Episode 174: The Silent Struggle – Student Mental Health and Vulnerability

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Today Counts Show Episode 174

Preview

Jim Piper: And I know this is going to sound harsh. That’s if the parents even know what they believe, but I don’t want you to dodge my question. It was a hard one. So, I’m going to throw it back at you. Do you think it’s too late?

Brian D. Baddick: It’s no different in the business world. I mean, these are people, too, that have children. We all have to have a bond and a connection. Coming back to the core, the nuclei of who we are, and that’s family. Family is really important. How you define your family. It’s people that love one another, that are very understanding and supportive of you.

Appreciating our Sponsors

Winston Harris: Hey, before we jump into today’s episode, we want to thank all our donors and supporters who make The Today Counts Show possible. It’s through your generosity that we’re able to shape leaders through this content and this podcast. Be sure to like, subscribe, and follow wherever you find yourself coming across this content. Alright, let’s get to the podcast.

Introduction

Jim Piper: Dr. Brian Batik is my guest today. He’s been on the show a couple of times, I believe, before this time. So I just want to say, it’s good to see you again, Brian.

Brian D. Baddick: Hey Jim, it’s great to see you too. And again, thank you for the opportunity. It’s an honor of mine to come on and to talk to families and talk to communities and anyone in general who has a strong interest in our student or youth today in public education.

The State of Education and Mental Health

Jim Piper: Yeah, so for the listeners what we’re going to be talking about, I guess this would be part three or part four. I haven’t paid too close attention in that in the kind of a mini series that we by accident have created. But it started with a river cruise in the country of France where I met Kristen, who’s been on this mini series, started with me on it. I found out that she was an advocate for students with and families with disabilities. She introduced me to you. Obviously, you’re a professional in the education space. You’ve been in a long time. I believe your current title is an assistant superintendent of schools, if I got that right.

Brian D. Baddick: Yes.

Jim Piper:  We’ve talked about a lot of things wide and deep and high. And certainly those rules still apply. We’ve been wanting to talk about mental illness, or mental health, maybe to put it in a positive way for our students or our children or young our young adults. But I hesitate a little bit on that only because to me, it’s just another symptom of something that is cracked in the foundation. Not just the education system. We can’t blame everything on the education system.

Social Media, Cultural Shifts, and Foundational Cracks

But maybe where our country is sliding today, we’re probably going to share more of our opinions maybe today than we normally would because we’ve tried to be somewhat objective and whatnot, bringing in data, what have you. With the new reality of social media, that’s not going away. I don’t see how that can go away. So that’s kind of a new medium that has to be navigated, not just by students and parents. But gosh, I sure wish it was considered as- I wish it was understood to be as powerful as it is demonstrating. Of course, now we can usher in a discussion of IA as well.

So when you talk about the bully situation in school, this is like, exponential, on steroids, no controls what have you, and I’ll talk for a little bit more just to give you the platform, Brian. But you also sent me some articles and some thoughts and you’ve done a lot of research as to the history of the US education system. And of course, some want to go back and destroy everything, no matter what. But I think it’s pretty clear that a lot of our education processes in the beginning, even higher education, was preparing people for ministry.

Social Media, Cultural Shifts, and Foundational Cracks

I think there’s a lot of evidence that it was preparing people to be good citizens, to be people of virtue. I don’t know how you can teach someone how to be a good citizen or be a person of virtue without having some sort of foundational reverence that we did not get here as human beings by accident, and that there is a supreme being, there is a creator, there is a God, and that creates this foundation.

I’ve had all kinds of things in my mind in preparation for our discussion today. You know, one of them just kind of came to me this morning. I wonder, is anyone happy with our education system today? And if they are, what are they happy about? Let’s start with mental health. What are you seeing? What are you learning? And what are all the different rivers that flow into this ocean of mental illness and the challenges thereof?

Summer Vulnerability and Truth Exploration

Summer Break: A Crucial Time for Connection and Guidance

Brian D. Baddick: Well, here we are in the month of June and schools have been out now for at least up to the last four weeks. We’re going into the celebration of 4th of July right around the corner. So, I mean, the summer is a really good time for parents and for students to kind of disaggregate a little bit of what the year was and break it down and recharge batteries and get ready for the upcoming school year.

But caution to the wind on that, this is also a time when our youth and our students are probably the most vulnerable throughout the entire year because of being out of school during the summer break. It’s really important that families and parents and caregivers really are communicating and they’re connecting with their children, their teens, their young adults throughout the summer. It’s important for them to get engaged in really constructive programming throughout the summer, such as go to a youth conference or get involved with your local church or youth group or go to a summer camp.

But again, caution to the wind for parents and any caregiver. I just went out the other day, Jim, I was just grocery shopping. And I just had to smile the amount of grandparents now that you could see that are picking up the childcare for the summer. You could just pinpoint it exactly. It sticks out like a sore thumb where you see the grandparents that they’re shuffling the grandkids through the store and at the parks and trying to try to occupy them as much as possible.

