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Is Classical Christian Education the Hope of the USA? | David Goodwin — Grounded Ep. 141 — Transcript

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0:00If you said you were going to put the
0:01state in charge of education, they would
0:05have guaranteed you failure.
0:07>> Hm.
0:08>> Because you've got a feedback loop. The
0:10state controls the education, the
0:12education controls how the the citizens
0:15think, how they think
0:17dictates who they vote for, and
0:20therefore the state can control who they
0:22vote for.
0:28>> Welcome to Grounded, a podcast for
0:29restoring [music] the church to a
0:31biblical foundation. My guest today is
0:33David Goodwin, author of co-author of
0:36this book, Battle for the American Mind,
0:38the subtitle Uprooting a Century of
0:40Mis-education.
0:42You co-wrote this with
0:44well, with Pete Hegseth before he was
0:48Pete Hegseth. What do I mean by that?
0:51Let me read you on the back, it has a
0:52little blurb about each of you, a little
0:54bio about you. Pete Hegseth is a New
0:56York Times best-selling author, co-host
0:58of Fox and Friends Weekend, and host of
1:01multiple Fox Nation documentaries,
1:03including
1:04That's not who Pete Hegseth is anymore
1:07or ever again, right?
1:09>> Yes, uh now occasionally somebody, I
1:12shouldn't [snorts] say this, will ask
1:14for an autograph, and I if I see him
1:16I'll ask him to sign some a book or
1:18something. And now he writes SecWar.
1:20>> Hahaha.
1:21That's pretty good. SecWar. All right.
1:24So, I want to tell our listeners again,
1:26I absolutely love love love this book.
1:29Like if you care about the United States
1:32of America, if you care about the
1:33Western world, and you see what a what a
1:37horrible place we're in, and what is the
1:39way out, this book
1:41will help you. What role have teachers,
1:44colleges, accreditation bodies, unions,
1:49uh those who plan the curriculum, what
1:51role have they played in this
1:53pretty massive shift that really
1:55dominates the education of American
1:58children in our day?
1:59>> Well, when the progressives started
2:01their work in the early 1900s, they
2:02attempted a Department of Education at
2:05the federal level. Uh they they made a
2:08push for that and it was pretty well
2:10indicated that that was outside of the
2:1210th Amendment. So, they couldn't really
2:14start such a thing. Now, of course,
2:161979, I think it was, Carter
2:19uh started one uh on behest of the
2:22teachers unions. And of course, by then
2:25the courts were in a different place
2:27than they were in the first part of the
2:2820th century. So, because the
2:31progressives wanted to control the
2:32hearts and minds of our kids and they
2:34couldn't get direct bureaucratic control
2:38of schools in America, they did
2:40something that we talked about in that
2:42book, you may recall.
2:44Uh I think chapter two is titled
2:45Commanding Heights.
2:47And this was a term that we borrowed,
2:49Pete and I borrowed from um
2:51Lenin. Because what what happened in
2:54Russia uh after the revolution was that
2:58uh they tried to control the economy by
3:00controlling it by fiat from the
3:02government and they messed it up big
3:05time. Nothing worked. You can't
3:07centrally plan like that. So, Lenin
3:11gave up on that idea and said, "We don't
3:13need to charge or set the prices on
3:16razor blades and apples. We just need to
3:19set the the prices on the commanding
3:22heights of the economy."
3:24>> Mhm.
3:24>> Just like [clears throat]
3:25a a general would set put his soldiers
3:29on the commanding heights of a
3:30battlefield, right? For Lenin, that
3:33meant things like coal, iron and steel,
3:37electricity, you know, all all of the
3:39various uh big industry things that you
3:42need. So, the government controlled
3:44those and let the other things flow
3:45trickle down from there. We took that
3:48metaphor into what the uh it's it's it's
3:50also exactly what the progressives did
3:52with education. We they couldn't get
3:54control
3:56of the whole thing from the top down, so
3:59they took control of the teachers
4:00colleges,
4:02the accreditation organizations, the
4:04textbook authorizers, the state
4:07standards, state licensing of teachers,
4:11all of these things form a web of
4:13control that are to this day
4:17uh
4:18steering like the nose ring on a bull,
4:21steering the entire educational public
4:24educational uh
4:26complex.
