Thursday, September 9, 1982
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
Editoeia
Sileven is the outlaw in showdown at LonisYille
n
"(He) had secluded himself with about 100 supporters
and had challenged authorities to arrest him. "
"He was arrested inside . . . about 9:30 a.m. Friday,
ending a 48-hour standoff between (himself) and county
authorities. "
"Lookouts were posted on the road between (one
town) - the county seat and sheriffs headquarters -and
the church m (second town). "
"Supporters . . . continue holding classes, despite
renewed warnings that such action could land them
in court. "
The above quotations were taken from Omaha World
Herald accounts of the recent dramatic arrest of Louis
ville, Neb., pastor Everett Sileven.
But with the specifics removed, the quotes read almost
like the script of a bad TV Western. Seclusion in the
church, lookouts on the road, a standoff of authorities
and finally, the big arrest.
If Everett Sileven staged his Friday arrest for publicity,
he did a bang-up job. He got around-the-clock coverage.
But for a man who is supposed to be dedicated to
religion - which most believe includes being a law-
abiding citizen - breaking , the law certainly seems the
wrong way to generate publicity for his cause.
His cause, as most know, is to get the state to allow
him to operate his Christian school at Faith Baptist
Church, in direct violation of state teacher certification
laws. He maintained that he should be able to run the
school without accredited teachers; the courts disagreed
and in 1979 ordered the school closed. Sileven disobeyed,
reopened the school and was sentenced to about four
months in jail.
He was to be arrested last Wednesday, but instead
began his "standoff." On hand for the drama were the
national secretary of the Moral Majority, about 100
pastors from across the country and the president of the
Christian Law Association, a group that helps small
churches fight state regulations.
Faith Baptist Church students stood outside their
school, wearing red, white and blue uniforms. Other
supporters placed an American flag and a flag with a
Christian symbol on each side of the church's door.
And then in came Cass County Sheriff Fred Tesch
and other members of the "posse." to take their
criminal alive.
Now Sileven is in the Cass County Jail, with about
100 days of his jail term remaining. He deserves every
day. Jail terms are what people who break the law get.
The disturbing thing about the whole incident is that
Sileven is making a mockery of his cause. There is room
for church-run schools in society. That has been proven
with society's acceptance of thousands of parochial
schools. But there is no room for church schools that
violate the law. Sileven's comical "standoff probably
won him more hecklers than sympathizers.
A recent World-Herald editorial said Sileven has two
options: He can challenge a law he disagrees with -the
one that says teachers must be accredited; or he can
challenge his sentence with a court appeal.
Although Sileven's attempts at both have failed, that
does not give him license to break the law.
While sitting in his jail cell, Sileven should consider
that perhaps he botched those two legal attempts because
of his illegal sideshows.
Educational system teaches
values accepted by society
It opens every September with the same
clean slate, the same expectations. The first
day of school always comes with the crisp
snap of a fresh start.
But if last year's report card predicts
this year's performance, soon we'll hear the
bells ring with alarm over familiar class
room controversies. Textbooks in Texas,
creationism in Arkansas, school prayer in
n Ellen
Cv Goodman
Congress, sex
system and
another.
education in one school
corporal punishment
in
For all the talk about skills, we still go
back to the basics for our most heated
debates about education, back to questions
about values.
No institution, not even the Internal
Revenue Service, touches as many lives as
schools. This is one of the only countries in
the world where everyone is supposed to
stay in school until 16 years of age. We are
almost all veterans or victims of the school
system, connected by our childhood or our
children.
We've all learned one common lesson,
that school is the place where society
passes on its curriculum of values to the
next generation.
Those who object to the textbook
portrait of mothers in aprons or the one of
women with briefcases share the conviction
that they are struggling for important turf.
As right-wing textbook critics Norman and
Mel Gabler stated in their own inimitable
way: 'Textbooks mold nations because
textbooks largely determine how a nation
votes, what it becomes and where it goes."
The view underlies our debates about
creationism and science, patriotism and
history, obedience and questioning.
There is nothing 'new in this. Values
have always been taught along with the
three R's. They called it moral education in
the 19th century, and no less an authority
than Horace Mann, the father of public
education in America, stated that the
purpose of school was ultimately "to form
character."
