The Purpose of Education in a Democracy or Totalitarian Regime

The Purpose of Education in a Democracy or Totalitarian Regime

After signing up for this course, I was really surprised as to the true content discussed in our class meetings, and was rudely awakened at the true nature of our education system. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to question my entire time in the public education system, but I am better off for this. The purpose of the lower to middle class education, was never to mold the populations’ critical thinking abilities stronger, as to question the status quo. No, this education system was to continue the status quo, and continue the oppression by the corporate oppressors. We were simply designed to be a means of production, and we now are living products of a corrupt system.
So for this final paper, I wanted to dig a little deeper, and read between the lines to find out the truth behind this corrupt system. I wanted to get something that would start from the beginning of the public education system, and really break down different legislation by government to unveil the corruptness of the system. This is when I came across the book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America (Available for free pdf download as well). The author, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, is an American freelance writer and whistleblower who served in the U.S. Department of Education as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Education and Research during the first term of the Ronald Reagan presidency. The main goal of the book as indicated in its preface was that the changes brought gradually into the American public education system attempted to eliminate the influences of a child’s parents, and prepare the child for a socialist world of the future. The book contains many quotes from government documents that detail the real purpose of the American education such as: * To use schools to change America from a free nation to a socialist, global “state” as part of the United Nations Charter, and not the Unites States Constitution * To brainwash the children, starting at birth, to reject individualism * To reject freedom to choose one’s career in favor of the totalitarian K-12 school-to –work/ OBE process, creatively named “limited learning for lifelong labor”
I found this book incredibly interesting and wanted to read the book and summarize some of the main underlying proofs of foundations of the corrupt system that rules our lives. The United States has carefully and concisely created a formula to robotize the American people into labor slaves. This book will be the smoking gun at declassifying documents during the time of the Reagan administration, as well as previously and after his term. The public education system was designed to destroy the individual human, and welcome in the idea of socialism by promoting a subservient, obedient, monotonous worker.
“The Human Brain should be used for processing, not storage,” Thomas A. Kelly, Ph.D. – The Effective School Report
The book starts depicting the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which blatantly shows a shift from the standard definition of education which was published in 1927:
The drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc.—the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve. 1
To a more dehumanizing definition used by experimental psychologists found in, An Outline of Educational Psychology, 1934, which claims that: learning is the result of modifiability in the paths of neural conduction. Explanations of even such forms of learning as abstraction and generalization demand of the neurons only growth, excitability, conductivity, and modifiability. The mind is the connection-system of man; and learning is the process of connecting. The situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurons, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences.2 The conditioning of modern American society began with John Dewey, a psychologist, and the “Father of Progressive Education.” After basing his work off of Willhelm Wundt’s theory of assuming that there is nothing but a body, a brain, and a nervous system, then one must try to educate by inducing sensations into that nervous system. Dewey believed that through a stimulus-response approach, that students could be conditioned for a new world order. Edward Lee Thorndike, was trained in the new psychology by the first generation of Wilhelm Wundt. Thorndike did research with chickens, testing their behavior, and pioneering what later became known as “animal psychology.” Thorndike’s primary assumption was the same as Wundt’s, that was that man was an animal, and that his actions are always reactions. In 1906, in The Principles of Teaching Based on Psychology, Thorndike proposed making “the study of teaching scientific and practical.”
The overused concept of modifiability should be an ultimate red flag and assumed that education in the twenty-first century will, for the majority of youth, be workforce training. Up until the 1930s, America had one of the finest education systems in the world, but in a short period of fifty years ended up with up with one of the worst in the industrialized world.
In the early twentieth century reflected a “Turning of the Tides,” or a socialist philosophy that disregarded all of our previous extraordinary advances in all areas of life carried out by the individuals of society. This tide came from Europe and slowly infected our nation bringing changes to economics, politics, and the educational system funded by several wealthy American families and their tax-exempt foundations. This plan which is now in order carefully started almost seventy years ago strips America of its soveriengty, its constitutional ties, to just one of many nations in an international socialist system. How did this happen you may ask? Well interestingly enough only a dumbed down population, without memory of the roots of this great nation, could be succumbed to a global workforce training plan, outlined by the likes of the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockfeller family.