4:27>> And again,
4:28to what to what end? What
4:31What kind of young person do they want
4:33to turn out? And they're being very
4:35successful at it, in my opinion, at
4:37turning out uh generation after
4:39generation. Uh you remember Francis
4:41Schaeffer, his son Frankie Schaeffer
4:43wrote uh that they are turning out
4:46generation after generation of baffled,
4:48rootless, religiously neutered,
4:50neo-barbarians.
4:52How would you describe them in your own
4:54words? What What's the objective? What
4:55do they want to turn kids into? What
4:58kind of citizens do they want children
5:00to be?
5:01>> Well, they want them to be servile. Uh
5:04the the function of the progressives
5:06early on was to shift the public
5:08education
5:10If you go look at your your high school
5:12history textbook that you and I may have
5:14had back in the day. Nowadays, they're
5:15so woke you can't even recognize the
5:17history. But back in the day, what you
5:19learned about the progressives was that
5:21they stopped child labor, they enabled a
5:24minimum wage or they they passed a
5:25minimum wage, they you know, they did
5:28all of these sorts of things.
5:30One of the things they say is and they
5:31created a school system
5:33the for the children of immigrants to be
5:36able to get jobs. The hallmark of the
5:39progressive school
5:40was
5:42to you know, educate kids so they could
5:44get jobs. Little did anyone know, well,
5:47very few people knew at the time. And
5:49this is all discussed, by the way, in
5:51Lawrence Cremin, there's a quote on him
5:52in the book. He's a He's actually a
5:54progressive historian, but he's honest,
5:57and he writes a Pulitzer Prize-winning
5:59book on American education. He says
6:01their objective was to control the
6:02American paideia.
6:04Because you cannot lead a free people
6:07if their minds are free.
6:09And the form of education that had been
6:11practiced in the West for over a
6:14thousand years,
6:16almost 3,000 years in total, and I can
6:18tell you the story of that a little bit
6:19if you want, but
6:21was the the what they call the liberal
6:23arts education. This was the old term,
6:25and it had nothing to do with being
6:27liberal in the modern sense. What it
6:29meant was you were taught to think.
6:32>> Mhm.
6:32>> You were taught to be able to assess
6:34things. It started back with the Greeks.
6:36There was this crazy idea some Greek had
6:38that we could create a democracy.
6:41Right? And so the crazy idea was
6:44hey, tyranny
6:46every kingdom, every empire ends up in
6:50tyranny. The how do we keep it from
6:52tyranny? And somebody said, "Well, what
6:53if everybody got a vote?"
6:55Well, then somebody said, "Okay." And
6:57there's a great line in a movie in the
6:59movie The Patriot that I love to quote
7:01because it's it's almost straight out of
7:03this this kind of Greek argument back,
7:05you know, 300, 400 BC.
7:08Mel Gibson's character in The Patriot
7:10says, "What difference does it make if
7:12I'm ruled by one tyrant 3,000 miles away
7:16or 3,000 tyrants one mile away?"
7:19>> Mhm.
7:20>> Right? Because of course he's speaking
7:22initially to oppose a a revolution, and
7:25then of course he gets pulled into it.
7:26But the point is the Greeks understood
7:29that without a liberated mind, you would
7:31be easy to
7:33um
7:34lead anywhere
7:36you wanted to go. So all they had to do
7:38is get a tyrant with a golden tongue
7:41to tell lies, and the whole people would
7:43fall into it, and tyranny would happen
7:45in democracies. So they created
7:47classical education originally
7:49to
7:50um
7:51create free liberated citizens who could
7:54assess political arguments on their own.
7:57Now later that was Christianized
7:59uh you know, 1,500 years after that it
8:01was Christianized, but it upheld the
8:02Greek
8:03uh democracy, which didn't last very
8:05long. The Roman one lasted longer, and I
8:07think we're It was almost 500 years that
8:10the Roman Republic lasted, and uh it
8:13also used the liberal arts education
8:16that is the hallmark of classical
8:17Christian education today.
8:19So, that's the
8:21um that's what the progressives were
8:23trying to do. They had to take over the
8:26free-minded citizens and make them
8:28servile. They had to serve
8:31a master, the state.
