The School House

The speaker discusses their concerns about the state of education in the United States, particularly in public schools. They mention concerns about safety, indoctrination, and the degradation of the educational system. They believe that there is a better way to approach education and criticize recent changes to Title IX that extend the idea of sex to sexual orientation. They also talk about the removal of prayer from public schools and how it has led to the removal of guiding principles. They emphasize the importance of having strong and productive schools for economic growth and believe that Radford City Schools, while not the focus of their discussion, still has room for improvement. They plan to discuss four points that have driven the direction of schools, starting with the removal of guiding principles. The first thing I remember knowin' was a lonesome whistle blowin' And a youngin's dream of growin' up to ridin' On a freight train leavin' town, not knowin' where I'm bound And no one could change my mind, but Mama tried The one and only rebel child from a family meek and mild My Mama seemed to know what lay in store Despite all my Sunday learnin', towards the bat I kept on turnin' Till Mama couldn't hold me anymore I turned twenty-one in prison doin' life without parole No one could steer me right, but Mama tried Mama tried, Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading I deny That leaves only me to blame, cause Mama tried Welcome to One More Round Podcast, where we stand as always for truth, justice, and the American way I'm your host, Keith Marshall, and let's go one more round Everything we have to fear is fear itself Hands down, it's love We will make America great again If I say something and you don't want to listen, don't listen I'm ready to roll One more round One more round Welcome to One More Round Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Keith Marshall. Today, we're going to be back on a subject that we dipped into last week, and that is schools. Schools. We're going to talk about schools, not just local schools, but schools across the nation from K through college. That's going to be the subject today as we dive deep into the state of education in the United States of America, and even here in our city and in the New River Valley. Now, anytime you get into a discussion about education, you always have these pointy-head liberals that look at you and they say, What business do you have to discuss education or the state of our education system in the United States or how things should be done? Where is your degree? Where is your pedigree? How were you involved in schools? How did you help to get them to where they are now? And I will say this, that is exactly what qualifies me to talk about it, because I wasn't one of the ones that screwed it up. I've just had to live through some of the mess-ups and some of the poor directions that our schools have went in in my lifetime. And I think if probably you're a tick older than me, maybe in your 60s or 70s, maybe even older, I have some older listeners too, you have seen the degradation of our educational system in the United States. And if you're younger, I have a lot of young listeners, you know nothing else. You have seen it your whole life. You do not understand how it was and how it really could be or could have been based on your experience. But I bet you're going to recognize some of the topics and some of the things that I'm going to talk about today. And I think if you'll put your thinking cap on, well sticking with education, you'll put your thinking cap on, you will probably come to the conclusion that there is a better way to have done things. And in fact, the direction that we're going and some of the things that were done are an absolute travesty, simply are. Now I talked about or I mentioned in the last episode about the fact that I had some concerns about sending my grandchildren, not that it's my personal decision, it's up to their parents, but sending my grandchildren to public schools. I'm really concerned about that. I'm really fearful of that for a number of reasons. The first reason is their safety. And I'm not talking about the threat of people coming into the schools with guns and things like that, although that's something certainly to consider in this world gone mad. I'm more worried about the indoctrination and the realization that they're going to see things that are deemed acceptable inside of the realm of public schools from K through college that are not, in my opinion, acceptable, both morally, biblically, any way you want to look at it, I do not agree with them. And I do not want those things shoved down my grandchildren's throat or my children when they went to school as well. Now this is quite a deep well when it comes to subjects. And there's a lot of areas that I'm not going to touch on. And I think probably if you sat down with a local teacher or a local administrator or someone that would be honest with you that works in a school system, just here in the New River Valley, not necessarily in Radford. And by the way, I just want to put this little runner out there to make sure that you don't misconstrue the purpose of my episode today. It is not to go after Radford City Public Schools. I still deem Radford City Public Schools a step above many of the things that I'm going to describe now. And certainly the state of the schools right now, as we speak today, is not the fault or responsibility of those that have been fairly newly elected to run it, nor the new superintendent that we have in Radford City Public Schools. We have a whole change over there. So really, Radford City Schools is not the primary focus of what I'm going to be talking about today. Although, you know, if the shoe fits, obviously we need to talk about our own schools because we're responsible here in the city for the product that we're putting out, for what we're giving to our children. And I think