Grandparents, Truth-Telling, and the State of the World

And so they have a big responsibility too as being that adult that can monitor and support students, even during this most trying difficult time that we’re seeing in our world and our country. There’s a lot that’s going on right now that I think it’s really important that parents, caretakers, grandparents, especially over the summer right now, are talking and going over and doing some truth explanation. I think truth is really, really important that our teens and our youth understand. All the events, the violence, the disruption. We just had a 48-hour war with Iran and in Israel and the US.

These are historic times that we’re seeing again with peace and negotiations across the globe right now that may or may not impact us. But these two are events that it’s a great opportunity to educate and talk about the truth.

Rediscovering the Foundation of Education

You mentioned about, historically, what is education about? We could talk about it as it comes up. We could talk about it again. As we did in our last podcast, what really was the foundation and how far away have we got from that?

There’s an article that just came out on the 24th of June, 2025 by Dr. Kent Ingle. He’s the president of Southeastern University down in Lakeland, Florida. He put an opinion out this week about America’s unrest begins in the public school classroom. It’s a great article. And then he highlights a lot about what you just said, that we are just eroding away from what the actual mission was of our public schools and the impact or the direct impact, or the indirect impact that it’s having on our kids, mental health, the family, the family structure.

I would encourage listeners to reach out to that opinion by Dr. Ken Ingle. It’s jaw dropping to read and go through and get a perspective from a university president who’s pushing and putting the blame of what we are seeing right now. And not the only blame, but what we’re seeing is directly or indirectly related to what is going on in public education health-wise. Health-wise of our young adults and our teens is tied to that too.

Teaching Truth and Thinking: A Lost Mission?

Jim Piper: Yeah, when you mentioned, I don’t know if this was your exact words, but truth exploration is what I wrote down when you’re talking about the opportunities that we have this summer to engage with our students in a productive, healthy way and you didn’t say it, but I think you’re implying versus idle time and all kinds of trouble can come to a young person who becomes curious about the wrong things. It got me to thinking in a contrast that may that I’ve seen a little bit and let’s see if I can articulate this well, Brian.

But I remember taking civics in high school. Now, of course, we’re going back to 19– That class was probably around 1975 or ’76. And I don’t know if that instructor was more on the liberal side, the left side or more on the right side. I’m sure that he had his own leanings. But what I remember about that class was he truly taught us the political system in the United States. He gave broad overviews of how these parties tend to lean.

The Difference Between Teaching What to Think and How to Think

I do remember we had a lot of discussion. And I bring that up because when you were talking about the summer being a great time to kind of circle the wagon, so to speak, and do a checkup, talk about current events, seek out truth, I wonder how many parents, what they think is the most important thing. Is it to get their kids to believe what they believe? I know this is going to sound harsh. That’s if the parents even know what they believe. And I’m gonna hang my shirt on that, that is a question for me.

Or are they also working just as hard, or maybe even harder, how to teach their students, their kids to think. I think that would go far into helping kids risk assess their friendships, what they get involved with in social media, what groups they get involved with, and even why they’re going to school. You mentioned this article Kent Ingle that it does appear that the public education system has lost its sense of mission. I don’t think that’s a stretch. Do you?

Erosion of Public School Mission

Brian D. Baddick: No, I agree with you. Yeah, Jim, Dr. Ingle, he just reminds us that the school system worked hand in hand with families and their communities. I mean, that was something that was understood. In doing that, schools worked on the values, love of country, respect, faith, and virtue. That was always there. We’ve lost, we’re losing that extension with public education into the families and into communities today. As a result of that, we’re not seeing our youth today, our future on a path to be being more moral leaders and productive citizens. Rather, what was seen is objective truth is now replaced by subjective feelings.

The Role of Common Sense and Virtue

The Role of Common Sense and Patriotism in National Identity

Jim Piper Jr: Well, right. Let’s go back to some of the some of the things that the conservatives have been saying over the last x amount of years to try and regain the White House and whatnot is the two words common sense. I mean, I’ll throw out an example of common sense. We are a nation that has obviously been built upon immigrants all around the world. We all get that.

But common sense also tells you that you can’t build a strong country if those who live here do not love their country. That does not make sense. When we when we salute the flag or hear the national anthem and we have this idea that has now permeate the culture is that it’s not like it’s ever been a law but you can stand, you can put your hand over your heart, you can take your hat off, you could pray you could sing the song if you love this country. If you don’t love this country, that’s okay. You can be here and that’s fine.

I’m not saying that we throw everybody out that doesn’t stand and salute and all those things but it just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to me. You know, it’d be like a kid joining a baseball team and trying to sabotage his own baseball team. I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense. So this–

Individual Rights vs. the Common Good

Brian D. Baddick: Yeah, more absolute common sense, it’s dismissed now as being oppressive in public education in our community.

