A commentary on women and elite colleges by Spunky Junior.
Choosing Home: an excellent article filled with insight.
Great post over at the Rebelution on homeschooling in Germany.
{EDIT} More added.
Reuters (Oddly Enough)
Germans value letters attached to their name more than money, love or having children with nine out of ten rating a good qualification as their most important aim in life, a survey showed Wednesday.In Germany even minor academic degrees appear on business cards and doctorate titles adorn many letter boxes.
According to a survey of 1,000 people by insurer Allianz just eight in ten Germans said finding love for life was their top priority and even fewer rated financial security as their number one goal.
Perfect bliss may be to have a title that runs longer than the length of a name, such as that of “Uni.-Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Horst Wildemann” at Munich’s Technical University.
That is so fantastic. Germany is going to become the country of knowledge. Products coming from Germany will be of the highest quality. There will be no equivalent in education. They will reach beyond the spheres of the common human intelligence, and explore many high and new things. They will make many breakthrough discoveries. This is the highest fulfillment of humanity.
Why then are ‘those who have been trained so knowledgeably’ predicting a great downfall in Europe? Why is it that there is a looming collapse of all Europe ever stood for? Why is it that they are facing at this point “a slow but inexorable exit from history”? Should this not be the time when everything begins to happen? Shouldn’t this be the time when history is beginning to be written? You’d think so.
But there is one thing that is causing concern.
The year 2000 saw a turning point for the region when its population started on an emphatic decline. Nor is there prospect of a change in direction any time soon. .... even if women started having more children again and at younger ages, there would still be too few potential mothers to make an immediate difference. So the region’s population will keep on falling for decades.Europe could soon encounter what demographers call “negative momentum” when a shrinking population goes into an ever-steeper spiral of decline. ... Twelve of the major 27 countries feature falling numbers. If present trends persist, the decline will become still bigger and arrive faster in more distant decades as the region increasingly falls prey to negative momentum.
Already Europe features 35 people of pensionable age for every 100 people of working age; by 2050 and supposing present demographic trends persist, the total of pensioners will climb to 75 for every 100 workers. Italy and Spain could even see their ratios soar to reach 1:1. Italy, France and Germany pay their pensions out of their current tax revenues, which means that taxes will expand massively if they are to keep funding pensions at the generous levels established thus far. German workers already assign 30% of their income, and Italians 33%, to state pensions. ... The old-age dependency ratio, i.e. those aged 65-plus in relation to those aged 15-64, would soar by three quarters in the near future
What is it about education that is making family go out the window? What is it about education that is killing society? I personally have relatives in europe who are doing the same thing. Trying to complete an education, 30, 35, not married, not really interested. Has education been teaching them more than just medicine or law? Has it also been ingraining in its students a life like this? Is this the same thing happening here in America? Well… Just remember:
Homeschooling is illegal in almost all of Europe
And read this:
...Let’s note that its situation is quite the opposite of the United States with its annual population growth of 1.1%. This is by far the highest of the developed countries (and even higher than China’s), producing an additional three million people per year to go with the 293 million or so already in the United States. If that rate of increase were maintained—and there are no measures thus far to reduce it—today’s baby would, by the time he or she reaches old age, be sharing the country with almost 600 million fellow Americans.
Needless to say:
The outlook will also affect the hopes of many Europeans to create a superpower to rival the United States....In fact numerous experts such as Paul and Anne Ehrlich, David Pimentel and John Holdren have urged that Europe and America should consider a long-term commitment to cutting back on its human numbers in light of its drain on planetary resources.
I don’t want to get too much into the political side in this commentary. But looking at this situation provides some interesting diversion. It appears that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world’.
What part does homeschooling have to play in all this? Back in 2001, two million children were being homeschooled, the number growing by 15 to 20% every year. Homeschooling is undergoing ‘positive momentum’. But what’s happening to these students? We know, that many go on simply with an even better education, but we also know that there are those who keep the attitude they learned from their parents. Tell me what mom will homeschool and work full time. Moreover, it appears that there is something more meaningful than letters or money to certain homeschoolers. 18% of homeschooling families earn less than $25000 a year. People ask, “How can you afford it? We both work and we don’t have any children and we can hardly pay our bills.”
Most homeschoolers never demanded a mansion to have their families in, to homeschool in. Some of these parents have degrees, big degrees, small degrees. But they put them aside for something better, family. There is strong evidence to show that every woman would, deep down inside, want to be a mother and stay at home. Apparently women realize that after wasting the first 35 years of their life. Then they decide to settle down and have a family. Kinda late.
As for me, I have nothing against a higher education. But it is important that every person keep in mind that this is not a phenomenon, that this is the work of higher powers. According to another article the website of the Rockefeller-Gorbachev Earth Charter declares:
The Earth Charter values and principles must be taught, contemplated, applied and internalized. To this end, the Earth Charter needs to be incorporated into both formal and non-formal*(homeschooling)* education. This process must involve various communities, continue to integrate the Charter into the curriculum of schools and universities, and constitute an ongoing process of life-long learning.*my insert
The education is not necessarily the main problem in itself. But what’s being said, is that it’s important that people spend their life learning and forget about families. (Europe appears to be the first big fish.) America however seems to have people who are still interested in families. Thus the ‘alarming’ growth in population here.
