Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for joining us today. We've got Dr. Paul Jehle coming on a little later, going to talk about some of the things happening in Massachusetts 250th anniversary this year for a lot of the things that happened before the Declaration of Independence. And we'll also be talking about education. How do we get back to the secret sauce and teach people in America why America became great in the first place so we can get that formula back into our culture? Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Of course, guys, that's what WallBuilders is all about, rebuilding the walls, right? We're laying the foundation and it's intellectual. And that, of course, means we got to know what the bricks are to lay. We got to know what the right mortar is to mix up if we're going to rebuild the walls in America. 

David Barton [00:00:45] Yeah. And it's really important. One of those big walls that has to be rebuilt is sound education. And I saw an article here on the Senate to you guys and it was so bad on education. Made me think of a Paul Jehle. Not because it's bad, because education, but because Paul Jehle has got the solution for what this article has a problem with. And by the way, Paul Jehle lives in Massachusetts. He's up in Plymouth. He runs Plymouth Rock Foundation. And it was out of Plymouth that we had a school system that started  that swept across America and became the, if you will, the the bellwether for American education. And I would argue that early American education at the time of the founding Fathers was probably the strongest of anywhere in the world. What they had in New England come out of Massachusetts and then going in Connecticut and going in those other northern colonies. And what they did, the colleges up there in the age which they had students doing stuff I think was the greatest education system in the world. And so Paul Jahle I wanted to get him on to talk about this because I want to read you guys what was in this article and this what made me think about how did we get it right back to the beginning, because we still don't have it right now. Here's here's the article. A Connecticut student, Aleesha Ortiz, who can't read or write, earned a high school diploma by Hartford Public High School and was accepted at the University of Connecticut at Hartford, despite never having learned to read or write so completely illiterate. She's not only graduated, she is and has been accepted to college. And she had some stern words for the Hartford Board of Education members at their meeting. She said, I truly believe that you do not value me as a student and as a human being and that you do not care about my education. She filed a lawsuit against Hartford Board of Education. And by the way, Oregon has just suspended all their literacy graduation requirements through 2028. So this is a trend in the states where we don't expect you to know anything, but we're happy to graduate you. We don't want you to be able to read or write. I mean, this is terrible. 

Tim Barton [00:02:47] And you have to ask the question, is that for the students or to protect the failure of the institutions, Right. Because because they would say, well, no, we won't make people feel bad if they can't read or write. But if your entire job is to educate students and and you're doing such a poor job and you're like, we do want people to know how bad we're doing. And so you remove all requirements that they have any level of competence. And the very thing you've been taking 12 or 13 years to educate and train them in that is one of the most self indicting, self-incriminating things possible. And yet that's exactly what they're doing. 

David Barton [00:03:21] And Tim, I think we have evidence that just what you're suggesting is what's going on. If we go back to Houston, there's a few years back, but Houston, they had their their teachers, our high school teachers say, you know, you guys, we're going to have you take the high school exit exam because you're teaching kids for this exam to get them ready so they can pass it. And more than half of the high school teachers could not pass the high school exit exam that they were teaching in Houston. And so Houston, they did the right thing. They just stopped giving the exit exam, I say, it's like, what? Why don't you go back and get better teachers? Why don't you go? And it's just. 

Rick Green [00:03:55] Figuring out how to keep anybody from failing the test. That's it. Stop giving the tests. 

David Barton [00:03:59] We will give you a test. And it's just, man, you compare that to to where you had, you know, at the time of the founding fathers what they could do at the age of six and eight and what they could do when they were ten and 12. And, you know, we talked about this on on a number of shows because it is so fascinatingly remarkable. And so Paul Jehle probably knows that history better than anyone in the United States. And that would be great to get Paul on to talk about. What does it take to have good education, have a sad education system? What are some of the good practices America used to have? 

Rick Green [00:04:30] What I like most about today's program is that Paul Jehle will be talking about these things and David will not be giving me a test. And usually when we cover this topic, I get some test to spell loquacious or something like that, and I fail them every single time. So no failing of test today. We're just not going to give test. We're going to follow whoever that group was. They just decided Rick doesn't need to fail another test, so we're not going to give it anyway. We'll be right back. Paul Jehle, our special guest today. You're going to love this. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:06:03] Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on the WallBuilders Show. Always good to have Dr. Paul Joly, thank you so much for coming out again, Dr. Jehle

Paul Jehle [00:06:09] Yeah, it's great to be with you. 