In 1902 the GEB, or General Education Board was incorporated by an act of the United States Congress, this was approved on January 12, 2902. This board was endowed by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. for the purpose of creating an educational laboratory to experiment with early innovations in education. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was founding in 1905. In 1918 the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations planned the demise of traditional education, Rockefeller focused on national education, while Carnegie would be in charge of international education. In 1919 the Institute of International Education was founded, and this was by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, for International Peace. The concept and purpose was to organize a student exchange program. As if to bestow teachings to international students to pose as messengers for their home countries? And noteworthy again in 1919 the Progressive Education Association was founded and organized by John Dewey.
So in a nutshell two of the richest families in the world, the Carnegies and Rockefellers began pouring heaps of money into foundations based upon education. You must think about this from a business standpoint, as clearly these actions may seem to an untrained eye, kind an just maneuvers to enlighten the population. However you would be sincerely wrong in that judgment, as these are businessmen with all the riches in the world, now looking for more than money, but power. These carefully planned studies by renowned psychologists, were to start the process of a new world, a world where intellectualness is frowned upon, and creative thinking is lacking.
In 1921 the League for Industrial Democracy changed it’s name to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and stated that its purpose as, “Education for a new social order based on production and not for profit.” The Council on Foreign Relations was also established during this year, and the late Professor Quigley of Georgetown was quoted as describing the CFR as “a front for J.P Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group.” On December 15, 1922, the Council on Foreign Relations endorsed world government.
The International Bureau of Education was established in 1925 off of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, this Bureau became part of the United Nations Educational, Scientif and Cultural Organization or UNESCO for those that prefer abbreviations. A very interesting court case also took place in 1925 and this was the Scopes “Monkey Trial,” in Dayton Tennessee. This was regarding the teaching of evolution in public schools. Scopes pitted two famous barristers of the day, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow against each other. The argument of the ACLU was that evolutionary theory should not be censored in the public schools. The head of UNESCO Sir Julian Huxley claimed that the central concept to which all details are related is evolution. In my eyes Huxley wanted to predict an education based on the concept that we are not much greater than our evolutionary ancestors, and that man is an animal to be trained, with an outcome based education, and direct instruction.
Into the troubling thirties we go with the publishing of the book Brave New World, in 1932, where Aldous Huxley satirized the mechanized world of the future, and humans were replaced. Also in 1932 Herbert Hoover appointed a research committee on social trends. The committee was not approved or funded by Congress yet became an executive action underwritten by the Rockefeller Foundation. The National Education Association created the EPC in 1932 and was for changing goals in our education system. They put out a book entitled Education for All American Youth, and this highly promoted document laid out: federal programs for health, education, and welfare, Head-start programs, federal funds without federal control, and sex education.
An eight year study was done from 1933 to 1941, and the eight-year study would lay the foundations for many educational reforms and innovations that we are encountering now. Most of the founding for the study was from the Carnegie Corporation and the GEB. In an excerpt recounting the proceedings talking about the study, Wilford M. Aiken who chronicled the beginnings and purposes wrote, “It has been assumed that physical and emotional reactons are not involved in the learning process, but if they are, they are not very important. Holding this view, the participating schools in the study believe that the school should become a place in which young people work together at tasks which are clearly related to their purposed….” Almost accurately depicting a work or work related environment, as in a real-life simulation would be implemented to schools participating in the study.
Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler was published in 1939, and there were many notable excerpts talking about education. “Educational work, can be taken over by the populist state with but slight changes. The childish brain must in general not be burdened with things ninety-five percent of which it does not need, and which therefore forgets…There should be a sharp distinction between general and specialized knowledge.” So as we can see that Adolph Hitler was in favor of specialized instruction as to not forget information in the brain, and was readily aware of not teaching general knowledge but specialized (workforce) knowledge. The Hitler views on education and workforce training and then American government officials enacting school-to-work programs in the 90s. And then World War II began in 1939.
In the forties and fifties we could summarize this period as the fomentation, or to stir up trouble, instigate, or incite, as to foment a riot. In 1946 the US membership in the UNESCO set in motion the destabilization of the society through rejection or morals and values. Legislation that authorized the United States to hand over it’s autonomy to UNESCO to dictate education policies to our governments began. This was spoken about in President Truman’s statement, “Education must establish the moral unity of mankind.” In 1947 a report titled Higher Education for American Democracy v.3, Organizing Higher Education, talked about the role of education, and must be conditioned by policies established by the State Department in this country and by ministries of foreign affairs in other countries. “The United States Office of Education must be prepared to work effectively with the State Department and with the UNESCO.”
