Posted on 10/19/2002 7:09:57 AM PDT by George Frm Br00klyn Park
WorldNetDaily / Commentary
Henry Lamb
What are your kids learning?
Posted: October 19, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Geography was once taught in the fourth grade. Mrs. Howard, a sweet little lady with blue-gray hair, started each year by teaching her students how to spell: "George Eats Old Gray Rats And Paints Houses Yellow." She would announce the phrase and then make the entire class repeat the phrase aloud. Yes, she also subtracted one point for every misspelled word on every paper – even in her geography class.
She taught about the great explorers and the lands they discovered. She brought to life Marco Polo, Lief Ericsson and Sir Francis Drake. She made the pyramids real and told of the mysteries of the Incas to her wide-eyed students.
My, how things have changed. I've just reviewed a portion of a middle-school text entitled, "Geography: The World and its People," published by McGraw Hill. Here we find lessons about:
• Eye on the Environment: Danger – Ozone Loss
• United States and Canada: Trash
• South America: The Disappearing Rain Forest
• Europe: Pollution
• Russia: Chernobyl – Nuclear Disaster
• Southwest Asia: Water – A Precious Resource
• Africa: Desertification
• Asia: Habitat Loss
• Great Barrier Reef: Trouble Down Under
This is geography?
Each lesson comes with a statement of the problem, solutions and a list of "what you can do." The "solution" to the trash problem in the U.S. and Canada says:
"Environmentalists want paper manufacturers to pay a tax on each ton of new paper produced, which should encourage the use of recycled paper."
The "what you can do" tip says: "Boycott fast-food restaurants that do not use recycled materials for packaging."
Each lesson follows a similar pattern. One lesson says: "Support International Green Cross – an environmental protection group organized at the recent Earth Summit." This, of course, is Mikhail Gorbachev's outfit that seeks to put his stamp of approval on "sustainable" products. There is a big circle on the same page that says: "Equal Rights for all species."
This is the clap-trap being taught in geography classes in public schools.
The text was reviewed and approved by the National Geographic Society and a dozen "Multicultural Consultants." One of the three authors, Richard G. Boehm, was one of seven authors of the "national standards in geography," prepared for Goals 2000.
It's the same in math classes, in history classes and in all classes. Our kids are being brainwashed instead of being taught the fundamentals that will prepare them to compete in a free society.
Robert Hillmann's book, "Reinventing Government," details how and why our public-education system has been transformed. The process has been underway for decades and is so deeply entrenched that an education revolution may be required to stop it.
Parents protest to their local school boards, who say they have nothing to do with what's in the textbooks. Textbook publishers publish what school districts purchase. Teachers teach what the state requires. The state requires whatever produces federal funds. The teachers' unions determine what the federal government requires.
Home schooling – and private schools – may be the revolution that collapses this public brainwashing system.
The objective of public education today appears to be the preparation of society to accept the notion that the "public good" – as defined by government – is more important than individual achievement, and that whatever government does, advances the public good.
Individuals who are forced to suffer the pains of public policy should do so willingly, in order to advance the public good. The people in South Florida, for example, who are being forced off their land, should be happy to receive whatever the government decides to give them. After all, restoring the Everglades is a "public good" far more important than the dreams and hopes of any individuals.
What's frightening is the number of people who have already been brainwashed into believing that individual rights, and individual achievement, do not matter – what matters is whatever government decides is the public good.
Organizations such as the Maple River Education Coalition, and others, are fighting an uphill battle trying to inform parents about what their children are learning. The hill is even steeper at the state and federal levels. Those who control the curriculum also control the funding. They now have firm control over what children are taught, and they are not about to relinquish that control.
Today, we need teachers like Mrs. Howard, who was more concerned about her students' education than their beliefs and their "politically-correct" activities. These teachers are an endangered species in the public-education system. They are, however, finding refuge in the nation's private schools. On with the revolution!
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.
THIS article at WND
Guys, YES!!!!!! People ARE becoming aware. Peace and love, George.They are, however, finding refuge in the nation's private schools. On with the revolution!
De-programmed my kids 9 years ago!!!
Rescued my children from the public school system, while they still had a chance.
YOU ALL SHOULD!!!
What is more important, 3 new cars, designer clothes, and fine dining, or "training up your child in the way they should go"?
Protecting the environment is not in itself "communist". The communist part is that Enviromentalism has become the cover for implimenting various provisions of the communist plank/gameplan.
#1 is the taking of privatly owned land, due to some alleged enviromental concern, be it a ferry shrimp or spotted owl, or ancient plantlife.
Communism is invariably portrayed as a governmental system that provides equal distribution of goods and services.
They make it sound rather benign.
2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3.Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5.Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6.Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8.Equal obligation of all to work.
9.Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
What's wrong with that?
Hank
The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says education is a state and local prerogative.
Of course. I was intentionally panning that ignorance that does not distinguish between what oppressive governments do and what free enterprise does.
Hank
There are many good references available that will get you past tha BS on "Global Warming".
The most neutral of the references posted here calls attention to the incompetence of our current super-computer technology to correctly measure the atmosphere and make reasonable projections.
Just follow your own curiousity and check out the facts. The media does its best to misguide us and it's easy to just fall in line and believe the spin, but there are many good articles on the subject posted on this forum that can give you a wider view.
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