[Debau]

Like all forms of deception, they start out subtly. Truth mixed with a little error is still error, insidiously pernicious. Humanism-Communism can sound good on the surface, especially to one not attuned to truth, to whom truth is subjective. I haven't read the Humanist Manifesto, but saturated in every corner of life, on every front, humanism is a means to deceive folks. The father of American education, John Dewey was a signer of the manifesto. Here's an article I read on Dewey and his humanistic ideas of education.

"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do"

Why Johnny Can't Read

How many times have we talked about the state of Government education in America, only to become frustrated and confused over the policies and programs they seem intent on instituting – policies and programs that routinely do NOT produce academic excellence? Of course, there are bright spots: teachers and administrators who are clearly making a difference. But these are exceptions! Exceptions that stand out because they are exceptions!Here's where we are: The U.S. ranks last in the industrialized nations of the world in education. We have the highest illiteracy rate. We are lagging in science and math. And 40% of our kids (at least in New Hanover County) don't even graduate.What's the problem? If you listen to the experts, it's because we don't pay teachers enough, our classrooms are too large, and our parents are not engaged. What if I told you that the product we're turning out is deliberately poor? That the goal of our educational system is NOT academic proficiency? And that we are NOT concerned that Johnny can't read? You'd probably think I was crazy, or had surrendered to the radical, conspiracy kook-fringe! What I HAVE done is read the history books. And I want to educate you. John Dewey is considered the Father of Modern American Education. He is on record as disdaining the idea of teaching young children to read! Here's what he wrote: “The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school life, because of the great importance attaching to literature, seems to me a perversion.” John Dewey, James Cattell, and Edward Thorndike (all psychologists), are the founders of our progressive educational system. Dewey and Cattell were students of G. Stanley Hall (another psychologist) who established the first Psychological Laboratory in America, at Johns Hopkins University, in 1882. James Cattell created the world's first Psychological Department at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1887. He was also one of the founders of the American Psychological Association and The Psychological Review, establishing Columbia University's Psychology Department, in 1891. Edward Thorndike studied under Cattell. These men were committed Socialist, Humanist, Evolutionist, Progressives. John Dewey is identified with The Humanist Manifesto, to which he was a signatory. [1933]What these men set out to do was to move America from Individualism to Collectivism. To accomplish this, they instituted an educational system that views the classroom as a psychological laboratory. The technique used is “Stimulus” and Response.” The curriculum is structured to move children toward the social goals of a progressive society, NOT to teach them how to read, write, do math, and think. The first thing they did was to eliminate phonetics, in teaching children to read, replacing it with a system that works with deaf children, called the Look-Say Method (what we sometimes call 'sight reading'). This method was devised in the 1830's for deaf children [by a preacher] and in 1837, the Boston Primary School Committed decided to adopt it. By 1844, the results were so disastrous that a group of Boston schoolmasters published a blistering attack on the whole-word method (as they called it). By 1908, Cattell and his colleagues knew that the look-say method produced inaccurate readers. In fact, another of Hall's students, Edmund Huey, in his book, The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, actually argued in favor of inaccuracy as a virtue! In 1950 I learned to read, using this method. We used the “Dick and Jane” series: “See Spot run.” “See Jane run.” etc. By 1955, Dr. Rudolf Flesch could write a book entitled, Why Johnny Can't Read. In 1970, Karl Shapiro [eminent poet-professor], who had taught creative writing for over 20 years, said in a speech given to the California Library Association: “What is really distressing is that this generation cannot and does not read. I am speaking of university students in what are supposed to be our best universities. Their illiteracy is staggering...We are experiencing a literacy breakdown which is unlikeanything I know of in the history of letters.” In 1998, 56% of College graduates, earning degrees in teaching, and tested by the Massachusetts State Board of Education, for teaching jobs, flunked! So they lowered the passing grade. Of course, it was already set at an 8th grade level. What this points to is NOT incompetence or ignorance. It points to a deliberate attack on our children and our culture by progressive-humanist educators!Strong words? Listen to Arthur Combs, in an essay entitled “Humanistic Goals of Education,” published in 1975 “Modern education must produce far more than persons with cognitive skills. It must produce humane individuals...The humane qualities are absolutely essential to our way of life – far more important, even, than the learning of reading, for example. We can live with a bad reader; a bigot is a danger to everyone.”The inference is that you can't have both good readers and humane persons. One must be sacrificed for the other. In fact, literacy may even produce bigotry. And, according to the progressive-humanist, it does! So, the next time you open a math textbook and see all sorts of social issues being presented, you can thank the progressive psychologists who are using our schools as labs and our children as guinea pigs. Just don't expect your child to actually achieve academic excellence.