WINONA LAKE - While most of the questions asked by Lakeland Christian Academy students on Friday to four state and U.S. elected officials during a school assembly were on such topics as favorite presidents and I.U. or Purdue, one senior asked about a more divisive topic - “Wokeism.”
The student’s question was, “What are your thoughts of the woke ideologies in the public school, and how is Indiana practically fighting against it?”
LCA is a private Christian school.
Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch responded first, saying, “Here in this room are people that are tired of the Woke culture. The Woke culture that tells us how we can live our lives, what kind of stoves we can turn on, what kind of cars we can drive. What kind of meat we can eat. It’s gotten so crazy that, I don’t know if you all remember, but it’s been a few years back. And there were rich Hollywood parents that cheated to get their kids into college.”
She asked the students if they remembered that and what happened to those parents.
“They went to jail,” Crouch said. “So in this upside-down, topsy-turvy Woke culture that we live in, if you cheat getting into college, you go to jail, but if you cheat getting into this country, you can go to college. It doesn’t make any sense. The two-tier justice system in this country - where liberal prosecutors and judges and left-wing media are targeting conservatives, including President Trump, can not be tolerated.”
She said DEI (diversity, equity, inclusivity), which started as workforce training on diversity in the 1960s, is finding its way into schools and universities.
“So we have to take stands, and we have to push back on the liberal culture that is permeating every aspect of our society, but particularly our schools and trying to indoctrinate and manipulate our young people and their minds to accept this Woke culture as being the correct way to live your life. Because we all should be able to live our lives free of government interference from a far-distant capital in Washington, D.C., and we all should be able to live our lives without our children being told how they should think and act. So it’s up to us to push back on behalf of you in our position to make sure that you are protected and able to think and be able to come to decisions on our own,” Crouch stated.
Schools should be focused on the four “R’s,” she said, which are reading, writing, arithmetic and reasoning.
District 2 U.S. Rep. Rudy Yakym said, “I think this beautifully illustrates why the federal government should not be involved in our local education systems.”
He said he also believes there should be educational choice.
“I believe that educational choice should not be just for the rich. Parents should be able to send their kids to wherever they want to send their kids to school, whether it’s a private school, a private religious school, a private non-religious school, a public school or homeschool as I was,” Yakym said.
Educational choice, he continued, “helps facilitate good behavior. What I also believe is that this is why parents and students need to be involved in your education.”
To explain what he meant by that, Yakym asked for a show of hands of who could name at least two members of school boards in Kosciusko County. No hands were raised.
“So we talk about ideology that’s being taught in the school, but then we forget, ‘Well, wait a minute. You have to peel back the layers of the onion here,’” he said. “Who hires the teachers? The principals. Who hires the principals? The superintendents. Who hires the superintendents? The school board. Who hires the school board in public education? We, the voters.”
He said voters oftentimes walk into a voting booth, look at all the names of people running for school board and have no idea who they are.
“Therefore, whose fault is it when we don’t take the time as voters to do the research on who’s running for school board, and then we wonder why we get bad results,” Yakym said.
He encouraged people to not look for a big federal solution to come in and tell them how they need to educate their children, “but rather this is a problem that we can more often than not solve at the local level by simply paying attention to who’s on our school boards, and having our state elected officials continue the work of ensuring educational choice in Indiana.”
He commended Indiana officials for doing a phenomenal job of ensuring educational choice in the state.
State Sen. Ryan Mishler said his definition of “Woke” is “taking away my God-given rights. And I just keep it simple.”
He continued, “So you ask me a question about the public school. The scary thing is, it’s not just in the public schooling. It’s way more than just the public school, and so here’s the advantage I think of living in the small community: You’re going to leave here one day, you’re going to go out all over the country, all over the world, and you’re going to be faced with these challenges. And you always have to remember where you came from, how you were brought up and the values of your hometown, because when you get out they will challenge you and try to have you see this other side. So you have to hold firm and be strong. And that is the only way we’re going to get over this Woke movement is your generation stands firm and remembers their smalltown home values.”
Mishler challenged the students to remember where they came from and they will be fine.
State Rep. Craig Snow said knowing LCA’s curriculum and what they’re taught there, “the Biblical values they teach is also something you have to hold firm to. As you grow up, you’re going to be challenged, like Sen. Mishler said, and you can’t waver. You need to be firm in your faith. What they’re teaching here now will carry you through your life.”
He said Woke is “prevalent, it’s out there. When you guys are in college, it’s going to hit you hard, it’s going to be there. What you’re learning now, take it with you and please don’t waver.”