When I chose to become a teacher I did for multiple reasons. One was the positive experiences I had with my teachers in high school. I always felt like they cared about me and my future. They gave me advice but never told me to follow their beliefs or their choices in life. Mr. Sypien, my favorite teacher, told me I would not make much money in education, but it is a fulfilling life he wouldn’t change. I watched him as a teacher and I greatly admired him. Second, was when I entered college I really thought I wanted to be a psychologist, but a few classes into it and I couldn’t just sit there listening to people hours on end. I was in an English class and I learned that I had no grammatical skills like a lot is two words. I had no idea the difference between an adjective vs. and adverb. My papers had more red marks than black typed ink. It was humiliating. I did get better at writing, so worth all the tears that semester. This experience helped me make the decision I wanted to teach kids grammar and how to write so they would be equipped for college. Lastly, I had finally become a very good writer, but when I put all my effort into a paper to have a professor give me a C and on the paper he had written “You plagiarized, but I can’t prove it” so I got a C based on his accusation. When I met with him to tell him I had not cheated he told me I was “too uneducated to write so well.” That ended the conversation and broke my spirit for writing. I stopped writing for many years. Later this just made me angry and I wanted students to feel confident in their writing.
These points in my life led me into the life of an educator. When I graduated and assigned to my first middle school to teach English I vividly remember two things: 1. It was not my job to bring in my religious beliefs into the classroom. 2. It was not my job to bring in my politics into the classroom. Students shouldn’t know your religion or political stance as when they enter your classroom it is a neutral safe place for all students who are multi-faceted. There are many essays and books we read that dealt with emotionally sensitive topics, ethical choices, and critical thinking. When I taught I never told a student’s opinion was wrong, but to back it up. Student’s writings varied because they each came from different backgrounds, families, cultures, etc…..It was my job to get them thinking and be able to express those thoughts in a cohesive, grammatically correct, and written in their own voice. Not my voice, but their voice as an individual.
Now, here I am 25 years later. For many years I was proud to be part of the process of the development of a young person into adulthood. Each being a very important part of society and would be valuable as a person in whatever career path each chose. Today, I am not so proud of my profession. I believe it has morphed into indoctrinating students into a group belief where the life of the individual is less significant. The path each student takes is no longer their own journey, but a collaboration to steer all students on the path paved by educators who want students to accept a set of beliefs without questioning them.
Key difference:
Teaching-communication of information, ideas, or skills that can be questioned or discussed and the facts that are taught are supported by evidence.
Indoctrination-communication of beliefs that are not supported by any evidence and the receiver is supposed to just accept as truth without question or critical thinking discussions. It is the act of forcing ideas and opinions and no one is allowed to question or voice an objection.
If students can’t think for themselves then it is easier to be able to control their behaviors which affects independent decisions. This educational influence on young minds significantly impact the shaping of our national culture. Values are redefined as education separates students from their family’s moral compass. This is seen very clearly with students who are Christian. They are targeted for their beliefs and education strives to convince them to join the collective by reprogramming them into its ethical system. This collective is the “New Morality” Feazel & Swain, 22). This new morality is fused to the liberal political agenda. “The new morality aims at those who have not solidly established their values and who are therefore vulnerable to a time of questioning as they seek to develop their own identity” (Feazel & Swain, 23). Even those who didn’t grow up with the Bible or religion still innately know right from wrong and have a sense of good vs. bad. This push of new morality is that man is the “ruler of his own domain with his experience and knowledge” (Feazel & Swain, 36). This means there is no natural moral law inside of a person. People can be devoted to their own selfish desires, lacking boundaries, no concern for others, and willing to trample on others to get to what they want. This is why Black Lives Matter gets traction in our young people who have not fully developed individual thought, learned critical thinking, or evaluation skills. Students are in group thought encompassed by situational ethics. Students are taught to follow the thought process that looting and rioting isn’t wrong because no one is getting hurt, but stealing is just self-defense and reparations for historical past sins of the country. It is all relative and should not be seen through the lens of right and wrong or questioning how destruction can hurt the livelihood of the people who own those stores or senior citizens lose a way to get groceries if there are not products on the store shelves. Teachers promoting BLM in their lesson plans, wearing t-shits, celebrating BLM are bringing it into the classroom with the expectation that students will not question their expertise as an educator therefore should embrace the thoughts and philosophies of that instructor. This goes against everything I was taught to not bring in my beliefs and push them on students who are in the developmental stages and could get confused by my own biases.
