Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast, my name is John Harris, sitting here this morning at the beginning of a new week with a fresh blanket of snow outside. So we had some really warm weather, I said, I think in the last podcast, I mean, it was getting up to, like, it was touching 50, it was like 52 degrees on Saturday, and the ice was melting, the snow was melting, and it just, you started feeling like spring was on its way, and then you wake up the next morning, Sunday morning, and there's like four inches of snow, something like that, so, and it got a little colder, so that snow is still out there, but it's very pretty out there this morning, and I am, I'm getting better, a little bit better every day, this COVID thing is weird, because it functions, it seems like a normal seasonal flu in many ways, but then it's just got these quirky things that don't usually, aren't attributed to a flu, or associated with a flu, it's like ear pain, that's gone, but change of smell and taste, that's actually more stabilized itself now, but it's like every day, I'm a little better with congestion, but it's not quite there, and so I've talked to a few people who have had similar symptoms with their COVID, and they say, oh, it takes about like three weeks, so, I'm in that, I guess I'm in week two right now of that, but I'm feeling a lot better, so I appreciate everyone's prayers and support, I did actually even get to go out, for those who follow me on social media, you probably saw, I posted a little bit, maybe I'll include some in this podcast, but I went out twice last week, the first time for a walk, the second time for an actual hike, in the Catskills, and you use, when you go in the Catskills and you hike, in the winter, you have to use some cleats of some kind, so some spikes, really, is what we call them, and so my wife and I had spikes on our boots, and we went up, and actually, you're very stable, you can walk on ice, when you have that, and we went to a place called Giant Ledge, and then I went on to a place called Panther Mountain, and Giant Ledge used to be one of the top destinations in the Catskill mountain range, it's got like, I don't know, six or seven lookouts, that are cliff faces, that you can walk out, and you just got a clear view, a clear, at least 180 view, and anyway, we went on Friday, it was like in the 40s, and it was just spectacular, so beautiful out there, so I know some people think that's weird, hiking in the winter, but I enjoy it, but I'm in the office now, enjoying some good peppermint tea, for those interested, a company that shares your values, has a great product, I think the way to drink it is you keep the teabag in the mug, that's how you drink tea, at least how I drink tea, I can't speak for others, but the little dip thing, how much flavor do you get out of that, but if you're interested, there's a great company, Gold River Company Tea, and you can go get it at goldriverco .com, put in the promo code, conversations, conversations, and you can get yourself some tea as well, and enjoy the remaining winter months, with some warm tea by your side, and it does make a difference, it certainly does, so wanted to talk quick today, actually, if it's possible, I do have a hard, in like 20 minutes, I actually have to go, so it has to be quick, but I wanted to show an article to everyone, see if I can pull it up here, it just, it was interesting, someone sent this to me this morning, I got two things, as I was getting up this morning, and checking the news and everything, I had two interesting articles sent to me, one is from Grove City College, I'm not gonna really go over that, but the long and short of it is, they're doing what a lot of these institutions that have evidence of going in a more social justice direction, in some sectors of their institution, it seems like they're doing what a lot of those colleges do, and here's a whole article about kind of reaffirming the conservative values, and you know, there's no indoctrination here, you know, nothing to see here kind of thing, so someone sent it to me, kind of, I think with the idea that, hey look, they're kind of trying to show that the concerns that parents and now faculty have, as including students, students have as well, about the direction of the school, these are unfounded, that the principles of the college remain intact, so anyway, that's just, it's a strategy, it's a strategy I've seen many times out there, and the thing to always note about this is, there's never an admission or a retraction because of previous teaching, or even current teaching, that might be not in accord with the core values of the institution, it's always just, it's kind of like, people call it a gaslight, but it's kind of like, it makes you crazy, you think, wait a minute, like, did I really see what I saw, because now they're trying to say the opposite, and it's just, it's always better to just be honest, to just say, yep, you know, we goofed over here, we apologize, and we're doing better, and much better than trying to kind of obfuscate, and deflect, and deny, and disguise, and all of that, so anyway, we're not gonna spend time there, I want to spend time on this though, this is an interesting piece by a guy named Mark Wingfield, yeah, Mark Wingfield, and Mark Wingfield is the executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global, it's Baptist News Global, so Christian outlet, supposed to be, I mean, it's called Baptist News, and evangelical, supposedly, from what I understand, and there's this opinion here, and I know I've seen this guy before, and I can't figure out where, I must have seen articles in the past, but anyway, Baptist News Global posts this story by Mark Wingfield, called It's Time to Stop the Insanity That is Killing