Jim Piper: Yeah. Yeah, oppressive and that’s very interesting– Yeah, you’re exactly right. In fact, it’s not implied. It’s stated, right? It is absolutely stated individual rights have gone to such a far extreme, that it doesn’t matter what impact that individual or that sect can have on the whole. It’s like that’s thrown out of the equation where it’s always been held in tension before. We know that there is not a clear definition of when individual rights exceed the good of the whole and the good of the whole sometimes can exceed individual rights.

I think we all understand that and that’s why it’s held in tension. That’s why it’s constantly argued about and should always be argued about. But this whole idea that’s happening today where we have to be– I mean, let’s just face it. The reason why there’s this big argument of whether we’re a Christian nation or not a Christian nation or whether we’re founded as a Christian nation or not, you know, you’ve got people that argue from both sides and bring out their proof texting and they bring out their evidence. This is for sure.

Cultural Confusion and Declining Moral Clarity

What is for sure is to be a Christian in the United States was once a normal thing. And today, many Christians are fearful that if they share that they’re a Christian, now all of a sudden they are all of the other labels that have gotten thrown on them bigot right wing extremists. It really is interesting to me. And this filters down to kids who are confused. They don’t know what to believe in. They don’t know what they believe. Because to be frank, a lot of the people that are supposed to be mentors and guides, they don’t know what they believe.

Obviously, I’ve only been alive 65 years. So I can’t speak for all the years that America has been. But you know, in the history books and in the stories and in the documentaries, has there ever been a time where our country has been more confused than it is now? I mean, I don’t know.

Radical Shifts in Education and Erosion of Responsibility

Brian D. Baddick: I don’t know either, Jim. I mean, I’m 32 years in going on 33 years in education. I can tell you that when I began and I got into education as a high school teacher up to now where I am, obviously education has changed. It has swung to the left. It really is beginning to be reshaping our communities and our country. And I too feel that there is a radical side in public ed.

There’s a radical side that’s in our government. It’s in our communities. We have radicals that are on school boards. We have radicals that are standing in front of kids and teaching them some audiolog idea, something that was not really part of what the founding fathers of this country had in mind and even too, back in the 1600s, 1700s, when education was being developed. We’re so far from that right now.

I mean, victimhood is over responsibility now, and division is over unity. Loss of respect for life and law. We’re looking at these as being the groundwork of poisoning our public discourse and even in our public education system.

Searching for Truth in a Fragmented Society

So we have come just so far left in the impact that right now, like you just said, we have students and we have young adults today that they’re gonna decide what is truth. And Dr. Ingle is talking about in his opinion that we have to get back to instructing and discussing what is truth.

We can turn the news on right now and there’s about a dozen different channels out there that will report the same news item with different kinds of outcomes and what really is the truth. We’re not even getting truth in our media today. Let alone, we’re not even getting truth that’s being presented and taught to our children today in public education. Our parents are not getting the truth about what is going on in their local school system. So what’s going on behind closed doors? We’re not doing that. We wanna oppress the oppressed and we wanna press the truth, it seems.

Alternative Education Models and a Potential Civil War of Ideologies

And again, this is my opinion based on my experience, but it’s also based on too what Dr. Ingle is talking about in his article about where all of this disease is coming from. What’s the center of it? If we can’t educate, and this is not me, and I’m not the expert on this one, but I will just say that through my training and if we cannot educate our youth to be morally competent and good citizens and as Dr. Ingle talks about, if we don’t do something about that, the unrest we look at is nothing compared to the chaos that awaits us for the future. That’s his opinion. And I agree with that. If we don’t address the chaos–

Jim Piper: It looks to me like we’re close to that now because in the world of leadership, I see and know not a few, Brian. I mean, more than I can remember their names, but they’re jumping ship, creating their own educational institutions based upon some of the things that you suggested that for the largest part we have lost. So then that kind of tells me that this textbook on American government today, what does that look like?

I don’t know. I don’t have a copy of one. It makes you distrust anything that’s hand it to your kids because you don’t know the source. And we do know that anything that is produced has a source, but if we don’t know the source, that’s concerning. But we have schools that are being started probably just as you and I are talking. I know of one example where in Oregon an administrator who was a believer, she kind of had one of those moments, right? Call it a breakdown, I guess, or a breakout, whatever you want to call it.

A Fork in the Road: Is It Too Late?

But she said enough is enough. And she called this meeting and said, I’m gonna start such and such kind of school and this is the principles that’s gonna be based upon. I got a lot of work to do. I don’t have any physical place to meet, blah, blah, blah. As the story goes, right there, people were writing checks to get it going. And now it’s an international school. They leverage technology. They kind of use a rabbi approach in the sense of keeping relationships long and together. You know, it’s obviously a model. It’s a pilot that’s trying to happen.