Situational ethics introduced to young people affects their motivation, integrity, honesty, and responsibility. “The end justifies the means.” It teaches students that bending the rules is acceptable if it benefits others based on biased opinions. If the opinion is that stealing is acceptable if a person needs that loaf of bread to feed their family. Then that goal post moves to walking into a store and just stealing what you want which could include clothes, toys, or anything else the person feels is deserved. It takes away the right and wrong, so there are no longer absolutes. It is a distortion of needs that moves to wants and desires so excuses of any behavior is on the table. Education has taken out how to be a good citizen who values God given rights of life, liberty, freedom, and individual pursuit of happiness. It is replaced with this new morality and ethical standards that uses the separation of church and state as a weapon because if educators can eliminate the power of values in society because there is a growing hatred of “the traditional morality believes the nation was established on sound moral, religious principles that were to have enduring influence on life and law” (Feazel & Swain, 57).
Example-Removal of prayer in school led to removal of 30 seconds of silence to no need to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to you don’t have to recite or stand in the classroom to no pledge at sports events to not need it at graduations to no graduation speeches with God mentioned at all. These kids turn their backs on America’s flag today and are stating that prayer, pledge, and flag doesn’t represent them anymore. So led to rewriting history to match this disgust of our country which is why Critical Race Theory is so dangerous because it just keeps separating our students from loving America into wanting to destroy it all for the good of mankind. They come to the conclusion that if they get rid of America and its history by removing God then they can save humanity from a corrupt heritage.
“The new morality believes that distorting truth or presenting falsehoods constantly over time will one day result in those distortions being regarded by impressionable minds” (Feazel & Swain, 59). This is a reason in the timing of Critical Race Theory that at first educators said it was only being taught in college laws schools to discuss ethics through the lens of race. Today, it is found in the classrooms of your kids even in elementary school. Then the teacher’s union came out with a statement that they would fight against parents who don’t want their kids learning about CRT. Then stepped back and tried to explain their reasoning of it is just history and educators just want to make sure students learn about slavery. CRT is no where near in the shade of gray they want to portray. The truth is:
Problem: Only the oppressors are the sinners in the world and those oppressors are white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, native born males.
Problem: All the oppressed are without sin which are everybody else excluding the white-privileged
Problem: The more oppressed you are the least responsibility you have and more moral authority you are given
Problem: Intersectionality is introduced-measured by your degree of oppression which is being black, LGBTQ, transgender, etc...and the more categories you can check off the more oppressed you are
Problem: It is not just a conversation of race, but a lie as we come to find that CRT and BLM and Marxism is interrelated vehicles used to destroy the greatest nation God created
The new morality teaches their brand of morality. “Our schools have forsaken the moral compass that the founders believed to be vital to public education” (Feazel & Swain, 95). Students are being exposed to subject matter that they are not psychologically or emotionally equipped. Parents are reporting their elementary students are being introduced to sexual content to start building their tolerance to view sexuality as pleasurable at age 2, 6, or 16. Society has accepted a multitude of sexual orientation and behaviors, but this free-sex philosophy that is found in classrooms taught by people with educational degrees. At one time teachers warned of stranger danger, unwanted touching, warning of students being groomed, isolated, and then the abuser was exposed and punished. Teachers have become complacent on introducing material that makes a child predator a neutral family friend. Educators are entrusted with the most precious gifts parents have so public schools have no right to determine the correct view or practice of sexuality to teach students. This new morality and its efforts to normalize pedophilia must be stopped.
Schools have decided to remove the parent when making decisions in their child’s lives. This is why “social justice” groups sneak through the halls of our schools indoctrinating our students that only they remove social inequalities. It is okay to harm people who have done no harm to you because everything is relative. “There is no objective reality or standards of right and wrong that would apply to all people” (Feazel & Swain, 193). Education wants students to lack the tools to make their own decisions or reflect the morals and values of their families. They remove the importance of individual dignity as human beings. Schools have replaced character education with “restorative justice.” Parents, for the most part, discipline their kids out of love so they learn from right and wrong. Social justice removes that individual responsibility, so no need for consequences. The new morality “wants the idea of absolute right and wrong to be eliminated” (Feazel & Swain, 262).