8:34>> You in the book, chapter 11 in
8:36particular, which
8:38I told you before we started actually
8:39filming here, my favorite chapter in the
8:41book, chapter 11. Chapter 11 is the one
8:43that says, "Here's what we can do about
8:46it." I'm going to give you my paraphrase
8:47for a minute of chapter 11. We're in a
8:49cultural mess,
8:51and here's a very important phrase, I
8:53think I'm lifting this right out of your
8:54book,
8:55"and we can't vote our way out of this."
8:59And if I'm understanding you right, you
9:01correct me if I'm not, the reason we
9:03can't vote our way out of this is
9:04because this system of state education
9:08has developed a conveyor belt that turns
9:10out generation after generation of
9:12baffle-rootless, religiously neutered
9:13neo-barbarians who are ready to do the
9:15state's bidding, who are ready to have
9:18their minds filled with, you know, all
9:20kinds of nonsense that they're being
9:22filled with now. And they're going to
9:24vote. They're being turned out and
9:25turned out and turned out, and they're
9:26going to vote, and we can't out-vote
9:29them. And so, what we have to do is
9:31develop our own counter-conveyor
9:33belt
9:35and nurture it along through this step
9:36then that step then that step until it
9:38becomes a more dominant thing. I think
9:41the tipping point would be
9:44when funds, tax dollars that we pay for
9:47our property tax largely, go to the
9:49Department of Education. When those
9:51funds are made available to parents
9:53to choose which school they want to use
9:55those funds in, there's a great tipping
9:57point, things really change. I just went
9:59kind of fast through some what's in your
10:01chapter 11.
10:03Talk about it. Do a better job than I
10:04did. Why can't we vote our way out of
10:06this? And what needs to happen instead
10:08of voting our way out of this?
10:10>> Well, that's a great question. I think
10:11the first thing to consider is that
10:14any historic
10:17philosopher
10:18at the birth of a republic
10:21or or a democracy
10:23if you said you were going to put the
10:24state in charge of education
10:28they would have guaranteed you failure.
10:30>> Mhm.
10:31>> Because you've got a feedback loop. The
10:33state controls the education, the
10:35education controls how the the citizens
10:39think how they think dictates who they
10:41vote for and therefore the state can
10:44control who they vote for.
10:46>> Yes.
10:47>> So, we've got a circular loop. That's
10:49what the progressives knew would happen
10:50if they could get control of the
10:52education system, so they did just that.
10:55Before we came on the air, I told you
10:56the story of that chapter a little bit,
10:58which is kind of fun, so I'll throw it
10:59out here. Um
11:01Pete and I finished 10 and like, okay,
11:03so we have the problem, Marxism we see
11:07how
11:09the cultural Marxist paideia was um
11:12put into the system by the progressives.
11:14I I chronicle that in a lot of those
11:16early chapters.
11:18Then we tell you what the solution is,
11:20classical Christian education. Now what?
11:23So, um Pete and I sat down and we were
11:25trying to figure out how to end the
11:26book. That's a always a challenge, I'm
11:28told. Uh how do you end the book?
11:31[clears throat]
11:31And um we were talking about various
11:33ways we could uh finish it
11:35philosophically or whatever.
11:37And I asked Mike, I said, "What was it
11:38you did in the army?" Cuz the book's
11:39named battle, so what did you do in the
11:41army?
11:42He said, "Well, I was a
11:43counterinsurgency officer." And I said,
11:45"Well, what is that?" Cuz I'm I'm a
11:47civilian. I've never been in the
11:48military, don't don't know anything
11:50about it.
11:51And he explained to me that when a
11:53weaker force is overpowered by a very
11:56strong force, which in the case for him
11:58was Afghanistan
12:00the strong force was America and the
12:02weak force were the Taliban.
12:04And so, when that happens, you create
12:08insurgencies in all the little
12:09out-of-the-way places, all the small
12:11towns and in little uh corners of cities
12:14and every place out where the people are
12:17cultivated to to be your your people
12:21and that slowly grows and eventually you
12:26take it back because a strong force
12:29cannot overcome the power of a strong
12:32people.
