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You can read John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education free online here: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm The American education system is doing exactly what the industrialists designed it to do - mold naturally curious children into mindless workers who are basically still children, wanting all the latest "toys" out there & wanting them right now! We don't need to spend more $$$ on the current educational system. It's too efficient at what it was created to do as it is. Traditional schools are preparing us to be mindless drones. School is nothing but job training. It prepares us to be working, taxpaying consumers who keep the economy going. Its purpose is not to enlighten us. 2-Year-Old Knows Geography Better Than 97% of Population: In an era where two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, this adorable 2-year old who can not only identify Canada and the United States, but also Zimbabwe, Fiji, Saudi Arabia, China, and dozens and dozens of others, is really amazing. Dumb and Dumber Has Become American Norm Ø 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives Ø 80 percent of American families did not buy or read a book last year Ø 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years Think about it: what is the use of wasting borrowed money that you'll have to struggle years to pay back in order to send your kids to college if they are the typical ones who won't bother to read sufficiently to keep up-to-date in their field, as well as to also know what is going on in the world and have informed opinions enough to make wise choices in who they elect, how they live their lives, their health and other choices?) Meanwhile, people in the United States spend an average of four hours in front of the TV each day and three hours listening to the radio -- both sources that contain little or no real information that can truly benefit your life. Obviously, most of you reading this are not in this category and do actively read, so you're not part of the problem. However, as we work toward creating a paradigm shift in people's consciousness about health and well-being, we clearly have our work cut out for us. With almost no one searching for, reading, and critically analyzing information, it's no wonder that only 11 percent of Americans know the daily amount of calories they should be eating -- especially when you consider the vast amounts of disinformation being thrown at all of us by advertisers every day, as well as the pseudo-science being spread by the many bought-and-paid for organizations which are nothing more than fronts for corporations. Drug companies, as only one of many examples, spend literally billions of dollars each year on direct-to-consumer TV advertising (the U.S. being one of only two countries in the world where this is legal) because they know that it works. When most people see a drug being advertised on TV, they have no other sources of information to let them know that they are being sold an ineffective and dangerous product. Given that situation, it's no surprise that 2/3 of doctor visits resulted in a drug being prescribed, and spending for prescription drugs is the fastest-growing category of health care expenditures. Yes we have a long row to hoe in educating our friends and relatives about the truth so at least they can make informed choices and not continue to be brainwashed by the drug cartels. If we are to thrive as a society, encourage your kids to read, read often, and discuss what's been read to encourage free and independent thought. Preserving liberty and restoring constitutional precepts are impossible as long as the welfare mentality prevails, and that will not likely change until we've run out of money, but it will become clear, as we move into the next century, that perpetual wealth and the so-called balanced budget, along with an expanding welfare state, cannot continue indefinitely. Any effort to perpetuate it will only occur with the further erosion of liberty. The role of the US government in public education has changed dramatically over the past 100 years. Most of the major changes have occurred in the second half of this century. In the 19th century, the closest the federal government got to public education was the Land Grant College program. In the last 40 years, the federal government has essentially taken charge of the entire system. It is involved in education at every level through loans, grants, court directives, regulations, and curriculum manipulation. In 1900 it was of no concern to the federal government how local schools were run at any level. After hundreds of billions of dollars, we have yet to see a shred of evidence that the drift toward central control over education has helped. By all measurements, the quality of education is down. There are more drugs and violence in the public schools than ever before. Discipline is impossible out of fear of lawsuits or charges of civil rights violations. Controlled curricula have downplayed the importance of our constitutional heritage while indoctrinating our children, even in kindergarten, with environmental mythology, internationalism, and sexual liberation. Neighborhood schools in the early part of the 20th Century did not experience this kind of propaganda. The one good result coming from our failed educational system has been the limited but important revival of the notion that parents are responsible for their children's education, not the state. We have seen literally millions of children taken from the public school system and taught at home or in private institutions in spite of the additional expense. This has helped many students and has also served to pressure the government schools into doing a better job. And the statistics show that middle-income and low-income families are the most eager to seek an alternative to the public school system. There is no doubt that the way schools are run, how the teachers teach, and how the bills are paid is dramatically different from 100 years ago. And even though some that go through public schools do exceptionally well, there is clear evidence that the average high school graduate today is far less educated than his counterpart was in the early part of this century. Due to the poor preparation of our high school graduates, colleges expect very little from their students, since nearly everyone gets to go to college who wants to. Public school is compulsory and college is available to almost everyone regardless of qualifications. In 1914, English composition was required in 98% of our colleges; today it's about one-third. Only 12% of today's colleges require mathematics be taught, where in 1914, 82% did. No college now requires literature courses. But, rest assured plenty of social-babble courses are required as we continue to dumb down our nation. (No wonder U.S. students rank 36th in the world!) Federal funding for education grows every year, hitting $38 billion this year, $1 billion more than requested by the administration and 7% over last year. Great congressional debates occur over the size of a classroom, student and teacher testing, bilingual education, teacher's salaries, school violence, and drug usage. And it's politically incorrect to point out that all these problems are not present in the private schools. Every year there is less effort at the federal level to return education to the people, the parents, and the local school officials. For 20 years at least, some of our presidential candidates advocated abolishing the Department of Education and for the federal government to get completely out of the public education business. This year we will hear no more of that. The President got more money for education than he asked for, and it's considered not only bad manners but also political suicide to argue the case for stopping all federal government education programs. Talk of returning some control of federal programs to the state is not the same as keeping the federal government out of education as directed by the Constitution. Of the 20 congressionally authorized functions granted by the Constitution, education is not one of them. That should be enough of a reason not to be involved, but there's no evidence of any benefit, and statistics show that great harm has resulted. It has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, yet we continue the inexorable march toward total domination of our educational system by Washington bureaucrats and politicians. It makes no sense! It's argued that if the federal funding for education did not continue education would suffer even more. Yet we see poor and middle-class families educating their children at home or at a private school at a fraction of the cost of a government school education, with results fantastically better--and all done in the absence of violence and drugs. A case can be made that there would be more money available for education if we just left the money in the states to begin with and never brought it to Washington for the bureaucrats and the politicians to waste. But it looks like Congress will not soon learn this lesson, so the process will continue and the results will get worse. The best thing we could do now is pass a bill to give parents a $3,000 tax credit for each child they educate. This would encourage competition and allow a lot more choice for parents struggling to help their children get a decent education. (From "A Republic, If You Can Keep It" by Dr. Ron Paul) --- The curious case of NEA priorities It is, arguably, the most powerful union and lobbying group in the country. And you cannot envy what its members are up against. Day after day, the National Education Association (NEA) sees the same statistics we do. Plunging test scores. Floods of incoming college freshman who can't read at even a sixth-grade level. Principals and school boards groping for incentives that will draw better teachers into lifelong service for high stress and infrequent appreciation. Instead of embracing the joys of books and learning, America's children are gorging junk food on the couch, dabbling with R-rated music videos and video games while their synapses run headlong down blind brain alleys. Teacher morale remains low, as many grapple daily with parents who are disengaged and apathetic, neurotic or demanding, angry or eager to move their child into alternative educational settings. Add to all that the professional pressures inherent in 'No Child Left Behind,' and you can understand how the NEA leaders who gathered this summer in Orlando for their annual convention had their work cut out for them. The toughest question was undoubtedly the first one: where do we start, when it comes to fixing America's schools? Well, they figured it out. And, really, faced with so many incredible challenges, their priority makes sense. This is, after all, the NEA. They know the classroom. They know the teachers. They know the real challenges of education. Which is why their elected leaders decided that, before anything else, the first thing our teachers have to do is win popular support for homosexual 'marriage.' That's right. The all-knowing members of the NEA decided that what our kids need to know 'more than math, geography, grammar, science, or computer skills' is what men and men see in each other, why women and women fall in love, and what our government and society 'owes' those who practice homosexual behavior. You can see why that kind of information is critical to a third grader, can't you? Of course not. The NEA didn't think so. That's why they're taking the matter out of your hands. Listen, when the world's largest teacher's union elects to endorse same-sex 'marriage,' they're not talking tacit support. They're talking posters and projects, classroom lectures and guest speakers, testimonials and textbooks -- at every grade level, and in every public school, in every school district in America. Questions, of course, accumulate. Among them: What if a teacher or principal objects to same-sex unions, for reasons of personal faith or experience? What if said educator doesn't want his (often mandatory) NEA dues going to support those who promote homosexual behavior? What if parents don't want their children learning about sex (or sexual politics) at school? What if children are ill-equipped, mentally or emotionally, to handle the information presented by a zealous instructor? Either the NEA has considered, and dismissed, these questions -- in which case the group that wants to exert the most significant impact on America's teachers, parents, and children turns out to have no real concern or compassion for our teachers, parents, or children... or else the union has not considered these crucial questions, in which case... ditto. Either way, the academic needs of children are no longer as much a priority for this organization as the political agenda of those who engage in homosexual behavior. Actually, that's not anything new for the teachers' union. The NEA has been working hand-in-glove for years with aggressive promoters of homosexual behavior. Indeed, former NEA president Bob Chase is a member of the board of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network), and once defended NEA's force-feeding of the homosexual agenda to children by warning that: 'Some critics want the public schools to be an agent of moral doctrine, condemning children and adults when they are not in accord with Biblical precepts.' But if the NEA objects to teaching moral doctrines -- how do they justify teaching immoral doctrines? If they're against teaching creationism, for example, for its spiritual implications, how can they favor sex education classes that indoctrinate even very young children with homosexual advocacy? How can they bar prayers, ministers and Christian clubs from campus, while organizing school assemblies, demonstrations, and classroom visits featuring homosexual and transgender 'role models'? Clearly, the NEA has rejected its prima facie identity as the representative of America's teachers, in favor of a new raison d'etre: brainwashing schoolchildren into acceptance of, and even indulgence in, homosexual behavior. For the union's leaders, there will be no rest until families all over the country not only acknowledge, but embrace and endorse the homosexual agenda. It's as simple as A-B-C. What those pressing that agenda cannot win at the ballot box, they will win in the minds of the next generation... one vulnerable child at a time. Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor who held various posts in the departments of Justice and Interior during the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation. Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor who held various posts in the departments of Justice and Interior during the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation. He is co-author with Craig Osten of the book The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values and The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom. Ideology Was Bush's Undoing Over lunch, a liberal friend expressed puzzlement. Citing the title of Tom Oliphant's new book about the Bush administration, "Utter Incompetents," he wondered aloud. Like him or not, he said, Bush is not an unintelligent man, and he is a principled and energetic executive. As for Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the others, almost all had long resumes of accomplishment in politics, government and business. Why, then, do they seem to have failed so dismally? In my new book, "Day of Reckoning," published this week, I offer an answer. If there is a one root cause to the Bush failures, it has been his fatal embrace of ideology. Ideology is substitute religion, a belief system based on ideas that are often contradicted by history and common sense. Yet men will adhere to ideologies with a zealotry that borders on fanaticism. Marxism, fascism and socialism were are ideologies, gods that failed. So, too, is democratism, the Gospel of George W. Bush. Democratism is a belief that all men are equally endowed with a desire for freedom and an aptitude for democracy. All can be uplifted, and all brought to see that democracy is the one true path to peace in our world. In democracy lies our salvation. This conviction lay behind the invasion of Iraq, Bush's crusade to democratize the Middle East and his "global democratic revolution" to "end tyranny in our world." And, as Woodrow Wilson's crusade "to make the world safe for democracy" gave us Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, Bush's crusade for democracy is leaving us with ashes in our mouths. Yet, Wilson's heart was pure, and he ever exhibited the serenity of the True Believer, the unmistakable mark of the ideologue. One imagines Bush will be preaching the dogma of free trade long after the last U.S. factory has closed and the dollar has reached parity with the Mexican peso. Bush's "compassionate conservative" appears grounded in the ideological conviction that all children are endowed with the capacity to learn through the high school level. No Child Left Behind was going to raise the test scores of all our children above the national average, as in Lake Wobegon. Why was it fated to fail? Because reality is otherwise. All children are not equal in their innate ability to learn English or math, as they are not equal in their ability to play sports, music or chess. A second-grader knows that, but our elites reject it as bigotry and blasphemy against the egalitarian dogmas that define who they are. So we invest trillions, empower bureaucrats and enrich the education industry, demanding it produce what it has shown for 40 years it cannot produce. Today's SAT scores are far below where they were in 1964. Like socialists striving to make their system work in Cuba, China and Russia, we have been banging our heads against a brick wall of human nature. Consider Katrina. Bush was indeed disengaged. But Katrina was a failure of government, not of Bush. The city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and FEMA all failed at the simple rescue of 30,000 people stranded by a few feet of stagnant water, while TV anchors boated back and forth bellowing for government to come save them. Where were the men of New Orleans? Why did the men of New Orleans, after getting their families out, not come back in boats to rescue the black women and children? Why did so many cops defect and start looting? And why did the National Guard and 82nd Airborne succeed and end the hysteria in hours? In New Orleans, society collapsed because its basic building block, the family, has collapsed, for all the reasons we know too well. Yet while civil government is failing, institutions like the 82nd, Microsoft and the New England Patriots succeed -- because they operate on other than ideological principles. You don't vote for the head of Microsoft or choose the coach of the Patriots or commanding officer of the 82nd by elections. These institutions reject egalitarianism. They put excellence before equality. They do not believe in a "level playing field" for opponents, but, with Vince Lombardi, that "winning isn't everything, winning is the only thing." They demand our best. You fall short, you are gone. They are intolerant of excuses and self-pity. All who labor there know if they do not perform, the penalties are real: loss of jobs, income, and prestige. In the 82nd, incompetence can mean dead comrades or your own death. They are one-for-all and all-for-one people. They are exclusive, not inclusive. They reject racial, ethnic and gender quotas and affirmative action. To the 82nd and the Patriots, there are places women simply do not belong. Thomas Jefferson believed that in a republic a "natural aristocracy" of virtue and talent should rule. Those who run these institutions believe the same. That is why they succeed, and why government, when we ceased to be a republic and degenerated into an egalitarian democracy, so often fails. In the context of education reform, parents, citizens, taxpayers continually hear the term "systems approach" or "systems thinking." What is it? What does it mean? Where did it come from? What part will it play in the restructuring of America? Systems Thinking Systems thinking grew out of the writings of Alfred North Whitehead. The science of systems thinking is credited to a man by the name of Ludwig von Bertalanffy and his associates (one of whom is Ervin Laszlo, currently working with the United Nations). The generic term for systems thinking is general systems theory. A word about Bertalanffy before continuing. Bertalanffy came to the United States from Germany on a Rockefeller grant. He returned to German-occupied Vienna, Austria, in 1938. His biology textbooks were used by Hitler. He returned to the United States following World War II. General systems theory states, simply, that the world is a system of subsystems (also called systems), all interconnected and interdependent to form a wholistic or holistic system; that within any system is an infrastructure that is analogous (the same) across systems, irrespective of physical appearance. Stated a bit differently, but to the same effect, is the Gaia hypothesis which states the world is a living, breathing organism, irreducible to its parts; that what affects one part, affects all parts; that in the name of saving spaceship Earth, we must change our society. The Gaia hypothesis adds a spiritual (metaphysical) dimension to systems thinking. Systems thinking sees everything as wholistic, with all parts interconnected, interdependent. In the words of Senge (1990), systems thinking -- is the fifth discipline because it is the conceptual cornerstone that underlies all of the five learning disciplines of this book. This discipline is the foundation upon which the other four disciplines function: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning. Many who have been through the team building process of consensus will recognize the terms. The systems thinking model, because of its wholistic approach, is cyclical -- sometimes shown as a circle, sometimes as a spiral. The beginning is the end. You start at point A and your destination is point A. The journey between point A and point A is the "process". At point A the change agents decide what they want the world to look like in x number of years. This is the goal, destination, or outcome. Example: the exit outcomes for the school, state, federal: what the child should know and be able to do as a result of his or her educational experience; what the child should look like. The next step is to align everything to achieve point A, the outcome. In this endeavor, the curriculum, instruction and teaching methodologies are aligned to the outcome to ensure that the outcome is reached; the measure of which is the assessment. This process is known by many names, among them backmapping. The technical term is a syllogism: a process used by behavioral scientists to bring about planned change. Thus it is that mankind can be said to be creating the future. It is imperative, at this point, to digress to the philosophy behind systems thinking as it is important to understanding the semantics of systems thinking. Systems thinking sees everything as a system, analogous to all other systems irrespective of physical appearance. All things are equal, whether it be the ecosystem or mankind -- man is no better than animal or a tree. The underlying philosophy here is humanism that maintains that man is devoid of spirituality or self-determinism. It therefrom follows that man must be conditioned (the process) to his environment (the outcome or goals), whatever it is decided that environment will be (creating the future). As stated in the Humanist Manifesto II, we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves. All the exit outcomes from all the school districts, states, and Goals 2000 are what man must be conditioned to to achieve the created future. That created future is based on future trends which, again, is cyclical, deciding what "we" (the change agents) want the world to look like (in the 21st Century), then backmapping. In this same vein, outcome-based education is education based on outcomes -- starting at the end and backmapping to ensure the outcome. In researching future trends, it becomes very obvious that they are not based on fact, but rather on the doomsday prophesies of rabid environmental groups whose religious philosophy is very much humanistic/New Age. Systems thinking, to repeat, sees everything as wholes. It is in this context that appear whole language; the wholistic education system incorporating all services to deal with the whole child -- mentally, physically, emotionally; life-role or real-life (wholistic) education; constructivist (hands on) learning (the child reinventing the wheel); integrated curriculum deleting the lines of structured disciplines; thematic units addressing social or life-related issues (wholistic); conflict resolution in pursuit of the collectivist (wholistic) society; peer tutoring to promote the group (collectivist) mentality; the child centered classroom; individual learning plans (IEP's) -- Everything that is done is to achieve the whole, with all systems (everything done to produce the child who will look like the exit outcomes) interconnected and interdependent to achieve the whole. Humanism is a religion that sees everything as wholistic, the basis of collectivist thought and action; it is the foundation upon which Marx built his philosophy (Marx saw Christianity as a religion of self-alienation, something to be stamped out at all cost). Marx believed the individual mind to be part of the universal mind (the wholistic mind), the collective. He saw the Hegelian Dialectic as a process for achieving wholes, of Oneness of Mind through a process of thesis (an idea or proposition), antithesis (the opposite idea or proposition) and synthesis (the bringing together of thesis and antithesis). Synthesis then becomes the new thesis, and through a continuing process (evolution to higher levels), Oneness of Mind theoretically occurs. If you look consensus up in the dictionary, you will discover that it means solidarity of belief; continual evolution to oneness of mind. To achieve consensus (wholism), one must give up his or her individual beliefs and conform to the group beliefs -- again to achieve the whole. Left to its own devices, however, consensus is uncontrollable. Thus, to control the process, and insure the outcome, facilitators are trained in group dynamics (how individuals brought together in a group interact) to ensure the outcome. Again, we start at point A and return to point A. In the process, the greater number of participants are brought to hold the predetermined outcome instead of just the facilitator. In the words of one participant, the job of the facilitator is to make everyone in the group think it's their idea (Resource Document, Schools for the 21st Century, Final Report, January 1995). Because of multiple parties being involved in consensus, it cannot be rigid except in outcome. In each instance thesis and antithesis come into play, with synthesis as the outcome, whether achieved incrementally or in one cycle. From the synthesis of thesis and antithesis comes compromise. Thus it is that there is no right or wrong answer, everything is relative, situational. (This is the why and wherefore, also, of no right answer in the classroom.) Everything is thesis and antithesis, ever evolving in a spiral, whether individual thought or collective thought, to the next higher plain. This is, incidentally, the process of attaining higher order thinking. This is the reason for the teacher as facilitator -- the guide on the side; not the sage on the stage. The facilitative process is not one that appeals to the cognitive domain; it appeals to the affective domain -- how people feel. In achieving consensus, it is not what one knows about a subject that matters, it is how one feels that is important. As so adequately demonstrated by the final evaluation of the Schools for the 21st Century in Washington state, content is excellence in terms of the change agenda, process is the destination, the product, and what learning is about; and emotionality and affectivity are the means by which content and process will be achieved. If you want to change someone's belief system, you do not appeal to what they know, you appeal to what they believe, how they feel about a subject or issue. In a consensus circle, the facilitator sets the stage by appealing to the affective domain of the participants -- emotionality is imperative. If the advocates of education reform have learned nothing else from sex education programs and the resulting rise in teen pregnancies, they have learned that appealing to emotionality sets the stage if the intent is for people to compromise their principles. Once the stage has been set, affective is brought into conflict with cognitive, and the individual is pushed to conform to a group belief system -- mine, yours and ours. Once that has occurred, and individual principles have been compromised, it is very hard for the individual to reclaim his individuality. To do so requires breaking away emotionally from the new "family" and again thinking for oneself. The social acceptance within the circle makes this very hard for most people to do -- a facet that is very much counted on. What people learn about each other, intimately, within the circle "of trust" also becomes a coercive factor against anyone who might attempt to break away. In the classroom, systems thinking plays out in the focus of the classroom. No longer is the focus knowledge. Now the focus is real-life or life-role education. Everything is set in the context of children experiencing real-life situations. Thus it is that the focus in the classroom is social or life-related issues taught in the context of unit themes or thematic units, whether it is gender, prejudice, discrimination, the environment, homosexuality, life styles --the primary focus, however, is upon environmentalism, which is why parents are finding a lot of it in the classroom. This environmentalism is not, in most cases, based on scientifically validated research, but rather, on the doomsday prophesies of rabid environmentalists with a self-serving agenda -- an agenda that plays itself out in such events as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and similar more recent events such as the more recent earth summit held in Japan. The fear tactics perpetuated in the name of global warming is a good example. Future trends harken back to a man by the name of Jay W Forrester and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Forrester was Peter Senge's mentor for 20 years according to Senge, 1990). In 1972, Forrester established a world simulation model known as World 3 for the Club of Rome (this group has a propensity toward world government). This was a computer simulation model that, according to inputs, predicted future scenarios. A book, The Limits to Growth by Donnella Meadows, was written over the twenty scenarios predicted by the simulation model. None of the predictions have come true, but that's beside the point. It is the doomsday prophesies that "we must change our ways if we are to save spaceship Earth" that dominates the scene. This is also what comes across in the classroom where turning children into social and political activists for the cause is paramount. This is what Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson meant, in her 1997 state of education address, when she said, Education beats out fighting crime, holding the line on taxes, creating new jobs, improving access to health care, or protecting the environment. And, by the way, when we achieve our educational goals, all of these problems will be addressed in new and better ways. In his book, A Strategy for the Future, The Systems Approach to World Order, Laszlo predicted that a more accurate and concise model of World 3 would be in place by the mid-1980's. This, or something similar, is undoubtedly where the predictions of what the world will look like in the 21st century are coming from. The point that needs to be made here, is that in predicting the future, the future can also be created, starting at point A and returning to it. In others words, whatever the "we" want it to look like. What "we" want it to look like is manifesting itself now in the classrooms across American under Goals 2000, STW and the plethora of bills building the system. In creating the future, one of the first steps, is to analyze "where we are now" against "where we want to be." This is called a gap analysis. Undoubtedly, most have heard this term. The gap analysis becomes the foundation of the change strategy -- what "we" need to do to move people from "where they are now" to where "we want them to be" -- from "here" to "there." The facilitative process then becomes the bridge between "here" and "there" whether in the classroom or in the community or in the country. This is why facilitators are used in the whole of the process, whether in the classroom or in establishing the mission and vision statements and the exit outcomes. Once the cyclical process is put in motion, theoretically it will envelope the whole community at some point -- except those who refuse to participate, referred to by proponents as critics of change, naysayers, the glass half-empty crowd, and enemies of education. The success of systems thinking, however, is contingent on it encompassing everyone -- all. Because not everyone can be so easily controlled, the necessity comes eventually, in the interests of the system, to invoke tyrannical means of achieving and maintaining compliance to the system. This is why, in the USSR, dissidents were labeled "mentally ill" and incarcerated "until they came to their senses." See The Fallacy of Systems Thinking. Systems thinking is the method of achieving and maintaining the planned economy, in which every facet is carefully monitored and carefully controlled, including the human factor. It is a system that does not tolerate deviance from the accepted norm. It is a system that is very much into producing robots that all act and think alike. Accountability, under systems thinking, is the gathering and analysis of statistical data to measure evolution to