Goodbye! (June 2019)

Categories: Léo’s Insights 2018-2019 Academic Year

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Some bloggers do their blogging in real time. That is, a particular week’s entry was created that week and so is usually representative of the most current events. In my case, due to the complexity of having to juggle a lot of things and people to make this work, blogs are usually created in advance.

This means that something could have occurred after the blog was completed that renders it, well, out of touch with the reality of a particular moment. This is usually not the case here as most topics covered in the blogs are not time sensitive, but this one is.

Goodbye can mean a lot of things, like “see you after work” or to end a phone conversation. It can also mean “buzz off” or “I don’t love you anymore” (a rather juvenile way of saying “I have decided that you are no longer important to me” or “my needs are more important than yours”).

Goodbye is most often used in an “until the next time” context. Of course, this begs the question of when, which in turn assumes that there will actually be a next time.

This is the predicament I find myself in with this blog. It was written before the provincial election was called in Alberta, meaning that it comes after the results of the election are known!

If all the pundits were wrong and we have the continuation of the NDP government along with the reappointment of David Eggen as Minister of Education, this goodbye is one of those permanent types as Minister Eggen made it clear that any school not fully complying with his idea of right and wrong would be terminated.

I am proud to say that if this is the case, our school and Education Unlimited are done, finished, terminated, as we were pretty well the only home education provider to have stood our ground and not capitulated to the Minister’s demands.

The principle we stood on was that of freedom of religion, not anti-anybody or anything. Freedom has to mean freedom to dissent or it is not freedom at all. I cannot say that I disagreed with the Minister’s outspoken desire to end bullying, but I must confess that I found his overt bullying of non-compliant schools more than a little hypocritical.

Furthermore, I don’t believe we can eliminate bad behaviour by outlawing it, as shown by the fact that we have prisons full of individuals who obviously paid no attention to the existing laws.

I also need to repeat the fact that I never did believe that all the changes the NDP Minister of Education initiated or tried to initiate ultimately had anything to do with the plight of certain groups of students or bullying, for that matter.

To me, those issues were pawns to achieve the more sinister goal of redefining the purpose of compulsory public education to that of “creating agents of change.” This can only be interpreted as overt attempts to indoctrinate students to think in the way the Minister, the establishment and the ideologues desired.

This is the antithesis of freedom and makes a mockery of the diversity of thought that makes a free society interesting and dynamic.

Now, if the NDP government was defeated in the election, this could mean a different kind of “goodbye,” something like, “have a good summer” or “until next time” or “see you again in the fall.” I have to admit, this is the goodbye that I wanted to make and not the first one that we discussed.

As stated at the beginning of 2019, I could quit, but I can’t as I have not been dismissed by the One who made me and gave me this ministry task.

Should quitting be forced upon me as a result of our school being shut down, I just want to say thank you to all of you who have made these last twenty years as Education Unlimited one of the best experiences of my life as I pray my efforts to help you were not in vain.

In the event that our school has been terminated, the Education Unlimited ministry will likely continue to serve home educators even if not in the capacity of registrations.

However, I am likely being over dramatic. Of course we will survive and so… Goodbye until we see you again in the fall.

May God bless you and have a great summer!

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