Anybody see this month's Macleans magazine?

[sale4u]

Very informative article about teachers and the way they are brainwashing our children with their own agenda's. I recommend the read. I really don't like Susan Lambert and her propaganda! Adrian Dix I'm sure has fed Susan the script to be taught.

[theyeti]

never seen it but i know it was true when i was in school ..

teaching should probably be taken out of the hands of politicians and school boards and put back in the hands of parents who have an interest in there own children

[CTF]

Yet another reason why independent school enrolment continues to climb while public school drops.

[grammafreddy]

Home schooling is on the increase, too, isn't it?

[CTF]

Home schooling is on the increase, too, isn't it?

I think it is. And likely will increase as more resources are moved online. And thank goodness for that.

[Jamesie]

teaching should probably be taken out of the hands of politicians and school boards and put back in the hands of parents who have an interest in there own children

School boards of course supposedly represent the parents' voice. But of course as in many democratic political instutions, that start out with the best of intentions and look very good on paper, career politicians take over, nepotism and corruption creep in and before you know it the parents' voice is no longer heard (recent school trustees - just a few examples without an indication of their qualities - like Denesiuk, Huebert, Siddon have not had a kid in the school system for many years (decades in some instances). And then there is always the institutional inertia that sets in with the bureacrats. A whole school board of well-meaning rookie parents would not have been able to stand up to the likes of Doi, Hauptman c.s.

Having said all that, maybe some real parents who are strong enough not to be steamrollered by the district's permanent staff could actually make a difference. Maybe running in and voting for school board elections should be restricted to parents who have children in the district's schools.

[CTF]

School boards of course supposedly represent the parents' voice. But of course as in many democratic political instutions, that start out with the best of intentions and look very good on paper, career politicians take over, nepotism and corruption creep in and before you know it the parents' voice is no longer heard (recent school trustees - just a few examples without an indication of their qualities - like Denesiuk, Huebert, Siddon have not had a kid in the school system for many years (decades in some instances). And then there is always the institutional inertia that sets in with the bureacrats. A whole school board of well-meaning rookie parents would not have been able to stand up to the likes of Doi, Hauptman c.s.

Having said all that, maybe some real parents who are strong enough not to be steamrollered by the district's permanent staff could actually make a difference. Maybe running in and voting for school board elections should be restricted to parents who have children in the district's schools.

Jamesie you make some really thought provoking comments. I recall the war between Siddon and Denesiuk over the demolition of the auditorium that provoked Siddion into running for the school board. It was ironic that you had a Summerland resident acting as a school board chair and a Kaleden resident who is not a Penticton taxpayer arguing over a Penticton asset and yet neither has kids in the school system.

I wonder how many of the current trustees have kids in the school system.

[sobrohusfat]

Very informative article about teachers and the way they are brainwashing our children with their own agenda's.

Like what?

[Jamesie]

Jamesie you make some really thought provoking comments. I recall the war between Siddon and Denesiuk over the demolition of the auditorium that provoked Siddion into running for the school board. It was ironic that you had a Summerland resident acting as a school board chair and a Kaleden resident who is not a Penticton taxpayer arguing over a Penticton asset and yet neither has kids in the school system.

I wonder how many of the current trustees have kids in the school system.

Thanks CTF. Here's the current crop: http://www.sd67.bc.ca/trustee.asp

Of those the only one I know for a fact has students in the system is Tracy St.Claire, but a few of the others may as well. I suppose having an experienced former principal like Bruce Johnson on the board may not be a bad thing, even if he does not have children in the district's schools anymore. But I just question the motivation of the likes of Denesiuk and Siddon to seek a seat on the board long after their kids have left school. Even if they do a fine job (which again I don't want to comment on here since they are both gone) it somehow seems inappropriate and begs the question: what's the hidden agenda here. Well in Denesiuk's case that is clear now.

