PART IV– HUMANISM’S FOUL LEGACY
Through steady accretion throughout the 20th century, the high-priests of Humanism gained control of the American educational establishment. By the 90’s this new philosophy was bearing its poison fruit.
We have traced the purpose, the philosophy and the subversion of American education. Openly declaring their intentions in their educational journals, the socialists, the one-worlders, had advanced their agenda whether Republican or Democrat was in office. With few exceptions the American public slept through the change. The changes had bore their poisoned fruit. The first major flaw was that the new education paradigm produced a student population that was in several senses; – without roots. It was ignorant of its past, and devoid of any moral component. Its morality ethic was: Please yourself. Secondly it produced a population unprepared for work without, in the words of Alan Caruba, “…even the most basic education or skills to perform any job with a minimum of competency”. [i] According to Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt, author of the landmark The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, the Department of Education (DOE) had “…effectively transformed the essential character of the nation’s public schools from teaching…to workforce readiness training.” [ii]
Let’s look at the first problem: Morality. The changing of the moral character of the culture was no accident. It was an outcome that was stealthily pursued since Dewey’s theories emerged as the ‘educational gospel’ shortly after the turn of the 20th century. We live in an America now, where the values of the parents are no longer the values of the teaching establishment. As early as 1967, the NEA Journal was calling for the schools to abandon the teaching of values. They were advocating in fact the introduction of Values Clarification. The classroom became the instrument of moral relativism; in other words, ‘What’s right for you, may not be right for me’. Sidney Simon’s, Values Clarification: A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students was introduced into the curriculum. Classroom exercises called “values voting” was introduced across the nation. Here’s an example of questions asked. “How many of you:
Think there are times when cheating is justified?
Regularly attend religious services and enjoy it?
Would choose to die and go to heaven if it meant playing a harp all day?”
These and questions like it were of course a direct and insidious attack on the morality of the parental generation.[iii]
The direct attack on the old morality was supplemented by an even more insidious psychological approach. One NEA publication admitted that schools were to become “…clinics whose purpose is to provide individualized psychosocial ‘treatment’ for the students.” [iv] The same article introduced the notion of using biochemical experimentation for student control. In 1969, William Glasser, a guru of the new values, advanced the agenda even further. Classroom time would be set aside for students to share feelings with teachers, who would in turn, guide them toward achieving politically correct answers. Biblical standards of course gave way to personal preference. The manipulative techniques introduced as a result, led to a little bonus. Teachers would be able to collect data and monitor the attitudes of the student’s families.[v]
The second major flaw in education, preparing a workforce, was addressed by something called Outcome Based Education. OBE was designed to move the student population, to acceptance of a one-world government. Benjamin Bloom, an avatar of the movement openly stated: “The purpose of education …is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students.”[vi] Education was no longer about the transfer of knowledge. Thomas A Kelly said it thus, “The brain should be used for processing not storage”.[vii] Now the gospel of OBE combined with increasing Federal control of education to produce a natural move toward a national curriculum. In 1989, a program that came to be known as Goals 2000, began moving toward adoption by the various state governments, while maintaining the fiction of local control. This however was no less than the acceptance of a national behavior modification program by the force that controlled American education. Under the auspices of the Department of Education, Outcome Based Education forced the abandonment of teaching basic skills and information in favor of psychological conditioning. Listen to the impassioned and accurate words of Alan Caruba. Students were being “…systematically conditioned to think in global terms about humanity, nations, religions and …the environment. They may not know where Brazil is on the map, but they “know” all the rainforests are disappearing. They don’t know when the Civil War took place, or why, but they “know” that all the Founding Fathers were slaveholders.” This is the legacy of Outcome Based Education, and its sister philosophy, Behavior Modification.[viii]
The outcome that that behavior was designed to produce was laid out in another document published that same year by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The Elementary Global Education Framework, announced that its goal was “Human beings whose home is planet earth…citizens of a multicultural democratic society…who learn [to] celebrate life on this planet…[and are ready] to meet global challenges”, yada, yada, yada, etc. It could have been written by the One-World socialists of the United Nations “masquerading as environmentalists.” Oh that’s right! As we’ve seen earlier, – it was.[ix]
