Allan Bloom wrote “The Closing of the American Mind” in 1987. He surmised that there was something wrong in American education, and he was right back then as he would be today. In fact, it’s only getting worse.
It’s no secret that totalitarian regimes push for universal literacy in a vast expansion of the government schools and the destruction of independent ones. Universal literacy is part of the totalitarian arsenal to control minds and behavior. Once literacy has been achieved, these tyrants carefully concoct and sift what is allowed to be read. Literacy without a First Amendment becomes a horror show.
The situation isn’t limited to far off lands. That dreadful spectacle has been taking shape in our schools for decades, only to see it advance further in a misleading reaction to our current riots and shootings. Curriculums are seized for partisan revolutionary advantage.
And there will be no escape as progressives proceed in their assault on charter, private, and denominational schools. They want all children to be herded into a group mind similar to Star Trek’s Borg.
Showing their true colors, progressives applaud Castro’s successes in literacy. Once the kids have been corralled in government schools under their direction, then the spigot will be turned wide open for indoctrination. Parents, it is happening right now as our schools begin a new academic year.
Some private schools have jumped on board. KIPP charter schools mothballed their slogan of “Work Hard, be Nice” and replaced it with full-throated campaign to dismantle the amorphous “systemic racism”. Since it can’t be proven or disproven because the thing is so ill-defined, it’s the perfect vehicle for mind control. Parents, beware of KIPP.
Other lunacies abound. The superintendent of New York’s East Harlem Scholars Academies discourages white teachers from talking about successful black Americans because to do so would be to diminish the “systemic” sufferings of all blacks. Got it?
Attributes such as “hard work”, “persistence”, “objectivity”, “decision-making”, and “politeness” are routinely degraded as acting “white”. “Systemic racism” has been expanded to encompass learning to become a good, thoughtful person.
At the forefront of this nasty campaign are Ibram X. Kendi and his screed “How to Be an Anti-Racist” and Robin DiAngelo and her “White Fragility”. The education Borg has fully embraced them and DiAngelo’s maxim: “A positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy.” What absolute nonsense … and racist besides!
This isn’t education; it’s mental child abuse. Much of the abuse is occurring in Language Arts and the Social Sciences. It’s getting to the point where parents, in order to protect their children, will have to tell them to ignore their teachers of grammar and literature and any of the Social Sciences. I’m loath to say this as a 30-year veteran of the public schools in roles as a teacher and Social Science Department chair.
Or teachers could rescue the integrity of their classes by rebelling against the brainwashing. I’m not optimistic. More likely, it’ll come down to parents refusing to let their schoolhouses churn out good little racial Bolsheviks.
Viva la contrarrevolución!
RogerG