Rick Green [00:06:10] Hey, big year for you guys. And then, of course, you know, next year, 250, the birthday of the declaration. But as we were talking off air, you got a lot of 250th birthdays coming up all over Massachusetts. And you just get man, you get to live that history all I'm kind of jealous in a way, except you have more coal than we do. So I'm really not. But you get to relive that history over and over again and teach people about It's such an important part of who we are as America, passing that torch and teaching those things. Thanks for all that you do to make that happen. 

Paul Jehle [00:06:39] Well, it's a lot of fun. And whenever I can dress up in costume and be somebody else, my wife thinks, hey, that's a good deal. 

Rick Green [00:06:48] Well, you know, David and Tim both thought it was so important to get you on at this, you know, really neat time in our history where there's a resurgence of of patriotism. Because if if we're going to love America, we're going to love our nation and pass it intact to the kids, we've got to have a good education system. And you're just such a good expert on the secret sauce. What what it was that got poured into the culture that produced such great results in America and what we can do to restore that. And so, man, I know we don't have a lot of time today, but maybe just some bullet points and maybe some things to encourage people to do in the coming year. 

Paul Jehle [00:07:24] Yeah. And I think that, you know, when you think about education and the educational system, the educational system in colonial America was very, very simple. But before we even talk about the specifics, it was all patterned after Jewish education, Hebrew education. In the Old Testament, people are unaware. Usually the fact that the United States government and its system of governance as well as education was patterned far more after Jerusalem than it ever was after Athens. You know, most people make the concept that Greek and Roman theories and culture were the basis of America. But that's not true. I think the critical thing is that when you look at Hebrew education and these are the things that were drawn by the teachers and Noah Webster, of course, in the late 1700s who became the key educator in America, They would say the following, that Hebrew education started with the heart. Then it moved to the head and then it moved to the practical areas of wisdom. In fact, most most people who know the Bible know that there are three key words in the the wisdom literature of Scripture, and that's the word Understanding, knowledge and wisdom and understanding had to do with the Spirit. The heart and knowledge had to do with the mind, but wisdom had to do with the combination. It wasn't the heart versus the head. It was the heart of after God. The heart actually in learning. In fact, colonial education was so built on this, and the reformers and many of the reformers in education, many people have never heard of, you know, where there's Peter Ramus, who built the biblical basis for logic as opposed to Aristotelian logic, or it was William Ames, the great theologian, or Comenius. And these individuals were building the model from which John Robinson passed, or the Pilgrims brought it over here to America with the Pilgrims. And the colonial education began to develop. And most of the individuals after those first few years of survival, they realized this was a a critical mode of education. If you take those three things, understanding knowledge and wisdom and their derivation from the Hebrew language, you can see they correspond to spiritual body. They correspond to three practical ways to educate. And the word education itself derived from the Latin. But it literally means to pour in. In order that you might draw out and apply it. In other words, you could. You know, children need to have their parents pour in what is true, what is correct, whether it's the way to write a sentence or it's the way to keep your heart right with your brother and sister and to make things right in the home and honor your parents. And people today think, we just need to add values back to the education system. Well, it was a lot more than that. The values were the foundation of the education system. It's not an add on. It's a foundation. It's not like putting an extra roof on some addition on your house. It's got to be the main foundation. And when you we get to colonial education itself, there were three modes. And a lot of people, they look and they say, How could all these brilliant people suddenly arise in the 1770s and 80s and wow, all the British that these backwoods men could actually write so well, actually write better than the people in England. They were shocked by this. And one person that said it just so happened. Now, it doesn't just so happen you got to cultivate it. And the Great Awakening gave them the heart and revived their heart. And we know. We know that. And then what happened is now they had a real passion for continuing to learn. And the things that we see, whether it's Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, John Adams, you can name, and James Bowden, Joseph Warren, any of the individuals, especially up here in Massachusetts, they had the first thing they learned was to use a copy book. So think about it. You're given a blank book at the beginning of your semester, whether you're in fifth grade, fourth grade, how we would deal with it or even at the tutorial level, because basically you were taught to read at home, then you had to learn how to read. You just get into school and then by the time you were seven, you'd go to some academy in tutorial academy and that at that point you were being developed. And then when you turned 11 or 12, you were ready for rhetoric, logic, elocution, debate. And the way they would do this, they would start with a copy book. So it's empty. You would write down the things that were taught on a slate or other other aspects and get it written into that copy book. So I want you to think of this, which is unheard of today. Education was productive. The child created their own textbook. 