outcomes, to insure compliance with the system. Thus the establishment of huge data banks housing personally identifiable information on every man, woman and child. Available to the proponents of systems thinking is the element that was missing in early models (Planning Programming Budgeting Systems, mastery learning) -- computer technology. In the gathering, storage and analysis of statistical data and personally identifiable information on every man, woman and child in this nation, coercion becomes a definite factor in achieving the desired outcome -- whether it is determined that the parent, teacher or child is the problem. The Spiritual Dimension In his book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Senge acknowledges that the vision for the writing of this book was born in the fall of 1987 during his morning meditation. As a book outlining the components of the high performance work organization, the road to continuous quality improvement, the total quality environment, and as a book referenced heavily in books written advocating education reform, this revelation in the introduction gives us a sense of the spiritual aspect of systems thinking. Senge defines this aspect further in defining personal mastery -- one of the five disciplines of the learning organization, acknowledging that it is rooted in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions as well as secular traditions -- three components of New Age religious practice. He also states that personal mastery is imperative to developing and sustaining shared vision within an organization. Eastern spiritual traditions incorporate mystic practices involving altered states of consciousness, known to parents as guided fantasy/guided visualization, sometimes as centering or relaxation exercises or techniques. In Senge's words, these practices are key to "working effectively with the subconscious". Senge also points out, in The Fifth Discipline, that an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling forbids companies from requiring that employees participate in training seminars that they believe violate their religious beliefs, and Christians do believe that these practices are a form of self-divination that is forbidden by the Bible. But Senge claims that this snafu in the workplace can be circumvented. He claims that anyone committed to the learning organization is also committed to truth. In other words, if the Christian refuses to participate in these religious practices, the Christian denies truth and is a roadblock to achieving the learning organization. There is another way to circumvent this roadblock, as outlined in The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson: You can only have a new society, the visionaries have said, if you change the education of the younger generation. -- Of the Aquarian Conspirators surveyed, more were involved in education than in any other single category of work. (p 280) Teachers are being taught the techniques of guided fantasy/guided visualization by people such as Jack Canfield of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Canfield is a New Age author and promoter of confluent education. In an article published in New Age magazine in 1978, Canfield instructs: If you're teaching in a public school, don't call it meditation, call it "centering." Every school wants children to be relaxed, attentive, and creative, and that's what they will get. In a sidebar to this article, it is acknowledged that: Many of the new methods and approaches we have written about in this article are beginning to be adopted by more and more teachers in pilot programs. More and more parents are becoming aware of the use of the techniques of guided fantasy/guided visualization in the classroom. Both of these techniques place the child in an altered state of consciousness -- a key component of yoga or meditation. In this state, children are VERY open to suggestion which is why this state is used in most accelerated learning programs that can be connected to George Lozanov, the Bulgarian (communist) professor. Besides the religious aspect of guided fantasy/guided visualization, parents need to know that these practices can have a very adverse affect on a child in a couple different ways. First, children placed in an altered state of consciousness are often taken to meet a spirit guide, guide, or wise old person. In The Beautiful Side of Evil and Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Johanna Michaelsen exposes these spirit guides as demonic spirits. If anyone is the least bit dubious about where this can end, these books are recommended reading. This is also one of the reasons why parents are seeing Native American studies being brought into the schools as the Native American spirituality (religion) incorporates altered states of consciousness in pursuit of spirit guides -- the hawk, the eagle, the coyote, the bear, etc. Just as marijuana is an introduction to harder drugs, introducing children to guided fantasy/guided visualization invariably leads to broader experimentation. It is dangerous, as Johanna Michaelsen divulges in her books, and often leads to satanic, occult worship -- earth worship (GAIA), spirit guides, mandalas, etc. These practices in schools are, however, being touted as an avenue to the inner wisdom, creativity, and self esteem we hear so much about these days. Anyone who wants to get an eyeful of where it goes, just pick up The Light Shall Set You Free, co-authored by Dr Shirley McCune (currently an employee under the direction of the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction and a friend of Terry Bergeson) and read it. The second problem is that the practice of placing children in altered states of consciousness should ONLY be done by licensed clinicians and then ONLY under certain conditions. This medical procedure should NEVER be used in a group setting such as a classroom where the use of it by teachers is nothing short of medical malpractice. That aside, more and more lawsuits are being filed by parents whose children have been put in these hypnotic states, resulting in problems returning to consciousness, flashbacks at any time (like psychedelic drugs cause), and blackouts. Teachers are being taught how to use these techniques, they are not being told the whole story behind the use of these techniques or what can happen if they do use them. Guided fantasy/guided visualization is New Age, and their use in the classroom exposes children early to New Age practices in pursuit of the learning organization, the high performance work organization, the total quality environment. It is being done in schools without the knowledge or informed consent of parents which violates their rights as well as the child's. It also violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, forbidding the establishment of a state religion. Referenced Resources: Ferguson, Marilyn; The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time; New York: G. P. Putnam Sons; 1980. Lazslo, Ervin; A Strategy for the Future: The Systems Approach to World Order; New York: George Braziller; 1974. McCune, Shirley and Dr Norma Milanovich; The Light Shall Set You Free; Albuquerque: Athena Publishing; 1996. Meadows, Donnella et al.; The Limits to Growth; New York: New American Library; 1972. Michaelsen, Johanna; The Beautiful Side of Evil; Eugene: Harvest House Publishers; 1982. Michaelsen, Johanna; Like Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Child and the Occult; Eugene: Harvest House Publishers; 1989. Senge, Peter; The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization; New York: Currency Doubleday; 1990. ©September 1998; Lynn M Stuter Websites Regarding Systems Theory: Systems theory states, simply, that the world is a system of subsystems (also called systems), interdependent and interconnected, to form a wholistic or holistic system; that within any one system is an infrastructure that is analogous across systems, irrespective of physical appearance. The Gaia Hypothesis, in different words but saying the same thing, adds a spiritual dimension to systems theory, stating that the world is a living, breathing organism, irreducible to its parts; that what affects one part affects all parts; that in the name of saving spaceship earth, we must change our society. These are the two hypotheses which under gird systems governance and the transformation of American society to the total quality, outcome-based, environment of a managed economy in a communist society in which every aspect of that society is micromanaged by the all powerful government to achieve goals established to attain a humanist "created future" -- the sustainable global environment. This is happening nationwide, in every branch, office and department of government; in industry; in health care; in education at all levels; in property rights, growth management and land use planning; it is evident in the environmental movement in both the public and private sectors ... there is nothing that is not being affected by this. This is a total and complete transformation or paradigm shift of our society. Systems governance has, of course, been tried before: in the USSR since the Bolshevik Revolution, Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, Japan under Hito, China, North Korea and Vietnam -- every totalitarian regime society has ever spawned. And the results have always been the same -- the loss of rights and freedom for the people subjugated to it. This time will be no different even though the philosophical advocates of total quality management (TQM) -- systems governance in business and industry; planning programming budgeting systems (PPBS) -- systems governance in the public sector; outcome-based education (OBE) -- systems governance in education; and the church growth movement (CGM) -- systems governance in matters involving the church and religion; believe that the evolution of computer technology will provide the 'handlers' (such as was the Supreme Soviet in the USSR, the Third Reich in Germany under Hitler -- ) with the needed information to leverage problem areas and keep the 'whole' (the earth) in balance as a sustainable environment without totalitarian tactics. The links to the left will take the reader into some of the different aspects of this 'new' system of governance, revealing to the reader not the rhetoric but the reality. The Fallacy of Systems Thinking Having established the purpose and process of systems thinking -- whether one knows it as total quality management, the high performance work organization, outcome-based education, performance-based education, planning programming budgeting systems, or by any of the plethora of other names by which it is known -- one need analyze whether the fallacies of the system are greater than the benefit. In discussing the fallacies of systems thinking, it is necessary to digress, for a moment, to the definition of systems thinking ... theory ... philosophy ... world view: the world is a system of subsystems, all interconnected and interdependent to form a wholistic or holistic system; that within any one system is an infrastructure that is analogous across systems, irrespective of physical appearance. This means that whether a human system, plant system, animal system, eco system ... the infrastructure is the same. But are they really? That depends on one's worldview. If one is a humanist, one sees man as no different than animal or plant. But if one believes in a higher authority -- ie, God -- one is reminded that God commanded man to take dominion over all of earth and its creatures, large and small. Such sets man apart from and superior to other systems. Not only does systems theory not recognize a higher authority but it also denies the superiority of mankind. Systems theory presupposes that man has no individuality that sets one being apart from all other beings; that individual man is but part of the collective mind of man. People who have been raised under the tenets of Christianity know differently; that each being is created and revered in the eyes of God as an individual. Systems theory sees everything as wholistic or holistic. The system, by its very construct and nature, must include everyone -- all. This is where the mantra's "all children can learn" and "no child left behind" come from. In the same venue, people participating in the process of systems governance (facilitation to a preset outcome) must either agree, agree to disagree (tactic approval), or disagree but agree not to sabotage (tactic approval). To openly oppose or disagree with the system, its goals or objectives, is to violate the "all" mandate of the system. So what happens when someone, or a group, openly opposes or disagrees with the system. Remember that systems theory is a system of subsystems, all interconnected and interdependent. This means that if the system is to function properly, all systems must be kept in balance. (Remember Al Gore's Earth in Balance?) What happens if a system gets out of balance? Many will have heard the term leveraging. The out-of-balance system must be leveraged back into balance. Now, if the out-of-balance system can be leveraged back into balance with the other systems, all is well. But what happens if the out-of-balance system cannot be leveraged back into balance with the other systems? The obvious answer is that the other systems then move to compensate. One can readily see how, over time, a radical element could cause the system to continue to compensate until it can no longer compensate, causing the system to fail. This is what happened in the USSR. The Fallacy of Systems Governance But systems theorists believe they have found the cure for this problem: the collection and analysis of data by high-performance computers running high-tech systems, under the mantra of "accountability". There is only one problem -- computers may be able to calculate with great accuracy, but they cannot think as the human mind thinks. And just as mankind has not been able to accurately map how the human brain functions, neither has mankind been able to build computers capable of extracting that information which is pertinent from the milieu of information presented, and process that information devoid of bias. And until they do (which will never happen), no computer is intelligent enough to analyze data to the degree necessary to successfully leverage systems into balance and keep them in balance. Because systems theory runs counter to the nature of most human beings, the failure rate of leveraging systems back into balance is high. And because balance is not only necessary but crucial, systems theory, by its very construct and nature, becomes more and more oppressive as measures are implemented to control "radical elements" that can cause the system to be thrown out of balance. The greatest threat to systems governance is dissension, either by opening opposing the systems process or by refusing to supply the personally identifiable data -- such as is collected via the WASL, or medical records (see SPEEDE/ExPRESS for all the personally identifiable data sought) -- needed to analyze and leverage systems. This is why dissension cannot be allowed; why people can disagree but must give their tactic approval via their silence. As a note of interest, those who refuse to supply the needed data are labeled oppositional defiant -- a term parents who have refused to allow their children to take the WASL have run into. The need to include all is also why proponents of systems governance claim they represent the majority, defined as anyone who does not openly oppose the system, whether because they truly agree or because they are ignorant or apathetic. Systems theory is the very essence of pure democracy, abhorred and avoided by our Founding Fathers. In the words of Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper. From this view of the subject, it may be concluded, that a pure Democracy, by which I mean a Society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths. Does systems governance work? No, it doesn't. The fallacies of the system far outweigh any benefit (of which none is known) derived therefrom. Systems government, while proffered as the cure for the ills of mankind, is the product of self-indulgent minds striving for power and position ... governance by the few over the many for the benefit of the few ... the old feudal system. It didn't work in the Dark Ages, it most certainly won't work now even though the trappings have changed. © February 2002 Lynn M Stuter The Delphi Technique -- What Is It? The Delphi Technique was originally conceived as a way to obtain the opinion of experts without necessarily bringing them together face to face. In recent times, however, it has taken on an all new meaning and purpose. In Educating for the New World Order by B. Eakman, the reader finds reference upon reference for the need to preserve the illusion that there is "'lay, or community, participation (in the decision-making process), while lay citizens were, in fact, being squeezed out." The Delphi Technique is the method being used to squeeze citizens out of the process, effecting a left-wing take over of the schools. A specialized