With the establishment of the Department of Education (DOE), Federal control was codified. The DOE was of course, controlled by the progressive, socialist elements, whose goals were to employ Outcome Based Education to train all students to have the same values and beliefs. Some became bolder in their pronouncements and began to advocate the unthinkable. In 1977, Mary Jo Bane, later a member of the Clinton administration, opined that, “…in order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.”[x] That same year Eddie Bernice Johnson of HEW began calling for the licensing of parents. Her call has been echoed in academic circles at many times since then. But all of this was not new. It had long been an article of faith among the educational elites that the family must go. A widely used social service textbook, stated as far back as 1919 that “…the family goes back to the age of savagery while the state belongs to the age of civilization. The modern individual is a world citizen.” It was now the open goal to remove children from the direct control of their parents.[xi]
It had long been UNESCO doctrine that schools were to become primarily responsible for the “emotional and moral development of children.” In 1979, a statewide health plan in North Carolina began linking religion with mental illness.[xii] Shortly after, diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder began to skyrocket. And so was introduced the wholesale use of psychotropic drugs into the student population. By 2003, somewhere around 5 million kids were taking drugs like Ritalin on a daily basis.[xiii] The drive for full Federal control of mental health continues. President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act expanded mental health programs in the schools.[xiv] The Children’s Mental Health Act of 2003, encouraged states to adapt increasingly mandatory mental health testing. Within a year, Illinois was holding public forums on a program requiring mental health testing for pregnant women and children up to the age of 18.[xv]
Another tool being used by the educational elite to change the culture is sex education. According to pioneer education author, Samuel Blumefeld, “…it has done more to destroy biblically based moral value than any other secular force in America.”[xvi] The purported justification is that, ‘since kids will do it anyway’, it will reduce pregnancies and STDs. After 30 years it seems to have had the opposite effect. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead exposed the myth of sex education in her landmark article in the Atlantic Monthly in October of 1994. She proved that sex education had been a failure. Just one statistic: unwed pregnancies among teens had risen by 17% in just 11 years. Abstinence was what really worked.[xvii] But this was a message Big Education was unwilling to hear. Sex education had come on the scene, fed by Sigmund Freud’s psychological justification encouraging sexual expression. It was nourished by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, advocate of free-love, (and eugenics). It was Planned Parenthood’s goal to “…help people obtain sexual satisfaction before marriage… without having to risk possible pregnancy.” Sex without consequences was their aim. This was pure animal instinct they advocated. Kinsey carried the ball from there. We are “sexual from birth” he preached. And it was Kinseyan philosophy that under girded the sex-ed curriculum developed and put in to place by SIECUS, the Sex Information and Education Council of the US. Under the auspices of our schools they were promoting a new moral standard incorporating total sexual freedom. It got so outrageous that Jocelyn Elders, Surgeon General under President Clinton, proposed teaching masturbation in school. The fruit of sex education has been increasing teen pregnancy, single parenthood, and sexually transmitted diseases.[xviii]
Possibly the most virulent assault against the Judeo-Christian ethic, is the forced agenda of the radical gay movement. Using the non-threatening terms of “tolerance”, early in the century, groups like GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, began targeting public school students. Their mission was the enactment of the Gay Lesbian Bi-Sexual Transgender, agenda for every school in America. Their strategy was subtle. They shifted the debate from moral issues and “parental authority to sexual orientation, student safety, equal access and anti-discrimination.” They have set up Gay Straight Alliances on thousands of campuses. Their message is that it is all a matter of human rights, the next great civil rights battle.[xix] And they pretty much took that round. The issue was rendered almost moot when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2013. Before and after that event, same-sex marriage and transgenderism has been skyrocketing – especially among the young – but also affecting the population at large. Overall, Pew Research found that “in 2001, Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a margin of 57% to 35%.” By 2017 those numbers had reversed. Now, “62% support same-sex marriage, while 32% oppose it.” And support has grown in every demographic studied. Support has grown among Baby-Boomers, Generation Xers, Millennials – and even the ageing Silent Generation. “Two-thirds of Catholics now support same-sex marriage, as do a similar share of white mainline Protestants (68%).” And support has leaped forward among White Evangelical Protestants, from 27% in 2016 to 35% in 2017.[xx] [It reminds us of Paul’s words found in 2Timothy 4:3-4. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”] A poll published in the Economist confirmed the trend on a worldwide scale. It found that well over 60% of Americans (aged 18-21) favored same-sex marriage. It also found that in the US, “three-quarters of respondents are in favour of transgender rights.” [There’s an interesting twist to that poll. It also found that globally, a greater number of youth supported gay marriage and transgenderism than free speech. “Fewer than half of 18- to 21-year-olds worldwide think others should be free to express non-violent opinions that are offensive to minorities”[xxi] – and just over half approved of non-violent opinions that criticized religious beliefs.”]