As we’ve talked about before on this mini series of episodes that we’re putting together, we know that this is happening right and left. What scares me about all of that? I mean, I applaud the courage of somebody to do something like that. But where does this go in the end? Where does this go? It feels like anarchy to me, because if there is a local expression of public education, that very clearly gets branded far left, seems to me that that is a very possible thing to occur.

Are We Heading Toward a Civil War of Education?

And then in response to that, a whole ‘nother set of educational systems can rise up both public and private, and the far right almost to where we’re creating a civil war of education. Then you’re being raised in those brands. It’s almost like it’s a self fulfilling prophecy, where we’ve got every belief system known under heaven on one country and we can live together. I think that’s naive. I think it’s more than naive. It’s foolish.

I get uncomfortable with a lot of my conservative friends who go so far as they kind of do the same thing as the far left, where they just almost get in the name column. “If you don’t love our country, leave.” I hear that and, and I get that. And I don’t disagree with that, but I’m not sure that’s the process we want to take. What we’ve done is, I mean, do you think it’s–? I know this might not be a fair question, but here it comes.

Brian D. Baddick: Come one.

Jim Piper: Is it too late? Is it too late? Is this thing just going to go wherever it goes? I mean, as we know, how long do countries survive? How long do they survive? And I think Americans sometimes stop reading history and we just think it’s going to keep going on.

The Department of Education’s Influence

The Political Origins of the Department of Education

Jim Piper: Yeah, I go back to what we discussed in our last podcast, the Department of Education. Let’s begin there. That has been, just as we remind ourselves, that was established and created by President Carter at the time back in 1979. President Carter his approval rating was like 26%, it was extremely low. Yeah. And he at the time and his administration, they wanted to get a win. They needed something to bring those approval ratings up.

And so the idea was back in 1978, ’79, get on board one of the nation’s largest unions at the time. And that was the teachers associations, the unions, and public education. What better place to go to than that group right there to, wow, look at the great thing that you’re doing. You’re creating a department of education and how wonderful this is going to be.

Special Interests and the Real Purpose?

Marissa Strait, Marissa Strait is a podcaster through Prager University. Prager University was established by Dennis Prager. And he’s a conservative radio talk show host, if you know him. He established Prager University back in 2009. Melissa Strait, she has a seven minute podcast that just came out exactly about this, what we’re talking about. What currently is viewed? What is the skeletal that are in the closet with the Department of Education?

Again, it’s the seven minute podcast. It’s really informative. She talks about how this was established really for the unions, the associations, not necessarily to improve public education or improve student achievement. It was a tool that was to create a pot of money so money can be divvied out and distributed as needed for certain interests of the associations. And I’ll give you an example of that. Back in the Obama administration, there was $1.3 or $1.7 million that was spent that was awarded to a university, a college out there to write a textbook about what family is. What is a family and what it isn’t.

Jim Piper: Wow.

Trump’s Executive Order and the Future of the DOE

Brian D. Baddick: Okay, so special interests. So now we look at March 20, 2025 in our newest president, Trump’s executive order to dismantle it and to get rid of that. The savings of that could be $2.2 billion, Jim, if the Department of Education just disappeared and ended and closed by July or excuse me, December of 2026. If it’s closed by then, that’s the potential that could be saved. $2.2 billion a year. So far, right now, $881 million has been cut, has been saved since the executive order by Donald Trump.

So I bring that up because it’s important that we understand what are the pillars of our education system and what’s feeding it, what supports it, and what kind of outcome are we going to get through these feeders and these pillars that are out there right now and how’s it going to impact? I don’t know. Again, I think there’s a way to revise and revamp the Department of Education. I think it plays a role, but the role is playing right now the way everyone is kind of losing their minds about closing it.

There’s a judge in Massachusetts right now that put a block on President Trump’s executive order because they’re concerned about the amount of people that are going to get laid off. Now, that’s just the natural consequence. We all get that. There’s layoffs in all kinds of organizations and companies and corporations. And then the other thing too is there’s some bills that are in the House and the Senate right now to save the Department of Ed and redistribute a lot of the responsibility to other agencies out there, which is going to create greater oversight.

The Impact of Truth and Personal Belief

The Fragility of Leadership and Federal Power

Jim Piper: If somebody is a believer in the Almighty and they’ve taken the time to read through Scripture and they’re able to embrace that there is a relationship with the Almighty and they created us, history seems to show that the majority and what they want rarely leads to any good thing. Leadership on top of that is most often corrupted at some point. And so you have the majority that is wayward, they want what their flesh wants. They don’t want to be told what to do. And I’m not saying that in any kind of sarcastic tone. Just saying, we were born with don’t tread on me kind of a spirit. And leaders, even good leaders at one point have a history of falling. As we always say, as leadership goes, so goes the organization, so goes the people, so goes the nation.

