Posted on 01/09/2005 2:15:15 PM PST by CHARLITE
“America is reaping the consequences of the destruction of traditional education by the Dewey-Kilpatrick experimentalist philosophy…Dewey’s ideas have led to elimination of many academic subjects on the grounds that they would not be useful in life…The student thus receives neither intellectual training nor the factual knowledge which will help him understand the world he lives in, or to make well-reasoned decisions in his private life or as a responsible citizen.”
-- Admiral Hyman Rickover [The Tablet, August 11, 1959]
John Dewey, an educational philosopher, first applied his experimental philosophies in a model school at the University of Chicago prior to 1900 and they failed miserably. Even though the children learned nothing, Dewey moved on to Teacher’s College at Columbia University in 1904 where he became the most influential man in American education.
Under his guidance a full 20% of all American school superintendents and 40% of all teacher college heads received advanced degrees at Columbia. His experimental philosophies were adopted as “progressive education” all across America changing what was taught to American children. Sickened by what you see happening in our public schools? Thank John Dewey and his dedicated followers!
Dewey was an atheist who rejected fixed moral laws and eternal truths and principles. That fact, in itself, should be enough to keep the man’s ideas away from our children. A Marxist, he believed that man is without a soul or free will, an organism completely molded by his environment. So, to Dewey, teaching children absolute morals, ethics, and government was a waste of time. Getting along with the group became the measure of a child’s “progress”.
This “progressive education” is the reason we, who can think for ourselves and aren’t afraid of truth and factual history, shake our heads at what we see and hear from the majority of our countrymen. The parroting of mainstream media dogma, relative morality, and collectivist thinking we witness in our fellow Americans disgusts those of us who can see through the fog.
Dewey’s “My Pedagogic Creed” (1897), claimed the destruction of a child’s individualism is the primary goal of “education”. Think about it. Not only is government controlled free public schooling one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto, but is this not what is happening today with our children through public education? Praise the Lord for those brave and dedicated souls who educate their children at home, outside of the “system”. Governments at various levels are trying to regulate home schoolers, but home schooled children, as well as private educated children, constantly out perform public educated children, so the local, state, and federal governments are not having an easy time selling the concept to the sheeple. May the “resistance” grow!
Dewey predicted the eventual destruction of traditional education when he stated: “We violate the child’s nature and render difficult the best ethical results by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies of reading, writing, geography, etc. out of relation to his social life…the true center of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s own social activities.”
Dewey’s theories, through his disciples, have eliminated teaching strict rules of grammar. Well, ain’t that special! Old fashioned spelling drills are gone. Who cares if it is spelled right as long as you understand what the writer intends? Penmanship is not even a word understood by many young people today, most have never heard of it. The math tables have been “de-emphasized”, which can be witnessed by so many young people at retail outlets who cannot figure change without a machine to figure it for them. I hear many parents complain about it, but do nothing. They just acquiesce.
Rosalie Gordon, in “What’s Happened to Our Schools”, says: “The progressive system has reached all the way down to the lowest grades to prepare the children of America for their role as the collectivists of the future…The group – not the individual child – is the quintessence of progressivism. The child must always be made to feel part of the group. He must indulge in group thinking in group activity.”
She goes on to talk about Dewey and what he has done by stating, “You can’t make socialists out of individuals.” At the height of his career, Dewey was honorary chairman of the League for Industrial Democracy, the American counterpart of the British Fabian Society. The goal of the Fabian Society, started in England by wealthy intellectuals, was to establish a classless, godless, socialistic, one-world society, just as was envisioned by Karl Marx. Their leadership included the likes of Beatrice and Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw.
The “progressivists” Dewey associated with, and who were his disciples, have gone on to subvert our textbooks in such ways as to denigrate the founders, de-emphasize our struggle for Liberty and our Christian heritage, and celebrate socialistic philosophy to the point of misinforming and omitting facts about the world communism movement. What do people do? They send their children to school believing they are doing the right thing. Everyone else is doing it. Most do not know the degree to which the communists, socialists, and Fabians, otherwise known as progressive thinkers, have subverted public education.
Parents act astounded when little Johnny and little Mary come home with ideas contrary to how they were raising them. They don’t realize their children are being taught from perverted texts that have been changing drastically since the early 1900’s, but were totally taken over by UNESCO in the early 50’s. We are sending our children to little mills of world socialism and the reward we will reap is an end to the greatest Republic ever to inhabit planet earth, a true gift from God.
Class hatred, internationalism, collectivism, relative morality, and godlessness are being spoon-fed to our children right under our complacent noses and we sit by and let it happen. The National Education Association is so radical that their National Commission for the Defense of Democracy Through Education will rush trained propagandists to any locale where public education is coming under attack for what it is, a travesty. They even brag about maintaining a black list of those who oppose their policies. Past NEA Executive Secretary Willard Givens himself said: “We are convinced that we stand today at the verge of a great culture…But to achieve these things, many drastic changes must be made. A dying laissez-faire must be completely destroyed, and all of us, including the owners must be subjected to a large degree of social control.”
The facts are all right there for anyone who cares enough to open his eyes and mind and do the seeking of the truth in history. We must stop relying on those who control the dissemination of information in our society to be honest with us, that being the mainstream media, k-12 education, secondary education, the publishing companies, and the internationalists. People need to realize that truth is not found by just taking in what is thrown at us, we must seek it.
* Most of the information for this article came from “None Dare Call It Treason 25 Years Later” by John A. Stormer, Chapter VI. The book was published in 1989, but history does not change, it just repeats, if we let it!
Comments:jeffsmith@qx.net
ROFLMPJO
I know EXACTLY the choice I made.......you've got no clue.
Thank you.