most common sense, not all for sure, but most common sense people would agree that we need to have the best and safest and most productive schools in Radford City that we can have. Truthfully, it's not my subject today, but there is few better economic drivers than an excellent school system. A safe and productive and well-run school system is the biggest economic driver that you can have, honestly, because it brings people to your city. They will move here just for their kids. I know that's true because I did that. I lived outside the city for just a little while after I was first married. And when we had children and they started to get to school age, we started sending them to Radford and paying tuition. And eventually we just had too many kids. We couldn't afford it. We moved back into the city, which, you know, I love Radford City anyway, so that wasn't a hard decision for me to make to move back to my hometown. But truthfully, I believe with all my heart that businesses will locate in your city because of a very good school district. If they know that they can not only bring smarter kids into their business, but also bring in workers and parents to that area because of how strong your schools are. Now, Radford City, and again, not my subject today, but I want to point this out, Radford City Schools was the jewel, was the jewel of the city for many, many years. I think we've worked our way away from that. I think we've had a tendency to go along with the crowd nationally and locally, and I don't think it's done us well as far as our schools. I think we have a lot of improvements to make, and I think those that are involved in our schools know that, agree with that, and they're working hard to make that happen. So I just wanted to throw that in there. This is not a shot at Radford City Schools. It's not my purpose. I still think we're a step above a lot of what we're seeing around us. But they are part of the system. They are part of, there are problems that are happening there, I'm sure. You could speak to a teacher or administrator or a school board member or someone like that, and I'm sure they could outline to you some major hurdles that they're working to climb over right now, just like every other school in the state of Virginia and across the country. There is a general decline in our school systems in America. Now, today, as I proceed through this podcast, I'm going to go over four points that I believe have driven the direction of our schools and some subpoints within those as we talk about it. There are more. There are certainly more. These are general, but they're the things that have been kind of driving me crazy, especially over the last week. In the last week, and we'll get to this in a little bit, there was a change made by the Biden administration in regards to Title IX. For those of you who do not know what Title IX is or was, actually, was is a better word because it was changed dramatically. Now, Title IX, it was enacted in 1972, and just kind of in a nutshell, it prohibits the discrimination based on sex in education and programs and activities. So, in other words, you had to provide the same opportunities for young ladies as you did for men at schools and universities. You couldn't say, well, the Radford High School or the Blacksburg High School basketball team, men's team, produces a certain amount of ticket revenue and pays for itself, but since the girls' program does not, and it may, I'm just using it as an example, we're not going to have the girls' basketball program, only the boys' basketball program. It said basically, hey, no, you had to have equal and fair programs for both sexes. But what happened here recently in some changes to Title IX, basically they extended the idea of sex to sexual orientation, which meant that you had to provide the same facilities for men pretending to be women as you did for actual women. And I think we're going to get a little deeper into some of that. That's appalling to me, obviously, but we're going to talk about that in the context of this episode as we go forward. Now, the first in my list of four I'm calling the removal of guiding principles, the removal of guiding principles. Now, what do I mean by that? You know, in 1962, I guess that's what, 60, 62 years ago, somewhere in that neighborhood, we removed prayer from public schools. That was actually a landmark case, Engle v. Vitale, establishing that state-sponsored prayer violates the First Amendment establishment clause. The case also addressed whether public schools can sanction classroom prayer in a pluralistic and secular America. Basically, in 1962, they began the process of removing prayer from public schools. Now, they began the process because as they removed those prayers, they took any mention, as we've moved along, we saw a few years back a case in Giles County where they actually removed the Ten Commandments from the school. I think it was the high school grounds, if I'm not mistaken. But we've watched over those 42 years, 62 years, excuse me, we've watched how they have removed anything in relation to God or that morality that our Bible provides. They've removed that from our public schools at all. That's what I'm talking about when I say the removal of guiding principles. There has to be a reason that we do things other than this seems right and this seems wrong. I really believe that. There is such a thing as right and wrong. There is such a thing as good and evil. And the Bible does define that. Now, do I believe that our public schools should be used to proselytize kids and to push one religion over the other? I may like that personally in some ways, but I agree that our Constitution sets forth a system where people can choose on their own. But I do not believe the Constitution actually supports the fact that you can remove all aspects of religion from schools. I don't believe it's right to remove founding principles that our nation was founded on, like the Ten Commandments, like biblical principles of right and wrong. I do not believe those should be forced out of our schools. I understand that you shouldn't require a biblical class taught by Keith Marshall in third period where you have to come in and hear a Bible lesson every day. That should be optional. I think it would be a great idea if you did provide an opportunity to do it. But I do not believe any student should be forced to do it. But I do, on the other hand, believe that students should be forced to act and live by, while in their school, those founding biblical principles of right and wrong. