition,
their ability to pass on learning to others being minimal at best. It is one thing to possess a
certain grasp of a particular area of knowledge and it is quite another to be able to teach others
how to retain and learn from factual information and to comprehend great ideas. And more
importantly, how to guide and inspire others to search for the truth by weighing facts against
commonly held traditions and assumptions and applying rational concepts through to a hopefully,
carefully thought out logical conclusion.
To be fair, a major problem I encountered at the high school level was no fault in
particular of the instructors, as what they were compelled by the demagogues of state education
board chicanery to try and force me to learn was and remains, largely uninteresting and
irrelevant to survival and positive progression in the real world of human action, interaction
and reaction; in other words, is totally useless in the real world. Thus I ended up avoiding
as many high school classes as possible and instead, spent much of that time hiding in the school
library, reading the works of Plato, Aristotle, Schweitzer and others, which perhaps not all that
surprisingly, I found much more interesting and worthwhile. It was difficult for my
instructors to convince me that Bells by Poe and Jane Eyre by Bronte are somehow
more profound examples of art than Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, The Good News
According To John in the New Testament, the "Reverence for
Life" philosophy of Albert
Schweitzer, Sounds Of Silence by Paul Simon
and Desolation Row by Bob
Dylan. Quite frankly, the contest was over before it ever began.
"World History", above all other subjects, was immensely loathed and utterly distained by
most of my peers, as well as by myself. Even in high school, I had certain
aspirations toward one day becoming a songwriter and author. Yet, not once was it
pointed out to me that the more grasp of history and the general sciences one has, the better
writer or songwriter they are likely to become. Likewise, as they were forbidden by
foolish and entirely unconstitutional rules to do so, none of my high school instructors
bothered to expose the obvious fact that virtually all of America's great novelists, as well
as playwrights, poets and songwriters had or have, an extensive background in Biblical
literature. I have a vague memory of one of my English teachers desperately trying to
explain what Shakespeare must have meant by the quality of mercy not being strained, while at
the same time going to great lengths to avoid mentioning that this may have been in reference
to some long ignored and forgotten Biblical concept. With similar frustration, another
teacher tried in vain to have us gain some appreciation for the symbolism of The Grapes of
Wrath without bothering to inform us that if we used the Bible for a reference, Shakespeare,
Steinbeck, Twain and most other historical authors of note, just might possibly make a whole lot
more rational sense.
How ludicrous, ridiculous and absurd is the system now in place in modern-day America posing
as education, a system that ignores the religious and moral heritage of major world
civilizations! And how equally bizarre are our expectations of realizing future Jonas
Salks, Frederick Douglasses, Eleanor Roosevelts and Coretta Scott Kings, yet insisting on but
shoving useless facts down our children's throats, without providing a relative cross-section
of moral, religious and cultural heritage for them to compare against their own
budding consciences! And why, after ten thousand years of the lessons of history and
our greatest humanitarian leaders agreeing to its necessity, do we not require the study of
"Human And Civil Rights" as a primary subject unto itself? How can we possibly
expect America's graduates to have an even minute grasp of our historical and cultural
heritage without required knowledge of Biblical literature and the world's major
religions? How undoubtedly long and hard the ancient Greek scholars would laugh at our
feeble-minded and hollow claims of education learning!
Unlike our modern shallowness of an excuse for education, the ancient Greeks did not divide
the study of knowledge and pursuit of truth into seperated disciplines such as History, Physical
Science, Literature, Civics, etc., neither did they forbid examination of evidence for a Grand
Designer within
their science instruction, as is the case with most modern colleges and universities in our
supposedly free and democratic society. In most modern university 'science' courses, if a
student dares to mention any such notion, they are quickly told that such a question is for
"Comparative Religion" studies and not to be addressed in a science classroom. Thus, the
idea of God is conveniently shoved into a corner where the overwhelming evidence for a Creator
does not have to be dealt with or explored as an alternative to the juvenile Neanderthal
religion of Natural Selectionism (see The Myth of Modern Science and Of God and Monkey
Business for more details).
To Aristotle and the Greek scholars before him, who are often lauded by these same colleges
and universities as pinnacle examples of exemplary students of the sciences, knowledge was
viewed as an interlaced and interacting whole. The fundamental idea and goal of education
within this collective concept of knowledge is based on a search for the truth, where the
logical beginning of all reason is the primary question, "Is there a God?" (Note that this
cornerstone of true education is in the form of a question, not a statement either pro or con,
nor is it relegated to a segregated category called "religion".) Somehow our modern
gods of convoluted mis-instruction and non-evidentiary fairy tales of "self-organizing"
evolution have concluded that examining evidence of invisible radio waves and black holes is
part of science while examining the much more overwhelming evidence for an unseen Creator is
somehow, not a rational and necessary exercise of true science.
