Prager U posted this statement: “Don’t send your kids to public school and expect everything to turn out fine.” I commented: “Unless your idea of ‘fine’ is illiterate, amoral, government dependents.”

I’m totally hip to the fact that criticizing the public education system will deeply offend some people. (I’m also totally hip to the fact that saying ‘hip’ is no longer hip.) Part of my criticism of public education is that it annually cranks out thousands of graduates who can only respond to criticism by becoming deeply offended.

For example, my comment received this response: “I am deeply offended…as a student of your fathers [sic] I can only imagine he wouldn’t agree. He was a fine educator and touched the lives of many young people.”

I was also a student of my father’s and can speak as one of the lives he touched. I’d wager that I learned more from my Dad than you since, you know, I actually lived with him. One of the things that my Dad taught me is how to be immune to false criticism.

Dad taught science in the public school and was regularly the recipient of Junior High ridicule. On numerous occasions I answered the phone to hear a barrage of obscene insults, followed by a burst of laughter, followed by a dial tone. One Halloween night, we came home to the word ‘Coco’ spray painted in three foot letters on our garage door. (Some of the kids in Dad’s class decided that his head looked like a coconut so they took to yelling ‘Coco’ whenever they spotted him in public.) Since Dad was never flustered by name calling, the young heathen escalated their emotional abuse to vandalism.

I once asked my Dad if it bothered him to be jeered and mocked. You would have benefited from his response if you had been around to hear it. He said, “I don’t get mad when people say things that aren’t true.”

Listen up, ye defenders of public education! It is foolish to take offense at false accusations. The best response is no response. You can (and should) ignore criticism that doesn’t apply to you.

There are fine educators in the public school system. There are also fine law enforcement officers in the prison system. I still think it’s better to avoid going to jail. The penitentiary is a horrible place to spend your days. I wouldn’t send my kids to prison even if it employed “Warden of the Year.” If my “bashing” the prison system deeply offends you, then you didn’t learn much from my Dad.

(John 8:44) “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”