Take into account these facts for America.
- The people who are anti-family will only fizzle out unless they convert more members. Their only hope.
- On the other hand, the people who are pro-family, will expand. (assuming the values are passed on to the children) Nature takes care of itself it appears.
As to me, I have only one desire for any letters after my name. I’d like three of them—R.F.A. I may attain other degrees, but I must continue to honestly be able to sign after my name, Ready For Anything. Even if the Lord would have that include a large family. Family values must continue to be taught. Education must not take priority over God’s plan for my life. I will stand strong.
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
That is the secret.
David Boskovic, R.F.A.
Added:
When I left home, I told my parents that I was going to college to get a degree. And if by chance I decided to get married, it would be to a Dr. That way, we could live in a large house and I would never see him only his money. And I would be free to pursue my own interests.God had other ideas…




Very good. Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting, and you bring up some very good points.
I think however, that I must also play something of an advocate for education. In my mind, 1 million uneducated people will be enslaved to 5000 educated people with the wrong intentions. I believe the answer is to raise strong families of excessively powerful faith and education, wisdom, and honor.
I think you also bring up the good point about being ready for anything. In the end, we must do God’s will, not our own, despite what we may think is going to be best.
However, you are assuming (it seems) that homeschooled means uneducated. That is however incorrect. Everybody knows that homeschooled doesn’t mean un-educated. I don’t believe I in any form condemned education, even higher education. However, people need to dicover their rightful place in society—which includes that women, however educated, should be at home raising families, that the highest fulfillment is not education, but living where God wants you to personally be.
It is important that we do educate ourselves. But remember, the people who changed history, were not necessarily people with super-prowess and knowledge. Many were people with limited knowledge. In fact, I say, impact has no need of a ‘lifelong’ education, or even a college education. You might get a better career like that, but it’s neither education nor honor that makes a man impact the world. It’s rather one life dedicated to God, purposed for His use, standing firm in his will, that will finally overcome the powers of evil.
I really enjoyed your thoughts on this David. I really liked your R.F.A title! Very creative
I also did a post today on this, but I can’t figure out how to work your trackback feature (I’m not a very good IT person). I wanted to let you know that I did a post as well.
God Bless…
http://blog.seekingtreasure.org/2005/11/30/qualifications/trackback/
You have to add the /trackback/ after the url, that’s all. I had difficulty figuring it out too.
goes to check out your article
there’s something else to note about the decline in population in Europe.
Hardly any know this, but after much research, Ive come to find that the great disaster of Chernobyl created a radioactive Isotope of Iodine that infected much of eastern and some of Western Europe’s water. I believe that this has affected fertility and lifespan. Put that on top of what your observations and it does in fact look like Europe will eventually iron itself out.
Hey David, great topic!
If you haven’t read it yet, I think you’d be interest in an interview Agent Tim and I conducted with a good friend of mine (Hans Guenther, an American expatriate in Germany whose father heads up the homeschool movement there) about the persecution of homeschoolers in Germany.
It can be found here.
My apologies if there was misunderstanding here. I was not at all claiming that homeschooling does not equal education. Rather, it appeared to me that this article was suggesting an inversely proportional relationship between one’s level of education and their desire to raise and keep a family.
My point was simply that I think you must have both. Another thing which I suppose was a lack of communication, was the assumption that education has nothing to do with spiritual education. When I said education, I meant all forms of knowledge, wisdom, and learning, of which spiritual enlightenment and intimacy with God is perhaps of the highest order.
Wow, that’s interesting David! I think that one of the reasons that Europe is declining in population is because they have had a communist influence for so many years, that family values have been almost discarded. The “German Way” is to not have any children at all!
David, I thought you’d like to know this…your blog was nominated in the Homeschool Blog Awards for best Canadian blog. Details here:
http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2005/12/time-to-vote.html
Congrats,
~Kristin
Hey! I just wanted to tell you, I really appreciated this post.
I wrote a post about homeschooling, and the vision necessary vision to accompany it.
http://www.heumoore.com/2005/12/homeschooler-yes-why.html
Tait Zimmerman, a friend of mine, has also been writing some wonderful articles about homeschooling, on his blog.
http://www.taitzimmerman.com/blog.htm
Great writing, keep it up!
~ In Christ, John.
Hey David,
Great post. Wonderfully thought provoking, as is the entire blog. Advancing His Kingdom now links to you.
God Bless!
Hey! Congrats on the award type deal! I guess you just threatened more people than I did, lol. Nah, just jokes. Great thing you got happening, and I agree with this here article. Good stuff!
[...] It’s totally true, except the theme is not dominion. I wrote about this multiplying thing before here. I agree with Nancy, I have 5 siblings, I’ve got a small family. Big families are cool, you need to have a totally different worldview to have them though. Nancy has been contacted to answer a few questions, coming up in Part II. [...]
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