American Education and Indoctrination Are Synonymous
By George M. Haddad
January 26, 2005
"Give me the child until the age of 12 and you can have him after that." Such has been the credo of educators in religious as well
as secular education. This grew out of a philosophy which opined that pertinent orientation begun early would last a life time.
We are and have been, since the middle of the 20th century, in a grim battle for the minds of children. A battle in which the
intensity has increased in direct proportion to the added strength of Socialist forces intent on destroying the free enterprise
system.
The attacks on our country are not only from without but from within. The future of any nation lies in its children and today we
find that education in the government mandated schools leaves a great deal to be desired. The dumbing down process is not by
accident. The goals of injecting foreign ideology into their veins is clear but the objectives relative to teaching children how to
read, write, add, subtract, and divide tend to be blurred. The type and the content of the curriculum are suspect. Control the
curriculum and you control the child. This begs the question as to whether our present system might be a conspiracy of illiteracy. Are we party to education by indoctrination?
Our educational institutions at all levels are under the wing of the National Education Association, which controls teacher
certification, resists higher standards and has great influence on curriculum at all levels. Our Boards of Education, across the
country, are as putty when acting as balance wheels to the onslaught of the teachers union. As Mark Twain Wrote, " In the first
place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards." They have become as irrelevant to being productive
administrative forces in school systems as a Volkswagon is to moving forward while an 18 wheeler sits on top of it.
Boards are comprised of nice people in a community who want to do good, are generous with their time, are civic minded and
love children but are usually untrained for the task assigned. They generally are no match for the hard core union pros and the
end result has been over 50 years of allowing outsiders with secular and socialist intentions to develop the minds and the thinking
of the nation's children. In terms of meeting the needs of students for having the tools to compete in the outside world we have as
impotent a force in trying to educate as we have in a United Nations pretending to meet human needs around the globe.
There was a time when the schools were considered standard bearing agencies of American culture, ethics, mores and values
along with such institutions as churches and charities but not anymore. When parents allowed political correctness,
multiculturism, secularism and collectivism to permeate the hallowed halls of learning it thus allowed education to become a
godless pop culture with a faddish regimen rather than a viable and intellectual spiritual force to aid in productive learning.
The whole object of education allegedly is to develop the mind but in too many schools across the country they are leaving the
buildings which we call schools quite unprepared for the variances of life.
We cannot escape the past nor can we foresee the future. In molding the minds of children you determine the fate of a nation.
Political correctness is and has been a disease with both stultifying and repressive pressures. The proof is in the present results of
an educational discipline which is organized chaos but has definitive political goals.
We have found that teachers, whether they be hard core socialists, groupies who are robotic followers, the meek who can't be
bothered or the solid ones who only wish to teach and be left alone, are and have been supporting a union which has spent
millions upon millions of dollars to support and abet a Bill Clinton in the nineties and a John Kerry in the recent past. Now these
are not just run of the mill aspirants in politics. These are people who openly and effectively worked solidly against their country
in whatever way they could in order to gain personal and political power.
At a time when his country was at war Clinton fled to England and then to Russia where he groveled at the feet of the
communists. He was said to be in England as a Rhodes Scholar but he didn't stay long enough for his second cup of tea. It is not
known whether he ever attended a class since the posse was on its way. During the Iraq war he actually toured Europe and spoke
against his own country.
Kerry is of the same breed. He encouraged the Vietnamese during that war and helped to subvert the military while joining hands
with Jane Fonda against his own country. After losing the presidential election in November of 2003 and while we are still at war
in Iraq this man has had the gall to visit and speak to our troops against our country. Both of these men emboldened the enemy in
time of war thus causing overtly and surreptitiously more deaths of our own soldiers.
Both of these men have been energetically supported by the teachers Union. What does that tell you? What kind of faith can you
possibly keep relative to those who are teaching your children. Where is the focus on the learning process. . Is it no wonder that
students today are graduating with deficiencies in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history and all the basics for which
they are being sent to school?
You might find, especially in the blue states, pockets of schools where they have fine management, dedicated teachers and
competent Boards of Education but their location, at times, are like seeking the page numbers in the Reader's Digest.
"As William Lowe Bryan once reported, "Education is one of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get."
The whole object of education allegedly is to develop the mind but in too many schools across the country youth is fleeing the
buildings, which we call schools, quite unprepared for the variances of life.
Across the country there has been no set pattern but there has been an underlying ideology aimed at creating values foreign to our
culture and to our way of life. The examples are too numerous for these pages but there may be room for a few. There are
schools which have eliminated the Valedictorians and the Salutatorians at graduation since their ability to excel would most
assuredly destroy the self-esteem of their peers.