[Glacier]

Very informative article about teachers and the way they are brainwashing our children with their own agenda's.

Like what?

To ascribe all this mischief to one man is, of course, excessive. yet one man undeniably played a role in the social and cultural revolution of America in the twentieth century. True, he was powerfully influenced by others who came before him -- Rousseau, Hobbes, Darwin, Spencer -- and helped by a coterie of like-minded revolutionaries who worked diligently alongside him. As in all revolutions, his message was carried by thousands of disciples who often went beyond anything the original visionary had proposed, though what they were doing was derived directly from what he taught. To most of these, however, he is today little more a name. Very few have actually read what he wrote, let along approved of what he was setting out to do, though they have often strenuously, if unwittingly, helped him do it.

The man in question is the educator and philosopher John Dewey. The bare facts of his curriculum vitae are deceptively unspectacular. From a family of modest income, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Vermont in 1879, taught three years in high school and quit, received a doctorate from John Hopkins in 1884, taught at the University of Michigan, then became a faculty member of the University of Chicago in 1894, soon after it opened, and established there experimental elementary and high schools. After a clash with the university administration he left for Columbia University in 1904 where he taught philosophy until his death in 1952.

Creditable enough, but hardly the track record of a man who would more profoundly affect the culture and thinking of Americans than any twentieth-century president. However, that was because he knew something that no president since Thomas Jefferson has ever fully understood, namely that the way to fundamentally reshape a society is not by changing its citizens, but by changing their children -- more specifically, but radically changing those who teach their children. For the teachers could change the children, and the children would become the citizen and voters of tomorrow.

Dewey's agenda was not, in its ultimate goal, educational. It was political. Like the founders of America, indeed of all the Western democracies, he was obsessed with the idea of freedom. But his object was to establish a new kind of freedom. While people were free to vote and many were free to chose paths that could lead them to wealth and comfort, they were not in Dewey's view truly free.

All but a few advanced thinkers were prisoners of traditionalist thought and morality that prevented them from achieving genuine freedom and becoming their "true selves." It was this kind of freedom that he sought for all. He had achieved it himself; he wanted to confer on everyone. He envisioned a new civilization, liberated from its ancient taboos and enslavement to outdated creeds and codes of conduct.

Once delivered from this old morality, humanity would reach through science destinies vastly beyond present human imagination, he said. And the road to this nirvana lay not through some Marxist and Fascist revolution, but through an educational one. To Dewey, you didn't need the politicians. If you could change the way the people thought, the politicians would have no choice bu to go along with the new order. Over his lifetime he published some sixteen books, enunciating convulsive changes in education that would render the new schools unrecognizable to those who had attended the old.

His vision was embraced, indeed devoured, not initially by teachers, but by "educators" -- those who teach teachers -- a species that Dewey's era virtually brought into existence. Decade after decade a torrent of Deweyite disciples poured forth from Columbia University Teachers College, skilfully administered by Dewey's senior lieutenant in the revolution, W.H. Kilpatrick. What could be more impressive than an education degree from Columbia? They rapidly infused his ideas into the new "faculties of education, " themselves largely a product of Deweyism. These gradually supplanted the old and hopelessly hidebound "normal schools." Meanwhile, Dewey himself carried his ideas to the world in what he saw as personal "missions." He favoured such biblical terms, sometimes referring to his message as the "the gospel." It proved a gospel eagerly embraced in the Soviet Union.

Its principles became the foundational assumption of the new educators. The schools, they knew, must be used to work a wholesale rejection of all the old ideas about human nature. The concept of good and evil must be abolished, wrote Dewey. Such qualities as honesty, courage, industry and chastity must no longer be cherished, while things like malice, vindictiveness and irresponsibility need no longer be deplored. Such conduct is merely the response of the individual to the conditions around him. Indeed nothing should be transmitted to students from the legacy of previous generations. Whatever moral conclusions the student may reach, he much reach solely on the basis of his own experience.

