The So Called Indoctrination in Schools

I would like examples of how the schools are allegedly doing this. I hear this thrown around all the time and it's being thrown out more with the talk of Coronavirus and home schooling as an alternative.

Note that in order for something to be indoctrination, it has to be part of the system. You can't cite the actions of one teacher or administrator who espoused their personal political views as evidence anything other than someone espousing their personal political views. Such actions maybe questionably professional, but that's not indoctrination.

So what is it exactly that schools are doing to ensure all kids come out liberal robots? It should be noted that given only a third of the country identifies as a democrat, much less self-identifies as a liberal, I wouldn't say they are particularly effective at their indoctrination, which begs the follow on question of why are you so effing concerned about it?

 

I gave up when the schools replaced 'Fun with Dick and Jane' with 'Fun with Dick and Dick'

 

Two things.

1) Unless google is lying to me, this claim of yours never happened
2) Fun with Dick and Jane were boring and few kids really liked them.

Actually 3 things.

3) Gay/homosexual/trans and others are people who exist not just in society, as if society is somehow a place that doesn't include schools, but also in schools. These people don't have to hide who they are because you are bothered by them. More over, a book available in a library, a place of knowledge mind you, that discusses such things is a wholly appropriate place for such things. No one is forced to read every book in the library. I know, I both went to school and have children in school. It's not a requirement.

See, I feel like your response is the reality of your argument. And your argument isn't against schools indoctrinating, but rather, against schools offering information that is factual that you just don't like. So if that's the case, admit it and blame yourself, not the school for doing what it's supposed to be doing, which is educating students on the world in which they live. If you want to narrowly educate your children on only the things you aren't grossed out by, fine, then home schooling is totally for you. But that doesn't give you any credibility when it comes to claims of indoctrination.

 

And the left wonder why so many people want the option to take their children out of public schools, and use a voucher to send the kids to a good school?

Virginia School District Urges 'Marxist' SPLC Race, Slavery Lessons for Kindergarten

Are 5-year-old children mature enough to learn this “hard history?” How about 6-year-old kids or 7-year-old youngsters? It would take a rather high level of maturity for children to wrestle with these facts. Imagine teaching a 5-year-old boy or girl that if he or she were a slave, he or she could be removed from his or her family at any time. Such a lesson would leave him or her in tears.

Yet in an introduction to “Teaching Hard History” for K-5, Teaching Tolerance claims that “sugarcoating or ignoring slavery until later grades makes students more upset by or even resistant to true stories about American history.”

 

OK...

What's "hard history?" I've never heard of that. History is just history. More over, kids aren't snowflakes, right? I mean, not the right wing ones, so are you saying you're grit filled right wing folks can't handle a little hard history?

What level maturity is needed to understand slavery? My 6 year gets it. Yeah, imagine the 5 year old slaves that WERE removed from their families in this country and who were left with tears and then some...slavery should leave people in tears. It was that tragic. Do you not think slavery is tragic? Please, tell us how it should be taught.

Good schools? You mean the ones that are looking to take tax dollars to line their pockets? I live in place with plenty of charter schools and they aren't good by any measure. They are adequate. They aren't doing anything special and frankly if they aren't teaching kids about slavery and it's affects on the world and people then what is the point of an education? I want my kids to learn hard truths in life so they don't have to experience them. Duh.

 

Start with an over-simplistic viewpoint of the world. Then add in some illusory superiority encouraged through deliberate misinformation. You derive an understanding of the real issue: by strengthening critique (and use of evidence), education is actually challenging the right wing worldview. Its indoctrination as it threatens inter-generational homogeneity.

 

Well, I won't say such a vision is exclusive to the right. It happens to extremists all the time on both sides.

But I agree, education is about teaching people how to learn fact from fiction and to draw logical conclusions from those actual facts. As long as that is what the goal is, you can't be indoctrinating someone. They can use their education to indoctrinate themselves, sure, but that's on them.

 

What left wing extremists are these then? And I don't really think this is an extreme right wing phenomenon. Its quite common. Indeed, suggesting intellectual 'liberal' conspiracies is the standard order of play (as seen, for example, in the gun sub-forum).

The notion of pluralism is ultimately dominated by a left wing perspective. Perhaps lefties need to stop doing that? They're just shedding followers and encouraging heterogeneity

 

Five years old is too young to try and force the concepts of adults onto children concerning the evil that men do to each other.

First teach the children about the good things that we have done as a nation to build that foundation of what we as a nation stand for. Then when they are older we can teach them about he sad realities of slave trade that existed in the world back in the 17th century of human civilization.

For example, we would not want the first thing we want to teach grade school children about Mexico, would be about the the human enslavement and human sacrifices made by the Aztecs and Mayans, or about the drug cartels sex slave trade?

