Click on the highlighted wording for additional links and information.
The video “Iowa did you know” shown at the Aug. 2011 school board meeting indicated a new way of teaching our kids was being implemented across the state. Our school system is to abandon what they deem “low level factual recall” that has served us for generations, for a new methodology called “critical thinking”.
While on the surface this may not seem like much, if you research the definition and origins of the term it is quite frightening. While the use of this term is permeating our society and has many applications and meanings our education system is using it as it was intended by the group that created it. Key aspects of the definition from the Iowa Department of Education web site are: “Critical thinking utilizes abstractions and non-rules based strategies to guide decisions, behaviors and actions….suspension of judgment while collecting evidence to make determinations”. This methodology has real limitations when dealing with math and science, a stone cannot long be suspended in air no matter how much critical thinking you do because of the law of gravity, but on social issues this eliminates all social norms and opens its self to wide array of conclusions.
“critical thinking” is a subset of what is known as “critical theory” which originated at the “frankfurt school” in Germany. This school was founded by students of non-other than Karl Marx and was instrumental in the founding of the Communist party in the USA. These Marxists were dumbfounded when the US did not descend into anarchy, seeking a socialist revolution after the two world wars and set out to find out why and correct the problem. It was their conclusion that we were not accepting of their beliefs because of our culture, and they set out in the 60’s to change it, and these efforts continue to this day.Key to this was reforming the family structure. Our patriarchal system created a population that respected authority so they sought to marginalize the influence of fathers on the family.Our morals and patriotic standing with our country and its founding principles were also to blame and are to be undermined by the “abstract and non-rules based strategy…of the… suspension of judgment”.
There are a multitude of writings by highly educated people utilizing “critical thinking” to depict the founding fathers as “rich white men” who’s only motivation was personal gain, and only the total suspension of judgment lends any credibility at all the writings that support polygamy, bestiality, adult incest, or even sex with children. How long before anyone who questions these issue’s on moral grounds is depicted as having some form of phobia that disqualifies them to discuss the issue.
Van Buren school systems curriculum is permeated with this term, and is even used in board policy. Ironically enough this term is used in the policy #608 that sings the praises of differing views and open debate but ends by stating:
Individuals or groups outside the public schools should not be allowed to:
2.Determine which viewpoints will be presented or avoided in public schools.
Individuals and groups would that be like parents and tax payers?
In 1963 the communist party of the US put on congressional record their goals. Here are just some of their achievements:
17. Get control of the schools….Soften the curriculum..
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools
29. Discredit the American Constitution
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers.
Personal opinions on these issues not withstanding, there can be no question regarding their success’s since 1963.
This has all happened under our noses and a result of allowing bureaucrats to push the communities out of the education process.
The real question is what does this all mean? Has the education system hijacked the Marxist cause and used it for good? Has the education system been duped into doing the biding of the Marxists? Is it all just a coincidence that multiculturalism-intended to devalue our culture, political correctness-intended to silence dissent, and the green movement-intended to destroy our economy, have all been weirdly adopted by our education system? Is it a coincidence that so many of the 45 goals of the communist party have been realized? Does anybody know the real truth, or are we all left to utilize our own variation of "critical thinking" to form our own opinions?
