Teach children

to love freedom

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
~ Deuteronomy 6:7

Some weeks back I wrote about making technology anti-fragile for millennia. The most important activity for that purpose is teaching children. If you encourage children to enjoy reading by reading to them, by being kind when you teach them the alphabet, by giving positive feedback when they are successful, children will read everything they get their hands on. The key to the future is taking children seriously.

If you teach children mathematics they will count things all the time. They will add and subtract numbers and sort objects into sets and multiply and divide even when you’re not looking. If you teach children simple machines like the ramp and the lever they will build ramps and use levers all over the place. If you give a kid a hammer you’ll discover that many previously un-nail like objects need a good bit of hammering.

You don’t need to be a specialist to teach others. You need to know what you know, and you need to know how to find out what you don’t know. It isn’t difficult. Kindness and respect go a long way. If you teach others by treating them with dignity and courtesy, they will listen more carefully and learn faster. Moreover, they are likely to be kind and respectful in their turn.

It isn’t only children that need to learn to read. Many adults have been completely failed by the experiences they have had with the “education system.” The education system is now run by teachers unions who hate children, hate Christendom, and hate God. They don’t want to teach, they want to be paid to inflict harm on children. There were over 14,000 instances of rape and attempted rape of children by teachers in the 2017-18 school year and more than 22,000 instances in the 2022-23 school year. Something is rotten in the United States, and its initials are “nea.”

For my own part, my brothers taught me to read when I was three years old. I had already learnt all the letters using our wood blocks. They had copies of the “Dick and Jane” story books. By the time I started kindergarten I had been reading for two years. It was a surprise to me that the other children in school didn’t know how to read.

Other Cultures

I didn’t spend a lot of time in Sana’a, Yemen on my various trips to Africa. But there was one occasion when a group of us went across the water. There used to be an arms bazaar in Jehannah near Sana’a. This would have been at the turn of the millennium. Since then there has been a war and much devastation. At the time there were wrought iron gates with words in Arabic. One of my guides read those words to me.

Teach your sons to ride, to swim, and to shoot.
~ Prophet Muhammed, pbj

It’s good advice. All of your children should know how to ride horses or donkeys because there may not be access to motor vehicles in every situation. You should teach children to swim so they aren’t ever out of their depth. Every person capable of lifting a gun should be taught the rules of good gun safety and have practice at shooting.

When I was in grade school, my teacher for second and third grade was Mrs. Mott. She and her husband owned a horse ranch and apple orchard. Every semester we made a field trip there and had the opportunity to ride horses. In the Autumn there was also a hay ride and a pumpkin patch. Horses can get through terrain that vehicles cannot.

If you want to operate a search and rescue group, or work with one, you should learn to ride. You should encourage riding skills in others. In the 1980s there was a group near Houston that provided horses and riders for searching for missing persons in difficult terrain. They still do. There are also exciting activities that young people can learn, such as cowboy mounted shooting. So you can definitely combine riding and shooting. I’m not aware of any water-based shooting and riding activities, but you might invent them and create a whole new sport. Horses and deer can swim, so you know.

When I was in college there was a test for all entering freshmen. One of the survivors of the malicious sinking of the RMS Titanic bequeathed a substantial sum of money to Columbia University with the stipulation that the funds be used to provide facilities for teaching all freshmen to swim during their first year of college. My dad had inherited a bit of money from a favourite aunt in 1968 and used it to build a swimming pool next to the house, so I was able to show proficiency in swimming. Which led me to take fencing as my elective physical education class.

Of course, in his day, Muhammed (pbj) meant to have archery skills be taught. His descendants would not teach women shooting skills, most likely. Always feel free to question the assumptions of any culture, including especially your own. What “just isn’t done” might be something that should be done. If recent events have demonstrated anything it is that trusted authorities and traditions may not be enough to sustain freedom from tyranny.

Archery is useful for hunting and for self-defence. It can be far more silent than rifle shooting and still get the job done at range. Fairly simple materials (wood, feathers, glue) can be used to make arrows, though if you are not a skilled fletcher you may be surprised how much skill and craft goes into it. Simple materials can be used to make simple, and ineffective bows. Bow making is an even more complex skill set.

Appalachistan

While we’re talking about skills, let’s discuss wood craft. There are two meanings to this term. One is skill at making objects from wood, which is a widely available material easily worked with a chisel or knife. (Of course, the globalists have announced plans to clear cut forests all over Germany to erect wind mills. In Wyoming there are plans to remove carbon dioxide from the air to eliminate all green living things forever. So wood may become scarce.)

The other important meaning of “wood craft” is the set of skills useful for living in the woods, especially camping, tracking, hunting, fishing, and trapping. Depending on how far civilisation falls in the ongoing collapse, and depending on specific events near you, camping may be how you survive. Which means you should have supplies and equipment for that purpose. You should also seek skills in this area because it is one thing to have a roll of wire and another to skillfully use it for making traps.

Arrows can be lost and ammo runs out but a trap wire can almost always be re-used, if you anchored it properly. Yes, re-loading is a good skill to have. And if you are manufacturing brass, primers, and powder, good for you. Keep it up and spread the word.

Home school and unschool

The very worst group for any activity is the government. In all its efforts at education, the government exclusively teaches propaganda, especially the importance of the government in all things. If you want your children to value freedom, keep them far from government schools. If you have a choice, teach them yourself. And if you have very intelligent children, consider unschooling.

Children, you see, are voracious learners. They have developed over hundreds of thousands of years and were designed to seek knowledge. They are little learning machines. If you teach them basic skills like reading and counting and arithmetic they will find all kinds of ways to learn. They will discover many books in libraries, many lessons in encyclopedias, and find things online that will startle you. So a set curriculum may not be what they want, and it may not be the best way for them to learn.

There is a school of educational philosophy called “taking children seriously.” I was introduced to it by one of its progenitors at the world congress for the International Society for Individual Liberty in the Summer of 2000. Her name is Sarah Fitz-Claridge. The ideas include the fact that children don’t need to be beaten into submission.

If you don’t have a good argument for why the child should do what you say, perhaps you should reflect on your reasons and intentions. If you simply explain your situation, that you cannot afford some things or you are very tired from working hard all day, children are often quite enthusiastic about helping out. There are related schools of thought, as it were, such as peaceful parenting. As the survivor of extensive and repeated childhood violence, I encourage all parents to look into ways to impress ideas and understanding on their children without being brutal.

Bringing Order

Recently I wrote about the purposes of the Holy Order of Three White Roses which I have been asked to establish. You are invited to be a part of this new order.

It is not a chaste order. We welcome men and women as well as families. We are agreeable to working with chaste orders to help establish communities for nuns, monks, places for hermits to visit, and communities of families. We are not raising money and do not ask that anyone make a pledge of poverty or chastity on our behalf.

All are welcome. We encourage people to be fruitful and multiply. Most of all, we encourage individual prayer and group prayer.

Here is a prayer that you might pray:

Eternal Father, please help us free the slaves, stop the wars, end tyranny, cast out all demons, translate the Gospels into every language, care for the young and the old, the sick and the dying, with dignity and respect out of a place of humility, and carry the Gospels to the farthest stars. Please help with guidance, resources, ingenuity, endurance, fortitude, and patience. Please show us the little fires so we may pass by them. Please bring love into our lives so we remember what we have to live for. Amen.

Feel free to share this post with anyone you wish. Also feel free to comment on any of these topics or any other topics in the comments. All these posts are always free, and all comments are open to everyone.

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That’s all I’ve got for today. Come back next time when I have something new. Or old.