And not to get too philosophical, but to me it is. I don’t like using the word depressed because I’m not a depressed person. But it is to me a bit depressing. Because when I think about the federal approach, to what degree that even could be successful, I don’t know because we are United States. And the states have plenty of rights of separation from federal cooperation in some ways and in other ways not and that’s a whole process in and of itself.

Moral Confusion, Online Influence, and the Crisis in Truth

But even if the federal government had the ability to be a little bit more dictatorship, if you will, and we know how that would be, it’d be through money incentives financially. If you follow that upstream, I mean, so you can control the narrative, you can control the textbooks even. You can control the mission, the values. You could develop those and control those to some degree with financial incentives, probably. And that would probably carry the majority in time. Who’s on top? Who’s on top at the time?

So if you’ve got a godless thinking ethos and that takes two or three decades to get to get into permeate, well, the same is going to be true if you had a God fearing idea. Because back to where we started in this episode today is we talk about creating good citizens. We talked about developing virtue, moral high ground, moral authority. All of that is based on truth, that there’s truth. There are some people who don’t believe truth and don’t seem to understand that even in saying that, they’re quoting the truth. By saying, “I don’t believe that there’s absolute truth,” well, you just gave an absolute statement.

The Crisis of Truth and Influence in the Digital Age

Brian D. Baddick: Yeah, think anytime right now, anyone that watches, for example, like a Fox News network, as soon as you just mention the name Fox News, many are gonna say, “That’s not true.”

Jim Piper: Yeah, not true.

Brian D. Baddick: “That’s not true.” Now, there’s more than just Fox News that is reporting the same news the same way that is not affiliated with the facts. See, we get into, we wanna believe what we wanna believe. Kids are no different than that. Again, we have children right now that are becoming their own God. They’re determining and deciding, and I’ll bring up the topic of transgender, the whole thing with that in public education right now.

Kids online, they could go online and read up on something and make a really serious life changing decision by just going online and saying, “Mom, dad, guess what? I want to be a girl tomorrow because this is what online is teaching me. I don’t care, mom and dad, about what you think.” I’m sharing with you about the conversations that I have had with students, I’ve had with parents.

Jim Piper: Wow.

Brian D. Baddick: And asking and pleading with, “We don’t know what to do here. We never experienced anything like this. My son wants to be a girl. We love our son. But they don’t believe in creation, that there is boy and girl. They don’t believe in that. And we’re a very Christian based family.” I hear that all the time in public education. Parents don’t know what to do. They fight against the the rhetoric and the, in my opinion, satanic outlets that kids today are accessing out there. And that has become where the truth is.

Summer Break, Gaming, and the Vulnerability of Today’s Youth

That’s why I said to you in the beginning of this, it’s really important right now during the summer that parents and caregivers and grandparents, anyone that’s a positive influence on a child, a teen young adult have those discussions about what truth is about and truthful topics out there and help them to disseminate and unmask the false narratives that are out there. Because that is causing and creating a lot of the mental health that we’re seeing.

And more so now during the summer break than before the break. You know, we’re really going to see an uptick. Kids are going to be rolling into the new school year. It’s not that they have old bags. They have old and new bag. It’s based on how they spent their summer and who they spent it with and what they did online and who they did it with. So I mean, there’s a lot of nonsense out there that’s preying on teenagers through game platforms.

Jim Piper: Yeah, yeah, that was the other article that you sent over to me.

Brian D. Baddick: Social media out there right now. And there’s an FBI warning out there that I just received recently.

Join God in What He’s Already Doing

Jim Piper: Yeah, I think we want to encourage parents to, again, this sounds like rude and in your face, but we all I’m a grandparent, we really got to wake up. It’s not just one loony tunes that is living in the shack somewhere that’s trying to grab your kid. There are organizations and systems that are doing this and there’s gaming. They use gaming, they use social media, they use the power of community, even in the power of being accepted, the power of moving up into these clubs, these these fake relationships that get established.

Yeah, and I think satanic is– What else can it be? I mean even humanism is going to have some sort of self-preserving value. This other stuff that is happening is so destructive that what else can it be but an entity, a spirit that hates the human creation? I want to say this. I know that there’s a lot of business leaders that listen to our show here and you might say, “What is Jim doing?” He’s like, “Are you off course? You know, let’s talk about business principles.”

Christian Education, Sunday School

Let me say this. Brian, let me rant for a couple of minutes and I’d like to know your response. I didn’t always like going to Sunday school because sometimes Sunday school was boring. A lot of that had to do with frankly, how gifted the teacher was and or not. Somebody was just filling a slot and other people were really good at it. And a lot of it had to do with me. So it’s a community thing. But one of the things that Christian education process did within churches prior to the fact that, of course, people don’t want to hear this, that the Bible was part of the curriculum in our public school system. You pointed that out first time you came on the show.