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not... You go through the list. There's plenty of them. There are ten of them. Though they may be Judeo-Christian principles, they are common law principles that we all tend to go by. Our laws are written around those. I mean, even to the point, thou shalt not covet. Well, you know, how much coveting do we have where kids want what everyone else has? Well, they want to the point that they'll break another commandment, steal to get it. Those are just general principles that we want to teach our kids that are important that they follow in order just to interact with each other in a healthy way. It's necessary. In fact, I want to go through the Ten Commandments. I want to read them to you and just kind of apply them to a couple things that I see and hear from our schools. And I want to see if you kind of have the same reaction that I do. Maybe you'd be a little surprised at my take on this. But let me just go through these and see if you can see For by not following these ten simple fundamental rules that God gave us, just see if they're not part of the degradation of our public schools. Let's start with number one. Number one, the most important, and when Jesus was asked what was the most important, he mentioned this. And that is this. You shall have no other gods before me. Well, you say, oh, that's overtly religious. That's telling you you have to worship God. Well, look at it from this context. It seems to me that in our society today, one of the biggest problems that young people have is that they worship themselves. They think they are the most important thing in this world. Everything circles and revolves around them. It does not. And they'll find out soon that it will not. Or they'll live a life of misery and just bile and hatred and just a fundamental anger that they'll carry with them all the time because you will never always get your way. You will never always be the center of attention everywhere you go. We see kids do outlandish things online in order to get that attention and to make themselves important. And I believe, in my personal opinion, it's because they don't have someone greater than them that they believe should be worshipped. And if they do, it goes into number two, thou shalt not make under thee any graven images. They find something else to worship, like a person, like an athlete, you know, a singer. Oh my goodness, Taylor Swift. Oh, they make me sick. They find things like that to worship. And there's nothing wholesome, there's nothing productive, there's nothing good about that. And I think most of you, regardless of what church you go to, unless you're just an affirmed atheist, you would agree with me and say, you can't go wrong if you worship God. If you put him first and you at least have a clear principle in your mind that there is a power greater than I. I am not number one, but God is. That will definitely start you on the right path and it will frame how you act in school. I agree with that. So I went through one and two there, but I think, you know, a clear indication, one of the problems in our schools is that kids, and often their parents, worship themselves. And they don't worship something greater. Let me not fail to mention what I think the number one thing that kids seem to worship besides themselves, the idol that they've created, that they owe their allegiance and their life to, and that is their phone. You know, I'm guilty of that too. I spend far too much time looking at my phone. I use it for everything, for news, for obviously social media to communicate, all of those things. But we have a society now where our kids worship their phone. They worship social media. Their life is centered and revolves around social media. And you can call it nothing else but a god. That's what they've made it. Social media has become our children's god. And it permeates every aspect of our schools. You know, I'll be honest, when a kid steps on the school property, I don't believe they should be allowed to have a cell phone. I get the idea we want constant communications and we want things, but here's the truth. Those phones are destroying our schools in so many ways. They're not just destroying them by the kids not paying attention. They're used as tools of abuse to other kids. There's pictures that are shared online and used to harass kids. It's causing all kinds of deviant activity through these little TikTok challenges and other things. Schools, I mean, phones in schools have no good purpose that I can find. They seem to cause trouble from the time they hit the school door. And they're not going to stop. I do believe that that is probably the greatest god that children have now is their phone, social media and their phone. And they worship it day in and day out. And it's our fault as parents, I think, for allowing that kind of usage for our children. If you have a child, figure out something else for them to do that they have to do other than use their phone. Take them out in the yard, play ball, take them hunting, take them fishing. Some way to get that phone out from in front of their face. They need to worship a real god and not a little piece of plastic with some minerals and metal in it and electricity. They need to worship the real god. And as far as schools go, make sure that those phones are not destroying our