Facebook Posted Thoughts: School Board, Jan. 16th Religious Freedom Day, & more

 1/11/2026

Are you ever receptive to a person screaming at you or lecturing you like the person owns you? Do you think this is an effective way to persuade the other side to align with your own thinking? I think not. There were 2 in the audience of the 1st school board working session of the year. It was a long night but I understand the process of changing leadership takes time. Also building bylaws all the school board members have to follow can get intense with so many different personalities and the wide variety of experiences.

The only thing I disagreed with was the rule about social media. Basically, the trustees would not be able to use their 1st amendment right on their personal posts on social media even if they stated, “this is my personal view and I am not representing myself as a trustee.” I would not sign that document that restricts or even silences a trustee’s personal position on their own personal accounts even if I disagreed with that opinion.

It was my first big speaking event last night. I was on the stage with one of my most admired people. Tim Barton, the son of David Barton (founder of Wallbuilders) are both renowned American history experts. Since I was a speaker, I was able to sit in the green room and chat with him. His knowledge is just as brilliant as his father. Two books I would highly recommend:
Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White by David Barton (book review will be posted to my blog)
The American Story by both David and Tim Barton
Check out their Wallbuilders site:

“In recent years, the foundation of our great nation has been seriously attacked and undermined. Our secular culture has revised our nation’s true history. Religious freedom is under attack, and many Americans remain ignorant of the Christian cornerstone of our country. But the truth remains. We were built on a firm foundation; therefore, we share the hope of our history and future.” https://wallbuilders.com/about-us/

So, back to what I stated during public comment at the school board meeting. So, did you know that January 16th is Religious Freedom Day. The Proclamation began in 1993 with President Bush and has continued to this year. I read President Obama’s quote from the Guidebook.
Attebery Google Site
(see my site for the booklet listed under the Biblical Educational Rights tab)

“The freedom of speech can take different forms. It includes what students say to other people as well as their freedom to speak to God in prayer; it includes what they write in school assignments or the words they give to a friend either by speaking or in writing.”

Know your Religious Rights:
Students:
-Students can express their faith in their class work and homework
-Students can pray, read their Bible or other religious texts, and talk about their faith
-Students can pass out religious literature
-Students can wear clothing with religious messages
-Students can organize groups and religious clubs, and announce their clubs
-Students can be excused from school for religious reasons
-Students can attend off-site religious instruction and have their religious exercise accommodated during the school day
-Students can express their faith at school events and graduations

To our Jewish families and friends, SB96 passed that designates January 27th as “International Holocaust Remembrance Day” in the State of Nevada. Curriculum and Instructional Services Division has developed and will deploy a curriculum that ties into International Holocaust Remembrance Day for secondary school students. If you want this remembrance in middle and/or elementary then you have time to speak up.

Here are a couple scriptures reassuring you to stand in truth. John 14:6 states that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.” Don’t water down or alter His word.

David Barton reminded us to read Proverbs 6:16-19 which lists things God hates. He spoke about the truth that the Bible speaks of what God hates more than even the references to His love. This hammers home that Christians are not to be tolerant, nice, silent, or apathetic. We are to love what God loves and to hate what God hates. You can love the human but not the actions such as indoctrinating our kids.

“So that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

Prayers for each of you and your path this new year. Hope God leads you in amazing ways of grace and conquering the giants in your life. May He help you overcome and come out stronger on the other side.

dreamsdontfade.com (I changed the look of my blog again. Hopefully easier to read and navigate. Classical Education posts-I only have 2 more units left to go)

This song is another powerful Christian Battle Song, “Speak to the Mountain.”

I’m a child of the King,
And I’m done with the lies.
So devil, get out of my life
Jesus is my Savior,
My strength, my victory
And every single mountain
Will move in Jesus’ name!

I’m not living by my feelings,
I’m standing on His truth.
My God is still the Miracle-Worker
Every word He speaks is proof.

I won’t bow down to the shadows,
I won’t tremble at the fight.
I lift the sword of Scripture
and watch darkness run and hide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwd4k4Tuc8&list=RDXRwd4k4Tuc8&start_radio=1

What Does God Say About Israel? Jack Hibbs and Amir Tsarfati

 Happy New Year. Here is one of the best videos I have watched regarding Israel. When Amir Tsarfati speaks I just want to hear what he has to say. What a gifted speaker and so much knowledge. I am no expert and listening to this one is better than me just writing it out. I am tempted to listen again and try to write it all out, but so many truth bombs that it would take me days to write it out. I wanted to share the video because he explains everything so well that I can even understand it. The layers of Bible prophecy, Earthly timeline, Jews, Gentiles, and the end times. So much packed into an hour. Check out the video and learn more than you knew yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ezTDkszcU

Hillsdale College Lesson 9: The Importance of Literature

 Lesson 9: The Importance of Literature 

-reading should not be the only reason we read is to consume information, but we should be reading because it gives something back to us as the reader 

-K-12 education: the role that literature will play in helping to shape the habit of mind for our children, perhaps even a disposition of their soul towards literature itself

Why study literature?

-As teachers, we need to ask students why are we doing this?

