Can secular so-called "education" be absolved of blame here? It seems unlikely. Agenda driven from the outset, determined to drive falsehoods into the minds individuals and indoctrinate whole learner groups, the results are all around us today.
For decades they've been trained up UNABLE TO DISTINGUISH falsehood from reality, DENIED the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and consequently INCAPABLE OF KNOWING when someone is deceiving them or whether the information they're receiving is based on fact.
A very simple example:
Say, "Oh, look at the lovely orange tree!" and even a blind child would tell you not to be silly. "That's not an orange tree!" they'd say. For reference blind people have a heightened sense of smell and assuming they'd eaten apples and and oranges at some stage the different trees would be easy to distinguish.
For learner groups without language, pictures would be used. For mixed groups with different language skills the pictorial method is more inclusive.
You could point at the tree then point at the fruit. Invite members of the learner group to do the same. Maybe sing a song about apples. Pretend to be an apple tree. Even go outside with some fruit and place apples under the apple tree or hold up an apple and point to the correct tree. That would require a small orchard obviously, but the same could be done with acorns. This is a form of critical thinking hardly needing to be taught. How do we know what fruit is on the tree? Look and see!
But although this may be innate, even for the blind using taste and smell, it is something that can be compromised with disingenuous teaching methods and a destructive agenda.
Proverbs 1:1-7 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: to understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Who are the fools today? Information by itself is not much good without the critical thinking skills needed to evaluate that information. The apple tree shows quite well that what is obvious can be evaluated easily by direct observation using the senses. And yet despite the evidence, after decades of a frankly criminal agenda, falsehoods far beyond the lie that oranges grow on apple trees are swallowed holus-bolus with devastating outcomes when such ununderstanding is applied in the real world.
A decade may not seem much in the scheme of things. But the first ten years of education are foundational for all subsequent studies. In twenty years, two generations will be blasted. Let's say this degradation of America's foundation began in 1970, just after the flower-power generation became qualified teachers, inundated with disdain for a nation's preeminence and the solid foundation upon which it was built. 70-80-90-2000-10-20- how many generations deep is this garbage by now? To what extent and where has it spread its ruin? A simple enough question to answer. But do they want you to see it? Do they want you to join the dots? No. That is the difference between
knowledge and
understanding.
Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.