kids' capacity to learn when they're in the school. Now, let's talk about number three. Number three is Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Well, of course, that means literal in the text. You're not supposed to use God's name in a profane way. Well, let me ask you. Can you walk down the hall in any school in the New River Valley, Radford, America and not hear absolute vile profanity coming and spewing from people all through the halls? My wife and I went to a restaurant this week and I won't say where because I don't want to make them look bad because it's a really great restaurant. But we sat next to a table of college girls and I bet they dropped the F-bomb ten times out loud in that restaurant back and forth with no worry at all about the people that were around them. Well, I can tell you this. When I went to school if a teacher or administrator heard me cuss out loud in school I was in trouble. I was going to get penalty haul. I was going to get in trouble. Now, I'm not saying I didn't do it because I did. I'm sad to say that I used to cuss a lot. I try not to now. Sometimes the hammer does hit in just the right way. I try to remove that from my vocabulary. I certainly would be appalled for someone to hear me out in public speaking that way but it has happened regularly. Profanity has become the new language in our schools and we've put up with it. We're not teaching English as it should be taught because they're learning a whole new language and it has certainly the Lord's name in vain in it along with every other swear word you can think of. So that's number three. That's one through three. I think we can see right off where we're going here. Let's look at number four. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. What does that have to do with the school? Let me just say this. We're not going to church anymore. Parents are not taking their kids to church to Sunday school anymore. I'm always amazed I know people have different times at church and they could have went and got out but every now and then I'll make that quick run to the grocery store right after church when we're having some kids over and we don't have enough bread or whatever it is with what we're having that day. I'll go and I'll be in my suit or whatever I wore to Sunday and the grocery store will be full of people. I'm always amazed by that because when I grew up it was not like that. Families went to church. Children were taught I mean we went to different churches. I may not even agree with the doctrine of some of the churches that they went to or my family did and they didn't agree with mine but those biblical principles of right and wrong were taught there. Ways you should act. Ways you should talk. Ways you should treat others. They were just a fundamental part of a biblical education that each or most children received. When I look at number four and I'm under the topic of removal of guiding principles certainly our kids are not going to church. Now if you've taken your kids or your grandkids to church, God bless you. Keep doing it. Teach those principles at home. Reinforce them at church. That's pretty important. By the way, this isn't a sermon today though I'm amazed by how these commandments fit into the degradation of our schools. The removal of those guiding principles. Number five honor your father and mother. You know what? I've been guilty of not honoring my father and mother especially when I was younger and I've not always done a perfect job as an adult either but that's pretty important to God. Honoring your father and mother. I think we are seeing a generation of children who kind of make fun of their parents, who have disdain for their parents. They are not honoring the things that they're being taught at home in many cases and there's families at home that are just simply ignoring some of those things to be friends with their kids rather than the adult the parent, the boss of their children and we're seeing a fall away of honor and when they're not honoring parents at home they're certainly not going to honor adult figures within the schools and I think one of the things we have seen in our schools is the fact that they are not honoring adults inside of our schools they're not honoring the teachers I have heard some harrowing stories and threats. We just saw on national news here recently a student slapping a teacher in the middle of class. Someone recorded that I think that student has been arrested. I don't know what's going to happen to him but I cannot believe it. I saw a few shouting matches between students and teachers and I can think of one or two in my whole school upbringing in schools all the way from K through college just a couple times and they were not violent in any way but these are things that kids are seeing every day in our public schools. It's not unusual for teachers to be threatened chairs thrown at them followed around and made fun of just completely ignored and we are seeing that honoring your father and mother right there if you're not honoring parents or you don't have parents to honor you're not learning how you're supposed to interact with adults as a kid you are a kid. You know when I grew up I don't know about you but I grew up in a generation where kids spoke when they were spoken to you didn't interrupt adults when they were talking. There was a kids table when we had Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas there was a kids table and you sat at that kids table and you ate and you didn't cause any trouble because if someone had to get up from the adult table to go in there and correct something at the kid table you were in trouble that was important. You say oh that's cruel. Well maybe so but it has served me well over the years. It has taught me that there is authority beyond me that there are people, there are bosses there are people in charge that I'm supposed to listen to. It's not it goes back to that number one there is a God and he