As a minister today, the questions that are asked of me from extremely intelligent people, from human resources, human resource departments in America, are some of the most basic fundamental questions that get answered in Sunday School. Faith is an amazing foundation. What worries me a little bit today about our growing churches, which I’m a part of, I sometimes don’t think we hold intention, teaching psychological truths that help people skipping over all the foundational truths that make that message believable and truthful.

The Loss of Foundational Truth

Because really then what happens is the best communicator gets the most ears. The most gifted communicator gets the most ears. And if they’re crafty with their words and phrases, they can lead people astray. And I’m not even convinced that most of most of popular speakers, whether they’re wearing the suit of Christianity or not, I’m not even sure that all of them recognize that they are possibly leading people astray. I’m not even sure they know that. That’s how far off to what you were saying earlier what is truth.

I’m going to reach out to a young, a younger, he’s not young anymore. He grew up in my youth group and now he’s in his 50s. He started a ministry called Maven, and I’ve had him on the show before. And his ministry really is about equipping young people in truth, how to think in such ways and equipping parents in that. It’s probably time to have him back on the show and just talk about truth and talk about Maven and what’s happening there.

And you know, unfortunately, though, as much as Maven has been blessed and growing, it’s not even a drop in the ocean, as far as what really needs to be done.

Is It Too Late? Rebuilding Through Family, Faith, and Local Action

But I don’t want you to dodge my question. It was a hard one. So I’m gonna throw it back at you. Do you think it’s too late? Gosh, it just seems, you know.

Brian D. Baddick: Well, I don’t think it’s too late. What I do think is that it’s really important, again, I’m going to use the phrase more so now than ever before that we have parents and families stay connected and communicate with your children, your young adults, your teens. Those that are home for the summer, college, public school, whatever. I think this is the golden opportunity to get reconnected.

We talk about business and you’re mentioning how your business colleagues are scratching their heads saying, “What’s Jim doing talking about education?” But it’s no different in the business world. I mean, these are people too that have children. I mean, we all have to have a bond and a connection coming back to the core, the nuclei of who we are and that’s family. Family is really important. How you define your family. Hopefully it’s people that love one another that are very understanding and supportive of you.

I don’t think it’s too late. What I think is what we’re seeing now, and education is, it’s being overrun and overtaken by radical leftists. I would encourage anyone who’s a conservative, anyone that believes in conservatism, those virtues and values that you run as a school board member, you get on your local school board. That is going to help us bring back common sense. We talked about common sense earlier, Jim, common sense and truth. That is going to get us at least in the same room and start having some discourse with some other individuals that think otherwise.

We don’t have that right now. And that’s where education really has to make the pivot point. You know, we often see such a dismantling of so many. The church too, Jim, has a part, has a role responsibility in this. The church, it’s been passive. The churches have been passive. Churches have not gone and voiced and really expressed an opinion or a solution or opened the doors or whatever you want to say.

You know, I have an older brother. He’s one of my biggest influences in my life and he’s reborn and he bases all of truth and all of life solely on what comes out of the Holy Bible.  I remember one time being in a mass, we’d tend to church together at one time. At that time, the young adults, the children went off during part of the mass to do their 15, 20 minute catechism. And then they come back in that her family is in the pew to continue the service.

Why the Church and Curriculum Must Return to the Bible

And many of the children come back with coloring pictures and things that whatever they’re discussing and talking about. And my brother said to me, he goes, “Why don’t they just teach and talk about the Bible? Just use the Bible. Why do we have young, supposedly Christian children coming back with pages of coloring about things that may not be so related to what the truth is? And that to me, when I realized that, when he said that to me, like, “Yeah, we’re losing it too in our churches. We’re losing the point of what truth is.”

Just teach the Bible. Why do we have all these supplement books that we have our children using?

Jim Piper: Yeah, so let’s break that down for every leader listening to this. You know you pick the profession you go ahead and pick it whatever it is. Somebody comes along and hasn’t put the education into it. They haven’t practiced your profession and they just show up one day and they hear certain things and they see certain things and somehow they’re able to form an opinion based upon absolute ignorance and a lot of self-serving purposes. I think that happens everywhere.

You know, there are linemen who work on electrical distribution lines and transmission lines, and they are they are trained. So some appreciate the specifics of how they and how they should not go through their job. And the ones that don’t are the ones that don’t get killed. That’s an example, you can go and you can go in every– What’s the term every vertical, professional vertical in life, the same is true. And so what I’m afraid of is that I don’t think people recognize the centuries and centuries and centuries of how God has revealed himself to mankind.

Two Radical Worldviews: Creator or Chaos?

