Mis-educating the young, on purpose
It’s otherwise known as the indoctrination of impressionable children – and the left is hard at work at this task, and has been for many many decades. But in recent years it’s reached a very critical mass.
I linked to this article in a previous post today. But now I’m giving it a post of its own, for emphasis.
I’ve written several times before about the 1619 Project of the NY Times, as well as the plan of its creators to make it part of the school curriculum. And yes, that’s what’s happening, exactly as contemplated.
The voices of historians – even historians somewhat to the left – criticizing the “facts” in the 1619 Project are just so much hot air at this point, because the “educators” who make the decisions couldn’t care less what historians think:
Since its publication in August, the 1619 Project has been adopted in more than 3,500 classrooms in all 50 states, according to the 2019 annual report of the Pulitzer Center, which has partnered with the Times on the project. Five school systems, including Chicago and Washington, D.C., have adopted it district-wide. It is mostly being used as supplemental, optional classroom teaching material. By and large, school systems are adopting the project by administrative fiat, not through a public textbook review process…
Gordon Wood, a leading historian of the American Revolution and emeritus professor at Brown University, told RealClearInvestigations the Times material “is full of falsehoods and distortions.” In its current form, without corrections, which the Times has declined to run, the only way to use it in the classroom, he said, would be “as a way of showing how history can be distorted and perverted.”…
Defenders of ethnic studies argue the movement is a necessary corrective to a whitewashed version of history. But critics denounce it as propaganda used to indoctrinate students. And they’re troubled by the endorsement of racial and identity-based histories by prestigious institutions such as the New York Times and publicly funded schools.
The project’s leader, Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, has declared since the magazine’s publication that her goal “is that there’ll be a reparations bill passed” – meaning financial reparations for slavery and subsequent racial discrimination.
If you have young children or grandchildren – or even if you don’t – try to find out whether this is what they’re learning. If it is, please try your best to fight it. I’ve looked (rather quickly, just now) to see whether there’s an organized group opposing this. I can’t locate one, but if anyone has any information or suggestions, please comment below.
Oh, and if anyone says the NY Times doesn’t have much influence anymore, think again. Its influence is hardly limited to articles in a newspaper.
One key part of the Leftist project is to first use political correctness i.e. peer pressure and, eventually, to use the law (“hate speech” laws, etc.) to control speech and, thus, thought, and then–given the Left’s control over education–to limit, as well, the information you have access to, and to limit the skills you might have to analyze that information.
Here’s an example, out today, of such censorship and the chilling of free speech from Canada,
You know how all of those Lefties always threaten to “move to Canada,” on the assumption that it is a much more civilized place, and much more to their liking?
Well take a look at the video below, of Canadian author Ezra Levant being interrogated by the Canadian “authorities” about a book he wrote, during an election year, that was critical of Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, which they said might have been a violation of law. (The authors of 24 other similar books which were pro-Trudeau were apparently not called in for similar interrogation.)
Note that his interrogators were RCMP veterans, each with decades of service in the RCMP, where they were often assigned to terrorism cases,
Note, as well, that these interrogators refused to show him the complaint he was supposed to defend himself against, nor would they tell him who made the complaint.
All in all a very chilling, Kafkaesque experience, which does not bode well for free speech and thought, especially in a country like Canada, which does not have a written Bill of Rights.
See, as well, the experience with this sort of government harassment, interrogation, and pressure that Professor Jordan Peterson has been subjected to, when he refused to use politically correct government mandated pronouns to address his students.
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/caught-on-hidden-camera-conservative-ezra-levant-of-rebel-news-interrogated-over-his-book-exposing-justin-trudeaus-corruption/
There have been examples, all over the country, of parents suddenly discovering the unsavory and/or anti-American things that their children were being taught, quite often without either these parent’s knowledge or permission.
Our entire Educational Establishment is both a Leftist indoctrination machine and, at the same time, a failure at inculcating basic skills in reading, writing, mathematics, and other key subjects.
The ideal is to take your kids out of these government schools and to home school them, but this is a very time-consuming and expensive thing to do, and many parents very likely do not the time or the right skill set to do this.
Moreover, the alternative of finding the right private school and paying the tuition to have them educated there is also prohibitive for a lot of families.
The obvious answer is to change what is taught and how it is taught, but given the Left’s death grip on the Educational Establishment, this seems unlikely to happen, especially in the short term.
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt (whom we never discuss despite 10 years posting her)
Despite her credentials, that she is a changer, and a whistle blower who is ignored… ignoring her is why it is the way it is now, as she blew the whistle on it before the web existed…
Charlotte Iserbyt – Deliberately Constructed Idiocracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyDtYy2I0M
another we never discuss
John Taylor Gatto is an award winning teacher that isn’t afraid to buck the trend. Dumbing Us Down – The Hidden Curriculum Of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto is a masterly an in-depth view into how public schooling really works.
Both rang the bell for no reason..
just like Jan Karski rang the bell..
what did he warn of? the holocaust..
so what? if your not going to listen to the people warning you from places inside and of power, your just farting into the wind… wasting time..
The body is cold already…
We ignored the warnings, and the people, and their stories, and so on… Until families are destroyed, the academy thinks gulags are good, politicians are openly running on ideologies the same as Lenin when he started…
waste of time to discuss it..
the horses left the barn decades ago..
shut the door… right?
It’s easy to think of this effort as just another whiny victim jeremiad. Or dismiss as an argument to buttress reparations claims. It is much more insidious and dangerous than that. The purpose of the 1619 project is to delegitimize the Constitution. So it can be abandoned. If the left can’t emasculate the Constitution via the Supreme Court then it will need to destroy it.
Snow On Pine,
Home schooling is less expensive than private school, and if there is more than one child the savings are enormous. And private schools are no panacea, most of them, even religious ones, have drunk the koolaide, too.
Better mom stays home doing the job herself than handing her children off to others while she works to pay for tuition, etc. There are tremendous resources available for home schooling, now, many affordable and some are free. As far as the skill set necessary to home school adequately, any literate person with common sense and organizational discipline could do a better job than most schools, public or private. Spiritually and intellectually.
This grotesque distortion of American history, meant to demonstrate its irredeemable iniquity, has been rejected publicly and at some length by the National Association of Scholars, on whose board of directors I am pleased and proud to serve. Its research director, David Randall, has produced an incisive and eloquent rebuttal, which is accessible at: https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/how-the-times-1619-project-misses-the-point.
NAS seeks to uphold the liberal arts and a liberal education. In so doing, it regularly exposes the pernicious idiocies that have corrupted American academia. NAS can be contacted online at contact@nas.org and by telephone (917-551-6770).
You are among the finest journalists of opinion in America today. Your views are quite obviously original, and expressed in prose that is always lucid and concise.
With my respect and admiration,
Jay Bergman
Professor of History
Central CT State University
New Britain CT 06050