At this time of graduations, commencements and diplomas, I find myself wondering how prepared the graduates are to embark on a life of their own. When the president of the United States says, "Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?" - I suppose the question is asked and answered.
In a topsy-turvy political environment, it's not easy to understand what is going on in the world today; Fighting for peace, being told to just say no to drugs in a country that wants to medicate you for everything imaginable, being told that we must sacrifice our liberties for freedom, allegations of foreign terrorist attacks while the borders remain wide open, etc.
I find myself wondering if the students have been exposed to genuine history. It's a common axiom that the victors write the history. Even in Thomas Jefferson time, he said of history, "A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable."
Howard Zinn, author of "The People History of the United States' addressed the importance of a knowledge of history in saying; "If you don't know history, it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, it is as if anyone up there in a position of power can tell you anything and you have no way of checking up on it."
Winston Churchill said; "Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened." In talking with your parents, grandparents and teachers, I can't help but feel that this is truer today than ever.
In answer to President Bush's question, "Is our children learning", one author writes; "American schools, which have changed only slightly since the 19th century, were modeled on the authoritarian Prussian schools - not much of a recommendation. Albert Einstein was a product of those schools. Considering Einstein's intellectual achievements, that might suggest that the schools in Germany were of high quality. Before drawing that conclusion, consider Einstein's own words."
"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.... It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modem methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."
John Gatto, 1991 New York teacher of the year and voice for educational reform, emphasizes how the Prussian model set the standard for educational systems right up to the present; "The whole system was built on the premise that isolation from first-hand information and fragmentation of the abstract information presented by teachers would result in obedient and subordinate graduates, properly respectful of arbitrary orders," he writes. He says the American educationists imported three major ideas from Prussia. The first was that the purpose of state schooling was not intellectual training but the conditioning of children "to obedience, subordination, and collective life." Thus, memorization outranked thinking. Second, whole ideas were broken into fragmented "subjects" and school days were divided into fixed periods "so that self-motivation to learn would be muted by ceaseless interruptions." Third, the state was posited as the true parent of children. All of this was done in the name of a scientific approach to education."
On the intentions of the changes in education that were handed down, Gatto writes: "It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults."
The world is still very much operating under a globalist ideology that espouses the sacrifice of youth in achieving control of populations for political ends. Vladimir Lenin voiced this ideology: "If we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, we will have won that country. Therefore, there must be continued propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of citizens in general, and teenagers in particular. By making drugs of various kinds readily available, by creating the necessary attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness, and by preparing him psychologically and politically, we can succeed."
My message to the graduates is that in an intellectual environment that reflects an episode of Homer Simpson, your education and intellectual sovereignty isn't going to be handed to you - you're going to have to want it and to be willing to fight for it. Our individual and national sovereignty can only be preserved by a populace whose character reflects a knowledge of genuine history and principles that we know in our hearts and minds to be true and that we are willing to stand up for. As Mark Twain said, "I never let my school interfere with my education."
Good luck to you all.
Gary Jacobucci
jacob48@citlink.net
#16 June 2007
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