It has been recorded in this book that you have referred to called the Bible. And there are people who have given their lives to study it, to search out its veracity, to search out, know, whatever and frankly, As you know, as a fellow student of Scripture, when can you ever conclude that you have finished? That is how supernatural and powerful that book is. And if the story in that book is true, granted, it’s the most radical, crazy story that one could ever hear. It is so full of hope and grace and God’s power and God’s redemption, it tells us that this life continues after our body gives way and that this life matters towards that life. So you got that part.

But then, if you believe the other story, which is just as radical, but in the opposite way, that we’re not sure how we got here and when we die, we’re dead. That’s it. We’re done. It’s over. At some point that is the simple dividing line that really determines how individuals, families, societies go because if your truth is based on one of those, then that’s what your gamble is. And so if you don’t believe in a creator, then yeah, I suppose we can do whatever we want. There you go. And that’s it. You take your last breath. That’s it. Who am I to judge what you want to do.

Common Sense & Romans 1

But the truth is, is judgment has been given a bad word in our culture. I think what they’re striving for Brian is condemnation. We we should be extremely careful in how we condemn. But judgments common sense judgment is we teach kids stranger danger. They shouldn’t be developing relationships online with people they don’t physically know. We tell kids to look both ways before they cross the street. These are all judgments we call judges, judges. They’ve got to judge to make right.

We’ve written laws based upon experience that in our judgment, this is a better way to go. We say the speed limit is 65. We really don’t think you should be driving 80 down this deal. It’s just stinking common sense. But where does that all come from? It comes from a section in Scripture, as just one example, in the book of Romans, chapter one, where it says that God has made himself plainly seen through creation, just noticing nature, noticing the loss in which we live.

The Consequences of Rejection

We have boundaries, we can, someone can say they can do anything they want and jump off of a 20 floor building and say I will not die. And they’re going to die. Because there’s the thing called the law of gravity. And who knows how many other laws they broke in jumping off that that building. I think what we’re just appealing to and I think that’s the problem though, is it not when we look at history, and I’m not a history buff, although I love history. So I’m always reading and the more I read, the more I realize You just can keep reading.

But prosperity is a double-edged sword. Wealth is a double-edged sword. We have prospered as a country. We’ve got so much wealth as a country that there is a philosophy that creeps in that we become our own God. We solve our own problems. And we don’t need God, is how it starts off, until there is no God. I don’t know, that’s kind of my little rant on it. For me, it kind of starts there. I think you become a better business leader, a better ministry leader, a better school leader, whatever vertical it is. If you just do enough thinking saying, where did I come from? And where am I going? And why am I here?

The “Why” and “What” of Life

The Power of Purpose in Times of Suffering

Brian D. Baddick: Yeah, Jim, I want to echo the same thing. I got into a good friend of mine who’s a therapist, a counselor. We have conversations very similar to how we are going right now in our podcast about our what and our why. I start reading the book um by Victor Franco, Man’s Search for Meeting.

Jim Piper: Oh, yeah.

Brian D. Baddick: It’s a great story of a Holocaust survivor. And it talked about what his focus was, what drove him, or what was his why in survival that entire time in that concentration camp. He saw many people die around him who didn’t have, they didn’t understand who or what they were and they didn’t have a why. He saw many people perish around him because nothing focused them. Whereas he was able to survive and become a professor and become–

Summer Reads That Inspire Reflection

I mean, that Man’s Search for Meaning is just a great read. In addition, by the way, here’s my other summer read. I just want to, did you see that? This is called Story, The Art of Learning from Your Past by, oh, by you, Jim Piper.

Jim Piper: That’s awful nice of you, Brian.

Brian D. Baddick: I’m enjoying reading this. I love it. And I have a lot to say about it, and it has really encourage me to share with some others. I bought several copies and I distributed some of my close friends, but your book, Story, and Man Search for Meaning right now are at the top of my summer reading list. And I’ve gained so much insight about, when you talk about truth, what is your self-truth? What is the truth of those that are around you?

You mentioned the Bible. What resonates with me about who we are and what we need to do, I always refer back to the last three chapters in Genesis. And those three chapters lay out the groundwork, the foundation, the truth of why we are here. Every now and again, it’s good to have conversation. And so I will say to folks, do you understand why we live in maybe it’s fallible or an infallible world? But you have to understand what the purpose is, what your purpose is. And to do that–-

A Call to Rise and Make a Difference

I’ve even mentioned that to some of my Jewish friends, read the book of Genesis, the last three chapters is going to explain to you. And it’s probably going to deal with a roadmap to what you need to do being a faithful follower of God, a believer in God. That’s going to be the reason why we get up every day. I heard a sermon on TV the other day and the pastor was talking about being down and you don’t have a right to be down. You know, Jesus was laying down for three days and He rose on the third day.

But we all have that faith and we all have that in us given to us by our God to rise when we’re down. So get up and make a difference. Make a difference in your life and those around you and make the world a better place.