In 1953 Professor B.F. Skinner published Science and Human Behavior and was quoted as saying, “Operant conditioning shapes behavior as a sculptor shapes a lump of clay.” After this Skinner and Alfred C. Kinsey completed Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, and in science terms taxonomy is described as the study of the general principles of scientific classification or systematics. But this encouraged the teaching of education as a science experiment that human behavior could be measured and observed. This breaking down of the human being separated them from his God-given freedom-providing self. Then this paved the way of methods to control man and society, which carved the foundation into today’s education and teacher training.
The New York Times reported on August 6, 1955 that Preseident Dwight D. Eisenhower called for the first White House Conference on Education. The announcement asked a few main questions, some notable ones were: What should our schools accomplish? In what ways can we organize our school system more effectively and economically? These questions based upon predetermined answers solidified new legislature to be passed in the future. The 1940s and 50s will be remembered for the unraveling of the order in the United States, and throughout the world.
In the sixties marked the beginning of a socialist movement. President Eisenhower received a final report on National Goals entitled, Goals for Americans. This report marked the beginning of restructuring America from a constitutional republic to a social democracy. In 1964 the Carnegie corporation appointed Ralph Tyler chairman of the committee on assessing the progress of education which continued the project begun in 1963 that would in 1969 become the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In 1965 the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA was passed by congress, and this marked the end of local control and the beginning of the nationalization/ internationalization of education in the U.S. Goal-setting, management by objectives, planning, programming, budgeting systems, and accountability purposes were funded and directed federally. You must remember that the ESEA was directed toward low income/minority students. In the seventies, educational policies were continued to be passed based upon federal control and even international control. The New York times carried a lengthy front page article on April 30, 1972 by William K. Stevens entitled “The Social Studies: A Revolution Is on—New Approach Is Questioning, Skeptical—Students Examine Various Cultures.” This article explained the early history of the twenty-six-year controversy which has raged across the United States between those desiring education for a global society versus those desiring education in American History and Western Civilization, as the question of “social studies” versus traditional history, and “process” education versus fact-based education. During the seventies we had a lot of conflict between science and psychology and the application of statistical methods to human behavior in the name of science. This however is very misdirected and inappropriate. The problem with doing this is that when we are looking at say a speed at which something falls off a cliff, that can be measured accurately time after time. When we try to measure a person’s attitude or opinions, that person can change their opinons or attitude at any time. When a person makes a conscious, deliberate decision to act a certain way, then this information is lacking in preciseness. In an article from the New Jersey, The Herald News on March 20,1974, titles, “Parents fear ‘Big Brother’ Aspect of New Concept.” This article talked about parents questioning the educational goals and that the possibility that a new curriculum could force all school children to fit a preconceived mold or norm by computerized evaluation. And then these students who don’t follow these norms may be branded misfits (special education?) and sent to the school psychologist. A bill for two new Educational Improvement Centers used by the federal government to reach the grass-roots level. These Educational Improvement Centers or EICs would provide training to prepare teachers to become agents for social change, as the article states. As we move into the eighties we see the remainder of schools that have not yet switched to a competive grading system (A, B, C, D, E, F) and they begin the switch. There is a main distinction between competitive and performance based. Competitive distinctively assumes that all students are the same, and are thus molded as such in the system. Performance based is a system in which the “open book test” and “authentic assessment” has students compete against no one but themselves. America has been deliberately dumbed down and as quoted earlier by one of the leading change agents of the Effective Schools Research Method, or the Skinnerian mastery learning, Thomas A. Kelly, Ph.D. “The brain should be used for processing, not storage.” With this educational emphasis, academic test scores could have done nothing but decline. We also see President Ronald Reagan who accuses the Soviet Union of being an evil empire, also signing education agreements with the Soviet Union, which are still in effect today. In 1982, William Spady, or the father of the OBE (Outcome Based Education), or simply the school to work education, was quoted at a conference a the U.S. Department of Education: “Two of four functions of Mastery Learning are: Extra: Whole agenda of acculturation, social roles, social intergration, get the kids to participate in social unit, affective; and Hidden: a system of supervision and control which restrains behavior of kids, the outcome of the hidden agenda should be fostering of social responsibility or compliance” In 1984 two policies titled, “Policies on Missions for Educational Research and Development Centers,” issued by the presidentially appointed National Council for Educational Research were released. The first was released on June 14, 1984 and it stated:
“….in the past two decades federally funded research and projects have provoked a tremendous amount of controversy…During this period, the views of the public were for the most part excluded from serious consideration as educational research came to be viewed as the observation and measurement of the education process using quantitative techniques of social science.”