We also would not want the first things taught to children about Kampuchea, Germany, China, or Russia, was about their government's holocausts against their own citizens.

 

I would argue there are some on the left who are against vaccines and nuclear power based on a distortion of reality and fact. I would also agree, the conservative brain is more wired towards going with the norms and avoiding information that challenges their world view. That said, such a mindset isn't useless, it's probably part of human society that helped us survive otherwise they would cease to exist per evolution. Clearly evolution favors a pluralism of ideas for survival when it comes to humans on Earth.

 

Get back to reading, writing and arithmetic and when the kids are older, say high school, then bring on the other subjects. Then when they get to college they can go into debt getting their BA in LGBTQ studies with the Grievance minor degree.

 

Evil people do things to five year olds. Does their ignorance protect them? Did it protect those 5 year old slaves, ignorance that is? Children aren't morons. They are very capable even at 5 of grasping moral and ethical concepts you would rather them not bother to consider.

Why? So wait, you are saying we shouldn't teach them a certain way because the outcome isn't to your liking? You know what that's called right...indoctrination...

We can totally teach these things at a young age in an age appropriate manner. Obviously, we probably shouldn't show graphic images of murder or sex slavery to children. That's probably not needed. But we can teach them about drug cartels and what they do and why they do it. Within reason. But teaching 5 year olds about these things you listed is not the point. Teaching them about slavery is a means to teach them about ethics, that is, how a society treats each other.

So you're argument is teach them that America is great first...and then tell them later when they are older and have already learned how great things are that we weren't so great? That's your plan? And doing the opposite is indoctrination? Ha. You are the one who wants to force an outcome with children. I would rather teach them and let them for their own conclusions. That's what education does and should do. And that's what I want for my kids, the ABILITY to logically form conclusions based on information. Also, to properly discern which information is valid and which is less so. Such skills are vital in life.

 

Oh yeah, this BS.

Reading what? Reading books like Native Son? How about books about LGBTQ people? That's reading. Writing. Writing about what? LGBTQ people? Writing stories with families that have two dads? There's your writing. Math is good. What about history? Music? Science? Skipping all of those?

Let me translate for you: don't teach kids anything I disagree with! That's what you said. And that's a problem because you disagree with reality. We can't use the public schools to accommodate your fantasy world. That would be...bom bom boommmmm...indoctrination!!!!!

 

Just concentrate of the Koran, Bible and the Torah.

 

Just the odd nutter then? I'd be careful with nuclear power mind you. There is evidence that cost-benefit analysis has been deliberately corrupted. Questioning the orthodoxy should be the starting point for everyone.

Not sure you can use evolution here. You could refer to stuff like homeostasis, but that's really more about how instinct kicks in. I'd say that its purely nurture and that's why education is so confrontational.

 

The left pledge: "I pledge allegiance to no flag at all, and to the nothing for which it stands, hatred and bile forever."

 

Well, if a people substitute reality in favor of their idealistic views for what they wish were true, then reality will stomp them into dust. Going along with the norm and not seeking the truth will also see those people fall behind the rest of humanity. Just look at the Middle East, those people used to be the fathers of science and math, for about a thousand years now, you cannot name one invention, or breakthrough in science, math or technology that the Islamic Mid East has given to the world.

"Conservatives" like myself only seek to conserve the individual human Rights and freedoms within the Constitution. Conservatives do not want to stop time, to halt advancements in science and math.

Many times people confuse this with the bible thumping religious conservatives, who might want to see the bible used as the basis of our laws, using it to dictate how our society lives their lives.

Marxism and Democratic Socialism of the current Democratic Party, are antithetical to our US Constitution. Adding to that, the Utopianism of these leftists are the epitome of a people who substitute reality in favor of their idealistic views for what they wish were true

 

I work for a company that owns nuclear power assets. I'm pretty familiar with the pros and cons, economically and environmentally. There are cons for sure, but there are many pros as well. It's not a simple nuclear = bad argument that I HAVE heard from my friends who are left of me politically. It's a minority view sure, but I have heard it and seen it written in articles. It's just not 100% based on accurate and logical conclusions, though few position arguments are based 100% on such things.

I can totally use it here. If you think about a human society at any technology level, there is benefit to someone saying, "don't fix what isn't broke, let's move forward on tradition because it may not be optimal, but it gets a good result we know." Think about during war, or during a crisis situation. Most medicine is based on this, particularly emergency medicine, because thinking up new innovations isn't appropriate during these times, more often than not. I'm sure there are other examples I'm not thinking of when such a mindset it appropriate. Education is nothing more than a human adaptation to ensure survival. Other living things don't need it to survive and dominate their environment. We do. Without education, humans are less likely to survive and more likely to have gone extinct.