has preordained people to be above me in certain situations and I need to have respect for that our kids do not have respect for adult figures in our public schools let me move on to number six thou shalt not kill well unfortunately we have seen children die in our public schools. We have seen some crazy Yvaldi and some other areas where you have these children bringing guns to school from home or wherever they got them we just had the anniversary from the Virginia Tech shootings from a number of years back so it's happened at every level from elementary school, middle school, high school to college. We have seen kids bring in guns we have seen other people other than kids bring in guns and kill children they do not value human life they are not taught how important that God given life is and we've seen that metastasize in a lot of other areas too frankly I think the 60 million babies that's been killed in the United States since Roe v. Wade began many years ago and I know it's been overturned but we're still seeing the same number of abortions happen if not more throughout the United States the 60 million plus that's been killed obviously shows our lack of honor for human life and it starts young I'm afraid. I know there's a lot of people blaming on video games and they blame it on others it does seem that there's a moral compass that's mixed up here that they don't understand the sanctity of life they're not taught how precious life is and that it's God given again back to the Sunday school thing the fact that we're not honoring the Sabbath we're not going to church, we're not taking our kids and instructing them on some biblical principles that will guide their life not only but at school with every step they make there's a little voice that's the Holy Spirit that's inside of those that are Christians that are saying hey, no, that's not the right thing to say, that's not the right thing to do, that's not the right way to act, it's not there they're simply just a devaluing of human life and you know it starts at home, all of this everything that I'm talking about, I just want to say this I want to put this out there in case I forget to say it, it is not the job of the public school system to raise your children, it's your job, if you have children you have grandchildren, it is your job to teach them right and wrong it is your job to make sure that they're acting properly when they go anywhere now I know you can teach a kid everything right and they'll still do things wrong I know I'm a living example of someone whose parents taught them exactly how to act and what to do and what to say and how to treat others and I failed many, many times but there was always that rope that seemed to run out that would say hey, you know what Keith, you went too far you're going to have to bring this on back, it's you that's wrong you are the one that's wrong, you need to straighten that out and I fear that that rope that's tied from the home to that child that's a figurative rope of course that rope does not exist, they never run out of rope, they just go a little further they get away with it, they go a little further a little further, a little further until they've either ruined whatever situation they're in or they've ruined themselves they no longer can be a part of whatever structure or system that they're in because of their behavior alright, I'm going to move to number 7 and number 7 is thou shalt not commit adultery now we always, when we think of adultery we think of it as you know, a husband cheating on a wife or vice versa, and that's certainly what it means, but in a biblical sense though, it's a little deeper than that anytime you're having sexual relations outside of marriage that is a sin, that's something that God doesn't like well one of the problems that we have in our public schools and I don't know that it's just new to modern day, but I think it has been absolutely blown way out of proportion we are seeing sexual activity starting in our public schools at a much, much younger time frame, much younger we're talking 6th, 7th grade kids are out doing those sort of things at that age I mean it's amazing that you would send your kid to school in middle school and have to really worry about that, or late into elementary school, and it's because of the bombardment of our kids in social media and in TV and in other things where we are planting that inside of our kids brains, we are also sexualizing everything, it almost seems like our public schools again, not specifically talking about Radford but as a whole, our public schools are trying to create sexual deviancy within our kids it's like, hey, are you a homosexual, you sure you're not a homosexual you sure you're not trans, are you sure you're not, I mean you may really be I mean it's almost like we're trying to talk kids into feeling that way and the next thing we know, we got kids in a corner purring, pretending they're cats I mean what kind of crazy society are we growing here, we are putting every evil thing we can think of in the petri dish, and hoping to grow a great society that's not going to happen that's not going to happen we cannot teach kids that, hey, if you're born this way, don't worry you can really be something else, well I'll tell you what, I don't believe that personally I don't believe that if you're born as a man, that you really can be a woman I don't believe that, you're a man whether you like it or not, you're a woman whether you like it or not, you're born that way, God created you I don't believe he makes mistakes I do believe that we make mistakes though I do believe that people around us makes mistakes, I do believe that that because of what kids are being bombarded with they get confused, and it's almost a cool thing to be something different like that it's boring to be just the old monogamous male or female, that's not fun anymore, I mean to just you know, to be a girl and like guys that's boring well I'm sorry, that