This sounds to me a lot like the behaviorist Skinnerian views of psychology. And then on October 25, 1984 another policy was released, and here is another excerpt from the outlined policy: “Insofar as it represents a broad spectrum of interests, including parents who have a serious stake in the outcomes of federally funded educational research, the Council affirms that the fundamental philosophical foundations for such research should be the unambiguous recognition and respect for the dignity and value of each human person.”
This is telling the public that the money they are blindly throwing to a federal level of interest has their best interests at mind! Do not worry because the federal government recognizes the value of each unique human being!
Into the nineties we go, and as outlined in the Carnegie funded report from 1934 to the amount of $340,000, Conclusions and Recommendations for the Social Studies, a new age of collectivism is emerging. This report done in 1934 accurately depicts a socialist planned economy and world about to emerge and in the nineties we see this start to happen. The problem is the dumbing down of Americans who haven’t been taught the difference between free enterprise and planned economies, or the difference between ‘groupthink’ or the individual freedom, welcome this socialist agenda.
In 1991 the “America 2000 Plan” was written and designed to implement the Carnegie’s restructuring agenda, and was presented to the people by President Bush’s secretary of Education, Lamar Alexander. This plan would radically restructure American society and was said to propose a new school open year round, from 6 to 6, and for children from 3 months to 18 years. Some excerpts are as follows:
“To those who want to see real improvement in American education; there will be no renaissance without revolution….For tomorrow’s students, the next generation, we must create a New Generation of American Schools.”
The Execute Summary of this document anticipates a strategy of major change to over 110,000 public and private schools, a change in every community, home, and attitude about our learning.
The deliberate dumbing down has become an excuse for social change, including the privitzation of education, or the handing over to the unelected multinational corporations the responsibility for education, and the training of future citizens. The transfer will be funded by the creation of charter schools and with the passing of legislation will provide tax credits. Parents who are enthusiastic about the various choice proposals may change their minds when their child becomes part of the corporate quota system, being tracked into a career chosen for them. A dumbed down, brainwashed, conditioned society will enthusiastically accept what is being offered to the Americans under the terms, “remaining competitive in an increasingly global economy.” I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that in the news. But according to Edward Hunter, the man who coined the term ‘brainwashing’, there is a way we could reverse the process:
“Truth is the most important serum and integrity the most devastating weapon that can be used against the totalitarian concept…..Nothing should be allowed to interfere with the task of getting those facts across to the people who need and can use them. Only an informed people can shoulder their responsibility effectively. When free men know both what they are fighting against and what they are fighting to preserve and enhance, they are unbeatable, stronger than any strategy.”
My view on the education I have received and my parents have received has changed greatly. After seeing legislation that has been passed to ‘further’ our education, it makes me sick to my stomach that there was never an intent to brighten our individuality at all. This was a deliberate plan to dumb us down, and teach us unimportant facts to waste time while further control of the country was taken. I don’t have a clear cut definition of what education should be, but I can tell you what it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be a lab experiment where our every move is being carefully monitored by a much larger federally funded watchdog. The goal from the start in a public school is to give you enough education that when you step out into the ‘real world’ you will have just enough to succeed at whatever mundane job you choose. We are not in a system designed to learn, we are in a system designed to train us to the point of automaticity. Memorization requires storage of information in a brain which has had some reflective thinking to devise a method to recall it. And then reflective thinking is especially essential for learning, because allowing the brain to spend time examingin the essence of the material with which it is presented. After deciphering the underlying messages of this book, I really do not know what to think any more of our education. It seems as if the intention from the start was to create a susceptible person, willing to believe in anything, and a controllable public as the ruling elite carried out global agendas to destroy our civil liberties. It almost seemed like a planned takeover and hijacking of the United States for global interests. Of course it sounds great in the beginning, a one world government, but that was the whole reason of the founding of the United States, to break apart from the evil ruling of the British. I feel that the legislation passed and the true goals of our education were never to really educate the public, rather include everyone in a huge “controlled” experiment that the powers above had formulated with expected outcomes. The expected outcome has now resulted in our own society completely lacking any individual creativity, and uniqueness, we now exist as one homogenous substance having been lied and duped our entire lives. Our educational system is based upon federal mandates to control every aspect of our education, and that truly should not be the goal. The founding fathers had intended us to be a critically conscious people, asking questions of government, and keeping a limited size of government. Since then we are a country ruled by bodily stimuli, completely clueless as to critical thought, and lack of knowledge of our Constitutional background. I believe that this evil system of education and that one day we may be able to create our own curriculums and be handed tools to explore education on our own.