use of this technique was developed for teachers, the "Alinsky Method" (ibid, p.123). The setting or group is, however, immaterial; the point is that people in groups tend to share a certain knowledge base and display certain identifiable characteristics (known as group dynamics). This allows for a special application of a basic technique. The change agent or facilitator goes through the motions of acting as an organizer, getting each person in the target group to elicit expression of their concerns about a program, project, or policy in question. The facilitator listens attentively, forms "task forces," "urges everyone to make lists," and so on. While s/he is doing this, the facilitator learns something about each member of the target group. S/He identifies the "leaders," the "loud mouths," as well as those who frequently turn sides during the argument -- the "weak or noncommittal". Suddenly, the amiable facilitator becomes "devil's advocate." S/He dons his professional agitator hat. Using the "divide and conquer" technique, s/he manipulates one group opinion against the other. This is accomplished by manipulating those who are out of step to appear "ridiculous, unknowledgeable, inarticulate, or dogmatic." S/He wants certain members of the group to become angry, thereby forcing tensions to accelerate. The facilitator is well trained in psychological manipulation. S/He is able to predict the reactions of each group member. Individuals in opposition to the policy or program will be shut out of the group. The method works. It is very effective with parents, teachers, school children, and any community group. The "targets" rarely, if ever, know that they are being manipulated. Or, if they suspect this is happening, do not know how to end the process. The desired result is for group polarization, and for the facilitator to become accepted as a member of the group and group process. S/He will then throw the desired idea on the table and ask for opinions during discussion. Very soon his/her associates from the divided group begin to adopt the idea as if it were their own, and pressure the entire group to accept the proposition. This technique is a very unethical method of achieving consensus on a controversial topic in group settings. It requires well-trained professionals who deliberately escalate tension among group members, pitting one faction against the other, so as to make one viewpoint appear ridiculous so the other becomes "sensible" whether such is warranted or not. The Delphi Technique is based on the Hegelian Principle of achieving Oneness of Mind through a three step process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In thesis and antithesis, all present their opinion or views on a given subject, establishing views and opposing views. In synthesis, opposites are brought together to form the new thesis. All participants are then to accept ownership of the new thesis and support it, changing their own views to align with the new thesis. Through a continual process of evolution, Oneness of Mind will supposedly occur. The theory of the Delphi and the reality of the Delphi are, obviously, quite different -- the reality being that Oneness of Mind does not occur but only the illusion of Oneness of Mind with those who refuse to be Delphi'd being alienated from participating in the process. While proponents of education reform feel they are quite justified in this, the effect of this unethical manipulation of people is to create polarized camps. In an effort to maintain the process, advocates have marketed a plethora of publications (such as What's Left After the Right, No Right Turn and If You Don't, They Will) intended to label, castigate, and alienate anyone who does not go along with them. As a result, parents come to understand that their role in education reform is merely perfunctory; that the outcome is preset, that they are not but the rah-rah team so when opposition does arise, advocates of education reform can say, "we had community input." To make sure that the situation is controlled, only those parents who agree with the process are allowed on the restructuring teams. New participants are carefully screened to ensure that education reform goes forward unquestioned. If measurable opposition persists, advocates are told, get the local ministers on board. Take steps to neutralize, by whatever means necessary, the opposition. In some places, opponents have been harassed, both at home and on the job, personal property has been damaged and vandalized, people have lost their jobs. Anyone who does not go along with the restructuring of our society is susceptible to the totalitarian tactics of those promoting education reform -- whether it be parents, teachers, principals, superintendents or board members. The need exists for advocates to maintain an iron grip on the process. They cannot, for instance, withstand open public debate of the issues. Therefore, they do not partake in public forums. They cannot withstand the criticism, so they close every avenue for parents to address the issues. They are rapidly creating, through their divisive tactics, a volatile situation. America is being torn apart. Parents, citizens, teachers, principals, superintendents who are opposed to the new purpose being given our American education system need tools to withstand the process being used to bring it in -- against the Delphi Technique and consensus which, through their basis in the Hegelian Principle, have Marxist connections and purposes. First, no opportunity must be left untaken to expose this unethical, divisive process. Second, when this process is used, it can be disrupted. To do so, however, one must be able to recognize when the Delphi Technique is being used, and how to disrupt it. With thanks to Sandy Vanderberg, Peg Luksik and others. ©March 1996; Lynn M Stuter My First Experience with the Delphi I attended the Middle Years Committee Work summit last night. There were approximately 75 people there ... mostly school staff and teachers. People came in and sat down at round tables. As I was sitting, I observed people (obvious facilitators) seeking out a table. A friend/neighbor of mine sat at my table. A nicely dressed lady walked by my table several times before asking to join us. My 'red flags' went up immediately and rightly so! The meeting was started with a "welcome" and introduction of the 'committee' members -- only two parents on the 'committee.' A brief overview of what they have achieved so far was given via an overhead. Exploratory Electives were emphasized. Then the Group Activity began. Another parent, a dad who I didn't know, joined our table at this point. The main 'facilitator' asked some silly questions to arrive at who should be the 'reporter' and 'recorder.' I didn't participate and neither did the others. But I grabbed the pencil and said I would take notes. Each table was given a big sheet of paper in order to fill in our 'input' in four sections: Classroom, Activities, Culture, and Other. Culture was stressed by the main facilitator as attitudes and atmosphere in the school. "What can we do to make them safe?" (The anti-bully bill was mentioned later in the evening.) The other lady (facilitator) introduced herself as a teacher at the high school. Surprise, surprise! She was a language instructor (teaches foreign language). She obviously wasn't born in America and she mentioned she attended school in another country. The teacher/facilitator immediately started expressing what she'd like to see in the classroom. She wanted an 'exploratory language class' so when students reached High School they'd know which foreign language they wanted to take. So, I wrote down 'exploratory foreign language classes.' Oops! Did you know the word 'foreign' is not PC (politically correct)? The teacher said it's too negative and wanted it erased from the sentence. We all couldn't understand what word she wanted to replace foreign with. I looked at the dad and my friend and said, "I like 'foreign.' Do you like 'foreign'?" We all agreed we wanted to keep the word 'foreign.' And we moved on....... The dad said he wanted more basics. I jumped in and said, "Yeah, more academics and less 'fluff'." My friend agreed. The teacher-facilitator tried to reword what we had just said.... it didn't work! The dad spoke up and said he liked what I said ... he said he liked MY words -- "more basics and less 'fluff.'" So, that's what we wrote. The three of us agreed that we'd like to see history, geography, economics, and civics taught separately. Basically, we flipped the table on the facilitator and from that point on we controlled the 'input.' The teacher/facilitator, at some point, said we were too protective of our children because we were insistent that the 6th graders should be isolated from the 7th & 8th graders. The next activity was reporting the 'input.' Two people from each table went up to the microphone and briefly discussed their 'inputs.' I went up with the dad, who I obviously knew 'at that point' was conservative, and we stressed the back to basics and activities such as an Americanism club. I think I shocked the audience when I introduced myself as a 'homeschool parent in the District.' A lot of school staff and teachers spoke for their tables ... and they went on and on and on using all the PC buzzwords. Surprise, surprise! It was obvious from the buzzwords that were spoken that other tables had been facilitated to a pre-determined outcome. I exchanged phone numbers with the dad and gave away some information. Oh, I forgot to mention ... a man at another table spoke up about STW/Career Paths ... changed the entire feel of the meeting. You could hear a pin drop. They tried to make him out as a 'whacko' but a mom behind me spoke up about her son's negative experience with career paths. You should have seen the facilitators faces at that point. I wish I had had my camera with me! More arms were going up with questions about career paths, and, at that point, they ended the meeting. That was my first Delphi experience. Cynthia While this participant effectively undermined the Delphi at her table, the input from her table will be synthesized with the input from the other tables who reached the pre-determined outcome. In that synthesis, the input from her table will be removed as it does not conform to the agenda. What happened here is a typical Delphi meeting, the purpose of which is to ... 1) make the greater number of people believe the pre-determined outcome/s are their own, such that they will ... a) support and advocate said outcomes to the larger community; and 2) move responsibility for the pre-determined outcomes to a non-elected group of people who... a) are said to 'represent the community', but that What they don't say, don't want to discuss, and don't want brought to light is that the outcomes ... Technique, understood the process, and agreed to its use). Tactics of the Trained Facilitator I read every word of the exchange of correspondence you posted re: K-12. Your antagonist is so typical of a couple kinds of people. I have found that ... there is the trained change agent/facilitator whose only means of pseudo debate is their definition of 'dialogue'. It requires other listening 'ears' since the psychology of group dynamics is foundational. Their first consideration is not to persuade you personally. The objective is to discredit you so you don't influence others. If their 'trained' modulated original tone of 'voice' doesn't disarm the one they are challenging, they go to the next step of 'authoritative' tone designed to impress with 'credentials'. When that doesn't work, they challenge the opponent's legitimacy to express facts. When that doesn't work, the knuckles get white, the tone of 'voice' becomes shrill, and the motives and accusations of political agenda are used. When that doesn't work, they take their self righteous leave of the scene implying that the challenged party is not worthy of their time and warped wisdom. I've encountered another similar, but differently motivated type. They are sincerely wrong but committed to the erroneous idea. They usually have some vested interest in whatever they are defending, being part of an organization behind the program or issue or whatever. They see themselves as spokesmen for not only the issue, but also the organization sponsoring it. Any criticism of the issue is construed as an attack on the organization and its representatives. They are truly blinded by the association of which they are a part. They, too, start out mildly trying to bring you around with true sincerity. They actually are interested in changing your mind, individually. As that doesn't work, however, they begin to question your authority to question the institution or idea. The debate becomes more strident as with the trained change agent. Ultimately, both do the same 'exit' scenario of being the one to cut off the exchange, dismissing the challenger as unredeemable. Long ago when I challenged my church synod about their bragging about being the first of that denomination to adopt PPBS, I was finally told, 'Obviously, you don't know what you are talking about. We suggest this correspondence cease'. To this day, I suspect, the official correspondent had no clue what he was defending, but someone up the chain did. The passing reference to the Modern Red Schoolhouse leaped out at me. I am currently reading a book, Commies, A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left, by Ronald Radosh, co-author of the Rosenberg File. In the book, he has a chapter titled, 'The Little Red Schoolhouse' in which he describes his days as a child of New York Communist Party parents (the commie youth camps, the schools, etc.). He attended a private school in NY, Elizabeth Irwin School, 'distinctive in that it was a refuge for teachers who would be thrown out of the public school system because they would not sign the Feinberg Law oath, stating that they were not members of CPUSA, refusing to testify at HCOUA, etc...' He says,'There was a reason why we called the institution we attended 'the Little Red Schoolhouse for little Reds.' One wonders about the name of the Modern Red Schoolhouse for the 21st Century. Mary Thompson Note: There is a book, put out by Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1995, entitled Schooling for 'Good Rebels'; Socialism, American Education, and the Search For Radical Curriculum by Kenneth Teitelbaum with a foreword by Herbert Kohl. This book describes the 'Socialist Sunday Schools' of New York. In reading the book, it is hard to miss the parallel to systems education. Kenneth Teitelbaum, at the time this book was published, was an Associate Professor in the Division of Education at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamtom. I was thinking about this last night. Because I had just heard of a positive response to an on-line debate, I thought about what was the difference. In the case where the lady responded positive, after some lengthy back and forth, she actually switched gears from opinion to fact. She went out and did some background research as she had been encouraged to do. She ate humble pie! She was willing to admit that yes, she had been only spouting opinion, and an ill-informed one at that! She went on to sign the WSFH Statement and Resolution. What a stark contrast to Lynn's debates with this so-called 'Gladys.' Some of us have concluded that 'Gladys' and some of these other 'ladies' are not real people at all, but plants from the public policy institutes and think tanks, well-trained in the exact form of debate that Mary described yesterday, and perfectly willing to go so far as to engage in very nasty personal attacks and threats. The days of gentle grassroots activism are over. We are now facing the big boys head-on and they aren't pleasant. In fact, they aren't pleased that a truly spontaneous, genuine grassroots movement erupted. They intended to control all sides of the debate from the Right to the Left, and suddenly a few websites show up, and a few articles by Lynn Stuter appear, that expose their agenda a bit too closely. Leslie The Delphi Technique -- How to Disrupt It Ground rules for disrupting the consensus process (Delphi Technique) -- when facilitators want to steer a group in a specific direction. 1) Always Be Charming. Smile, be pleasant, be courteous, moderate your voice so as not to come across as belligerent or aggressive. 2) Stay Focused. If at all possible, write your question down to help you stay focused. Facilitators, when asked questions they don't want to answer, often digress from the issue raised and try to work the conversation around to where they can make the individual asking the question look foolish, feel foolish, appear belligerent or aggressive. The goal is to put the one asking the question on the defensive. Do not fall for this tactic. Always be charming, thus deflecting any insinuation, innuendo, etc, that may be thrown at you in their attempt to put you on the defensive, but bring them back to the question you asked. If they rephrase your question into an accusatory statement (a favorite tactic) simply state, "that is not what I stated, what I asked was? (repeat your question)." Stay focused on your question. 