Dear Dr. E: In my opinion, America’s educational system is a complete mess. I’m having a hard time, however, convincing my daughter not to send my grandkids to one of these crazy local public schools. Can you offer any advice? Concerned Grandma from Kansas.
Dear Concerned Grandma: In nearly 20 years as a college president, I often found that a good story is just as compelling as a good argument in making my point. Here’s one I’ve used a number of times in addressing your question. Feel free to use it with your daughter. Edit and amend it to suit your situation best.
One day, as a king was keeping court, a case was brought before him. There was finger-pointing, and there were accusations. Anger and confusion prevailed. Tears flowed, and emotions were high as two women presented their case before Solomon, the man known as the wisest judge on earth.
The dispute was over a child. You see, both women were claiming to be the mother. Both expected the judgment to be in their favor. Both pleaded desperately for the baby to be given to them. Both claimed that the other was lying. Both demanded that they alone were telling the truth.
How would Solomon resolve this dispute? How would he administer justice?
The simplicity of his decision was shocking and bold. Solomon, amid what seemed at best 50/50 odds, turned to his bodyguard and said: “Take a sword and cut the baby in two. Give one half to each woman.”
You know the end of the story. Upon hearing the king’s judgment, the real mother cried out, “Please, my lord, don’t kill him! Give him to the other woman.” Thus, she proved the obvious: No real mother would let her son be cut in two. For all that would be left is a dead baby.
I think there’s a poignant lesson in this story of Solomon that all of us, your daughter included, might want to consider before we entrust our children’s hearts, minds, and souls to our local public schools that are so obviously broken. Are we more like the woman who was willing to let the king cut the baby in half than we are like the one who cried no? As we watch woke faculty sawing our culture asunder, are we willing to let the king “cut the baby in half,” or do we cry, ’No!” As we see teachers constructing false dichotomies that sever our children’s personal beliefs from their public behavior, their facts from their faith, and their heads from their hearts, do we tacitly let the king carry out his gruesome work, or do we cry, “No — don’t cut my child in half?” When we see the consequences of broken ideas, such as the science-denying nihilism of LGBTQIA or the blatant racism of CRT paraded before us on the evening news, do we cry out, “No, I won’t let you continue to cut the soul out of my son and my daughter! He needs morality to be a man. She needs piety to have a purpose. Please take your sword away – Let my child live.”
Solomon knew you couldn’t cut a living thing in half and expect it to survive. C.S. Lewis’ words of a half-century ago call us to heed the same lessons of this wisest man in history. “We have made such a tragic comedy of the situation – We continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more… self-sacrifice, [honesty], and [ethics]. In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we [have removed] the organ [while we continue to] demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue… We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings to be fruitful.”
Saint James tells us in the Bible that “Faith without works is dead.” Maybe the lesson your daughter should consider before she chooses a school for her children is that education emasculated of character is just about as worthless.
Higher Ground is there for you if you’re seeking guidance in today’s changing world. Everett Piper, a Ph.D. and a former university president and radio host, is writing an advice column for The Times, and he wants to hear from you. If you have any moral or ethical questions for which you’d like an answer, please email askeverett@washingtontimes.com, and he may include it in the column.
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