The most controversial issues of the 21st century will pertain to the ends and means of modifying human behavior and who shall determine them. The first educational question will not be “what knowledge is of the most worth?” but “what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce?” The possibilities virtually defy our imagination.
Dr. John Goodlad –1969
Nation’s Premier Change Agent
Receiving Federal and Tax Exempt foundation grants for 30 yearsFrom C. Iserbyt’s “the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”
Of course what Goodlad is speaking of here is social engineering. Goodlad is embracing the belief that a ruling elite can, via psychological methodology as applied by psychological applicators (teachers), create a certain kind of citizen. Goodlad spoke these words in 1969 but this mindset in the government schools had existed for decades prior to this. (See the book “Leipzeg Connection.”)
Government education is not about learning to think critically. It is about programming. It is about propaganda. It is about control. It is about destroying our capacity to think. And too many sources exist now in order to even suggest that those observations are controversial.
John Taylor Gatto — Underground History Of American Education
Harold Bloom — The Closing of the American Mind
B. K. Eakman — The Cloning of the American Mind
Neil Postman — Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education
Paolo Lioni — The Leipzeg Connection
Thomas Sowell — Inside Public Education
Samuel Blumenfeld — Is Public Education Necessary
Peter Brimelow — The Worm In The Apple
Charlotte Iserbyt — the deliberate dumbing down of America
John Taylor Gatto — Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
R. J. Rushdoony — The Messianic Character Of American Education
Neil Postman — The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
Neil Postman — Teaching as a Conserving Activity by Neil Postman
John Stormer — None Dare Call It Education
Colin Gunn — IndoctriNation: Public Schools & the Decline of Christianity in America (Documentary Video)
I’ve read these books and many many more like them. I’ve read them because I believe that the educational institutions in this country are the chief blockade against Reformation we have in this country. I’ve read them because if I want to defeat the ascendent religion in this culture, to the Glory of God and for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ, I have to know what it believes and why it believes it. And having read and studied this long and hard I am here to tell you to not believe a word about budding Reformation anywhere in this country until you see the beginnings of Reformation as evidenced by the beginning of the end of Government education. While stating at the outset that exceptions exist, the teachers, many of whom are not epistemologically self conscious about their roles, are much equivalent to the Priests of Baal and Molech in the work they do to catechize our children (actually the State’s children) into a faith that is catholic (Universal) but not Christian.
The elites have long ago given up trying to hide what they are doing and their agenda. They have succeeded so greatly that very little threatens them and so they have little need to be coy any longer. Their words and intent have been known for decades but having drank from the poisonous well for generations we have concluded that we like the taste of the water.
God have mercy on us.
You write, “I’ve read them because I believe that the educational institutions in this country are the chief blockade against Reformation we have in this country. I’ve read them because if I want to defeat the ascendent religion in this culture, to the Glory of God and for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ, I have to know what it believes and why it believes it. And having read and studied this long and hard I am here to tell you to not believe a word about budding Reformation anywhere in this country until you see the beginnings of Reformation as evidenced by the beginning of the end of Government education.”
I could not agree more. The church, the people of God, not necessarily the institution, need to develop institutions to educate their own and begin to pick off the children off humanists.
A few years back, I started thinking about how to make such a thing work and met with some like-minded brothers to start making some plans for a Christian school, or at the very least a series of co-ops or similar entities to aid homeschool parents.
But there is not a lot of excitement among pastors for such an endeavor. On some level, they at the very least have to cast a vision to help their people see that this is fundamental to advancing the Kingdom of God. Laymen ought to drive this effort, but it takes money, resources, and buildings.
Getting the above books into the hands of pastors would help, but I don’t find many, even among those who are fairly sound doctrinally, to have much interest in the task.
Nope Darrell … pastors are too worried about their positions and their reputations (exceptions being granted) to want to dive into the controversy that is government schooling.
Somehow we have cordoned Christianity from the life of the mind and the life of education so that Pastors do not have to take up or think about such tasks.
I think that perhaps schools with buildings, full-time teachers, et cetera are too grandiose for churches or groups of Christians with limited resources. Most parents should be capable, with a little direction, of giving their children the basics of the early grades. For the 11+ range, perhaps a good beginning would be to employ someone with the requisite abilities to be a “schoolmaster” of sorts, to help direct the education of older children.
It would be a rather minimalist beginning, but we can’t wait for perfection before getting Christians to pull their children out of the belly of the beast. As it is, the lack of ready-at-help “help” is serving as an excuse for many parents who perhaps know their responsibility but are unwilling or unable to take the necessary action.
The present situation is a major crisis, and if need be churches could redirect funding away from far-off institutions, building upgrades or foreign missions. Those things have their place but should not come at the expense of our children’s souls.
Good words Adam. I agree completely.
Foreign Missions should take a back seat in terms of priority to keeping our own children.
“And having read and studied this long and hard I am here to tell you to not believe a word about budding Reformation anywhere in this country until you see the beginnings of Reformation as evidenced by the beginning of the end of Government education.”
I came across the following statement in Machen the other day:
“[T]he lives of children are no longer surrounded by the loving atmosphere of the Christian home, but by the utilitarianism of the state. A revival of the Christian religion would unquestionably bring a reversal of the process; the family, as over against all other social institutions, would come to its rights again.”
“The schools of the present day are… being ruined by an exaggerated emphasis on methodology at the expense of content and on what is materially useful at the expense of the high spiritual heritage of mankind. These lamentable tendencies, moreover, are in danger of becoming permanent through the sinister extension of state control… Whatever the causes for the growth of ignorance in the Church, the evil must be remedied. It must be remedied primarily by the renewal of Christian education in the family, but also by the use of whatever other educational agencies the Church can find. Christian education is the chief business of the hour for every earnest Christian man.”
-J. Gresham Machen, from Christianity and Liberalism, 1923.
Adam,
Do you mind giving a page number for that quote if you have it handy? That is a most excellent quote!
The first is from p. 130; second is p. 149. 2009 Eerdman’s edition.