3) Be Persistent. If putting you on the defensive doesn't work, facilitators often resort to long drawn out dissertations on some off-the-wall and usually unrelated, or vaguely related, subject that drags on for several minutes -- during which time the crowd or group usually loses focus on the question asked (which is the intent). Let them finish with their dissertation/expose, then nicely, with focus and persistence, state, "but you didn't answer my question. My question was? (repeat your question)." Remember -- always be charming, stay focused, and be persistent. Never, under any circumstance, become angry. Anger directed at the facilitator will immediately make the facilitator "the victim." This defeats the purpose which is to make you the victim. The goal of the facilitator is to make those they are facilitating like them, alienating anyone who might pose a threat to the realization of their agenda. [People with fixed belief systems, who know what they believe and stand on what they believe, are obvious threats.] If the participant becomes the victim, the facilitator loses face and favor with the crowd. This is why crowds are broken up into groups of seven or eight, why objections are written on cards, not voiced aloud where they are open to public discussion and public debate. It's called crowd control. It is always good to have someone else, or two or three others who know the Delphi Technique dispersed through the crowd; who, when the facilitator digresses from the question, will stand up and say nicely, "but you didn't answer that lady's/gentleman's question." The facilitator, even if suspecting you are together, certainly will not want to alienate the crowd by making that accusation. Sometimes it only takes one occurrence of this type for the crowd to figure out what's going on, sometimes it takes more than one. If you have an organized group, meet before the meeting to strategize. Everyone should know their part. Meet after the meeting to analyze what went right, what went wrong and why, and what needs to happen the next time around. Never meet during the meeting. One of the favorite tactics of the facilitator, if the meeting is not going the way he/she wants, if he/she is meeting measurable resistance, is to call a recess. During the recess, the facilitator and his/her "spotters" (people who wander the room during the course of the meeting, watching the crowd) watch the crowd to see who congregates where, especially those who have offered measurable resistance. If the "resistors" congregate in one place, a "spotter" will usually gravitate to that group to "join in the conversation" and will report back to the facilitator. When the meeting resumes, the facilitator will steer clear of those who are "resistors." Do not congregate. Hang loose and work the crowd. Move to where the facilitator or "spotters" are, listen to what they have to say, but do not gravitate to where another member of your team is. This strategy also works in a face to face, one on one, meeting with anyone who has been trained in how to use the Delphi Technique. With thanks to Sandy Vanderberg, Peg Luksik and others ©March 1996; Lynn M Stuter THE DELIBERATE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's new book, 'The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America,' is without doubt one of the most important publishing events in the annals of American education in the last one hundred years. John Dewey's 'School and Society,' published in 1899, set American education on its course to socialism. Rudolf Flesch's "Why Johnny Can't Read," published in 1955, informed American parents that there was something terribly wrong with the way the schools were teaching children to read, and my own book, 'NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education,' published in 1984, explained in great detail how and why the decline in public education was taking place. But Iserbyt has done what no one else wanted or could do. She has put together the most formidable and practical compilation of documentation describing the well-planned 'deliberate dumbing down' of American children by their education system. Anyone who has had any lingering hope that what the educators have been doing is a result of error, accident, or stupidity will be shocked by the way American social engineers have systematically gone about destroying the intellect of millions of American children for the purpose of leading the American people into a socialist world government controlled by behavioral and social scientists. This mammoth book is the size of a large city phone book: 462 pages of documentation; 205 pages of appendices; and a 48-page Index. The documentation is 'A Chronological Paper Trail' which starts with the Sowing of the Seeds in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, proceeds to The Turning of the Tides, then to The Troubling Thirties, The Fomentation of the forties and fifties, The Sick Sixties, The Serious Seventies, The 'Effective' Eighties, and finally, the Noxious Nineties. The educators and social engineers indict themselves with their own words. Iserbyt decided to compile this book because, as a 'resister' to what is going on in American education, she was being constantly told that she was taking things out of context. The book, she writes, 'was put together primarily to satisfy my own need to see the various components which led to the dumbing down of the United States of America assembled in chronological order -- in writing. Even I, who had observed these weird activities taking place at all levels of government, was reluctant to accept a malicious intent behind each individual, chronological activity or innovation, unless I could connect it with other, similar activities taking place at other times.' And that is what this book does. It connects educators, social engineers, planners, government grants, federal and state agencies, billion-dollar foundations, think tanks, universities, research projects, policy organizations, etc., showing how they have worked together to advance an agenda that will change America from a free republic to a socialist state. What is so mind boggling is that all of this is being financed by the American people themselves through their own taxes. In other words, the American people are underwriting the destruction of their own freedom and way of life by lavishly financing through federal and state grants the very social scientists who are undermining our national sovereignty and preparing our children to become the dumbed-down vassals of the new world order. One of the interesting insights revealed by these documents is how the social engineers use a deliberately created education 'crisis' to move their agenda forward by offering radical reforms that are sold to the public as fixing the crisis -- which they never do. The new reforms simply set the stage for the next crisis, which provides the pretext for the next move forward. This is the dialectical process at work, a process our behavioral engineers have learned to use very effectively. Its success depends on the ability of the 'change agents' to continually deceive the public, which tends to believe any lie the experts tell them. Iserbyt's long journey to becoming a 'resister,' started in 1973 when her son, a fourth grader, brought home from school a purple ditto sheet, embellished with a smiley face, entitled 'All About Me.' She writes: "The questions were highly personal; so much so that they encouraged my son to lie, since he didn't want to 'spill the beans' about his mother, father and brother. The purpose of such a questionnaire was to find out the student's state of mind, how he felt, what he liked and disliked, and what his values were. With this knowledge it would be easier for the government school to modify his values and behavior at will -- without, of course, the student's knowledge or his parents' consent." From that time on, Iserbyt became an activist in education. She became a member of a philosophy committee for a school, was elected as a school board member, co-founded Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM), and finally became senior policy advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education during President Reagan's first term of office. As a school board member she learned that in American education, the end justifies the means. 'Our change agent superintendent,' she writes, 'was more at home with a lie than he was with the truth.' Whatever good she accomplished while on the school board was tossed out two weeks after she left office. It was during her tenure in the Department of Education in Washington, where she had access to the grant proposals from change agents, that she came to the conclusion that what was happening in American education was the result of a concerted effort on the part of numerous individuals and organizations -- a globalist elite -- to bring about permanent changes in America's body politic. She was relieved of her duties after leaking an important technology grant -- a computer-assisted instruction proposal -- to the press. Another reason why Iserbyt decided to publish this book is because of the reluctance of Americans to face unpleasant truths about their government educators. She wants parents to have access to the kinds of documents that were only circulated among the change agent educators themselves. She wants parents to see for themselves what has been planned for their children and the kind of socialist-fascist world their children will have to live in if we do nothing to counter these plans. Therefore, getting this book into the hands of thousands of Americans ought to be a major project for lovers of liberty in the year 2000. It will do more to defeat the change agents than anything else I can think of. Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education, including 'Is Public Education Necessary'? and 'The Whole Language/OBE Fraud,' published by The Paradigm Company, 208-322-4440. His reading instruction program, 'Alpha-Phonics,' is available by writing The Tutoring Company, P.O. Box 540111, Waltham, MA 02454-0111. www.alpha-phonics.com www.howtotutor.com (More schooling articles) Ritalin stunts growth of children; long-term risk to children's health unknown New research published in the August, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry finds that Ritalin, the amphetamine drug used to treat a fictitious medical disorder labeled Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, stunts the growth of children. After three years on the psychotropic drug, children are one inch shorter and 4.4 pounds lighter than their peers, researchers have documented. The psychiatric industry, of course, has been trying to play down the growth-stunting effects of Ritalin for at least a decade. Research conducted over the last several years by psychiatrists working for the National Institutes of Health initially found evidence of the drug stunting growth of children, yet nevertheless concluded that Ritalin carries "no long-term growth risk" to children. (Those researchers, by the way, failed to disclose their financial conflicts of interest with drug companies.) Because of that conclusion, psychiatrists have refrained from warning parents about the fact that Ritalin stunts the growth of their children, focusing instead of how their children need "treatment" to correct a "brain chemistry disorder" that was, in reality, invented by the Big Pharma-backed psychiatric industry as a way to sell more drugs to children who don't need them. Turning schoolchildren into street junkies Nutritional research has shown that the symptoms of ADHD can be completely reversed in 80 percent of children in just two weeks by eliminating processed foods and chemical food additives from their diets. The so-called "disease" of ADHD is really just an expression of behavior caused by extreme dietary imbalances. The entire theory of ADHD can also be completely shot down by simply handing an ADHD child an X-Box or Wii gaming system, after which the child will sit down and engage in extremely focused, attentive and mentally demanding gaming activities for as long as six hours without a single break, and without distraction. If there really were such as disease as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, such behavior would not be possible. The truth is that ADHD kids aren't diseased at all: Most schools are simply boring beyond belief, and children don't learn well by being forced to sit still at their desks and listen to teachers ramble their way through meaningless memorization exercises dubbed "history" or "science" or whatever the topic may be. Children learn by doing things, and all that extra hyperactive energy has a useful function if it's channeled into experiential learning exercises. Does Ritalin cause permanent health damage? In previous years, psychiatrists tried to argue that it wasn't Ritalin that caused the stunting of growth -- it was the ADHD disease itself, they claimed with a straight face! And thus, treatment with Ritalin was the only way to return children to "normal" growth. This kind of twisted, circular logic typifies modern psychiatric medicine, which spontaneously invokes the existence of numerous psychiatric "disorders" at the exact coincidental moment that profitable pharmaceuticals become available to treat them. The logic of psychiatry goes like this: ADHD is a real disease because it's in the DSIM-IV manual (the bible of fictitious psychiatric disorders). ADHD is listed in the DSIM-IV because it's a real disease according to a group of Big Pharma-funded psychiatrists who made it up. Thus, ADHD is real because psychiatrists say is it! (See our related cartoon, Disease Mongers, Inc., to see a humorous depiction of this process.) Treating children like guinea pigs These side effects of stunting growth and altering the brain chemistry of children might conceivably be worth it if Ritalin were actually treating a genuine disease. If Ritalin, for example, were preventing brain cancer in at-risk children, it might be reasonable to trade a reduction of cancer risk with stunted growth. But Ritalin has no justifiable medical use whatsoever and is, in fact, more a form of chemical mind control than anything resembling real medicine. To place the growth of children at risk in order to give them a drug so powerful that it would be illegal if sold to children on the street is to engage in medical madness. There is no justification for the mass-treatment of children today with this drug other than the clever exploitation of human beings for profit. The only medically proven use of Ritalin, it turns out, would be for parents who want their children to be short and stunted. Feed those kids enough Ritalin amphetamines, and they won't grow up to be as tall or have as much muscle mass as their peers. It might be a strategy very useful for grooming children for a career as a horse racing jockey, or growing a world-class gymnast (who are all rather short due to the physics advantage of having a shorter body and limbs), but for those parents actually looking to raise healthy children who express their full genetic potential, Ritalin seems to fall short. (Ahem.) For those parents looking to ruin the health of their children, on the other hand, dosing kids three times a day with amphetamines seems to be quite useful. But why stop there? Why not graduate to METH amphetamines, too, and start giving your kids street meth like the militaries of the world already give to their soldiers? It makes about as much sense as giving them Ritalin, but believe me, if Big Pharma could find a way to control and legalize meth, psychiatrists would no doubt be standing by, ready to invent a fictitious disease "treated" by meth. (Remember, too, that street meth is manufactured from drug company cold medicines sold over the counter to children.) It all makes you wonder about the Partnership For a Drug-Free America, doesn't it? This is an organization funded in part by drug companies, which seems to have no problem whatsoever about the mass drugging of children with Ritalin amphetamines. The "Partnership," in my opinion, isn't about making America drug free, it's about making America addicted to Big Pharma's drugs while curbing use of the competition: street drugs. The Partnership says, "Ritalin is a valuable medicine." Are they on crack? Click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphetamines) to read about amphetamines on Wikipedia. Not surprisingly, when it comes to Ritalin and the drugging of children, it's all about the profit. The best way to market a drug is to first market a disorder, then pitch the drug as the only known treatment for that disorder. The chemical abuse of children I believe it is time we abolished the industry of psychiatry and its disastrous "treatment" of children with dangerous, mind-altering chemicals. If we continue to allow these profit-minded psych doctors to drug an entire generation with amphetamines, the long-term consequences to society will no doubt be devastating. Children do not need mind-altering drugs to demonstrate normal, balanced behavior. They simply need honest