Pop Quiz
What civil rights leader said: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”?
What philosopher observed: “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.”?
What American educator said: “The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”?
What US President said: “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”?
What US Poet said: “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”?
What capitalist said: “I think college is basically for fun and to prove that you can do your chores, but they’re not for learning”?
What President said: “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”?
Answers at the end of the post.
The last two posts suggested that the ruling class has potentially undermined the foundation of the American dream by putting our latest generation and our future at risk. The “elites” have unleashed a disturbing campaign against our youth that is suspiciously like Orwell’s 1984. We need a modern antidisestablishmentarianism in order to preserve our constitutional republic.
I got a preview of the state of our education system when I spoke at an AP Government and Politics class at a local high school. It was a sobering experience. Here are a few of the things I encountered:
I used several rare words such as kakistocracy and lepidopterist and they were stumped. Yet when I used the word “dystopian” they knew exactly what it meant.
When I asked for a definition of “misinformation” one student immediately blurted out…”fake news”. Pavlov is smiling somewhere.
They knew nothing about the Russian collusion hoax or that Elon Musk had liberated Twitter. On the plus side they had a problem with censorship even though they are unaware of the magnitude of the problem with the Ministry of Truth (MOT).
When I mentioned the MOT there was no sign of comprehension but when I asked if Tik Tok was a social media site they agreed and quickly named seven or eight others, several of which I had never heard of. Such sites are ubiquitous.
Most troubling…they had no idea that CO2 was part of the climate discussion.
So the question is how we address the perpetuation of ignorance and the death of critical thinking.
This requires an analysis of three possible causal factors: (1) parenting or lack thereof; (2) the conversion of schools from education to propaganda; and, (3) outside influences such as the MOT.
Parenting
Over the past several decades there has been an abdication of parental control over what children are being forced to endure in our schools. Schools are seen as day care facilities and this has been accompanied by a lethargy about the curricula. There has been a dramatic increase in single parent households and a concomitant reduction in parental involvement in the education process. This loss of parental interest was an opportunity that our education bureaucracy has embraced to their full and disastrous advantage. Perhaps we should be heartened by the recent overreach by local boards of education and the reaction by the awakening parents. That the FBI treats such concerned parents as “domestic terrorists” is disturbing.
Possible solution: We must encourage the return of the two parent family and work to get parents involved in the development and implementation of school curricula. Parents should attend class sessions on occasion to monitor what is being taught.
Education
Historically the schools were controlled at the local level and teachers were professional in the practice of their craft. In 1979 the hapless Jimmy Carter offered a bribe to the teacher’s unions and created the Department of Education. This boondoggle allowed the so-called experts in education to create top down mandates enforced by financial handcuffs and the quality of the end product has declined precipitously. It would be instructive to ask the Department of Education to provide us with a summary of their accomplishments over the past 44 years. It would be the world’s shortest press conference.
Our schools have become incubators for social experimentation and distribution centers of quackery and educational codswallop. The 1619 Project, an exercise in historical inaccuracy and racial division, has found its way into the classroom. Critical Race Theory has been injected into every discipline.
Sexual dysphoria is introduced in elementary schools and the educational bureaucracy has argued, with a straight face, that parents should have no say in the indoctrination of their children. Students are taught what to think not how to think and any dissent from the prescribed curricula is challenged vigorously. The science teacher at the school where I spoke refused to allow me to address her students regarding the “climate crisis” because she is a zealot on the topic.
Stated simply…Randi Weingarten is to education what fleas were to the bubonic plague.
Possible solution: We must recapture the local Boards of Education and reestablish a strong apolitical curriculum. School choice should become a national policy and the Department of Education must be abolished. We must imbue young people with a respect for what came before them and a sense of gratitude for what they have inherited. They should know, for example, what happened on June 6, 1944.
The Pied Piper influence of social media
Our children do not read books any more. They dedicate all of their attention to cellphones and social media. When you walk through a mall the vast majority of the shoppers are surgically attached to electronic devices. There are a number of studies supporting the proposition that the social media are addictive and they are using that addiction to push a leftist agenda. It is one vast Pavlovian experiment. Any conflicting arguments are censored and the leftist narrative is unchallenged. This is politically catastrophic.
The decision by Elon Musk to acquire Twitter was a cataclysmic event for the main stream media. Musk apparently believes in the free exchange of ideas and a vigorous public dialogue. This has caused caterwauling and the rending of cloth on the leftist media outlets. However it is a concept that must be vigorously supported at the national level. Resistance will entail great risk. Tucker Carlson exposed the false narrative that has surrounded the events of January 6, 2021. For that “crime” Carlson was fired by Fox News.
It has been shown that the FBI, the CIA and the Democrat Party worked directly with the Facebook, Twitter and Google to control the content on those platforms during the 2020 election cycle. The First Amendment precludes the Federal government from abridging free speech. By allowing the government to interfere with the media platforms they lost their First Amendment protection.
Possible solution: Declare the social media platforms to be public utilities as we did with the phone companies and establish appropriate controls to ensure that there will be no censorship of ideas.
How long will it be before young Winston Smiths will agree that 2+2=5? Time is of the essence.
Things to think about:
The odds of Joe Biden getting brain cancer are the same as Bruce Willis getting ovarian cancer.
A Democrat recently opined that Artificial Intelligence can solve climate change…send movie script ideas to Steven Spielberg.
Accusing the Biden’s of using the Chinese to launder money is an example of racial stereotyping.
Harvard students do not get an education…they merely attend the school.
Hat tip to Senator Diane Feinstein for inventing the dogma whistle.
The true threat to Democracy is not Trump but rather those who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Answers to Pop Quiz
What civil rights leader said: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”? Martin Luther King
What philosopher observed: “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.”? Diogenes
What American educator said: “The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”? Robert Hutchins
What US President said: “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”? Thomas Jefferson
What US Poet said: “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”? The inimitable Robert Frost
What capitalist said: “I think college is basically for fun and to prove that you can do your chores, but they’re not for learning”? Elon “The Liberator” Musk, our favorite African-American
What President said: “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”? Abraham Lincoln
Debi
The subject of this post was one of the most important topics to be covered. The solutions are so necessary! Intense reality!
Scott
Another great post by the conservative blog master!
Thank you!
The observer
I may suggest that the factors and solution you listed are mere symptoms of a bigger problem, which your posts discuss periodically. The media appears to collude on all political issues and that’s fundamentally destructive. After all, what good is an involved parent if he/ she is a victim of the same propaganda efforts.
Stephanie Horton
Ultimately, I think what we “do not hear” is as essential as what we are “allowed” to hear. The failure of society to demand an end to censorship is a crisis in and of itself. I find that when I challenge people on political issues (especially those on the left), they quickly deflate. They speak in headlines and not in substance. What we need in addition, is to cultivate attention spans – which social media has been shown to reduce.