Public Education, that's right, of all the problems today going on, it's Christians killing public education, and there's a picture of a, probably a mother, who's at, probably looks like it's at a public school, so it's probably some kind of a parent -teacher meeting, I don't know, and she's being very, she's very passionate about what she's saying, and so this reminds me of the recent controversy over critical race theory, and how parents have been the ones to try to get involved, because they don't want their kids learning this, so this is, I mean, hey, colorful, well, I mean, descriptive language, insanity, it's extreme, I mean, there's, we gotta stop this insanity that is killing public education, these angry parents that don't want their kids indoctrinated, so here's the piece, let's read it, from, again, the Christian organization, and I just wanna let everyone know the reason I thought this was a good article to maybe talk about briefly is just to remind everyone whose job it is to educate children, it's not the government's job, but we have someone who's, I mean, Baptist News Global, this is apparently a Christian organization, making, in my opinion, a little bit of a different case here, he says, I'm the child of a public school teacher, I am the parent of a son who has been a public school teacher, and who remains a private instructor in a public high school, many friends are public school teachers, as a child, I helped my mother grade papers every night, and I watched her work long hours preparing lesson plans and creating learning tools, I heard her former students who came back as adults to say that what she taught them in math as fourth and fifth graders opened the world to them, I read and treasured the letters they wrote upon her retirement and upon her death, as a parent, I have watched my son work magic with middle school and high school students, teaching them the joy of music, and helping them achieve things they never thought possible, like many of you, I care passionately about public education as a stabilizing, equalizing force for the good in society, I want to stop there for a moment, now, a lot of what he just said in the first few paragraphs could go on a Hallmark card, and of course, there are teachers like this, and I wouldn't want to take anything away from that, there's people who have had good experiences, especially in previous generations, in public schools in certain parts of the country, and you still probably can, in fact, I know of a science teacher in a public school system, I would never tell you where, but teaches, does not teach Darwinian evolution, teaches creation in the public school, and there are places, I don't know how many are left, where you can still do some of that, and the only reason I bring it up is just to say that yeah, the general trend in most public schools are going to fill your kids' minds with a lot of indoctrination, and things that you're really going to have to work hard against if they end up going there, and I would encourage parents to try anything they can to make sure their kids don't go there, but there are places where circumstances are different, and you are able to do that to some extent, but parental involvement is the key here, and we've gone through a transition in our own society, where we went from a one -room schoolhouse setting, where parents did, where, you know, a teacher was accountable to parents, and oftentimes churches would sponsor teachers, to now, it's run more and more by a centralized bureaucracy, the Department of Education, it's a centralized thing emanating from the national government, the general government, and that is not the same thing, in fact, that is Karl Marx's dream, I point this out in Christianity and Social Justice, that was one of the Communist Manifesto's main pillars, if you will, for how to make sure that the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, or, you know, equality exists, and that you don't have this disparity in wealth, it's to make sure that there's public schools, this is a Marxist concept, we just kind of, people, some people at least, have just bought, and they think that's normal, and it's not, it's a very recent thing, and it's a very, honestly, it's a very Marxist thing, so, anyway, he says, like many of you, I care passionately about public education as a stabilizing, equalizing force for the good in society, and on that point, I won't spend long, but that's not really the point of public education, you know, could it have served that purpose, especially during the Cold War times, to some extent, perhaps, I mean, you could maybe make that argument in some ways when you have immigration happening, I mean, this is a place where everyone is going through the same kind of experience, but that's not the point of public education, to be a stabilizing, equalizing force, just so everyone knows, that should never have been the point of education, education is to learn, it's to understand the world, for adults to be able to have, to be able to know how to think, to have a grounding, and it, you know, you hear this, too, with public school, that it's, well, it's really, it's helping kids socialize, right, that's one of the things I've heard for years, you know, it's for helping kids socialize, well, okay, that's nice, that's not the point of education, though, and as soon as these things that aren't the main things become the main things, and they're not a means to an end, they're the end in and of itself, it's for some public good, and it's no longer for, you know, educating children, it becomes part of a necessary function of society, an institution to further stability and equalizing force, that's just, you're in mission drift at that point, and that opens the door for a lot of things.