nutrition, responsible parenting and to be kept away from refined sugars, petrochemical food additives and processed foods. Ritalin / Adderall addicts snort the meds like cocaine Dear Alice, Recently I have started snorting Ritalin and Adderall (not at the same time though). I have found that the effects closely resemble that of snorting cocaine, but are not quite as intense. I really like doing this, because it's much cheaper than buying coke. However, I was wondering exactly how dangerous this might be, if even at all, considering it's a prescribed drug and I never snort more than the average dose that you would take orally. If you could tell me what the danger in doing this is and what I might possibly be doing to my body, that would be great. Thanks, (Alice answers:) Ritalin and Adderall are two of the most prevalent prescription drugs used in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Both of these medications are classified as Schedule II drugs in the amphetamine class. Even though they are stimulants, when prescribed as directed by a medical provider in standard doses for people with ADHD and ADD, these prescription drugs assist people with AD(H)D to sustain their attention for a longer amount of time. This allows them to study or complete tasks at hand much more effectively minus the feelings associated with the medications' "speed-like" effects. Schedule II drugs, such as Ritalin and Adderall, however, have a high propensity for misuse, abuse, and dependence. Widely prescribed for school-age children by medical professionals, many adolescents and young adults snort Ritalin and Adderall as they believe that they are safe alternatives to cocaine. This could not be further from the truth. First, both the potency of Ritalin and Adderall exponentially increase when they are snorted or injected because they enter the bloodstream directly. Second, prescription medications, especially when they are not prescribed for the user, as with illicit drugs, do not diminish their potential for harm. These actions make the misuse/abuses of these substances as or more harmful than cocaine, since the user may believe snorting Adderall and Ritalin is safe. Dangerous side effects from inhaling Ritalin and Adderall include: respiratory problems, such as destruction of the nasal and sinus cavities and lung tissue -- irregular heartbeat (heart arrhythmia) -- problems with circulation -- psychotic episodes -- increased aggression -- toxic shock -- death, in extreme cases As Adderall is similar in its chemical makeup to methamphetamine, it poses additional dangers. Extended, continuous abuse can result in developmental problems concerning the brain and negative changes in brain wave activity [emphasis added]. If someone misuses/abuses Ritalin, Adderall, or both, help is necessary to stop using, not only to prevent further harm, but also to keep the person safe during withdrawal. Once one has become addicted to these substances, stopping could cause withdrawal symptoms similar to those with cocaine, such as: severe depression -- psychosis -- restlessness -- extreme feelings of agitation You may think that you are safer and more frugal by snorting Ritalin and Adderall, rather than cocaine, but you are harming yourself in similar ways. You also run the risk of arrest for having and using these substances without a prescription. Abu Ghraib-i-fying America's Schools The citizens of the world who hate America are going to love the latest agitprop released this week by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. In a document titled "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools," the left-wing groups seek to paint a horrifying portrait of the nation's classrooms as Abu Ghraib-like torture chambers. The report compiles sob stories of students humiliated after being disciplined by school officials for unruliness, and claims that minority students are "disproportionately targeted" for punishment. Citing international law and threatening lawsuits, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU are demanding that the White House and Congress ban physical discipline in all public schools. The report says that "more than 200,000 U.S. public school students were punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year," but makes no distinction between "beatings" that take the form of mere knuckle-rapping versus swats on the backside versus over-the-line violent confrontations. In several of the anecdotes cited, it wasn't bruised bottoms that upset the supposedly brutalized students. It was bruised egos. Peter S., a middle-school student from the Mississippi Delta, whined to the researchers: "The other kids were watching and laughing. It made me want to fight them. When you get a paddling and you see everyone laugh at you, it make you mad and you want to do something about it." How about ending your bad behavior and flying right? Of course educators must use common sense when punishing bad apples. Of course they should be held accountable if they cause undue harm. But the agenda of these outfits is not to ensure the safety of everyone in the classroom. Their agenda is to demonize unapologetic enforcers of order and to impose international dictates on American public institutions. The main author of the report is a special fellow with the Open Society Institute, funded by George (America must be "de-Nazified") Soros. Replete with references to the Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the report declares in sweeping terms: "All corporal punishment, whether or not it causes significant physical injury, represents a violation of each student's rights to physical integrity and human dignity. It is degrading and humiliating, damaging the student's self-esteem and making him or her feel helpless." It's Gitmo all over again. As usual, the Human Rights Watch/ACLU activists inject claims of racial discrimination into the mix -- repeatedly underscoring that many of the remaining states that allow corporal punishment are in the South. They infer deliberate targeting of black students based on statistics that reportedly show that "in the 13 southern states where corporal punishment is most prevalent, African-American students are punished at 1.4 times the rate that would be expected given their numbers in the student population, and African-American girls are 2.1 times more likely to be paddled than might be expected." But that disproportion does not automatically equal discrimination. What they don't tell you are the races or ethnicities of the victims of the thugs being disciplined. What they don't bother to mention -- because it doesn't fit the America-as-torturer-of-minorities narrative -- is the unmitigated violence perpetrated in American classrooms against minority teachers. The recent videotaped beating of black Baltimore teacher Jolita Berry by a black female student -- as other black students cheered and screamed, "Hit her!" -- exposed the continuing chaos in inner-city districts. In that school system alone, 112 students were expelled for assaults on staff members this school year. Federal education statistics show that between 1996 and 2000, 599,000 violent crimes against teachers at school were reported. On average, the feds say, in each year from 1996 to 2000, about 28 out of every 1,000 teachers were the victims of violent crime at school, and three out of every 1,000 were victims of serious violent crime (i.e., rape, sexual assault, robbery or aggravated assault). Violence against teachers is higher at urban schools. America's problem isn't that we're too tough and cruel in the classroom. It's that we've become too soft and placative, too ashamed and timid to assert authority and take unilateral action to guarantee a secure environment. Exactly where the human rights groups want us. So-Called Education Intentionally Dumbs Down Americans (NaturalNews) As Mike Adams' wonderful analysis of the current state of the world shows in 'The Biofuels Scam, Food Shortages and the Coming Collapse of the Human Population' (http://www.naturalnews.com/023091.html) , something is deeply wrong in America and the world. It's as if the vast majority of people have given up. Given up caring. Given up thinking. Given up common sense. Given up everything but gluttony. But why? What has brought us to such a state? Could it have just 'happened'? Or was it intentional? To call it intentional, it's necessary to demonstrate planning. Fortunately, John Taylor Gatto, who was once named Teacher of the Year in both New York City and New York State, has explained what happened, when it started, and why. Perhaps you were like me as a child. You loved learning. You'd spend hours and hours studying something of interest. Yet, you hated school. It was unutterably boring. It was rigid. It stifled original thought, even punished for it. Give any answer other than the prescribed one, even if you had clearly demonstrated a full understanding of the subject, and you were given a bad grade. Disrupt the class -- - meaning that you questioned the teacher -- - and you could expect time in detention, even more grinding boredom. Standing out from your classmates made you 'different'. You'd be ostracized by the other kids. The school itself supported such behavior. It sponsored things like cheerleading, another term for a popularity contest, where the kids from the right families were nearly always elected. To survive through it all, you either had to get out -- - a daunting prospect for a child -- - or stuff your creativity, your spark. You probably thought of yourself as an oddball. After all, it was you who was different from all the others. It probably never dawned on you that most of the other kids were just as miserable -- - and just as fearful of speaking out. It probably never dawned on you that many of your teachers felt much the same way. That is, they did if they really wanted to teach. What Created This Monstrous 'Education' System? We think of our school system as something that has always existed. The reality is quite different. In the U.S. expecting all children to go to school a certain amount of time every day for a certain number of months and a certain number of years didn't come into being until the early twentieth century, 1905-1915. Hardly any of the greats of American history went through much formal schooling. That includes Thomas Jefferson. George Washington. Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Edison. Herbert Melville. Mark Twain. Margaret Mead. Admiral Farragut. And so many more. Obviously, formal secondary schooling, at least of the type we now have, is not a requisite for learning, creativity, or greatness. Let's ask who benefits when the great mass of people becomes complaisant, unable to think, unable to entertain themselves, and interested only in possessions. The answer is simple: corporations. When the mass of children are forced to go through a system that destroys creativity and rewards group-think, they are prepared to fill their predestined roles in a lockstep workforce and unthinking consumption corps. What are Americans good at' Buying, of course. Having the latest and greatest of... well, of anything and everything, as long as the media tells them they should have it. It's how Americans measure themselves, how they determine their success. Who cares if someone can carry on a good conversation about the state of the world? Who even wants to listen? It's so depressing. Let's talk about the cool super-fast car that Joe just bought or the fancy house Jim and Mary are getting for no money down! Go into any supermarket and look at what's surrounding the checkout aisles. Publications -- if you can call them that -- telling about the clothing of some super model or the antics of an actor or actress, anything but factors that will affect them, like how the planet is heating up because of overuse of natural resources, overpopulation, over-consumption, burning fossil fuels, and all the myriad of other things that really matter. Pseudo-food, filled with petroleum products, sugar, sweeteners as bad as or worse than sugar, colorings to make them appealing, hydrolyzed this and phosphorylated that -- virtually nothing that nourishes. And the junk sells! The only beneficiaries of this purchasing rampage are those who own and run corporations. The masses of people work in them at soul-numbing, mind and health destroying jobs. Running on treadmills at just the proper, accepted speed. Wearing just the right fashion and makeup. Commuting in latest style vehicles, purchased for that reason. Returning to the overpriced homes that they'll never have the time to enjoy just so they can say they live in them, since they'll almost never actually own them. Doing jobs that promote the destruction of their environment and their health for these dubious benefits. Unable to think that there might be another way. As John Gatto wrote in Harper's, 'There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need.' A Brief History of Modern Schools in the U.S. To achieve the needed unthinking production workers and consumers, the major corporatists of the late 1800's, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, pushed for compulsory schooling of the masses. It was, of course, sold as being for the benefit of the people. Prussian culture, the predecessor of 20th century Germany, created a system of schooling designed to produce nonthinking masses. It was this system that supplied the concepts for America's compulsive pseudo-education of the masses. The Prussian system was first introduced in the United States during the 1840's. In 1918, Alexander Inglis, for whom a Harvard lecture hall was named, published the definitive book, Principles of Secondary Education, which defines modern schooling. He specifically stated that its purpose is to support a command economy and society. This book describes modern 'education's design. James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard from 1933 through 1953, wrote The Child, the Parent, and the State in 1959. In it, he delineates and approves of Alexander Inglis's ideas to inform other members of his class that following this system of training is the best possible way to keep the masses in their place. He stated that the creation of the American school system was a 'coup de main', a surprise action against the enemy, in this case, the general American populace. He further stated that not continuing with the same type of training of the American public would result in, 'A successful counterrevolution.' Before 1910, there were almost no high schools in the United States. A seemingly grassroots movement to open public high schools resulted in massive production of them between 1910 and 1940, at which point it became routine, and even compulsory, to attend high school. One should always be cautious at the concept of a grassroots movement. As we often see nowadays in patient support groups, an apparent groundswell of support for something, as often as not, is the result of an influx of money and propaganda from a wealthy, usually corporate, source. In the case of public eduction, it was manufacturers in need of two things: Dumbed-down masses as cogs in their production facilities and sponges to soak up the message that they needed to buy the dross pouring out of them. How Compulsory Schooling Is Designed to Work According to Inglis, there are six functions filled by the new mandatory 'education' system: 1. Adjustive: Creating reflexive, fixed responses, as opposed to creative thinking. 2. Integrative: Making children conform, making them be predictable and easy to manipulate in a large labor force. 3. Diagnosis and Direction: Schools are intended to identify and enforce each child's role in society and the labor force. 4. Differentiation: Once diagnosed, children are trained as far as their role in labor has been determined. 5. Selection: Children are tagged with punishments, poor grades, poor classroom placement, and any other humiliation that can be thought of. The purpose is to separate out those the system determines to be unfit and allow them to be treated as inferiors by the rest. 6. Preparation (called propaedeutic by Inglis): Those few deemed to be leaders, often only by their birth, are taught to be the controllers of the masses described in the other five functions. In the 1922 edition of Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley, a textbook editor at Houghton Miflin, wrote: Our schools are... factories in the raw products are to be shaped and fashioned... