A wee bit more parenting could go a long, long way. But then, where would that leave the totalitarians?

The Baron has posted an excellent article by GoV's Swedish correspondent LN, called "Why do Swedes behave like Swedes?". The topic of the article, which I've given away in the title of this entry, is one that is certainly near and dear to my heart, as well, I know, as some of my readers. Below I've excerpted a couple of paragraphs from the article which had me going "Amen!" as I read. Without further ado,

LN writes:

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a clinical psychologist from Canada with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues, and the author of the internationally recognized book Hold On to Your Kids — why parents need to matter more than peers. Dr. Neufeld’s message was that the younger generation’s lack of adult contacts in the Western world is one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time — peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation [jämnårigorientering], which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour.

But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for conformism, aggression, schoolyard bullying, and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident — as perhaps do the solutions.

Pardon me while I say, once more, Amen!.

I'm reminded that it was Horace Mann who first introduced a series of changes into the Massachusetts schools way back in the 1840's which would eventually lead to full-fledged John Dewey style, mind numbing progressive education in America's public schools. Hence Mann is affectionately known by his modern acolytes as "The Father of Public Education" in America, not so affectionately by those of us who clearly see the error and eventuality of his ways having come to full fruition in our public schools and the half brain-dead members of our society that the public schools are largely responsible for producing today.

I have in my possession a facimile edition of Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Published in the front of the edition, in a series of "green pages" as they're called (which aren't included in the online editions that I've seen), is a reference to Mann's destructive influence on America's education system. Elsewhere we find that the implementation of Mann's plan for public education in America, under which the state, via the creation of a powerful state "Board of Education" which Mann himself was selected to head (imagine that), at first received strong resistance and righteous indignation from a select but precious few respected educators of the era who could see and actually predicted where Mann's state-run progressive education would eventually take us in America. Too bad that Mr. Mann's plan eventually won out over a more commonsensical, American approach to education. The importation of foreign ideologies and ideologues has ever been a bane on our society. But I guess that's a subject for a whole 'nother post.

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