 

Well in their defense, they did give us mathematics which was pretty big one. But if you look at why that changed, honestly, you might see that you are making my point for me...namely, it isn't liberals who cause the erosion of innovation and thought via indoctrination...

That's an interesting sentence. Liberalism is what this country is founded on. Here's the definition, not how it's used politically mind you:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

So nothing I was ever taught in school made me want to dismantle any of this. I may disagree with you on what limited government looks like. But no one in school made me promise to destroy any of this.

So you're a republican running for office? Because that's what this sentence sounded like. This isn't really the topic of the thread. You aren't providing proof or evidence of indoctrination in the schools. You're opening link was nothing more than a hit piece on the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that exists because people weren't following the definition of liberalism as outlined above.

Anyway, anymore proof/valid arguments for the topic at hand? Vague statements about how the left/democrats are bad belong in the millions of other threads that already exist for such circle jerking.

 

But the point is that there isn't any consensus; thus, the need to respect pluralism. To reject nuclear power isn't necessarily being crackpotted. It will range from bounded rationality to a logical conclusion.

You might want to tell that to the Royal Legion. They highlighted, as part of their Poppy Appeal, how WW1 engineered many medical innovations. Conservatism is rarely rational. It merely refers to weighting losses greater than gains. If anything that then encourages bounded rationality, as shown by the game theory experiments into risk taking (and its incompatibility even with concepts such as risk adversity)

Education is a lot more. The old farts saw it as a form of conspicuous consumption. "I'll learn something just to show you that I have the free time and money to do it". We've shifted from that perspective (at least until recently where neo-liberal's marketisation of education has raised its ugly head). Education is both public and merit good.

 

Yet, you didn't deny anything I claimed.

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Now that we got that out of the way, nothing else you said was on topic. Yucca mountain was a case of NIMBY, as in on one living near it wanted the waste transported through their communities or stored near them. Not anything to do with schools or the topic at hand. Also, I'm from New Mexico and totally supported WIPP, so I'm OK with us finding innovative ways to store waste whether it comes from a plant or a research lab. We should be responsible and accountable for the things we do in life, and we should teach our kids that in schools via examples from history that include both ethical and non-ethical decisions made over time. We should show them that stuff whether we like it or not.

 

I agree, there is room to push back against it. Not all arguments against nuclear are invalid, I never said that was the case. Storing or reusing the waste safely is an ongoing issue that should be discussed.

Well, perhaps in times such as war or crisis decisions are made that aren't always ethical. But sometimes when you are in such a situation, ethics and rational are pushed aside for the sake of winning, because losing means your ethics, rational and ideals die with you. So it's a balance in such scenarios at times.

I agree.

 

You claim lots of stuff. I don't deny I ignore most of it.

Fourteen, are you? She's been dead 20 years. <EDITED COMMENTS TO REMOVE INSULTS> .

 

You like to conflate what others say just so you can bemoan and disagree with it, don't you?

My post can be easily summed up with the need to educate our children by first starting with the construction of a solid foundation for what we as a nation seek to achieve, teach the children the purpose and function for the Rights and freedoms our Constitution and founding documents create as their natural Right. Once we have established a base then we can juxtaposition this with our struggles as a nation to move this nation towards our ideals.

Yes, teach them the greatness of what this nation strives for first, it makes no sense to build hatred for the nation by magnifying our faults and failings first.

You seem to want to bypass the notion of building an education foundation of perspective for what this nations and it's founders are trying to achieve. You want to rush right past the age of enlightenment which sparked the creation of our nation, and just dive right into the flaws of our nation, and focus on the bad that existed. Our nation was founded while a lot of evils existed in the world, and we had a long struggle to overcome them. Just because we could not change the world overnight does not mean were are a bad nation. Slavery existed since the beginning of time, and you presumably want to damn our founders and the nation because they were not able to eliminate slavery overnight.

I assume you would not be teaching our children how it was the Democratic Party who caused slavery and discrimination to be institutionalized for almost a hundred years.

Blaming whitey for everything leading to the debasement of George Washington and the founders, and instilling guilt and anger into any white child, is what the left wants to do. They can only make Marxism acceptable by tearing down everything that existed before.

 

I specifically cited the Mid East giving the world of mathematics.

You seem to be conflating religious conservatives, which would include the Islamist states which make up most all the Mid East, confusing that conservatism with Constitutional Conservatives.

The progressive neo-liberals of today's Western nations are antithetical to individual freedom and liberty of the classic liberals who were our founding fathers.

I never mentioned liberals, you inserted it all on your own.

You really don't want a conversation.