Most important, he must not see himself as somehow "judged" by what he does or doesn't do. The idea of individual "blame" must be eradicated. He must regard himself as part of a community, part of "the public." If a crime is committed, the criminal must not be considered responsible. The community as a whole must have somehow failed him. So too must the idea of the "will" be abolished. The concept that he individual "chooses" between good and evil leads only to the defeat of "selfhood." There is no such thing as the human "will," he said, and the old moral boundaries between good and evil have become obsolete and invalid. Moreover, gender stereotyping must be stopped. There must be no such thing as boys' books and girls' book, or boy's games and girls' games, because such distinctions serve to perpetuate the old order. His ideas would "destroy many things once cherished," Dewey allowed, but that was the unfortunate price of human progress.

As the 20th century unfolded, these concepts began taking deep root in the education facilities and appearing in the schools. Gradually, the teacher ceased being an authority figure in the classroom. She must instead become a guild, a counsellor, a friend, said Dewey. Student desks must be rearranged in such a way as to overcome any suggestion of managerial leadership. The students must learn to lead themselves. Any attempt by a teacher to impose structure -- pass/fail, good/ad, right/wrong -- must be viewed as a form of "pedagogical abuse."

Indeed, all semblance of superiority or inferiority must vanish. Report cards must no longer carry grade standing. Anything that suggests standards of performance must not appear. Children must not be criticized for making "mistakes," nor be admonished to "sit still" because this may thwart their inner impulses. Checking those imposes must be considered another form of "abuse," for they are the means by which the child expresses creativity.

No student should be singled out for a distinctly good performance, nor certainly for a distinctly bad one, because the whole idea of good and bad must be removed from the child's mind. "Self-esteem" must be encouraged in every possible way, but never predicated on actual performance. The student must esteem himself because he is a self, not because he has actually accomplished anything. Learning to read must be considered a useful thing, but not primary essential. What ultimately matters is not what skills the child acquires, but whether he is becoming a "social being."

Similarly, in the higher grades, "critical thinking" must be fostered, but it consisted of encouraging the student to question and challenge the assumptions of the old order, especially those of his parents. A young adult who had learned to challenge the qualities and morality revered by his parents was deemed to "thinking critically." One who continued to respect and adhere to them was not thinking critically. His education had plainly failed him.

In the 1940s, an unforeseen development sharply checked the educational revolution, notably the Second World War. Suddenly qualities like honour, courage, duty, tradition and responsibility became not only praiseworthy, but crucial. Without them, the Western democracies would certainly lose. By the 'fifties, however, the war was safely over, and the revolution in the schools resumed with full vigor. Old teachers resisted. Indeed, some courageously continued to battle the Deweyite revolution fro the next half century. But such opposition was soon swept aside by the tens of thousands of young teachers pouring forth from the new faculties of education. These saw themselves as the harbingers of a new kind of society, with a new kind of citizen, that they were commissioned to be bring into being. Entire school systems embraced the new ideas. Dewey himself, before he died, became a hallowed figure, the man who had liberated America from the narrow intolerance and vicious bigotry of its past. At his ninetieth birthday, tributes came in from all over the world, for by now his works had been translated into eight other languages.

As the American public system embraced the new "progressive" aims and methods, Canadian educators were at first nervous. They feared that Canada's natural conservatism would sharply resist such innovations. They soon discovered, however, that Canada's supposed commitment to conservatism was actually a commitment to conformity. Canadians would do whatever respectable authority approved. When it became evident "reputable educators" were urging these changes, that's all they needed to know.

[grammafreddy]

WOW! Glacier, that's profound. I have never heard of this man, Dewey, but I can sure see how his ideals have evolved and how the brainwashing of the children has come to pass - and not in ways I think are good for the future of society, either. I am so often at odds with others here on these boards over the school system and how the kids are being brainwashed - and here it is - all spelled out and attributed to this one man and how he set out to change the way society thought - through the children.