God’s Plan and Individual Purpose

Looking at Life from a Higher Perspective

Jim Piper Jr: I think when we look at life from below we can see how we all get self-centered and self-interest and all of those things that come with it, the growing narcissism. But referring to what you just said about those last few chapters in Genesis, when I think about the life of Joseph, which what you’re referring to, and of course, his famous quote in Genesis 5020, speaking to his brothers what you meant, you meant for harm, but God meant it for good, so that many might be saved.

I think one of the things that in my own sinfulness, Rick Warren, and his book, The Purpose Driven Life, the first words of his book is, It’s not about you, period. That’s how he starts his book. And that became an international bestseller, which tells you that I still think that there is a growing remnant of people who are thirsty for truth, who want to lean into truth.

Joseph’s Story: Preparation Through Suffering

And the story of Joseph to me, there’s innumerable things we can pull out of his life story, but the main thing that I get out of that is that God’s intention was to rescue the Hebrew people. He prepared Joseph, He chose Joseph, He prepared Joseph.

In my own opinion, when I’m looking to partner with another leader, I’m looking for somebody who walks with a little bit of a limp. I am sure I’m interested in what they’ve accomplished. I’m interested in what they’ve studied. I’m interested in those things. But I also want to know their story. I want to know why they are somebody that I can count on? Do they have some wounds? Do they’ve got some broken bones that have been healed? It’s a battle, right? And so Joseph had to go through those things in order to think about it.

He was a foreigner in this land and ended up saving these people. He literally, in many ways, saved the world. Not just his own people that, of course, had to come from the famine. It really is, hey, God’s got a really good plan. He’s going to see it through. And He wants to use you and me in the different ways he wants to use it. Now it’s just, are we willing to? As Henry Blackaby would say, some people want to do something and they ask God to bless it. He said the wiser person might pay more attention to what God is doing and join him in it. And so I’ve always liked that perspective. And that was out of the book Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. Really good stuff.

National vs. Local Leadership in Education

Brian, this has been a great discussion. We’re going to have another one. And you’re just becoming Lead Today’s expert on where we’re going. We’re leaning on you to solve this. I really appreciate your level head and the way that you look at things weighted. You have an even scale and even way of looking at things.  I want to continue to talk about the national level leadership for education, our country versus the local and what’s good about that and I think there’s more good about it than anything else but maybe the nuances that come.

You and Kristen and I have talked about that a little bit in the realm of funding. You already made a call out today for people to get involved in the education world. And for some people, it will be to jump ship and to be a disruptor. And for others, it will be to stay in the ship and be a disruptor. But it does seem like it is a time for disruption. Disruption towards what is good and what is right, what is faithful based upon a foundational truth that all Americans, all reasonable Americans, regardless of their specific application of their faith would see as a wise thing to do.

The Urgency of Getting Involved

In a live debate, if you put two people on the stage in a live debate, anyone with half the wit is going to win out that morality is based upon truth, and it will come out and it will win. But as you said, we can’t just sit back. We need to be involved.

Brian D. Baddick: Now we have to be involved, Jim. We have to make the call right now. We have to through your podcasts. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to use this platform to express and just talk about some topics that are just difficult to talk in general, come from the perspective of an educational leader. It’s really important that we– We have to talk about things that make us uncomfortable. Uncomfortable people will feel uncomfortable, but we really have to hit the ground running. We have to give the best hand up that we can for students, for families today.

The Power of Story and the Role of Business Leaders

And again, our theme, our topic today has been about truth. We need to know what the truth is. Stories are great. There’s truth in stories, there’s connection in stories. So that’s why I enjoy reading yours. I’ll bring it up again, one more plug, here we go. Story by Jim Piper Jr. Thank you everyone. Get your copy today. But it’s a great read. Just like every Sunday when I go to mass, we eulogize, we eulogize how Christ wanted us to remember him. And we have done that for thousands of years. In the influence of that story of truth has been a lifesaver for many, and it should be.

And that’s where I would encourage not just those in education, but those in the business world too. What we do in education in the impact, the influence is certainly going to have an impact and influence in corporate, the business world. So they too have to listen up and get a voice and pay attention. So again, I want to thank you for the opportunity. Keep up the great work that you’re doing. I’m looking forward to our next discussion. We miss our co-host partner in Kristen today and hopefully she can join us for another Lively discussion.

Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead

Jim Piper: Absolutely.

Brian D. Baddick: So thank you so much, Jim.

Jim Piper: Brian, thank you for your time and investment in this discussion. And I do think it’s an ongoing one. Thank you for buying my book and promoting it like that and sharing it. That was kind and I appreciate it.

Jim Piper: You’re welcome. All right, Jim. God bless.

Outro

Winston Harris: Thank you for joining us on The Today Counts Show. We got so much more planned for you so stay tuned and stay connected on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and subscribe on YouTube. Remember, today counts.
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