Here’s the common denominator: the (American) Education Establishment is contemptuous of all three.
Do you think I jest or exaggerate? Not at all. The truth is straightforward, and easy to explain.
In the matter of Knowledge, John Dewey and his successors made clear that facts, learning and knowledge were not, for them, primary. The relevant thing was each child’s social activity, because the real goal was a new social order. Knowledge was usually a nuisance, and often an obstacle. For the past one hundred years the Education Establishment has waged war against facts and content.
As for Kids, they were to be turned into a new kind of children that would grow up to build a socialist America. What mattered was a child’s capacity to be moulded into a cooperative child, an obedient child, a “new socialist child.” Dewey and his successors would argue that, in fact, they were concerned about the child’s welfare: were they not trying to create a better society? A claim which is debatable. What cannot be argued is that Dewey and his gang proceeded in stealth, never bothering to ask anyone’s permission. In the process, they trampled on the child’s individuality, and on the child’s right to be as educated as possible (which would typically result in a better-paying job). They were stealing the child’s future. They were treating children as lab rats.
As for the USA, Dewey and his successors, i.e. the Education Establishment, did not like the country they found themselves in. What’s to like? They didn’t value capitalism, democracy, free enterprise, Western civilization, religion, or much of anything else. They were dreaming of some sort of socialist paradise. Point is, our top educators wanted to destroy the US that most of us hope to preserve. Well, they didn’t succeed in destroying it, but they surely inflicted a lot of damage and left a lot of wounds, which we are still dealing with.
There you have it. Knowledge, Kids, and the USA are all equally problematical for our Education Establishment. Probably the people in the middle and lower levels don’t have all these antagonisms. But the people at the top must. Otherwise public schools would not be so mediocre. That is, they would not be exactly the schools you would predict we would have if a bunch of people like John Dewey got control of them.
Finally, it’s contempt that turns everything sour. Contempt for humans of whatever age, contempt for basic facts, contempt for country. Far-left leaders and groups tend to have the attitude that their visions are all that matter, and anything that doesn’t comform to those visions can be violated. That’s how Pol Pot could go back to his small, backward country and kill one-quarter of the population. And that’s how Dewey and his bunch could instigate a slow-motion coup that over decades would create 50,000,000 functional illiterates. Contempt kills.
QED: the Education Establishment (whether American or Canadian) is not always doing the right thing. The simplest remedy is that ordinary citizens become more indignant and involved. For more of this analysis, please see “38: Saving Public Schools” and “41: Educators, O. J. Simpson, and Guilt” on Improve-Education.org.