Amazing. Simply amazing. Thank you for posting that. Is it from a link somewhere or did you write it yourself?

[Glacier]

The above is an except from a little 39 book by Ted Byfield called Why History Matters. Yes, I typed all that out, but I wasn't finished, and accidentally hit "submit" instead of "save draft."

Here are a couple more excepts.

Spelling was particularly distasteful to the Deweyite because it suggested a "right way" (and therefore "wrong ways") to compose a word. There were such things, that is, as spelling "mistakes." These, said the Deweyites, should be either overlooked by the teacher or observed in passing but not "judgmentally." The new kind of citizen didn't need to bother about spelling, even if what he sometimes wrote began to resemble gibberish.

Grammar pose a further challenge. Ostensibly, it was taught to enable a student to write confidently. He knew the rules so well that they became habitual. But to Dewey, a student's confidence should not require such a prop. Grammatical rules were part of the past and could be ignored. The objective, remember, was to cleanse the youthful mind of the whole concept of "rules."

But grammar had always been taught for another reason. It was analytical. It required the student to know whether a group of words was or was not a sentence. It required him to break sentences into their component parts, to detect the function of each word, to discern how it worked with the other words to create a rational whole, the sentence. Its function, that is, was the introduce the process of reason. But to Dewey this kind of exercise was destructive. It conveyed the idea that there was a valid structure, the rational, to the which acceptable human thought must conform. Irrational thought must be rejected. In other words, reason and the rules of reason were in fact authoritarian -- to the Deweyites a very bad thing.

Skipping up a few chapters to the one titled, "The Consequence: An Educational Catastrophe" we get the following:

Very soon came disturbing reports that kids weren't actually learning much. The schools were costing more. Teacher salaries, once abysmally low, now appeared altogether adequate. But children didn't seem to read as well. many were unquestionably illiterate and some could not add, subtract, multiply or divide. Moreover, the schools had become laboratories for esoteric experimentation. In the 1960s came "new maths," which by the 1970s had been quietly dumped as a failure. "Whole language" reading instruction came in with the 'Eighties and was mostly out by the end of the 'Nineties. How many lives had meanwhile been ruined by this irresponsible dickering, no one cared to say.

The article goes on to talk about how American schools - once near the top in the world - had become dead last in literacy by the time Reagan was president.

[grammafreddy]

And, of course, Canadian schools played "Follow the Leader".

Disgusting.

[grammafreddy]

Thanks, Glacier. That was a ton of typing

I found it online.
Part 1
http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/arti ... ry&cid=806
Part 2
http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/arti ... &aid=23995

It always bothers me when good information gets mixed up with religious dogma. Too bad sometimes things can't stand on their own merit without the brainwashing ... but then, that's what this whole Dewey thing was about, wasn't it? Brainwashing the masses.

Will look to see if I can find more from other sources, too.

[Glacier]

I should have looked online before typing that out. lol! Found the little book in a pile of papers I was throwing out on the weekend. Had never seen it before, but I think my mom left it had my house a couple years ago.

Sometimes you have to eat the meat and spit out the bones. Ted Byfield is well known for being a devout Catholic, and since you and I aren't Catholics, we aren't going to eat all the bones. He is well versed in history nonetheless.

Looking up this Dewey guy on Wikipedia, it does seem to confirm what Byfield is saying. Byfield did point out that pretty much all Catholic schools in Canada have fallen hook, line, and sinker for Deweyism, so any educational advantage to a Catholic school doesn't exist for the most part. This should give pause to non-religious people who send their kids to Catholic schools because they think the kids learn 3-Rs better in those schools. It also says in the article that Deweyism replaced History with Social Studies, and this is the greatest shame of all.

In the same respect that you don't have to an atheist to believe in "social justice," you also don't have to be religious to believe in Grammar, History, and giving students zeros when they don't do any work. Far from it in fact.