Of course this widespread public support has had its affect on the culture. Those who hold to biblical values and the Judeo-Christian underpinning or our culture are viewed now as morally, deficient Neanderthals, who have by our views, forfeited our rights to engage in the public debate. Truly evil has become good and good evil. The Bible pronounces judgement on such. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21) The World has overthrown the godly order and absconded with the culture. In California, favorable views of gays, lesbians and trans-genders has long been taught in every subject, K-12. Now that poison has spread across much of the nation. This whole movement is not about tolerance, – it is about changing the culture – destroying the long-reigning World Order in order to set up a new one – wherein everyone will only worship at the Church of Man. They sell that story well. But they fail to talk about the nearly 50,000 new HIV cases every year. And they don’t mention that about 1/3 of 17year olds “…who identify themselves as homosexual will be HIV positive or dead” by the age of thirty.[xxii] The price to be paid by others for their revolution is of no account to those who would bring it about!
[i] Alan Caruba, Subversion of Education in America, National Anxiety Center, anxietycenter.com, 2001
[ii] Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, as quoted in Alan Caruba,
Subversion of Education in America, National Anxiety Center, anxietycenter.com, 2001
[iii] Quoted from Dennis Cuddy, Chronology of Education (Highland City, FL)
Pro-Family Forum, 1993
[iv] Forecast for the 70’s, Today’s Education, 1969, as quoted in Dennis Cuddy,
Chronology of Education (Highland City, FL) Pro-Family Forum, 1993
[v] William Glasser, Schools Without Failure, Harper and Row, 1969
[vi] Benjamin Bloom, All Our Children Learning, 1981, as quoted in Alan Caruba, Subversion of Education in America,
National Anxiety Center, anxietycenter.com, 2001
[vii]Quoted from The Effective School Report, Dr Thomas A Kelly, found in Alan Caruba, Subversion of Education in America, National Anxiety Center, anxietycenter.com, 2001
[viii] Alan Caruba, Subversion of Education in America, National Anxiety Center, anxietycenter.com, 2001
[ix] Alan Caruba, Subversion of Education in America, National Anxiety Center, anxietycenter.com, 2001
[x] Tulsa Sunday World, August 21, 1977, – as quoted from Mental Health and World Citizenship, Dennis L Cuddy, August 11, 2004, NewsWithViews.com
[xi] Mental Health and World Citizenship, Dennis L Cuddy, August 11, 2004, NewsWithViews.com
[xii] Mental Health and World Citizenship, Dennis L Cuddy, August 11, 2004, NewsWithViews.com
[xiii] Samuel Blumenfeld, Should The Government Force Drugs On Kids, 11/27/03
[xiv] Mental Health and World Citizenship, Dennis L Cuddy, August 11, 2004, NewsWithViews.com
[xv] The Leader – Chicago Bureau, July 19, 2004
[xvi] Sex Ed And The Destruction of American Morality, Samuel Blumenfeld, NewsWithViews.com, January 28, 2003
[xvii] The Failure of Sex Education, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Atlantic Monthly, October, 1994
[xviii] Sex Ed And The Destruction of American Morality, Samuel Blumenfeld, NewsWithViews.com, January 28, 2003
[xix] Marc A Fey, Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools Marches Forward, December 17, 2003
[xx] Changing Attitudes on Gay Marriage, Pew Research, June 20, 2017
[xxi] Claire Chretien, Study: More youth support gay ‘marriage,’ transgenderism than free speech, Life Site News, January 3, 2018
[xxii] Kermit Rainman, Silence v. the Truth, Focus on the Family, Citizen Link, http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/features/a0036012.cfm/,
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