Parents need to understand that public schools are a government institution so if your child’s cultural and religious views can be implemented by them and not you then they capture the culture then political control will follow. Enter the analytical framework of Intersectionality. This is defined as “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.” This is seen through the curriculum of Critical Race Theory. These are tied together so students will only rely on their racial cultural view that promotes victims in society so when young people share their anti-American displays is accepted as normal. Expectations of programs like paying people to stay unemployed is acceptable in society. Manipulating elections is almost expected for the betterment of of minority communities. Victim hood includes “trigger words” and now the need for “safe spaces.” Then on the other spectrum is the bullying name calling to diminish the message of other opinions which transforms into “wokeness” and “cancel culture.”
The bottom line is that public schools are failing our society academically and morally. If there are no morals, liberty is in jeopardy, and then society will ultimately be destroyed. It is time for religious people to get into the battle. We need to start equipping our kids so they have the emotional skills and cognitive abilities to not accept the academics when they teach “social justice,” “critical race theory,” “intersectionalality,” and can identify the difference between teaching and indoctrinating. Parents must not stay silent and ignore how powerful others’ influence have on your children. To this day, I remember the influence my teachers had on me. Make sure to look at what material is being taught and if it against your morals and values then you have every right to question the educators who are in your kid’s lives 6 hours a day and may be striving to steal your child away into the liberal world that I believe is truly evil. I did not push my politics and religion on my students, but my prayer was that my students saw God through how I treated them. How I spoke, my actions, and my responses to them as individuals. When schools twisted the importance and value of each student have lost the vision of true honest education where we walk along side in the journey of learning to be their own person who is an integral part of society in this great country we call America.
Battle for our students plan:
Step 1: Get involved
Get informed and engage-refuse to be bullied or silenced-keep to the goal of exposing ideologies that will harm your child and future generations
Step 2: Ways to engage:
-email or mail letters to your city councilman, state delegates, state representatives, legislatures, congress, and senators
-Show up at board meetings, or run to be on the board for your child’s district, check for legislation and speak/write to representative to push for a federal ban when you see indoctrination ideologies
-Support school districts and state representatives that ban taxpayer dollars of districts and workplaces that teach Critical Race Theory as it is inherently violates existing discrimination laws.
-Know your rights: parents have every right to know exactly what is being taught to their children. Demand to see lesson plans and ensure they are made available to all parents in an online portal. Demand transparency from your politicians
Step 4: Know who you are battling
-The left knows the local levels matter so parents must organize and work together to defeat any teaching that contort traditional civics, history, or family morals and values.
-Stand firm against any vehicle that is used for political indoctrination of your children
***Make sure you look at the purpose and goals of groups disguised in the mantra of tolerance
***Watch for manipulation of equity=everyone has the same outcome (removal of honors and AP courses so all kids get a regular education where no one excels) vs. equality where everyone has the same opportunities for success (Individual work ethic is supported-each person can live the American dream)
Finally, Critical Race Theory doesn’t stop at just distorting history regarding slavery which pushes America’s July 4th, 1776 which celebrates diversity should be eliminated. Insert the 1619 project which is the year established as the founding of America when black slaves arrived in America. This world socialist view has spilled into other minority races who will challenge their conquest of American history. Enter LatCrit(Latin Critical Race Theory) which suggests that whites are the illegals in America so the indigenous (Native Americans & Latino/Chicano) are the legals. There is a focus on anyone who took over territories from the indigenous people are the outsiders including those black slaves. It’s an attempt to use race as a mechanism for redefining our society-redefining what it was based on and how it impacts everybody, and it wants people to believe that race is the most critical determinant of who you are and what happens to you in our society.
Some reading if interested
Book: Abduction-How Liberalism Steals Our Children’s Hearts and Minds by Steve Feazel & Carol M. Swain
Critical race and LatCrit theory: https://www.sjsu.edu/people/marcos.pizarro/courses/8021/s1/SolorzanoYosso2001.pdf
CRT article: https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/10/25/racist-policy-antiracism-resist
BLM/Marxist: https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herself-as-trained-marxist/
Social Justice Education: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-what-is-social-justice-education-anyway/2019/01
Situational Ethics: https://www.britannica.com/topic/situation-ethics
Ideological Subversion: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/bezmenovs-steps/