Praying Parents (Families For Educators)

Why?

Why should families be praying for educators? Good question, but hopefully a question you can easily answer. Today, in public education your child spends more waking hours with their public school teachers 5 days per week than they spend with you. School starts at 8 am and ends at 3:30, that adds up to 7 1/2 hours. Assuming your child sleeps 8 hours and spends one hour on grooming and chores, that leaves 7 1/2 hours. This time usually is divided between breakfast, dinner, homework, extra-curricular activities and you. You usually get the short in.

Many of our representatives in government have said they want to return the American education system to one that reflects the Christian roots of our country. But this will not happen, unless God ordains it to occur. Because we are God's ministers wherever we go, He does desire us to have an impact on our children's education. A very natural way for us to do so is by giving Christian encouragement to the educators that spend so much time with our children. This affects both the educators' lives and our children's lives. Assuming the average educator is in education for 10 years and has 100 students per year, this educator influences during his teaching tenure 1000 people, for good or bad. You and I have the opportunity to influence the influencer for the good of God's kingdom!

"The New England Primer was the first textbook ever printed in America. It was introduced in Boston in 1690 and for the next two hundred years was THE textbook of America's schools. For two centuries, if you went to school in America, you probably learned to read from the New England Primer. Today we would call it a first-grade textbook or a first-grade reader; but they didn't have grade levels then, so they simply called it a Primer. It began with the alphabet, and then showed students how to make one-, two-, and three letter syllables, and then how to put those syllables together to make words. Then later---about a fourth of the way through the book---it returned to the alphabet and attached a phrase to each letter of the alphabet; the students read and memorized those phrases. Notice the phrases that comprised the alphabet of America's schools for nearly two hundred years, and note that every one of the phrases is a Bible verse:

A---A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
B---Better is little with fear of the Lord that great treasure and trouble therewith.
C---Come unto Christ all ye that labor and are heavy laden and He will give you rest.
D---Do not the abominable thing which I hate saith the Lord.
E---Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God, etc.

This was the alphabet of America's schools for over two hundred years!"{1}

Today, unfortunately, we have no moral imput by teachers based on God's wisdom. And because of this lack in our education system, we see reflected in children's lives accross America a lack of respect for teachers, rudeness, uncontrolled behaviors all the way to rape and violence with weapons. Within our local school district, teachers will tell you the biggest problem they have is the behavior of students, particularly in the elementary and middle school ages.

In 1980 the Supreme Court of the US ruled in the Stone vs. Graham case that the Ten Commandments could not appear on the walls of the hallways in public schools. "The Court acknowledged that the Ten Commandments were passive displays; that is they simply hung on the walls just like a picture of George Washington; they were not part of any class or any curriculum; they just hung there. A student could look at them if he wanted, and if he didn't --- fine. Yet notice the Court's ruling under the redefined First Amendment: "If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments...[This] is not....a permissible....objective." That's quite a statement! You can't let kids see the Ten Commandments, because if they do, they might obey them---things like "don't steal," "don't kill"---and that would be unconstitutional!"{2}

Through our grassroots efforts, that is, giving Christian encouragement to teachers, administrators, coaches, and all those in our public education system, we can make a difference! And if we get discouraged, we must remember who we are according to God: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.{3}

Footnotes:

{1} David Barton, America's Godly Heritage Video Transcript (Aledo, TX: WallBuilder Press, 1993) pp 5-6.

{2} Ibid, 18.

{3} The Bible, 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 9.