Devin Backholm
Occupation: For the last 16 years I have been in the financial industry, working with insurance — both life and casualty — and also investments, being licensed for securities of all sorts. Previous to the recent years, I ran a contracting business and before that worked in church ministry as a pastor, school administrator and various other associated activities.
Public involvement: It has been connected to the church work where activities have been many and varied – everything from marrying and burying, to family counseling, musical events, and kids athletics.
1. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether high schools over emphasize preparation for university at the expense of trades or other career paths. What are your views on how the district should prepare students?
I do believe it is a good trend that we are seeing in putting more emphasis on trades and careers that don’t necessarily flow out of the universities. The college debt that is burdening so many of our current college graduates is tragic.
2. What ideas would you bring to the school board that would foster more success in the classroom.
I believe success in the classroom is best fostered by personal integrity and morality. Teachers can only do so much with a student who lacks fundamentals in his life. The following gives a glimpse of how I would approach this topic:
The Green Bay Packers lost the 1960 NFL championship game in the last quarter. When coach Lombardi came into the first team meeting of training camp for the new season he stood in front of his players holding a ball in his right hand and solemnly said, “Gentlemen, … this is a football.”
He proceeded to explain that, no matter what, one cannot lose sight of the fundamentals. Therefore, he announced that every player was going to relearn blocking and tackling. Do you play for the Packers? This is how we do it! Every player went through retraining in blocking and tackling!
What happened to bring him to this conviction? He analyzed history. Since the loss he’d gone over the game film many times. A missed tackle resulted in a score for the other team. A missed block resulted in negative yardage for his team. He had studied what had happened in the past that made things go badly for the team. How the fundamentals are executed determines the outcome of the game.
What Lombardi was to the game of football, our Founding Fathers are to the game of freedom — and they spelled out the fundamentals of freedom in our founding documents. “If you’re going to be a Packer,” said Lombardi, “this is how we do it!”
“If you’re going to be a son of liberty, an American,” said the Founders, “this is how we do it!” (They, too, had analyzed history.) Where do we find the fundamentals of freedom? Where do we find the definition of that Republic for which our flag stands? Is it just like the People’s Republic of China?
The American definition is articulated in the founding documents. These explain the fundamentals of our free Republic. It is the job of our public schools to transfer these values to the next generation and to immigrants.
The Declaration of Independence begins with affirming the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, continues by insisting that human rights come from our Creator, not the government, and clarifies that government’s legitimate role is securing those God-given rights. It reveals the depth of conviction the signers had … they were willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor and boldly spell out where their ultimate hope was placed … with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence.” (i.e. In God We Trust.)
The Constitution and Bill of rights provide for the separation of powers through three branches of government (Isaiah 33:22) which restrains corrupted human nature. The Bill of rights was adopted to spell out specific restrictions on the central government to prevent abuse of power.
The Northwest Ordinance describes the process and requirements for territories to become states. Article three describes the reason for encouraging education and what its components should be. “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
These things define our Republic. If we are going to be good Americans we need to believe, practice and teach these things. By the way, the Packers made it to the championship game again that year and won, 37-0.
3. The district has a new school superintendent. What do you want her to emphasize?
The superintendent would do well to emphasize No. 2.