Rick Green [00:11:58] Wow. 

Paul Jehle [00:11:58] From being tutored by their parents or their teachers. And that was the copy book that required discipline. You're the copy over the page. If you read, you made misspellings and your penmanship couldn't be read and all that kind of stuff. That copy book was huge because it was a discipleship tool. And then not just the copy book, but then you the drawing out process that was the pouring in. But the drawing out process was called recitation, a recitation. And the colonial word really meant writing out an essay, writing out in your own words, complete sentences. They even required that in arithmetic that you write out a sentence as to why the answer was what it was and your formula and algebra or any of those other disciplines. So it's a complete thought. And to recite means you'd be able to recite that. You'd be able to write an essay or copy an essay that someone else had written, put it in memory, and then, of course, give it. The third aspect was to do a declamation. Now, we don't use those words too much today, but declamation means you write an oration and you stand up and you give it. And children. And we do this in our own academy where a child needs to produce a 35 page thesis to graduate. And they've got to be able to get up and give a 20 minute explanation of that and defend it before faculty members to graduate from high school. Because we want to have writers and thinkers to defend what they believe and be able to articulate it. That's why you can have a Patrick Henry. That's why you can have a James Otis. That's why you can have a John Hancock. That's why you can have individuals who can put thoughts together because from the time they were 6 or 7 years of age, they would be able to do this. And keep in mind, of course, that was led by the pastors because most of the pastors categorized the youth on Sunday afternoons. They had the biggest library. They were the most knowledgeable on world events. And they would be able to guide their young people in those kinds of things. So a quick snapshot. I mean, that's colonial education and. Wow. Wow. You look at what's going on today. Yeah, We have no longer do we have the finer points of our training up orators and writers. The power of the pen, the power of the spoken word. I mean, you put those two things together. The pen lasts for generations. But the power of the spoken word ignites people's passion for the most good. And then you're able to articulate those things. So colonial education was simple, and because it was simple, didn't have big buildings. There were not a lot of gadgets. There were not a lot of athletic events. It was all personal. You know, people wrestled. They did all those kind of things in their own backyards. But we've made the miners the major. Yeah. And we've left the majors on the sidelines and where. And, you know, you can't just change a nation politically. You're going to have to have these kinds of heart. That's right. And that's why the hope is in the home. Educators in the small schools, the small academies and the parents who are really training their children, even if they're in public school, because I've seen that happen where parents truly disciple their children, they make an impact. And so we've got to we've got to restore those things. 

Rick Green [00:15:03] That was just that I mean, that five minutes right there, Dr. Jehle. That we need to blast this out everywhere we can. I mean, you just summarized what we need to be doing. And and I will I will point out, though, I noticed the bias in the names that you mentioned, because for every Virginian, you name two for Massachusetts. So I fully recognize the bias. No, I mean, I love the way you described that. And I have to ask you, how what was different for them where they were able to move from the heart part to the mind part? Because even when we have, quote unquote, revival or, you know, movements of God in the in the country, too often we stay in the emotional and the and the feel good side of it. And we don't go do the hard work to get the mind part of it. So what what what was different for them to do that that we can try to apply today even to get from step one to step two, let alone to step three. I'm I'm kind of stuck on step one to step two at this point. 