Mann's faith in the ability of schools to
form character was, to
quite breathtaking: "If all our children
were to be brought under the benignant
influences of such teachers as the state can
supply from the age of 4 years to that of
15, and for 10 months in each year, 99 in
every 100 of them can be rescued from un
charitableness, from flasehood, from
cupidity, licentiousness, violence and fraud
and reared to the permanence of ail duties,
and the practice of all the kindness and
courtesies of domestic and social life."
A clear streak of elitism also ran
through the commitment of those who
established public education. They had no
doubt that they knew what was best, no
doubt that the state should educate
children out of the influence of their
parents.
When Mann worked, an assumption
existed that education should turn
immigrants into Yankees. The role of the
parents and the community was just to
fuel this scholastic melting pot.
"Every wise parent and community,
desiring the prosperity of their children,"
Man wrote, "will spare no pains in giving
them a generous education."
Continued on Page 5
Thorough reading reaches new depths
For many, the university provides the
first real opportunity to analyze literary
masterpieces with any significant depth.
One of the first things you learn in
college is that in classic literature, no one
says what they mean. Evidently, this
f D Mike
ritual was some source of pride tor writers.
In fact, on his deathbed, William
Shakespeare reportedly said "Hey, I'm
feeling okey-dokey, really."
Therefore, one must examine everything
he or she reads in college from a more
abstract perspective, to comprehend the
author's real meaning. For illustrative
purposes, let's examine one line from
Sophocles' "Oedipus the King," a play
my mother loves, and search for the true
and complete meaning of it.
The line: "O Zeus, what fate hast thou
ordained for me?" Of course, some of
you rashly concluded that this exclamation
means something like, "Oh God, what
next? To the casual reader, this may be
good enough. But we don't want to be
casual readers, do we? No, we must probe
this offering, word by word.
"O": Could this be an archaic spelling
MUI" f. I A It L- .1 .
thing? Perhaps for Oscar, who lived next
door to Oedipus and often borrowed his
gardening tools. Ancient Greeks, in case
you were unaware, prided themselves on
their neatly kept lawns.
"Zeus:" The ancient Greek god (are
there any modern Greek gods?) you
venture. Could be. Or it might be our
friend Oscar again. Oscar Zeusopopolis
the guy next door.
"What:" You're right, this is a trick
question. It simply means what.
"Fate:" The final outcome? Actually
no. Good guess, though. In ancient Greece'
the leading garden tool manufacturers
were Fate & Hast, Inc. They achieved
their fame by perfecting a forerunner to
the modern lawn mower. So popular
was their mower, in fact, that it was
simply known as the Fate-Hast, instead
of its proper name (The Lawn of the
Father s Shearer), like we call them Band
Aids instead of adhesive strips.
s,3ir YU,'rC right aain ix m""
you. No one is sure why they insisted
on saying thou instead of you. Probably
7-y i? .,being nonnfonnists.
Ordained: Here, we encounter the
problem of the ever-shifting nature of
human language. Now, as we all know
ordained means decreed or ordered
However, the word once meant repaired
ine meaning was chanoH mi i ..x '
King Skip of what is now Del Rio Texas
r "j, uum mis nnint f v,k
mean fixed. And let this yellow stuff
be called hay since it seems to cause
hay fever."
For some reason, everyone obeyed
this edict from that point hence. How
ever, "Oedipus the King" was written
decades, nay centuries, before King Skip,
so ordained still had its original meaning.
"For me:" In his book, "I Know
Oedipus," Quincy M. Brown theorizes
that Tor me was actually a veiled reference
to the god Formey, who was in charge
of those squiggly lines you see when it
gets real hot. Pshaw, say most literary
experts. It probably means "for me,"
nothing more or less. Quincy was a mama's
boy, anyway.
So, where does all of this leave us? "0
Zeus, what fate hast thou ordained for
me?" really means "Oscar Zeusopopolis,
what lawn mower have you fixed for
me?"
This line seemi to have little to do
with the play itself. We must therefore
assume that this was a bad day for
Sophocles. In fact, "Oedipus the King" is
nothing more than I series of thinly
disguised insults to Sophocles neighbors..
In fact, Sophocles was probably something
of a creep who was out for an easy buck.
His playa, then, are worthless and hold no
real significance for the modem reader.
The noint it- never he content with the
first reading of anything. You must read
our modern ears, of "oh?" Or, could it be short for some- let ordained mean decreed arTrepSrtd ft"'