is that is a guiding principle God created man, God created woman, he created them for each other not for the opposite men for men and women for women, I do not believe that, that is my strong conviction, you may believe otherwise you have a right to, you have a right to express it, but I believe God created women for men and men for women and I do not believe that either one can be the other sex just because they want to I don't believe that, and I believe teaching that to our schools, or somehow feeding it, or allowing that or just almost promoting that is horrendous it's not only ungodly, but it's an absolute way to destroy a society I don't know any other way to put it, I think it's just an abomination I really do, alright I'm going to jump to number 8, thou shalt not steal, that kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it I know we had a rash of theft going on over some sort of water jug that people were carrying, and here's another question, I want to ask this, it's kind of off subject but you know, I grew up in the 70's and 80's I played ball, I played every kind of ball you can think of, especially baseball and football, I played basketball and I want you to know something, I never showed up for practice with a Gatorade never once in my life if I showed up for anything, my parents would have had a jug of water in a in a mason jar or something that's how I would have showed up, they wouldn't have went out and bought Gatorade for every practice there's no way we would use the water fountain in the gym in the middle of practice, hey go get a drink of water, when I played football we had a trough that ran and you would, you know, sprinkler head, it sprinkled little streams of water and we'd get a drink there when the horn would blow for time for a water break I didn't have 6 Gatorades when I showed up for a tournament, there's no way I don't know why someone needs water 24-7 they gotta have it with them all the time it's just a sad point, I just don't get it, you know you go to church and people bring water bottles to church, is it going to get so hot in there, is the preaching going to get so tough that you've got to have a water bottle to make it through the church I don't know, just an hour anyway, that's just another subject, that's something that drives me crazy but I want to get back to it, thou not steal theft is something that's happening in our schools all the time, people are stealing Chromebooks people are stealing cords, people are destroying property within the city, I mean there was TikTok videos a while back and they were ripping the soap dispensers off the wall, when you destroy other people's property that is stealing, when you ruin it, when you take it, whatever you do that's part of that and we've seen that throughout our schools we don't honor other people's things we don't agree with the principles of you work for it, you buy it, and then you get it you're not owed anyone else's stuff, and that jumps to me right into another one of our Ten Commandments which is number 10 thou shalt not covet, now I believe these commandments are in divine order, I'm not going to go to number 10, but I just think you know just going back to the stealing part, often we because we think we want to have what everyone else has, we're not satisfied with the things that we're given or that we have, we have to have someone else's stuff, so you know theft becomes just a regular thing, but I want to stay in order the way God put it, which is number 9 thou shalt not bear false witness lying I mean kids lie like a rug now I get it when we're young my kids, they'd say did you do that, and they'd say no, and then you'd look at them and you could tell that they had something to do with it, I'll tell you a story one time it was Easter and we bought each one of the kids Easter Bunnies, chocolate Easter Bunnies, you've probably done that before my youngest boy he was really little, I mean he was only like one and a half or two he was really little and one of the kids come to me upset and they said daddy someone has bit off the ear of my Easter Bunny, and I'm like alright who did it and every kid's, I didn't do it, I didn't do it and so I lined them up and I said alright come in here, we're going to figure out who did it we're going to put the bite mark test on this so we went through the list from the oldest to the youngest and of course the one that the oldest mouth was too big and as we went, every one of the teeth marks were too big on that poor Easter Bunny it lost their ear, until we got to the year and a half year old and it was funny by the time we got there, it matched perfectly, but of course that little young one said no I didn't do it, so I mean I get it, kids are kids are pre, I mean that's lying is something that comes very natural to us doesn't it, not telling the truth about anything, I don't believe though that kids are taught strictly at home to tell the truth I believe they will lie and I believe their parents will lie for them in many cases so lying obviously the tenth commandment, excuse me the ninth commandment is something that we're dealing with all the time and truthfully, sometimes we don't always get the truth from the adults in the room either about what's going on truthfulness and honesty is one of the things that kids should be taught and quite obviously they are not getting that lesson in our public schools, that founding principle that number nine in our ten commandments thou shalt not bear false witness don't lie don't lie, that's important alright finally number ten, I've already mentioned it thou shalt not covet now what does that mean, hey don't sit around pining away for what everyone else has don't believe that somehow you are deserved to have things that you didn't earn if that kid's dressed nicer than you that's that kid you don't get to have their jacket you don't deserve something that you didn't earn somehow we feel like everything has to be equal and every