(If this
article does not confirm the fundamental premise of my website, I don't know
what does.
Read the website for yourselves and then link to the archive - the recovery of American culture and education is in our hands.
Yes - we allowed the degradation – and we are restoring it - NOW! - http://www.crushlimbraw.com - )
Read the website for yourselves and then link to the archive - the recovery of American culture and education is in our hands.
Yes - we allowed the degradation – and we are restoring it - NOW! - http://www.crushlimbraw.com - )
At Columbia University's Teachers College, in the early
years of the 20th century, a handful of men inspired by "laws of social
evolution" gathered to presume a "science" of education
linked with a "science" of human behavior. They were no
mere researchers. Their
sights were on nothing less than the establishment of a new social order.
Laws? Science? The
scientific method bends out of shape over things like the
will. Love, hate, loyalty, treachery, humility, arrogance, and many
other common items of human experience melt science down to its
core. And the study of humans by humans is – well, circular, is it
not?
The
intellectual arrogance, not to say quackery, of men like John Dewey may be
forgiven as a human weakness. But lording over one's fellows by
presuming to make of them a better breed smells not only of conceit, but of
treachery. In this
plot – a good one for mad scientist movies – parent and pastor were to take a
back seat while behavioral "experts" rewired the strands of human
behavior, using schoolchildren as experimental subjects. Their
motive? A new age was dawning. It was a matter of when,
not if, collectivism and socialism would come to America. Was it not
the task of the public educator to prepare its subjects for the new
order? Was it not the job of the public teacher to change basic
perceptions, attitudes, social relations?
That
such high
horsing violates democratic basics meant nothing to these
"progressives." To them, democracy was less a form of
government than a means for "reforming" society. Today's
"liberals" still believe that. For them,
"majority" meant a body to be molded.
The
founders of our republic labored diligently to ensure a level political playing
field for themselves and for posterity. But reformist heavyweights
of the early 20th century saw fit to tilt the field their way or risk failing
in their mission to groom American society for a collectivist future.
Their methodology was and remains to
indoctrinate the public through school, media, and church, under the rubrics of
"science" and "experts" and "studies" and – most
conniving of all – "the changing times." Individuals who
think for themselves and express unorthodox views must be marginalized and
denied equal access to media, market, and due process. Collectivist
agenda operatives are still as anxious as ever to ram their great ideas down
the public throat. If it means becoming "journalists,"
political activists, "social justice" mercenaries, or
"pastors," lying and deceiving are not a problem.
How
can any majority weed out bad ideas when ideas don't circulate freely and
compete in an open market? When journalists spread political
narratives instead of reporting the news? When the curiosity of the
child, who asks why-why-why, is dulled or washed out by graduation
time? When church and school become conduits of propaganda
instead of places for reflection and learning?
It
was from the early-twentieth-century Pandora's box of questionable theory and
Marxist fever that the missionaries for educational reform
issued. The minds of the young in this country – particularly those
who as teachers and leaders were to transmit the gospel of a new social order –
were subverted by Marxist activists a long time ago.
Do you wonder why you never got this in
history?
Reorienting the mind
I
thought it silly, while in school in 1946, to let kids do what they wanted
to do in school. For me, and for a school pal,
the "Progressive" experiment was
great fun. My friend Bob and I were permitted to cut classes we didn't
care for in favor of painting murals on the walls of Brooklyn's Halsey Junior
High School. That we both succeeded academically proves not the
wisdom of Dewey's theories but that diligent students manage to transcend
obstacles to their progress.
Progressive
educators now wire young minds via satellite, assuming an unfounded
desirability of forming a global community of similar (washed)
minds. What's wrong with globalist thinking is a subject for a
library. But the right to be different and to associate with those
of like kind and mind continues to shelve the one-world notion of human
association under "Fiction."
Quality
of life faded after "group" trumped individual, a side-effect of
progressive leveling. The pressure to conform replaced the incentive
to rise. Group orientation made it easier to alienate youth from
family and tradition, a precondition for forming a collective social
order. A society that links generation with generation in
shared values and cultural ties interferes with establishing a collective
society under totalitarian rule.
New-age honchos like to operate behind the
scenes, à la the Wizard of Oz, pulling levers of screen,
magazine, lyrics, and stage to alter society by filling budding minds with
"politically correct" images and ideas, playing on youth's innocence
and natural idealism, stirring passions untempered by reflection. The result of a long
plague of such brainwashing and indoctrination is a base of voters with moral
and intellectual disability and an abiding aversion to family, country, God,
and truth.
The mental holiday declared by early
progressive educators spawned a most dangerous social myth, that of
value-neutral ethics. A value-neutral society is for all purposes a
valueless society. Freed of
timeless standards of ethical behavior, people act as though anything-goes is
normal and right, unaware that they have become valueless selves that no
therapy or "self-esteem" program can prop up with real confidence or
sinless theology fill with lasting hope.
"Progress"
The
original goals and tactics have been forgotten. Today's public-school educators are unaware of their own
history and why they think and teach as they do. But
though the memory is lost, the desire for bringing forth a "new social
order" remains imbedded in their consciousness.
Sadly,
the world caves in on minds when they actually face the reality that the only
possible reform is self-reform, when better communities and a "better
world" can be had only with better selves, so crucial in a democratic form
of government.
In conclusion
The
"education problem" in America is not one of inadequate funding or
management. It is one of defective educational philosophy. The legacy of early Marxists on their way to a
"global" future under some species of collectivism has been the worst
possible foundation for a sound education system. Established
educational philosophy is mired in misconceptions regarding both the nature and
the business of education. Public-school
teachers are victims of teacher education that emphasizes ideology over substance, relativism over enduring values.
teachers are victims of teacher education that emphasizes ideology over substance, relativism over enduring values.
Fundamentals that must be restored
include the following: school authority is subservient to parental
authority. The school has no business vilifying tradition, slurring
religion, or disallowing individual accountability. In short, it has
no mandate to alter society.
And
so sparks will continue to fly between those who want parents to be in control
of the education of their children, in an atmosphere where multiple points of
view may compete fairly, and those who insist on dragging the outdated baggage
of their Marxist ancestors to its ultimate destination: the dustbin of history.
Anthony J. DeBlasi is a graduate of Brooklyn College, 1953.