I am happy with the PS we chose and moved to another state so our daughter could attend. But if I find it to not be living up to the standards it currently is, I will be the first one to admit it and look toward an alternative if I can't make a difference in changing it back.
I'm no "zealot" for homeschooling. I view that as the ideal but for us a private Christian school was the best answer.
The professors who teach my ed program have said that, nationally, we tend to go back and forth between "progressive" theory and "back to basics" theory. We seem to be moving away from the progressive nonsense for now. Here are some of the things I have been taught.
I have been taught to teach children phonics. I have also been taught that JUST phonics won't work for all children. We are encouraged to teach word families (-at: cat, hat, sat, brat, etc), and sight words as well. It is highly recommended that children be regularly exposed to good books with interesting characters and plot lines. Children are being explicitly taught to identify setting, character traits, and major themes, and even elementary schoolers are encouraged to compare and contrast characters, books and events.
Spelling lists are out. What is recommended is that the teacher look at examples of each student's writing and choose 3-5 words that the group is having trouble with or make individual lists.
Writing has become HUGE! Worksheets are out, and students are supposed to learn language mechanics by actually writing. The students write and from that the teacher sees that several students need a reminder on use of capital letters, so she designs and teaches a small group lesson on capital letters. If a particular student has a problem no one else seems to be having (either because the student is ahead or behind) then the teacher meets with the student in a writing conference to work on the problem.
I LIKE this program. I think it is nicely balanced between drill and kill/worksheets and flighty literature based/authentic experiences rot. I fear that there is not enough time in ANY day to do all of the individualizing that I am supposed to do.
I'm so thrilled you find me amusing.
Facts matter much to me. News headlines generally don't because of the leftist slant of them. Books always matter to me. Why you would think I consider "None Dare Call it Education" a paranoid conspiracy theory is absolutely beyond me, considering that since I haven't read the book, I really can't comment upon it.
I don't wish to "chat" with you, at one point I thought maybe you might be able to give me some information, but I learned differently very quickly.
You tell me you want nothing to do with me and then accuse me of being nasty. Even my public school enrolled 6 year old can do better than that.
And the only public schools I defend are the ones that I am involved with...a factoid you would have known if you read anything I have posted. You can't get past the fact my child is in public school and her father and I are happy about it.
I haven't pinged a soul to this thread, and have no intentions of doing so. So much for your projections about others.
I'm so thrilled to learn your life is so important that your free time must be so segmented.
Bookmark for later printing.
Hearing this from a person who is majoring (?) in education is promising news.
I hope that fundamental learning will get back to basics. Writing and math are the essentials; worksheets never quite allow children to fully express their talents and opinions.
Let's have high hopes that our future teachers will come around and want change themselves.
Yes, I graduate next Dec. with an education degree. I don't know how widespread these practices are. My local public school (that my children attend)has just begun using the "Four Block" program in a few grades to test it out (which is what I learned for reading/writing instruction).
I can tell you that my own first grader is NOT being taught systematic phonics, as the program recommends. I began teaching that at home after seeing that he was making little progress with what the teacher was doing. So, obviously, teachers WILL pick and choose what they like.
I have run into several teachers who think phonics is necessary and have taught it all along. Others think it is a waste of time and won't teach it even if they are supposed to.
I have seen the word families/sight words. It was done in kindergarten and is done in 1st grade, but not in 2nd grade. I know this because I get both the 1st and 2nd grade word list every Monday. Jax was not pleased with me when I informed her that even though she was in 2nd grade reading she still had to do the 1st grade homework regarding the spelling words.
She informed me she didn't have to because she had already done it. YIKES...... my 6 yo was correct and I was wrong. Because she is in 2nd grade reading, she is not expected to or required to do the 1st grade spelling/reading homework........she did it all last year.
Lots of folks have problems with public schools, I'm thankful I was able to find one that is really good.
I hope that when you finish your schooling you find a school that appreciates your care and devotion to your vocation.
If you teach the way you are being taught, I would wager you will be an outstanding teacher. Simply hearing that writing is now necessary (vs. fill in the blanks), seems very encouraging.
Are you aware if any of these changes are brought on due to NCLB, or is it a general sway in ideas?
Are sight words the same as coding?
I have no clue.
I understood the idea of sight words as those that are easily identifiable.....a, an, the, to, at, it.........etc.
But what do I know? I'm the product of 12 years of Catholic school and send my daughter to public school.
Sight words are very common words, some of which are not phonetic. Here is a first grade Sight Word List: and, can, funny, he, jump, little, my, play, run, see, this, up, are, come, go, is, like, look, of, red, said, the, to, you.
A child who is learning to read strictly phonetically has to learn quite a number of sounds before he/she can get the "reward" of actually reading sentences. A combination of sight words and phonics gets children into reading mostly phonetic "books" more quickly.
A phonetic story would be like the following: The rat. The rat sat. The rat sat on the hat. Oh drat!
Most children learn consonant sounds while learning their letters. Throw in a lesson on short a, and a couple of words and then they can get right to reading.
Thanks Gabz! The thing I am struggling with is this: kids like mine, don't need teachers like me. My kids will be well educated no matter what school they attend or teachers they have because my husband and I will ensure it.
The kids who need committed teachers are in poorly run schools with Principals who are unwilling or don't know how to make a change. I don't know if I can deal with a boss like that!
I'm not sure. Well before NCLB there was a lot of complaints about education and test scores. That certainly could have influenced things.
I know my kids' school was making changes before NCLB. Their math scores were poor so the Principal demanded nightly math fact reviews as homework, with math trophies for kids who memorized the facts required for their grade. Last year they had so many trophies to give out that they had to have two assemblies because all the kids and families wouldn't fit in the gym.
I noticed your home state, are you in the southern or northern area?
Are you going to Ohio State or a smaller college?
I'm your neighbor, just a state south.
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