Tag: Schools

The Perfect Storm in Education

April 19, 2018

Over the past two weeks, we have been inundated with the news of school shootings. The most deadly in recent weeks was the shooting on the campus at Ompaqua Community College in Oregon, where 10 people were killed and nine were injured. The US has had an average of one school shooting per week since January 2012 when 20 children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. How did we get here? What happened in America that over the last 16 years school shootings have become common place? Who broke that dam of evil? And more importantly, how do we stop the killings? 

 

Below I’ve listed three historical events that led us to this place:

  1. The Theory of Evolution Introduced in Education—In the mid 1850s Herbert Spencer proposed that education should draw on new scientific principles to make teaching more efficient as well as pleasant for the child. He proposed that learning was subject to the same laws that shaped the evolution of human beings from simple organisms could be used to shape the development of each child from the earliest moments in life to adults. Out of these concepts, came a new branch of science called child psychology. New discoveries in child learning techniques should give helpful information on how to be a more discerning and caring parent or teacher. The problem with this new branch of science was that it was founded in Darwinism/evolution. Learning disabilities in children began to take names. Eventually, the medical community came up with a myriad of diagnoses for those disabilities, which leads us to the next issue—that of drugs.
  2. Drugs—What came in the 1960s and onwards were a plethora of new drugs on the streets of our cities as well as through the pharmaceutical industries. The street drugs appealed to those who desired to check out of a materialistic culture. The pharmaceutical drugs treated children’s psychological issues as well as learning disabilities. We became a nation that medicated her children.
  3. We Lost our Moral compass Meanwhile the school curricula was steadily undergoing a major shift with the removal of the God of the Christians from the classrooms. With no concept of a creator and therefore no accountability to a higher power, no value is placed on life. When life is cheap, killing the innocent becomes prevalent. When children who grow up deprived of knowing God as a creator are legally drugged there is a recipe for disaster.

These “winds” are some of the strongest influencers that created a “perfect storm” in our educational system.

The answer lies in prayer, but not just a blanket prayer that says, “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” The answer lies with those who know God and the power of the Name of Jesus. Now is the time for believers to come together in unity, in order to pray targeted, strategic prayers that will turn our educational system and consequently our children back to God. Jesus said, “If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”  Let’s come together in agreement to take the Mountain of Education!

 

Common Core is Dead!

March 19, 2018

Did you hear the news that Common Core is Dead? The obituary was rather short, a mere 250 words, not much for such a weighty historical effort, and for the most part, the media paid little, if no, attention. My guess is that they long suspected that Common Core would find its way into the graveyard of programs developed by past US Presidents that did nothing to improve this nation academic test scores. Every President since George H. W. Bush has had a national educational program implemented through the Department of Education: Bill Clinton—Expanding Educational Opportunities; George W. Bush—No Child Left Behind; Barak Obama—Race to the Top which included Common Core. The surprising thing is that none of the federal programs worked!

 

January 18th Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at a conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute on “lessons learned”  about school reform specifically during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Her conclusion was that the only thing the two Department of Education programs had in common was that they were federal programs. Secretary DeVos said, “Common Core is a disaster, and at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.”

 

Many times we pray and we never see the answer to our prayers.  I dedicate this article to the many prayer warriors who have prayed in small home groups for years for America’s schools. Their prayers intensified when Common Core became the . Yes, some of the teaching methods of Common Core were questionable, but teachers know new methods of teaching come and go. It was the clandestine agenda that lingered in the background of Common Core that was more dangerous than teaching methods. The curriculum was produced by globalists who want a moralist society that is easily controlled. They followed the footsteps of Communists like John Dewey who began in the late 1800s and worked diligently (and successfully), in our public schools to produce global citizens for the 21st century.

 

Secretary DeVos’ new plan for education is for the states to exercise control over their individual educational programs, and for more “parental empowerment.” She stated, “Ideally, parent and teacher work together to help a child discover his or her potential and pursue his or her passions.” Her statements do not mention the federal government.

 

Secretary DeVos’ statement on Common Core is a brave move. In her declaration, she stood against the largest, most powerful, and most liberal labor union in the United States, as well as a lot of other liberal educators who will consider her demented. Let’s pray for Secretary DeVos—protection from verbal attacks as well as safety. Also, pray for her to complete her mission to reform American education. Pray for our schools to teach students to grow in the knowledge and the grace of God!

 

In my opinion…the cost and rewards of being a Christian in education

March 14, 2018

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Okay, let’s take a personal survey. Please put a check-list by each of the following instances that have happened to you, in order to be fair—lets say, in the last ten years?

____ heckled in public

____ spit on in public

____ run out of town for your views

____ had your words misconstrued by the media

____ falsely accused of mishandling money

____ faced an angry crowd that didn’t want to hear what you had to say regardless

____ accused of not caring about those whom you serve

____ assaulted for your beliefs in Christian values, i.e. marriage is between a man and a woman, a child is born with a specific sex, etc.

 

I can check off two on the above list, and if I stretch it three. That’s not enough to claim the rewards of someone who has been persecuted for righteousness. But there is a lady who can check off every item and then add a few on the list, and that’s the US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. I’m not stretching the truth—thanks to the media, every incident has been documented in great detail.

 

When Jesus was on the earth, He demonstrated the Kingdom of God, and many times the result was that people demonstrated demonic activity. That’s exactly what is happening today. It’s not Secretary DeVos’ policies they dislike, it’s the fact that she’s a power broker for the Kingdom of God. So it doesn’t matter what policy changes she proposes like school choice, vouchers, state’s rights, diminishing the role of federal government in education, etc. All her ideas are rejected simply because she knows Jesus and cares for the well-being of the children in our nation.