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down. There you have it, from one of the major textbook editors during the buildup of secondary schools in the United States -- a clear, concise statement of the purpose of those schools. As John Gatto wrote: We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it. What it All Means Today, there is so little critical thinking that almost anything can be sold. In the arena of health, it's now possible for purported research to make claims that vitamins are unhealthy. And people believe it! Immunization programs that cause death for diseases that carry little harm to healthy people, such as RotaTeq for gastroenteritis in children. And parents rush out to have their children inoculated! Agrobusiness pig growers destroy entire watersheds, even to the point of creating dead zones in the ocean. And hardly anyone cares. This is what has been wrought by our anti-education school system. We are seeing what happens when a populace has been so dumbed-down and made complaisant that the only thing they're capable of doing is shop. "Shop 'til you drop" has another, far more sinister meaning than usually intended. We're in the early stages of a rapidly accelerating collapse of civilization -- - all brought on by a population so blind and complaisant it couldn't see the obvious: What can't continue won't continue. Reference: Harper's Magazine, September 2003, 'Against School', by John Taylor Gatto. Reprinted at (http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm) The LINK, Homeschool News Network, Vol 5, Issue 6, 'A Conspiracy Against Ourselves', by John Taylor Gatto. AGAINST SCHOOL John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were. Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame? We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however, I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom. Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break out of this trap. The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to discover t~at all evidence of my having been granted the leave had been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally retired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of our schools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. Yet I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insightsimply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up? Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated. We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools? Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold: 1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else. Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern. The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the populace "manageable." It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modem schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary." Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole. Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier: 1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things. 2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force. 3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one. 4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best. 6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor. That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Tre you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, lib, erty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed. There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing. Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are ... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down." It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it. Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can. First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves. AGAINST SCHOOL AS PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED There is a technical high school in Turner's Falls, in western Massachusetts, which has a cooking program (among a wide variety of training options) that teaches kids how to buy, prepare and serve lunch on weekdays to whoever comes in to eat - and also offers a display of bakery goods to be purchased - in a restaurant setting, and at a moderate price. It is very popular. I have driven over there for lunch on a number of occasions. It's a very good experience. Except for the ones cooking and serving the food, the kids are free at lunchtime and just get to hang out with each other. Around Christmastime, many of them have tables set up in the hallways at which they sell various goods made in their classes. I can only characterize the whole feeling tone of this big bunch of kids as downright unAmerican - at least if compared with most high school groups under the same circumstances. No teachers monitoring, no kids teasing each other, no excessive flirting or harassing, no frenetic dashing about, no smoking in sheltered corners outside the building - just kids strolling about in small groups, chatting with each other or selling their products, those from the greenhousing group offering sturdy plants - and being very knowledgeable about their management - along the corridor, some studying in a sunny corner - well, you get the picture. These kids love what they're doing, and they are good at what they do! My sons tell me there is an equally good tech school in Northampton - and there must be lots of them in many Massachusetts towns and cities. I sure hope so. My youngest son tells me they plan to encourage their youngest son to go to the school in Hamp. Having founded, co-led and taught at an inner city alternative school (The Albany Free School - preschool through grade 9) from 1969 until my retirement in 1985, I feel as though I have a pretty good eye and ear for kids who are both enjoying what they do and doing a heck of a good job doing it! It's as though through some miracle none of these kids are subject to the ills cited as typical teenage behaviors. Well, it's NOT a miracle. It's just what happens whn kids are allowed to do what they want to do. It seems to me that a big part of our destructive racism as a people is mainly a subset of our basic class prejudice problem, both urban anbd rural - which is actually less ubiquitous than it was when I was a kid in the 20s and 30s, as I remember the universal discrimination practiced against working class culture during my own adolescence. I have a friend who taught for thirty years in a small rural high school in an ex-logging town in central Maine. He has detailed the horrifying prejudice - even in the 80s - to which local kids whose parents came from poverty groups have been exposed during their high school years (click on the title, SCHOOLING FOR HUMANITY .- When Big Brother Isn't Watching, by David O. Solmitz, to read a back cover comment, and here for an excerpt). This is a scene I believe is being endlessly repeated in most urban high schools in poverty areas of the cities. But the crazy emphasis we seem obsessively bent on through programs like "No Child Left Behind" offer a model of life based on upward mobility and four years of college as a foundation for some high-paying corporate job - and such a model seems to me badly self-defeating. It fails to take into account the fact that many, perhaps most, members of the working class are treated so badly because they do not, or cannot, fit the middle class ideal that they either drop out or fail miserably! I have five kids, all married, with careers and kids of their own. Two of them pursued the traditional course into four-year liberal arts colleges - both of them Cornell, actually. It took my oldest son his four years of undergraduate study at Cornell, switching majors from engineering to liberal arts, then deciding to drop out, spending two years pumping gas at a local gas station, then four years rebuilding transmissions at a VW garage, then completion of his undergraduate years at SUNY Albany, a third major in econometrics, a Lehman Fellowship in that field, then, during the Vietnam War, serving in alternative service in math at a boys' treatment school as a conscientious objector, finally landing where he really felt fine, taking the training in computer programming offered at the Computer Center at SUNY Albany. He landed a wonderful job at GE's medical tomology division, where he became team leader for the CAT-scan, the MRI and the system based on ultrasound (whatever its name) and has felt fully rewarded throughout the years since that time for the application of his skills. Sadly, in spite of this happy ending, he might have been spared a lot of self-doubt, boredom and even depression over the years it took him to find himself if there had been more options early on! My grandkids (12) have mostly made it into the ranks of the standard "preppie" group, but none of them was prepared for what they ended up doing by their "higher education." One of them segued into a four-year college where she quickly found recognition for the skills she had been honing in her secondary "prep" school as lighting director for the school's outstanding drama program, and went right on to the Yale School of the Drama, and from there intol a lucrative job in her field! So she was able to parlay her own natural bent, which was considered a sideline, not the main program, by her school, into a satisfying career. Three other grandkids have had to make it through the four-year programs of their chosen colleges and find jobs ill-suited to their preparations while allowing them to become independent of their parents. They might have been off and running a lot sooner, and more of them might have found careers based on their natural, trainable skills rather than simply having to find jobs working for other people, subject to the vagaries of their employment, if they had had some sort of self-chosen central skill-training to begin with. After all, the rest can always be added as time goes along, if one feels educationally malnourished. My youngest son has been adding to his own educational scope ever since the year (1979) he graduated from his self-organized high school. People, after all, are not like domesticated turkey poults, who starve if not taught soon after they hatch to peck at chickfeed by having marbles dropped into in their troughs - their natural instincts in the wild having been by-passed by captivity! An Elegy for American Home. . . and American Immigrants The final issue of American Home, the oldest Slovenian newspaper in the world arrived in my mailbox last month. The masthead, as always, featured the Statue of Liberty and the slogan, 'American in Spirit; Foreign in Language Only.' It proudly announced, 'Serving American Slovenians for 110 years.' The inversion is deliberate: those of Slovenian heritage living in the United States are American first. The publishers' statement under the American flag printed in red, white, and blue specially for the occasion, described the mission of the newspaper: 'Ameriska Domovina has tried to acclimate persons of Slovenian nationality into American culture, and relate the customs of our Slovenian heritage to second and third generation readers, while championing the cause of an independent Slovenia, and keep readers informed of Slovenian activities throughout the world.' It goes the way of other similar newspapers serving central and eastern European communities made up of refugees from the dictatorships of Stalin, Tito, and Hitler. The newspaper, some years ago, succumbed to a half-English and half-Slovenian format, for those like me, who did not have access to schools to learn to read and write in their mother tongue. In the few years that I have subscribed, I have come to appreciate its notices of activities in the city that includes the largest number of Slovenians in the country. I will miss learning about how Slovenian children learned to be good before the arrival of Saint Nicholas or else expect a visit by the devils. I will miss the corny jokes and recipes, and bragging about American-Slovenians' accomplishments, like earning advanced degrees, getting academic distinctions, serving in public office and the military, and performing in recitals. I will miss reading about the various activities, camps, gatherings, polka masses, singing festivals, children's performances in native costume -- coordinated by volunteer efforts, without a cent of tax money. The newspaper, too, was a 'grass roots, independent, and unencumbered newspaper,' according to publishers Jim and Madeline Debevec's parting statement. The American Home's pages exposed me to the history of Slovenia, a tiny country with a distinct culture and language, but one that did not gain political independence until 1991. It had been subject to rule by various monarchies, invasions by Muslims, and finally the communist dictator Josip Broz Tito. Although viewed as benevolent by many, Tito was responsible for murdering thousands of Slovenians, many of them civilians. This half-educated man, rising from the status of machine 'worker' to war hero, thought that because of his education largely in communist ideology, he knew what should be done to make the world 'as it should be.' As is so typical of his kind, he became far more ruthless, acquisitive, and egotistical than any of the monarchs he and his comrades had condemned. Although I sat in classrooms with children of Ukrainian and Polish immigrants, the history of our people was not told in our public schools in Rochester, New York. While we were treated to the gruesome footage from Hitler's concentration camps, almost nothing was said about the millions--including kin of the students sitting right there in class--killed under Stalin and other communist tyrants. But these regimes, allies in the early part of the war, share the same socialist ideology. So when you're Slovenian, or another 'invisible immigrant,' you have to learn the history on your own. In addition to news about various ethnic activities, the American Home led me to contacts in Cleveland, who told me about books about my country. I bought Joze Rant's The Slovenian Exodus of 1945. He begins by answering the question posed by offspring of Slovenian refugees of 1945 about why their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents had to leave. The Nazis invaded in 1941, seeing Slavs as just another group to be subjugated. The communist Partisans exploited the situation and conducted a 'continuous and savage murder spree' on Slovenians. Resistance to Partisan terrorism arose as self-defense in the form of Village Guards. The first mass murders of Slovenians took place in 1943, after Italy's surrender. This is the way Rant describes it: ?The Allies ordered the Italian Army to hand over all its weapons and equipment to the Partisan forces. Because rumors were circulating at the time that the Allies were going to land on the Slovenian coastline and break across Slovenia into Central Europe, the anticommunist forces (Village Guards and Chetniks) were making preparations to aid the Allies in this venture according to their means. The communist Partisans however had already in advance made an agreement with the Germans to jointly resist any Allied invasion. The Village Guards found themselves in a very unfavorable position face to face with the Partisan forces that were now armed with Italian heavy weaponry. The Partisan forces en masse did not aim their weapons at the Germans [as the Western world was made to believe], but on the contrary at fellow Slovenians, the Village Guards and the Chetniks.' Weaponless, and then with Ljubljana Province under German occupation, the Slovenian anticommunists were left 'with only two choices: either join the communists. . . or accept weapons from the occupier to be able to defend themselves.' The Home Guard arose from the Village Guards. In the waning days, they fled to Austria. In 1945, members and their families were told by the British that they were leaving their refugee camps to go to Italy. But once on the train, they were locked in the cars--and led to their slaughter by Tito's forces at Cveski Rog. This fact, of course, was buried under Tito's educational dictatorship. Monuments to the Partisans still stand in Slovenia, with a marble monstrosity in the middle of downtown Murska Sobota, my birthplace. One of the Home Guards, a woman named Irena, was responsible for my family getting here after she sponsored my uncle, who then sponsored us in 1959. Many of these displaced persons immigrated to Cleveland where a Slovenian community was already well established. But Cleveland, like many Midwestern cities is being transformed. Its immigrant communities were destroyed by rioters at the instigation of those who thought idealistically, as Barack Obama thinks he does, that they know how the world 'should be' (quotation from his wife's speeches). Mosques are replacing Catholic churches. The useful idiots see this as a good thing, as an example of 'diversity.' Here, in Atlanta, a quarter-mile from my house, I nearly hit a late model Mercedes that had edged out too far from the gas station. A woman with a full black burka, with only slits for the eyes, sat behind the wheel. I contrast this image of the burka-clad Mercedes driver with my parents and immigrants I knew in Rochester, New York, in the 1960s. Many, like my parents, did not own cars and walked to church and the grocery store, and took the bus to work. The photos of our early years in the United States show family gatherings with my father and uncle dressed in suits and ties; my aunt and mother in dresses, heels, and hose; the kids in their Sunday best. But today's immigrants insist that America change for them. As I walk through the Middle Eastern Studies department at one of the colleges where I teach, doors plastered with Arabic script and anti 'Iraq invasion' posters greet me. I hear the Muslim