The famous axiom, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you
free", ¹ is often found carved as a motto on various American campus building
walls. Yet the American Civil Liberties Union, in the guise of 'protecting' freedom
of speech and religion, that is, in some convoluted pretense of guarding First Amendment rights,
has not only determined that American students should never know who said this, but also, has
insured that they will never know anything even remotely resembling the truth
whatsoever. * It is no small wonder that students are dropping out of high school
in record numbers and thus, avoiding the utter nauseating boredom and juvenile grade-school
contradictions of further 'advanced' study.
Perhaps what is needed in the case of modern education is a complete review of the overall
purpose for learning and a complete overhaul of the fundamental approach. Since a
comprehensive knowledge of the history of our civilization provides us perspective to hopefully
with wisdom, apply facts correctly toward achieving positive results, perhaps "History"
should be presented as the trunk of the tree of knowledge, while other disciplines such as
"Science", "English" and "Art" could be described as branches of this tree and
logically continuing, the various divisions of science, such as "Biology", "Astronomy" and
"Physics" could then be presented as smaller branches or leaves growing from the branch of
Science, which in rational turn, is attached to the trunk of the ongoing record of human
activity.
With such an approach as this, rather than being discouraged from cohesive examination, students
would be encouraged to compare ethical and moral concepts as to how they inter-relate throughout
our civilization's development and our current reality and how they intertwine with subjects such
as "Architecture", "Literature" and "Psychology". And thus in the tradition of Albert
Schweitzer and the late Jacques Cousteau, wise conclusions and valuable applied knowledge toward
helping our species and preserving the fragile planet we inhabit, would be encouraged and
achieved by presenting the search for truth as the collected whole of our historically interlaced
scientific, other educational and technological disciplines.
What is not needed in our American classrooms is a reversion back to the old Puritan
notion of forcing Biblical and Christian religious dogma on our children at the expense
of other religions, cultures and ideas. What is most definitely not needed is a continuing
mundane curriculum of unrelated facts without knowledge of the underlying cultural and moral
influences and reasons for their existence. What is entirely unnecessary is a superficial
mythology posing as science, claiming verification by evidence for its basis, yet being
fundamentally flawed in its underlying non-provable assumption of Designer-less ignorance with
no basis of evidence in the physical reality. And what is truly undesirable (if anything
could in fact, be less desirable) is the elimination of half of human history in the guise of
religious freedom and the removal of all knowledge as to how the realities of historical
personages and literary heritage interlace and entwine with Biblical and other cultural
traditions.
...By the rivers of Babylon
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion" ²
I Am Your Child Foundation
Inner-City Games Foundation
DEDICATED TO: Jeshua of Nazareth, history's most advanced
advocate of free public education for all people, including those who do not score well on
certain prejudicial tests, to Chief
Sikwayi (Sequoyah),
Cherokee Indian educator of great vision and to the elementary school teachers of America; in all fairness of merit and value, the current
pay-scale for educators should be applied in reverse, with elementary instructors earning the
most sliding on down to college professors, some of whom seem to have no concept whatsoever of
what it means to actually teach, earning the least. Also dedicated
to Rob
Reiner, for his
efforts aiding learning among very young children and a great many other causes and Arnold
Schwarzenegger & Maria
Shriver for their
many efforts in seeking to help poor children become better educated and more
productive citizens, including programs to keep children of working parents busy and involved
during late afternoon after-school hours, off the streets and out of trouble. It
has been rumored that Mr. Reiner and Mr. Schwarzenegger may end up running against each other
for the California governorship. It would be good news for We The People of America if
both of these fine individuals and Maria Shriver were to be elected to a prominent state or
national office; we need far less representatives of partisan sound-bite party politics and more
ethical leaders of sound heart.
Credits:
1. John 8:32 (partial).
2. Psalms 137:1. Also, Recorded by The Melodians as "Rivers Of Babylon"; adapted from
Psalm 137 by B. Howe and F. McHaughton from an original concept by Don Julian on the
album sleeve of The Harder They Come (1972). Other similar adaptations
by various artists.
*FootNote: What is practiced in modern American education today is not freedom of religion or
separation of church and state but rather, freedom from knowledge of religion(s), from
knowledge of Biblical and other cultural literature (which is not at all the same as religion)
and any notion of ethical and moral reasoning. Not only does the The Constitution Of The United
States not address such an issue, it clearly states that the elimination of religious
knowledge and discussion by our publicly funded education system is most definitely,
unconstitutional. The Constitution guarantees us the right of
open religious, moral, Biblical, scientific, conservative 'rightism', radical 'leftism' and any
other type discussion and in particular, on the publicly funded property of our schools and
public universities. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is often correct in
the ongoing attempt to protect the rights of the minority against the prejudice of the
majority, on this particular issue is as far away from the logic of both educational necessity
and constitutional correctness as the East is from the West.
|