 

Would you join with me in praying for Secretary DeVos?

  1. Pray to dispel the spiritual darkness around our educational system.
  2. Pray Matt. 5:11-12 for Secretary DeVos. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

 

Spiritual Mapping for the Mountain of Education

May 28, 2016

Prayer at Supreme Court 2004 circle of prayerSpiritual Mapping combines data collection, historical research and spiritual revelation that pertain to a particular geographical region, family, or profession. The combination of knowledge enables one to identify the strategies and methods of the spiritual forces of darkness that are in the current state of manifestation in that region, family or profession. In my case, I wanted to know why the American educational system was in such a state of disarray and why it seemly couldn’t change. The ultimate goal in my mapping exercise was the development of a prayer strategy that would address the spiritual root causes that allowed darkness and destruction to continually reign over our schools and our children.

Because I’d spent most of my working life as a junior high and high school mathematics teacher, I knew that the Mountain of Education would be my focus. Another factor that made me interested in education was that seven years prior to my exposure to the Seven Mountain Strategy, C. Peter Wagner (a Christian author, missionary, and teacher) had conducted a retreat in Colorado Springs, Colorado for professionals from different occupations to spiritually map their respective professions.

Spiritual mapping is usually done on geographical regions, so this was a new concept and, to my knowledge, was the first time that spiritual mapping had been done on professions. Wagner had worked closely with George Otis Jr., director of The Sentinel Group, an organization that spiritually mapped geographic regions. Wagner wanted to take spiritual mapping to a new level, asking doctors, teachers, financial planners and other people to look at the history of their respective professions with spiritual eyes.

Otis defines spiritual mapping as a tool that allows believers to investigate the spiritual dynamics of their communities. It is the process of data acquisition for pastors, intercessors, worshipers and evangelists to analyze, strategize and process their evangelistic efforts.

My dear friends Drs. Mark and Betsy Neuenschwander headed up the meetings which took place in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Approximately thirty people from different professions came together to determine how our profession had arrived at its present state, good or bad. Then we were to devise a comprehensive prayer plan that would enable a novice to pick up our outline and pray effectively for any one of the professions. We were in a war room directing a war in the realm of the Spirit by putting together a spiritual warfare plan that any prayer warrior could use.

As an educator, I knew the educational system in the United States had changed, and not for the better. I’d watched it fail before my eyes. When I was in school, the problems in a classroom were simple—gum chewing, tardiness and occasionally truancy. In the classroom twenty years later, I now dealt with drugs, alcohol, low test scores, disrespect and outright rebellion. I delved back into history to find where the United States educational system had taken turns that led us down the path to a totally different school environment than our parents and grandparents had experienced. It soon became clear what had happened.

The goal of the Colorado Springs group of professionals was to merge the Mountain of Influence teaching with spiritual mapping, then identify the ancient thrones of iniquity and major spiritual influences in our educational system. At that point, we could deal with them in prayer. It’s a simple strategy, yet profound.t were as though a mastermind had led us to the point of destruction. The mastermind is Baal, the false god of the Old Testament. The Greeks had perpetuated worship to Baal, as had the Romans. Later, the salons of France gave new life to humanism, which is a form of Baal worship. Many of our country’s founding fathers, influenced by new ideas circulating in Europe, brought those ideas to America.

Perhaps because the educational system is huge, it looks overwhelming to take on as a prayer effort. For the most part, prayer efforts for education have been to pray for some aspect of the system that influences us directly—for instance, a mother might pray for the school and teachers where her children attend classes. But intercession for the whole of education is seldom done and most likely is a result of intercessors not being summoned and given the tools to know how to pray for the educational system as a whole.

The system is in dire need of revision, revival, and reformation, but how to pray for those changes often  eludes us as intercessors. The result has been that the system has run rampant with limited moral checks and balances. As a consequence, our nation has reaped the negative benefits of godless education administered by those who wish to educate a person’s mind and not his spirit.

Education must be reclaimed as a part of reformation in America. How do we accomplished this? Many of us who are over the age of fifty have seen the American educational system make a steady downturn. Can we take it back? Can we cause a reformation? Can our educational system be turned around? I believe it can. If we will listen to the leadership God has placed in authority over this mountain, things will change. God is unfolding His strategy on how to pray and change education, which will ultimately result in a change in our country.

Jesus said, “How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house” (Matthew 12:29). In America’s beginnings we had a godly educational system based on godly principles. Over time, godless decisions made allowed that allowed evil to enter, slowly at first, but once it gained a foothold the floodgates opened. And our educational system became corrupt. Many doubt if redemption is possible. As intercessors, we must leave the results of our prayers to God. We don’t know what His answer will be, but we do know God will hear and answer our prayers – if we pray!

Reclaiming our educational system won’t be molding a school system in the image of all Christian schools. Nor will it be to bring about a system like we enjoyed 60 years ago. It is about advancing the Kingdom of God. How do we go about advancing the Kingdom of God in education? Sounds like a lofty spiritual goal, but God does give specific instructions as to how we are to establish His Kingdom on this earth. With over 100,000 (as per the US Department of Education web site) public schools in this country, this is a huge task. However, if we have a plan, we can change the system.

Our assignment is to take back education in America.  Spiritual Mapping allows us to devise a plan as to how and what to pray, then set our course and believe God for transformation.