child that comes in the building gets to have what every other child had we kind of play into that sense now I believe in helping kids that are less fortunate, that is not my point I think we should help kids where they need help, but listen I don't know about you, when I grew up I didn't always have the highest dollar tennis shoes that my friends might have had I didn't have growing up every toy when it come out I mean most of the toys that I got it was a couple years later when the prices went down, then I actually got one you know, video games come out when I was a kid, you know the old Atari do you guys remember that? well every kid on my block had an Atari before I did and it was a couple years I think my sister actually bought me an Atari for Christmas one year was the first one that I had when I was a kid and I didn't like it I didn't like the fact that you know they might have had the brand new Nike tennis shoes and mine were something else I didn't like that but it teaches you as a child, number one not to over value stuff just because someone else has something, you start to realize they don't run any faster they're not any taller, they're not any whatever, I mean they're not any better they just have nicer stuff but it also teaches you if you want those things go out and work and earn those it was real important to me I mean our kids didn't have the best of the best, we just kind of didn't live in that realm but they had good clean stuff, my wife made sure that our kids went to school with clean clothes on and what they had didn't have picks and holes and everything was you know as best as we could afford now I can already hear the voices of some of you coming through the airwaves the thought waves and you're saying hey some of these kids don't have parents that are making sure that they show up to school with clean clothes and that they're doing their homework properly and we have some programs to help kids like that and I think that's awesome, I'm glad that you do I think you should have those things but the truth of it is more important than new shoes and clean clothes are these principles it seems like we're treating patients dying with cancer for their colds we're not treating the cancer and I believe in treating the cold, I do believe in helping kids, you know if they come to school and they don't have clothes that fit them and we can help them with whatever programs that we have in the city or in whatever town or city that you live in, I think we should do that but it's not the most important thing to that child the Nike tennis shoes are not most important, the clean t-shirt, that's not the most important the most important for them and our school system are the guiding principles these one through ten now you don't have to, if you don't want to call them the ten commandments, you want to just call them the ten principles of right and wrong, that'd be just fine that would help I believe we should call them what they are but that would help and the worst part about it isn't the fact that we remove the sign that said ten commandments one through ten, it's that we remove the actual teaching of the principles of those one through ten that's what's destroying our families, that's what's destroying our schools now I mentioned it before and I'll make this point again it's not the job of our public school system to teach these guiding principles to other kids it's okay that they do but it's not their job necessarily I think it's important to go over principles of right and wrong in schools unfortunately it may be the only place that some of these kids hear it but I understand that the job is the job of the parents to make sure that these ideals are taught and reinforced and put into practice by their children but I will say this I think it's the job of our public schools to expect that those ten be followed I know you can't send kids to church but you can make sure they act like they've been there at least when you're dealing with other students and around your campuses I know that they may not be getting these principles at home but you can not allow, you can make sure you do not allow the breaking of those rules inside your facilities you're not going to curse and use the Lord's name in vain in the halls and speak profanely you're not going to steal you're not going to make yourself own God in the middle of class take pictures of other kids and use it in an improper way you're not going to mistreat others around you harm them don't bring physical harm unfortunately we're seeing schools step up the practice of having law enforcement within the schools it's unfortunate I remember when we first proposed it when I was on council, when I was actually running for council, it was one of the things that I mentioned out of fear for my children I had four children in the Radford City Public Schools, there was one in every school at the time when I ran for council unfortunately schools have had to react and put law enforcement there and there's other schools putting in metal detectors and all these deterrents to keep kids from bringing in harm and bringing in something that could harm other children it's an unfortunate but necessary thing but I do believe that every one of those principles that our schools can make sure you may not teach it at home it may not be what you believe in but we are going to make sure that when you come into our facilities you will act in a certain way and these guiding principles whatever you want to call them you're going to follow there's going to be a certain way you act in school and it's our job as parents not only to teach our kids these principles but to allow the administration to enforce them in a fair and equitable way now what we've seen across the nation a lot of things that are going on in schools where quite the opposite have happened not in Radford but in other places where these principles were not followed you had some cases in Northern Virginia where