12:33So, Peach's job was to go in as a
12:35counterinsurgent
12:37and persuade the Afghani people that um
12:41the the American way was a good way. So,
12:44we took that and said, "Well, that's
12:46what we're talking about here." We've
12:47we've got 90% of kids in the United
12:50States are in the public school system
12:51and that system is designed to undo our
12:53republic.
12:55And so, and that that's proven in the
12:57book. It's designed to undo the
12:58republic. What we need is an insurgency.
13:01Um
13:02we 10% of the kids are privately
13:05educated and only 1% of that 10% are in
13:08classical Christian schools. So, we need
13:10to grow up the classical Christian
13:12schools because only classical Christian
13:14education provides the liberated mind in
13:17a Christian context that's necessary to
13:20restore the West. And so, we've just got
13:22to work at it community by community
13:26church basement by church basement
13:29uh pastor to friend to colleague
13:32tell people about it and that's what's
13:34been happening with the book uh and
13:36then, you know, of course, like I said
13:39in Forging the American Mind, they said,
13:41"Okay, so we need a manual for
13:43we're going to we're all insurgents now.
13:46How do we
13:47uh how do we do this? What's the manual?
13:51What's the prescription for?" And that's
13:52what Forging the American Mind is.
13:54>> Starting classical Christian schools.
13:58Sending my children My kids are all
13:59grown. They I have great grand I have
14:01grandchildren, pardon me. Sending our
14:03grandchildren to classical Christian
14:05schools isn't just about giving them a
14:08better education, a Christian education.
14:10It's that.
14:12But it's also about reclaiming
14:16the Western world?
14:18>> Yes.
14:19That's what surprises people. This is as
14:21big as it gets.
14:23It is the very defining force of
14:25civilization. Paideia is. He who owns
14:29the paideia
14:31of a people
14:32owns the future.
14:34Because those generations rise up and
14:38that's what we're seeing right now. I
14:39mean, you look out in some of these
14:40cities that have had these
14:42uh immensely powerful teachers unions
14:44that have built even stronger
14:46progressive schools in some of our
14:47outlying areas or red states, but in the
14:49blue states where they've had a lot of
14:51power
14:52they have near exclusive control and
14:54it's craziness. How do you get people to
14:56vote like that?
14:58You have to control the paideia.
15:00>> This book, the first one
15:03um talks about that need. That second
15:06book, Forging Then, is going to help
15:07them. Here's what you do.
15:08>> Yes. Forging
15:10Forging says, "Okay.
15:12Let's look at what is it that makes
15:15paideia what it is.
15:18How do you How do you cultivate the
15:20paideia of a child?" And so the book's
15:23really good for pa- Forging is really
15:25good for parents as well as educators,
15:27as well as grandparents, anybody who's
15:28interested in how does this work? It's
15:30kind of like you're going to a car show
15:32and you see a really cool car the guy
15:34who wants to open up the hood and look
15:36underneath, that's the guy who really
15:38knows cars, right? Uh he loves cars
15:41just wants to see what what's under the
15:43hood. And that's what this book is. It
15:45shows you how it works.
15:47Uh it centers on a a thing I call the
15:50golden thread.
15:52The golden thread in the case of my book
15:54is actually the way in which we come to
15:56know things.
15:58Uh and it's it it it develops from that.
16:02Um
16:03the form and the the model of education
16:07is developed around how do we come to
16:09know things?
16:10Sounds a little simplistic uh for a
16:14school, right? Uh schools are supposed
16:16to have high and lofty goals.
16:18But really Dorothy Sayers in her 1947
16:21essay that really launched the movement
16:23uh back in the 1980s
16:25uh says it well when she says, you know,
16:27the title of her essay is not the lost
16:31tools of information or the lost tools
16:33of skill. It's the lost tools of
16:36learning.
16:37Meaning how do we come to know things?
16:40And we're teaching kids you come to
16:43today in progressive schools we're
16:46teaching them that you come to know
16:47things
16:49in a textbook and by science. Science in
16:51the textbook tells you what you need to
16:53know. And we saw this with Anthony
16:54Fauci, you know, don't question the
16:58consensus of science.
16:59>> Believe the science.
17:01>> Yeah, I mean
17:02it's like
17:04this magic um box, this black box,
17:08science, that is going to tell us all
17:10truth.