Paul Jehle [00:16:00] Well, I think one of the key things is to see the difference between the Great Awakening in the 17, 17, early 1700s to the second Great Awakening in the early 1800s and even to the early revivals of the 1900s. And I'll just quickly give a summary on this, because the first Great Awakening, all the monuments to that Great Awakening are in society. They're in the revolution. They're the monuments to liberty. In other words, they're the theology of the pastors. I look at this way the word, the Greek and Hebrew word for mind in the Bible is canal. And people recognized this when I was in Central America. And when I get interpreted now in teaching down there, I'm constantly seeing hearing the Spanish word for canal. Because when you when you actually have that word canal, that means that's a place where the river flows. You can have passion in your heart for God. You can be in a revival service. But if your worldview and your mind is not trained, you're going to steer that river right into it. That's why you have individuals who are Christian humanists. That's why you have individuals that are they may have a heart for God, but they don't have a mind that's trained. And I think one of the key things they had back then is both their theology matched their wisdom in dealing with training the mind. How do you think how do you think from premise to conclusion? Why do you believe that? Because your conclusion comes from the premises and the syllogism that you don't have to have all the fancy words, but you have to know how to go from one step to another. So that key from the heart to the mind is critical. But that's what the Bible calls renewing the mind. That's right. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, as Ephesians four says, or Romans 12. That's what Sanctification is all about. And I think we've lost that. We've had to sanctification, like in a prayer meeting where true sanctification is dealing with your thought process. Why do you think that about yourself? Why do you think that about other people? So dealing with the thought process and the premise and I call it, I want to model that as I preach. I want people to catch the fact that I go back to the original sources, go back to the original context, go back to the original languages, get my premise, and then come to my conclusion. So I think that's the beauty of colonial education. All the subjects were which were called disciplines back then, all disciplining the mind. So when you study geography, you're disciplining your mind on how to think biblically, but it's in a geographic context, or if it's in historic conflict or literary conflict context or or in music. It was a seamless garment that theology was in everything. After all, you know, the university, the whole idea of naming a university was one view of life. The university everyone graduated with a degree in theology, and then you applied it. You applied it to cartography. That was the mapping of the Earth. You you you apply it to all the other areas. That's why it was called theology was the queen of the sciences, because these these this heart of this is critical. You ask a great question because when you're looking at those things, if you look at Hezekiah Cheever, who's taught for 70 years in New England, and I know these words because I live in New England, I deal with this all the time. But the point is, he taught for 70 years. Who did he train? Ben Franklin. Sam Adams, John Adams. You you can go through it. And then I did a study for three years and wanted to know where did these founders go to church. And then I studied their pastors. They were sitting in church hearing from their pastors who were really the heart of that that liberty. And that's why the pastors were put on the ship logs of the British to arrest those pastors, because they knew that's where the heart that was the. 

Rick Green [00:19:31] Danger for them. That's right. That was. 

Paul Jehle [00:19:32] The danger. 

Rick Green [00:19:33] That was the threat for them. 

Paul Jehle [00:19:34] Even though the murals in the statehouse in Boston, in the mural or writing the state constitution of Massachusetts, who's sitting in the background by the fire pastor, Pastor Cooper and Pastor Cooper is the one who gave them the ideas. So, you know, when you look at that, that's a huge thing. But I think we have to narrow that gap and have the theology as the cause and the thinking as the as the effect. And I think we're going to see that gap closed. 

Rick Green [00:20:00] Amen. Amen. No doubt about it. You know, the folks that are listening now, they can't see us, but we both have a monument of the forefathers in the background where we're in our offices and studios, where we're where we're seated now. And so you have so much of this rich history there that that we want to bring to life and get it in the hands of as many people as possible. What resources would you recommend the day before we sign off for someone to get started? Maybe they're listening on. Yeah, You know what? I want to take those steps for my kids or even for just for me as an individual. Where do they start? 

Paul Jehle [00:20:27] Well, I think our website is Plymouth Rock Foundation or Plymouth Rock Coorg. And there are lots of books there on America's Christian heritage, and a lot of them deal with the story. My book Will You therefore and Teach, which is a two volume book and it's a, you know, 1200 pages and all the rest, but it's on Christian education and how to apply biblical principles to every area of life. I give a seed kingdom curriculum there. Of course, we've we've changed a lot of it, but not the premises, you know, and how you can teach Kingdom truth to every level of life. It's called go you therefore and teach all nations. It's on the website there. It's in a CD-Rom. It's an easy a study aspect. You can do that for homeschooling. There's a lot of homeschool materials that we have on that website. And and they can they can write to us as well, and we can begin to give them some of those some of those aspects. But I'll tell you that, of course, WallBuilders has got a lot you've got a lot of stuff on the on the early colonial education. It's simple DVD's books and whatnot. People today have it a lot easier than when I got started when I was teaching this in the 70s. Let me tell you, there weren't that many materials around. I spent eight hours up in archives in museums in. Was only payphone for me to call my wife. And so I mean, I go back to the Dark Ages. Kids look at me today and wonder when was this guy born? 