-Why reader Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, 

-there is something human in all these ages and cultures 

-when you open a book, it is a conversation between the author and reader 

-encounter the ideas that have shaped civilizations, theological ideas, philosophical ideas, and that sense of wonder 

-literature can open to learning something of themselves 

****we read literature to enter the world of the writers like Homer, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky

-we read it to be able to engage in their own moral or maybe even their immoral imagination

-we try to encounter what it is they’re wrestling with, with regards to the human soul, to the interaction between human person and human person, to relationships of the divine and the human 

-we play by their rules in this universe 

-we may not like their rules and the universe which they present to us

-we learn by them: poetic techniques

-we learn how they craft their stories 

-this brings us into such intimacy with these authors 

-it transforms the literature when you learn how these poets, how these novelists, how these playwrights craft their stories

-you are no longer just encountering a world in Homer and Dostoevsky, Shakespear, in Julian of Norwich

-you are just not encountering a world, but you are encountering a human person 

-not just the author, but the literature takes on a face, so the literature itself has almost a personality as it tries to express itself to you

-the beauty: a piece of literature is somewhat like a river as it is always changing, always moving, always something new in the bends like a river

-it expands to more than just a world or universe, but it’s like a human person that you enter into a relationship with it as it changes along with you

Ex. the Odysseus I met when I was 20 is very different from  the Odysseus I met when I was 40

-literature changes, why?, because we change  so we become close to this or that piece of literature

-we need to dig deeper than just the big ideas

Ex. AI pulls up the big ideas when you google Shakespeare 

Ex. do we just learn big ideas to make for great classroom debates to just discuss those big ideas

How to study literature? (what is our approach to literature)

The negative way:

-these are foundational, but as secondary

-don’t study literature to see the work as a historical or cultural artifact

-we don’t study Homer to learn something about ancient Greece 

-we don’t study Shakespeare simply to learn something about Renaissance England 

-we don’t study Dostoevsky to learn something about 19th century Russia

-we gain insights into these historical time periods and these cultures 

-one can learn something about that piece of literature through studying 19th century Russia

-literature should not be isolated in a vacuum

-there is nothing wrong with learning from culture or its historical setting 

-these should not be the primary reason we study literature because it is not simply an object of history or object of culture

Step1:

-not a historical/cultural artifact 

Step 2:

-don’t approach literature as a foundational way or fundamental approach 

***Our primary reason for studying literature is not to reflect on our own culture or get students to reflect on themselves or their own lives 

-literature doesn’t become relevant if it’s all about me 

-today: what can I learn about myself, what can I learn about my own contemporary culture in reading Shakespear’s Merchant of Venice

-mistake: teachers go to the historical or cultural answer to justify reading literature because it provides immediate significance like a wellspring of information about ancient Greece 

-mistake: teachers point to learning about yourselves, like relating it to your own lives; a fight scene to the students own family fights Ex. King Lear teaches about sibling rivalry, family hatred, jealousy, etc…

-learning about yourself in literature is the cause for reading literature not the primary reason for reading literature 

Step 3:

-we do not read literature for a fundamental reason of a moral lesson from a piece of literature

-we do not read Homer’s Odyssey as if it were a fable

-literature is not there to instruct us on how to live that good life 

-literature does touch on moral and ethical decisions you may make on a day-to-day basis are informed by pieces of literature 

-literature doesn’t not pull out of you a personal or contemporary cultural reflection 

How to teach students to read literature:

-important to define those big ideas for students, but the focus/attention should be the way the literature presents and wrestles with the ideas

-we have to ask questions about recurring images, repetitions of lines

-we need to ask about the details in a poem, a text, and why it is arranged in this way

-we have to respect these works by engaging in the particulars and in the specifics 

-Poet: the wonder comes in the craft of the composer

-if a piece of literature moves you then you enter into the wonder, the importance of literature, 

 -***A real human person with a real human brain and a real human soul produced this, wrestled with him or herself in producing this and it is there in that work that what we want to encounter, that kind of poetic vision of the author 

****Question: How do these authors move us so? Not because of the big ideas

-but, because of the use of the language which they use to express whatever it is those characters are going through

-it is difficult to relate to a historical time period, or to relate it to themselves and their own experience

-we need to teach students to be actively silent and pensive

-to read a passage and then reread it and meditate upon it 

-we want to create in our students a habit of always thinking that there is something more 

-ask the question: What is the author doing here?

-teach students how to read through texts 

-read works seriously and deliberately  because you are entering a world of wonder

-wonder = habit of the mind and the disposition of the soul  

-reading a book should not just be to finish a book report 

-reading  takes listening and contemplation

-remind students that I am the teacher, but I am going to get out of the way of the piece of literature 

-assignments and assessment should teach students to wrestle with Homer

-thinking through literature takes patience on the part of students

-contemplating literature takes hard work 

-it takes training students to sit in the silence and allow the piece of literature to speak not being spoonfeed knowledge by the teacher 

-text: as students push into the literature; the literature pushes back like a conversation or a relationship 

-there are very few black and white characters in literature 

-we can’t dictate what a piece of literature will give to each of us 

Teacher:

-must also wrestle with the texts

-dedicate yourself to rereading the texts with your students

-keep literature fresh so wrestle with it immediately

-if these are real human persons, turns out you have to talk to them, and allow them to talk back to you

-how do you explain to students that there is a habit of thoughtfulness, habit of meditation if as teachers we are not doing the same 

-we need to model for them what a careful reader looks like

-they aren’t going to know who to read literature until you teach them those skills

-then you can go into why we study literature 

-if we aren’t modeling for them they will not grow as students 

Ex. Big Ideas:

-homecoming in the Odyssey

-homecoming in the Wind in the Willows

-now let us enter into the world of wonder

-work through it with each of these characters

Odyssey:

-Poetic level the author reunites the two characters 

-they both weep-Odyssey was gone for 20 years-weeps over the lost time

Wind in the Willows:

-Mole and rat are returning home 

-mole finds his old home

-mole reflects on his home-the home was missing him

-loyalty to his friend rat-left his home again to be with rat 

-book about friendship and loyalty