PART 3 of 4
By Debra Rae
March 23, 2008
Worldviews in Education
President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, Marc S. Tucker wrote to then First Lady Elect Hillary Clinton (11 November 1992) about required radical changes—not in reading, writing, and arithmetic—but rather in attitudes, values, and beliefs. Father of outcome-based education, Professor Benjamin Bloom introduced the plan for affecting these changes—that being, to develop human resources for the global economy following the school-to-work pattern, cradle to grave.
Secular Humanism, Religion of Choice in Public Education
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the liberal theology movement captivated the mainstream. Although secularism evolved slowly, it effectively fashioned John Dewey’s Progressive Education Movement that denounced rote learning, recitation, and conventional textbooks. At the same time, it promoted affective and holistic curricula, cultural relativism, cooperative consciousness and collaborative learning. By Dewey’s death in 1952, the Protestant character of early public schools had all but disappeared.
The Gospel according to Imperial Self is soundly embedded within America’s progressive public education system today. In zealous pursuit of transpersonal psychology, Dr. Robert Carkhuff applies his own make-believe formula (Energy=PE²1³) to measure human energy toward self-actualization. He and his ilk believe that the “path to power” “requires a whole new curriculum and set of guidelines” fashioned to “accept expanded concepts of who and what we really are.” Theirs is a nefarious vision of “possibilities thinking.”
What is dubbed “dysfunctional” traditional math gives way to “constructivist learning,” requiring students—not to solve a problem with the correct answer—but rather to use their “team voices” to “think about mathematics” and how it makes them feel. Robert Carkhuff poses a similarly troublesome, process intensive new science of possibilities.
The utopian Brave New World of infinite possibilities is supposedly achieved by Carkhuff’s Links Project that demeans facts and fixed beliefs as “cumbersome anchors” that “block the dialectic process.”
Marxism-Leninism at Play in Education Restructuring Efforts
Ground rules for paradigm shift forbid debate and arguments. Hence, today’s dialogic discussion supplants didactic teaching. The bully pulpit of consensus provides limited choices under peer pressure; consequently, objective thinking and individual responsibility, descriptive of the Christian worldview, give way to subjective feelings and collaboration.
“Group-Think” forges compromise, or synthesis, of two opposing ideals. Occasionally, a member of the group travels by the beat of a different drum. To get with the program, millions of students are turned into “patients” in need of a village of educators, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and counselors. Widespread, systematic legal drugging promises to further the facilitator’s predetermined outcome.
Trendy transformational/activist learning incites “raising a ruckus” by “rethinking schools.” Thanks to the likes of futurists as David C. Korten, Marxism assumes center stage in directing the social revolution at hand. The end product, however, is more workers, less thinkers; more followers, less leaders; more group members, less individuals.
The socialistic German plan of education, containing elements of the Marxist-Leninist Soviet system, serves as basic model for polytechnical education which stands behind today’s education restructuring movement. It is no wonder that today’s instructional assessments validate student life preparedness, not in terms of academic prowess, but rather in terms of successful behavior modification and attitude adjustment for timely placement in the global economy under world governance.
Believe it. Our government even paid for a report extolling virtues of the Marxist-Leninist polytechnical education philosophy that melds together vocational and academic preparation.
Mystical Humanism within Cosmic Education
Cosmic Humanism in education weaves together symbolism, Jungian psychology espousing the “higher self,” and mythology. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1873-1961) argued that the gods of mythology are not material beings, but archetypes—or mental states and moods—that all humans can feel, share, and experience. Archetypes directly affect our subconscious perceptions and way of understanding.
The presence of Cosmic Humanism is felt in education for personal greatness and earth literacy—i.e., the Self as earth’s consciousness. Whereas Marx recognized an egalitarian super-status for the mass proletariat reflected in the “State,” cosmic educators as Drs. Shirley McCune and Robert Carkhuff seek equality with “God.” In a nutshell, theirs is a spiritual version of the socialist ideal put forth by political philosophers Marx and Engels.
Both camps call for societal transformation. While Marx’s agenda is outlined in The Socialist Internationale, Das Capital, and the Communist Manifesto, McCune advances hers in The Light Shall Set You Free in which she quotes her demonic mentor Kuthumi, self-proclaimed “World Teacher” and “spokesperson for enlightenment and education for the Galactic Command.” Carkhuff identifies “god” as “the possibilities mind” that co-processes with us to illuminate his mysteries. How? By “phenomenalizing his universe” (Toward Actualizing Human Potential and The New Possibilities Mind).
Particularly prevalent in newfound cosmic education are indigenous curriculum materials borrowed from all sorts of old beliefs like Wicca. Increasingly, Pottermania has found its way into the halls of learning. In fact, the Harry Potter series has become a sort of classic.
To get a good look at how cosmic education plays in today’s schools, one need only meet Barbara Ray Gilles. Honored as a 1999 Teacher of the Year by then President Clinton, Gilles promotes cosmic education as “an integrative, whole-systems approach to learning.” “The school of the future,” she adds, “will draw more from the principles of kindergarten than from ‘higher education.’” It will be a place where children and adults together “follow their bliss.”
And how is this working for us? Unfortunately the path to cosmic bliss places our kids 19th out of 21 nations in math, 16th in science, and dead last in physics.
Biblical Christian Worldview in Education
The Christian worldview places God and His Word at the center of learning. After all, God is the source of all true knowledge, His Word is truth, and in Jesus are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For these reasons, our founding fathers recognized the necessity of weaving biblical principles into every aspect of life—not least of which, public education.
This may come as a surprise to many, but the 1948 Supreme Court established that traditional public education in the Western world is rightfully church-based, Bible-believing and piety-instilling (McCollum v. Board of Education).
Having begun in 1789, and reaching its peak the first decade of the 20th century, the Sunday school movement set the standard for America’s unique, unparalleled public education system with due emphasis on academic subject matter stressing order, discipline, individual effort and measured competition.
Through the influence of John Dewey and his disciples, however, traditional, Bible-based education eventually toppled. Progressive education’s slogan became “fit the program to the child, not the child to the program.” As a result, ego-centric supplanted Christ-centric education, and the Protestant character of early public schools was fatally undermined.
The Final Bow
An educational theorist of the 1930s, Arthur Bestor advanced essentialism, which rightly heralds stringent academic standards, discipline, and personal accountability. Bestor’s theory was reborn in the back-to-basics trend of the 1970s. As a result, some two million home-schooled children are presently receiving an extraordinary traditional education; countless more attend private or parochial schools with similar results.
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Society is none the better for progressive theories of education that discard truth-based knowledge as superfluous and elevate ideals of the New World Order over God’s unalterable moral code.
As is the case with politics, the Christian worldview takes the final bow in the field of education. For part one or two click below.