Rick Green [00:21:47] Well and now ou got the phone and the research all in the same device. 

Paul Jehle [00:21:50] And it's crazy. So there's no excuse today. That's right. You can figure it out. But we we want to guide them, although in those practical ways they can. That's right. And listen to DVDs and hear that kind of thing and and whatnot. But no, we're getting ready. The 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty, Give Me Death speech coming up in March. We got the Salem event in February. Of course, Lexington and Concord in April. And we got all these events that are powerful in June, Battle of Bunker Hill and all that kind of stuff. And all of these the battles, everybody loves a battle, but they would no one would have stood on that hill knowing they could die unless something had happened in their heart. That's right. Something had happened in their head and they knew this had to be done. You just don't do that. You don't just create that and make some emotional plea and have people react because reactions at the surface level only lasts for a day or two. Yeah. When something goes wrong, you just go back to it. That's what's backsliding in America. 

Rick Green [00:22:50] Well, you know, you I'm glad you said that because that helps us this year as we re-enactors or celebrate those battles to make the point of where did the heart change before that to get them to stand there. I love that, Paul. That'd be that'd be a great way to teach this year. Also on your website, just bite size are great articles so that people can go in and get a bite sized article every couple of days. You can go in and grab one of those. So do that as well, folks. It's plymrock.org. You can learn more about Paul there as well. And of course the event tab, click on the event tab and plan some of your family vacations this year to go out and celebrate. And Paul, we'll get you back for sure to talk about November, to talk about a lot of these events that are happening. 

Paul Jehle [00:23:31] We have our big conference in August as well, where we are actually going to have a bus tour up to Salem and to take the real deal with some of these key events. So yeah, they'll look on that event page. Within a month it'll be all up there ready to go. 

Rick Green [00:23:44] Love it. Dr. Paul, Jehle, you are a national treasure, brother. Appreciate you. Let's get you back soon. 

Paul Jehle [00:23:48] All right. Very good, my friend. God bless. 

Rick Green [00:23:50] Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton

Rick Green [00:25:00] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show Thanks to Paul Jehle for joining us and all the great work he's doing out there at the Plymouth Rock Foundation. Check them out and be sure go celebrate some of those two 50th celebrations that are going to happen this year. It's going to be really cool. We're going to try to get out there for some of the Lexington and Concord stuff on April 19th for that's two 50th. But a lot of cool stuff happening this year. So, you know, this is a great time to revamp our education system to to start over, I guess, and go back to these things that Paul was talking about. 

David Barton [00:25:26] Yeah. And, you know, I, I thought is so strong. He said the American education system was based on the Jewish education system, and it started with understanding, then moving in knowledge and moving to wisdom. And as he pointed out, that goes from the heart to the head and then the practical areas. And we don't deal with the heart and education anymore. We lay that. Well, we do, but the wrong direction. We taint the heart in the wrong direction. But that's not the formula that worked well. 

Tim Barton [00:25:51] And this is why even going back to the founding fathers, where they said religion, then morality, then knowledge, they were really going after the heart. First it was a heart and then the head. And even why in classical education, it's why they would add on the logic, the reasoning that was way down the road. After they had given that moral foundation, they started pouring in the information. Now we're teach you how to use that information. It's a very different pattern and sequencing what we've been using today. 

Rick Green [00:26:17] Well, thanks again to Dr. Paul Jolie. So appreciate his ministry and all the good work out there. Again, check out those dates. Make sure you think about doing some of those things. We mentioned the Summer Institute in yesterday's program. Also encourage you to check that out and just look for any of those opportunities where you can essentially model the founding fathers and how they educated themselves and their children and grandchildren. Let's get educated. Let's educate our kids and grandkids. And that's what it's going to take to restore this country. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.