Classrooms have indicated that a child has given the correct answer if responding that 2 + 2 equals 5. Thus self- esteem is
protected. A number of schools across the country quit using red ink on papers because red is too shocking and traumatic for
children.
The school district in Fairfax, Virginia (of all places) strictly prohibits reciting the Lord's Prayer but during the Islamic holy
month the students were exposed and indoctrinated in that religion's customs, practices and prayers.
In other schools students could be sent home for wearing a necklace with a cross. There are schools which no longer display the
American flag nor pledge allegiance. There are schools which have taken down the picture of George Washington. There are
schools which teach a secular and socialist revision of American History and where the space for Marilyn Monroe is in excess of
the limited pages for Washington or Lincoln. In Ypsilanti, Michigan a wrestling coach had to stop leading his team in prayers or
the ACLU would sue. In other schools the Declaration of Independence cannot be exposed since the word God is in it. It has
been an ongoing credo in a huge number of public schools that students be promoted whether they passed the grade or not. A
high school graduate with a second grade education thus is sent out to fight the battle for his livelihood quite unprepared.
As Robert M. Hutchins so aptly stated, " It has been said that we have not had the three R's in America, we had the six R's;
remedial readin', remedial 'ritin' and remedial 'rithmetic. A statement which can be attested to not only by the employers across
the country but by the colleges and the universities.
In America every child has a right to a proper education and our system has the capacity and capability to do it. But it isn't.
Instead of teaching our children how government works they are being taught how to work it.
Recently, Tom Watkins, the State Superintendent of Schools in Michigan attempted to get the State's abysmal track record in
teaching children off first base. He had the audacity to put forth a few initiatives in order to focus the powers on the problems.
To over-simplify, among his main points he was generally asking that with a bipartisan commission there be identification of
administrative inefficiencies and the optimization allocation of resources to enhance student achievement. He is a Democrat. A
Democrat governor who is quite beholden to the state's teachers union came down on him hard. There was rumor that he could
even lose his job. This is in a state where over 109 schools are not meeting minimum standards and a huge number of schools are
insolvent. This is in a state where there is a gutless Republican majority in the legislature. This is in a state where competition to
the public schools is an anathema and where a philanthropist who wished to build schools was sent packing. A good coach with a
losing football team immediately takes it back to the fundamentals of blocking and tackling. This way he irons out the problems.
Not so with this state. Rigor mortis is here to stay.
Too many schools across the country are abject failures in the educating of our children primarily because they, as citadels of
learning, have not been challenged to excel and because they have become infested with teachers whose main objectives have
been to reach them philosophically rather than in preparing them for the basics in life ahead. This is truly unfair to the hundreds
of thousands of teachers out there who love to teach and who love children and who are performing in a highly commendable
manner under the circumstances. However, they will never be able to function productively and to their fullest since they are and
have been under the yoke of their union and as in most socialist environments they must watch what they do or say and remain in
lockstep... Yes, even in this country.
The present government school system across the board has fought tooth and nail against charter schools, private schools,
parochial schools, private academies, home schooling and any other entity which would threaten its monopoly on education. It
needs competition badly but it won't accept it. A case in point occurred recently in Detroit, Michigan when a philanthropist
offered 200 million dollars for the building of charter schools and both the city and the Board of Education refused. This is a city
which is on the verge of bankruptcy and a school system where not half the enrollees graduate
We are replete with the same kinds of problems in the Colleges and the Universities but that's another story. A forthcoming
column will depict the fact that we have more teachers in these institutions of higher learning who are socialists/communists than
Bayer's got aspirins, proof that intellect and intelligence are not necessarily compatible.
The human mechanism and the human child are the most intricate, delicate machines ever built. Our Republic is the most freespirited, productive, creative, and generous government ever devised. We must not and cannot continue to stand by and allow the forces of collectivism to dismantle both.
George M. Haddad has a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and a Masters Degree in Social Administration with extensive work
experience with the mentally ill. He is a World War II veteran having served in the infantry; interpreter of the French language;
interrogator in Technical Intelligence and Sgt.-Major of a Separation Center. The former Executive Director - National Institute
for Burn Medicine - affiliated with the University of Michigan. He is retired from the National Staff of the YMCA as a
troubleshooter in financial management and administration and has worked as a management consultant to non-profit corporations.
He has written frequently on medical, social and political issues and has many published articles to his credit. He currently writes
from Franklin, Michigan and can be contacted at gmhaddad@comcast.net.
Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or
philosophy of GOPUSA.