17:11And
17:12of course it's a very easy authority for
17:15them to look to because science isn't a
17:16person, so you can kind of fabricate it
17:19to mean whatever you want it to mean.
17:21And so this is what uh Pete and I talk
17:24about in in Battle. It's kind of funny.
17:26The the term social studies was invented
17:31as a by the progressives as a scientific
17:34way to look at history and geography and
17:38cartography and people groups and
17:41culture. It's a science.
17:44Um and so what they could do with that
17:46is then they just tell you what you need
17:48to know. Hey, did you know um we were
17:50all actually evolved from apes? Hey, did
17:53you know that uh socialism is actually
17:57the latest greatest thing that's going
17:59to work. Uh hey, did you know that you
18:02don't have to be a boy or a girl, you
18:04can be whatever you want to be?
18:06These kinds of ideas are um
18:09are the hallmark of progressive
18:12education. What classical Christian
18:14education does and what Forging the
18:16American Mind explains is that at its
18:19heart the thread
18:21that makes classical Christian education
18:23work is when a kids I I tell a story in
18:26there about it's it's actually based in
18:28a real story with one of my students. I
18:31tell it in kind of an imaginary way.
18:34But
18:35uh she gets to college
18:38and starts asking, "How do you know
18:40that?"
18:41to people.
18:42And
18:44that
18:45just opens up a whole new world for kids
18:48when they can start asking, "How do you
18:49know that?"
18:51And that's the question. The $2
18:53philosophical word for that is
18:55epistemology, of course, but
18:57uh we I I just use how do you know in
19:01the book.
19:02>> Yeah, very good.
19:03Incidentally, you mentioned Dorothy
19:04Sayers' book. What is What was the name
19:06of that? Recovering the Lost Tools of
19:08Learning or Rediscovering?
19:09>> Well, uh Recovering is Doug Wilson's
19:11book uh
19:13on Sayers' essay. Her essay was called
19:16The Lost Tools of Learning.
19:17>> Just The Lost Tools of So, just wanted
19:18to comment. Uh my wife and I read that
19:21in the '80s and became homeschoolers,
19:22which was
19:23>> Really?
19:23>> We were like some proto homeschoolers
19:25back then. People in our church thought
19:27we were violating government and we're
19:29and I shouldn't be a pastor and all We
19:31had all kinds of issues cuz we took our
19:33kids out of public school and said,
19:35"Enough of that. We're going to
19:36school them at home." A final question
19:38for you and then I think we'll land the
19:40plane. Are Are you optimistic?
19:43Are you optimistic that classical
19:44Christian education is going to grow and
19:47grow and grow like the little mustard
19:48seed and one day it will overtake the
19:52nation and things we desire will come
19:55about?
19:56>> Well, yes, I am, and let me tell you
19:57why. It's really quite simple when you
19:59think about it. Um we can do all kinds
20:02of things to try and affect the vote
20:04this coming November. Uh we can
20:08spend a lot of money doing rallies like
20:11Trump does or you could do
20:14uh mailers and send it out to people.
20:17And you're going to have a one-time
20:19effect on that one-time
20:21election. If we really want to look at
20:24what what it takes to regain the control
20:27of this country, the beauty of classical
20:29Christian education is one kid turns
20:32into two, turns into four, turns into
20:34generationally.
20:36Once you've had a classical Christian
20:38education, nearly everyone who's had it,
20:41and I know a lot of alumni,
20:43won't consider anything else for their
20:46kids
20:47because they've had something and
20:50everything else look like looks like a
20:52cheap imitation.
20:53>> Very good.
20:54Here it is.
20:55First book, Battle for the American
20:57Mind, second book behind David there,
20:59Forging the American Mind.
21:02Uh David Goodwin and Pete Hegseth. How
21:05come his name got bigger than yours on
21:06the
21:08>> [laughter]
21:08>> on the cover?
21:09>> I'm glad it was.
21:10New York Times bestseller lists don't
21:12come to guys like me.
21:14>> That did that, huh? Yeah. Hey, real
21:16pleasure spending this time with you.
21:17Thank you so much for joining me. All
21:19you listeners, thank you for joining us.
21:21Hope Hope we'll have you back again for
21:23future episodes.
21:40>> [music]

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