a young lady was harmed in the bathroom by a male student pretending to be female and she was attacked and assaulted and rather than deal with that morality and that harmful crime that happened the schools seemed to take the side of the person that committed the crime instead of the victim and the parents had to get involved so I think it's important in our schools to make sure that these principles are followed and they're expected from our students and when students don't comply I think we as parents have to give the schools a mechanism to remove those children and those people that are not following the basic principles of right and wrong in treating administrators and teachers and other students and their school work in a way that they should they have no place in our schools if you acted that way you people my age in your 50s and 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and older we would have never gotten away with that in school, there wasn't in school suspension, they threw your rear end out you went home it's tough love I know but it's necessary and we as voters you know, there's a lot of things I agree with and disagree with I talked about in last week's episode about the fact that I didn't think the 7% raise was necessary I thought it was tone deaf, the ones they gave to the schools still do, still feel that way that's small potatoes compared to this though make sure when you pick the person that you're voting for for school board make sure you're picking people with a strong moral compass don't vote on things like raises or some small generalities these are the core issues we have to focus on it's why I voted for the ones that I voted for in the last election, because I knew they had those strong moral principles, perfect people? No I'm not perfect either but I believe that they were going to put those principles first to make sure we had schools that were safe where students were acting in an appropriate way and they were going to do what they could to make sure they followed not necessarily biblical principles even though they are, but they followed the principles of right and wrong of how we treat each other of how we act and interact with teachers and administrators of how we treat our school work how important it is how we act and how we function during school activities those principles were important to me and I believe they were important to them and that's why I voted for them and that's why I'll vote for them again or people like that that have those principles make that the most important thing you vote for not personalities, not who you like not who you don't like not how necessarily they carry themselves we need to make sure we vote for people that have those principles that protect the sanctity of just right and wrong I think it's important and that's how I vote and I think you should too you make your own decisions but I think that's how you should frame it I know that there's going to be some openings on school board coming up in November please be sure and inform yourself about those that are running and make good choices ask yourself this will this person that's running for school board will they stand up for these 10 fundamental principles that are common law that the laws of the United States are built around will they stand for those principles in the schools and will they support you as parents when it's not happening and your kid is being harmed in some way and you come and you say what's going on in that classroom what's going on in that hall is wrong and my kid should not be exposed to that will they back you up inside of that school district I think those are important reasons to vote there's a lot of reasons to vote a lot of them are not the most important things but I believe this goes to the top of the list when we make our choice now I had four I had four items that I was going to cover in this episode I made it through one so it looks like I'm going to have to revisit this either next week or another week in the future to go over these points two three and four and they touch a little bit on the one through ten but I may want to go back and still cover those three remaining in another episode but I think I'll close it out we're hitting past 50 minutes here so we need to before everybody goes to sleep and runs for the hills I need to close this thing out as always I appreciate you joining me on these episodes my thoughts, my ideas, my opinions I know we may not always agree but I know that if you're listening most of you that listen to podcasts you agree that we have a fundamental right to express how we feel and this is how I'm expressing it I hope you learned something from it I know I learn a lot as I go through these ideas and these episodes I teach myself a lot and I try to pass a little on to you but as in every other episode I'm going to finish with our theme verse and as always that's found in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verses 13 and 14 and this is what God's word says let us hear the conclusion of the matter fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man, for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil hey thanks again for joining me on one more round podcast I look forward to bringing you something every week and I look forward to hearing from you or talking to you again next week be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns or ideas or things you want to hear about I get a lot of private messages just constantly I got a bunch last week, probably as many as I've gotten before a lot of you agreed with what I had to say some of you disagreed with a couple fine points but agreed with others and I learned from those comments too and I certainly appreciate you interacting with me and reaching out to me but until then I hope you have a wonderful weekend I hope God richly blesses you and your family and I just look forward to talking to you again here on one more round podcast thanks