As I was looking at these pictures from the El Paso Times today, illustrating the bicycles Hart Elementary students received for good behavior, I shook my head in disbelief. Only a few generations ago, wouldn't we have called that action a bribe?Let's see now. The dictionary describes the term "bribe" as "anything given or serving to persuade or induce: The children were given candy as a bribe to be good" (see #2 definition).
Wouldn't the above definition perfectly describe the above action of school administrators with regard to their giving bicycles to elementary students in order to "persuade or induce" good behavior?
Beloved, schools bribing children to persuade them to exhibit good behavior is not a good thing. Parents in a home environment should be responsible for teaching their children the principles of good behavior and then enforcing that behavior — not the public schools.
Once again, parental authority has been abrogated from the home, the place that Almighty God first instituted for instructing children (Ephesians 6:4; 1 Timothy 5:14; Titus 2:3-5).
Plus, it's always been amazing to me how a school district that is seemingly always strapped for funds, can not only provide monies for unnecessary bicycles, but can invest in a scheme that cost them millions of dollars over a five-year period (see articles here and here).
Me thinks there's "something rotten in the state of Denmark"! (source).
—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets
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