There ’ s No Such Thing as Values-Free Education
By John Stonestreet and Timothy D . Padgett
Gabriel Gipe , a high school AP
Government teacher in Sacramento , was suspended 1 for encouraging his students to take up far Left activism . When students complained about the Antifa flag he ’ d hung up in his classroom , he dismissed their concerns and suggested that only fascists would be bothered by it . He also offered extra credit to students who attended radical political rallies .
And , in an ironic and a-historical twist , this avowed anti-fascist also posted a photo online of himself with a Communist “ hammer and sickle ” emblem tattooed across his chest . According to one report , he often used “ stamps with images of Josef Stalin , Fidel Castro , and Kim Jung Un ” to grade papers , and a poster of Mao Zedong was hung on his classroom wall . 2 Apparently , this wasn ’ t just his way of being edgy or provocative . In a video published by Project Veritas , Mr . Gipe was recorded saying , “ I have 180 days to turn them into revolutionaries .”
Local parents were understandably enraged that their child ’ s teacher praised history ’ s worst villains , but while calling out his flawed thinking , some of his critics missed something essential about education . One mother said : “ I ’ m all for freedom of speech . I ’ m not going to deny that , but when you are a teacher , your job is academics . You are not here for morals , values , political views — anything like that is not welcome in the school unless it ’ s a private school .”
Of course , no parent should tolerate such a historically devastating worldview being foisted on students , but it is a mistake to think that education without “ morals , values , ( and ) political views ” is possible . Or , for that matter , even desirable . It ’ s not .
Stripping morals from education — or , more accurately , attempting to strip morals from education — is a dangerous idea with dangerous consequences . Chuck Colson repeatedly highlighted this , especially in light of the financial scandals of the late 1980s and early 2000s . He spoke often of “ a crisis of character ” 3 and the “ inescapable consequence of neglecting moral training .” 4
This is also the central focus of the essay “ Men Without Chests ,” 5 the opening essay in one of C . S . Lewis ’ s most important books , The Abolition of Man . 6 Lewis clearly saw that years of attempts to de-moralize education would not give us a world without vice , but a world without virtue . And , he closed , we would wonder how it could ever have happened in our enlightened age : “ In a sort of ghastly simplicity , we remove the organ and demand the function . We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise . We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst . We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful .”
Fast forward a few decades , and here we are . When communismloving and Critical-Race-Theory-advancing teachers work to indoctrinate children ( even while denying it ), they are simply stepping into a vacuum left long ago by those trying to make education amoral . They may be wrong to promote those particular values and moral frameworks , but they ’ re right that education is inescapably an act of moral formation .
44 THE RENEWANATION REVIEW