call to prayer sounded campus wide, honoring Ramadan. Entering freshmen think nothing unusual about this. Workshops on 'Understanding Islam' have proliferated since 9/11 and their textbooks, according to a study by the American Textbook Council, overwhelmingly describe the religion as benevolent and peace-loving -- in contrast to Judaism and Christianity. Students tend to see themselves as global citizens. But some parts of the globe are emphasized more in their educations than others. Students can tell you about some polygamous African chief and the wonders of Islam, but little about Eastern or Central Europe. But if we read books like Rant's, we will see that one of the first tasks of each occupying force in Slovenia -- German, Italian, and Hungarian -- was to instill its own curriculum, with its own language and ideological spin on history, in the classroom. It's a sad statement that in the land of the free we need to circumvent our own schools. But we still have other means. Please join me in a new forum about the history of 'silent immigrants' and our corrupt educational system. Visit my web page at www.marygrabar.com and sign up to be on my list. Supreme Court Justices Save Children from Educationists -- Finally When I went to see my childhood home in Rochester, New York, last Thanksgiving, I knew that the house would be smaller than I remembered. It is, indeed, tiny. As I drove the route I walked every day from Benjamin Franklin High School down Norton Street, down Jewel, to Beach Street, I wanted to weep at the wasteland the once working class neighborhood had become. Many of the houses, always plain and modest, but once maintained in neat yards, were boarded. My sanctuary, the Hudson Avenue branch of the public library, was closed. Otto's, at the corner of Conkey Avenue and Saranac Street, where we used to buy penny candy on the way home from #8 School, closed after the 1964 riots and follow-up outbreaks of violence. In 1974 I walked to Quality Bakery on Joseph Avenue and promised the Jewish owner I would memorize the price list for my interview. I got the job. The business is gone now, indistinguishable from the other boarded buildings. As a twelve-year-old I had been petrified at the thought of attending Ben Franklin. My fears were borne out when I was locked into French class at the direction of the principal over the P.A. system. In the halls, stampeding students were breaking glass and beating up teachers. The school day atmosphere rippled with intimidation. I was "asked" for quarters at my locker. As I walked home, I was knocked on the head -- for carrying books. In the girls' bathroom I shrank back, as older girls sported "Black Power" buttons. I begged to go to a Catholic school. Teachers gave up in the classroom, and became satisfied with keeping students in their seats, entertaining them with chin-ups in the door frame or holding rap sessions on free love as my social studies teacher did. Recently, National Public Radio interviewed high school teachers who had been severely beaten by students. The focus was on "connecting with" and "respecting" students to prevent such life-threatening assaults in the future. The Supreme Court's June 28 decision striking down racial quotas and forced busing demonstrates a return to sanity -- but after nearly forty years of harm done to schoolchildren and neighborhoods. Benjamin Franklin had once been a good school, I have been told. But in the early 70s when I started attending it as a seventh-grader, it was a Darwinian jungle. The social experiment of busing, rather than enhancing the educational experience, ended up making a cynic of this A-student. It turned a once diverse blue collar neighborhood of immigrants, new and settled -- from Poland, the Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Germany, Italy -- Christian and Jewish -- into a blighted area. I did go back to school, in my thirties, to earn a Ph.D. in English. But throughout my graduate school years I repeatedly heard about the need for "diversity" -- as I had through high school. An immigrant from Slovenia, I walked past posters advertising grants and scholarships, only to learn that they were not for me, even though I had had no scholarship fund set up, nor any encouragement by parents to go to college. While black and white families may not have broken bread together routinely in their homes in the 1960s, they did live peacefully side by side in the neighborhoods around Clinton and Joseph Avenues. Were my and other parents prejudiced? Yes, they applied their ideas about gypsies to blacks, with my mother using the old story about gypsies kidnapping small children to keep me at home while she shopped at the second-hand stores. But my mother also spoke bitterly of the Italian foreladies who favored their own kind by passing on the easier, more lucrative bundles of suit parts to sew together in the piecework done at Bond's Clothing Factory. I disagree with Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum's assertion in the Atlanta paper recently that "the likelihood of having either a multiracial social network of acquaintances or at least one close interracial friendship is linked to the experience of attending racially mixed schools." I had no such "interracial friendship." But my Ukrainian best friend moved to the suburb of Irondequoit to go to a safer school. The lunchroom at my high school was markedly segregated. School buses and lunchrooms are still self-segregated. The social engineers profited, however. They made careers with their theories of forced racial integration and new curriculums based on abstract notions of "diversity." My excuse for a social studies teacher went on to become a prominent union leader for teachers. And Beverly Daniel Tatum is making the rounds of a publicity tour for her new book, "Can We Talk About Race -- And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation." Colleges spend billions on remedial classes to prep freshmen It's a tough lesson for millions of students just now arriving on campus: even if you have a high school diploma, you may not be ready for college. "That is a very large cost, but there is an additional cost and that's the cost to the students," said former Colorado governor Roy Romer, chair of the group Strong American Schools, which is issuing the report "Diploma to Nowhere" on Monday. "These students come out of high school really misled. They think they're prepared. They got a 3.0 and got through the curriculum they needed to get admitted, but they find what they learned wasn't adequate." Like many college students, she wishes she'd been worked a little harder in high school. Analyzing federal data, the report estimates 43% of community college students require remediation, as do 29% of students at public four-year universities, with higher numbers in some places. For instance, four in five Oklahoma community college students need remedial coursework, and three in five in the giant California State university system need help in English, math or both. The cost per student runs to as much as $2,000 per student in community colleges and $2,500 in four-year universities. Jeronimo was hardly alone at Long Beach City College, where 95% of students need remedial coursework, according to President Eloy Oakley. "It's the number one issue to Long Beach City College and the entire California community college system, easily," Oakley said. "I don't believe that the public in general really understands the magnitude of the problem." Simply dumping the remedial students into large classes isn't necessarily expensive for colleges, although it's also not very effective. But smaller classes typically require more attention and money. Some states have refused to fund remedial courses at the university level. In California, Oakley said, state funding for community colleges favors credit courses. Remediation (or "basic skills" as he and many educators call it) is typically noncredit. Boylan says colleges are learning such courses must also teach study skills to be effective. "One of the things that they don't teach in high school is time management," Jeronimo said. Boylan says the gap between what high schools teach and what colleges expect isn't the only problem. He says there's often a mismatch, with high schools and colleges teaching material in different ways. It's true that only recently have K-12 and higher education begun talking seriously about aligning standards. But Romer, who has also headed the Los Angeles Unified School District, doesn't buy that it's a communication problem. "We're not expecting enough of our youngsters and the institutions that train them," he said. Comments on... Colleges spend billions on remedial classes to prep freshmen bradphillis wrote: 1d 23h ago For all of you who have offered criticisms of our education system--some of which are completely valid--I urge you to become a teacher and use your talents to help address the problems rather than casting aspersions. Riblet wrote: 9/25/2008 9:13:33 AM Pepper J wrote: 9/21/2008 1:07:25 PM scott3 wrote: 9/17/2008 4:24:42 PM ReaderDF wrote: 9/16/2008 1:33:18 PM midofroad wrote: 9/16/2008 11:13:17 AM midofroad wrote: 9/16/2008 11:09:52 AM Texass wrote: 9/16/2008 11:09:17 AM hellspells wrote: 9/16/2008 11:07:39 AM TX teacher wrote: 9/16/2008 7:53:59 AM Teachers don't like being verbally and sometimes physically attacked by parents in a rage because their kid got a D or an F. Parents sometimes bring their lawyers to parent-teacher conferences. Yes, this DOES happen, and all too frequently. And we can't have their self-esteem suffer, even though they KNOW when they turn in work that stinks. So, teachers make assignments and tests easier so more students do well. I have heard parents gush over how "smart" their child is, although the kid's IQ is below 80 (a slow learner indeed, close to legally retarded.) Kids in remedial classes get high grades but what they (and their parents) don't realize is that teachers have modified their assignments for them. By law, a child who has learning disabilities must have his assignments changed, usually simplified, so he can succeed. Is it any wonder that more people think their kids are geniuses when they're not? Not everyone is cut out for college. And that is perfectly fine. Our society needs people who are skilled in trades and laborers. Imagine where we'd all be without trash collectors. Not a pretty thought. Why can't we encourage students who seem unlikely to succeed in college to follow a trade? High schools need to allow students the opportunities to explore those careers and provide some classes designed for students with those interests and abilities. CSAR JYRENE wrote: 9/16/2008 6:27:31 AM CSAR JYRENE wrote: 9/16/2008 6:24:34 AM djorge wrote: 9/16/2008 3:48:14 AM Most high school teachers try to break down the content so much that they are basically giving you the answers, and even then, students cannot give the correct answer because they are not required to think. They just wait for the teacher to give them an answer. I can tell you that that will not fly in college. Classes startet less than a month ago and I have already been chanllegned more than I ever was in HS. I don't mind that, it actually feels better when you know you worked hard to earned your grades, and it was not handed to you by a teacher that just wants the day to end, and will do anything to get out of their classroom. I think HS should require students to study, I think if you do that, you would not have that many students trying to learn in one semmester what they should have learned during their four years of HS. Kronebu wrote: 9/15/2008 9:21:28 PM joe.mescher wrote: 9/15/2008 8:51:22 PM A college education is the cost of admission to most professions in the United States. That said, nothing can replace the entrepreneurial spirit and drive to succeed. Money and classroom lessons require a shot of adrenaline provided by real world experience. My classmates and I loved field trips and drafting classes because they offered us a chance to leave behind theory for practice. When I was a college senior I thought only IT majors could design websites and start their own businesses. Now I publish two sites (http://firstcollegenowwhat.com & http://vermontmeansbusiness.com) and dream in code and web design...all of which I learned outside the classroom. Clark56 wrote: 9/15/2008 4:33:44 PM KennyK wrote: 9/15/2008 3:46:34 PM mschievous wrote: 9/15/2008 3:09:10 PM jwu wrote: 9/15/2008 3:04:32 PM Bullwinkle2 wrote: 9/15/2008 3:03:36 PM Charlotte M. wrote: 9/15/2008 1:30:06 PM mooshiefamily wrote: 9/15/2008 12:42:44 PM trickyt wrote: 9/15/2008 12:35:33 PM gmlyons2 wrote: 9/15/2008 12:28:56 PM The Mick wrote: 9/15/2008 12:20:45 PM trickyt wrote: 9/15/2008 12:13:34 PM Mia1013 wrote: 9/15/2008 11:48:36 AM Bill Ayers' Scary Plans for Public Schools Will William Ayers be secretary of education in a Barack Obama administration? All parents should ponder that possibility before making their choice for president on Nov. 4. After all, Ayers is a friend of Obama, and professor Ayers's expertise is training teachers and developing public school curriculum. That's been his mission since he gave up planting bombs in government buildings (including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon) and assaulting police officers. Ayers brashly admitted that he was "guilty as hell" in planting bombs in the 1970s, and that he has no regrets and feels that he and his Weather Underground associates "didn't do enough." After successfully avoiding trial and prison because of legal technicalities, he picked up his Ph.D. at Columbia Teachers College for a second career, landing a tenured job as distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Ayers's political views are as radical now as they were in the 1970s. "Viva President Chavez!" he exclaimed in a speech in Venezuela in 2006, in which he also declared, "education is the motor-force of revolution." From his prestigious and safe university position, Ayers has been teaching teachers and students in rebellion against American capitalism and what he calls "imperialism" and "oppression." The code words for the Ayers curriculum are "social justice," a "transformative" vision, "critical pedagogy," "liberation," "capitalist injustices," "critical race theory," "queer theory," and of course multiculturalism and feminism. That language is typical in the readings that Ayers assigns in his university courses. He admits he is a "communist street fighter" who has been influenced by Karl Marx, as well as Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X. Ayers speaks openly of his desire to use America's public school classrooms to train a generation of revolutionaries who will overturn the U.S. social and economic regime. He teaches that America is oppressive and unjust, socialism is the solution, and wealth and resources should be redistributed. In Ayers's course called "On Urban Education," he calls for a "distribution of material and human resources." His left-wing notions would be very compatible with those of Obama, who publicly told Joe the Plumber that we should "spread the wealth." Ayers's books are among the most widely used in America's education schools. Ayers even uses science and math courses as part of his "transformative" political strategy to teach that the American economic system is unjust. Ayers is an endorser of a book called "Queering Elementary Education" by William J. Letts IV and James T. Sears, a collection of essays to teach adults and children to "think queerly." The blurb on the cover quotes Ayers as saying this is "a book for all teachers … and, yes, it has an agenda." Unfortunately, Ayers's far-out education theories are already having an effect in education schools. One after another, teachers colleges are using their courses to promote socialist notions of wealth distribution, "social justice," diversity and environmentalism, and to punish students who resist this indoctrination by giving them low grades or even denying them graduation. The U.S. Department of Education lists 15 high schools whose mission statements declare that their curricula center on "social justice." Propaganda about Obama is already finding favor with textbook publishers. The McDougal Littell 8th-grade advanced-English literature book (copyright 2008, Houghton Mifflin Co.) has 15 pages featuring Obama and his "life of service." Most of Ayers's socialist propaganda is financed with taxpayer money at state universities and teachers colleges. Some of the schools that have adopted Ayers-style pedagogy have received grants from ACORN or from Bill Gates' charitable foundation. You might assume that Ayers's political ideas would put him on the outer fringe of the left-wing education establishment. However, his peers recently elected him to serve as vice president for curriculum in the American Education Research Association, the largest organization of education school professors and researchers. Is an appointment to the U.S. Department of Education his next career advancement? Is Ayers's transformative public school curriculum the kind of "change" Obama will bring us?
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