Chapter 2 Humanism in Education
History – the Internal Conspiracy
History – the External Conspiracy
Education Myth
1) Over-population, too many people
2) Shortage of natural resources, not enough stuff
3) Evolution, from pond scum to dirt.
4) One world government.
5) Is Socialism a successful economic system?
Recent Developments – 1980s
Humanist Manifesto 3
Humanist Success in Public Schools, Excluding God
Chapter 2 Humanism in Education
History – the Internal Conspiracy
The historical development of Humanism’s influence in education is examined by quoting experts and associations as they describe development and implementation of the Humanist foundation in public schools. As I’ve shared this history with educators, teachers, and parents; a light often comes on in their minds, and they exclaim; “Now I finally understand what’s been happening.” Most people are amazed at what has been going on in public education in recent years. This transition of foundations began with John Dewey, who was one of the major developers of modern public education concepts Most public and many private schools in the US today use his principles of education. He was an avowed Humanist and Socialist. His objectives for education are stated clearly in his Pedagogic Creed:
“l (John Dewey) believe that: – education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. – every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling: that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. – in this way the teacher is always the prophet of the true God (Humanism-Author) and usher in of the true kingdom of God (Socialist Utopia-author).”
A contemporary of Dewey, Charles Potter, was a signer of Humanist Manifesto I (as was Dewey) and honorary president of the NEA. When speaking about education he said; “Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism and every public school a school of Humanism.” Along with others, Dewey and Potter were instrumental in providing direction to the NEA to begin to impose their Humanist values in public education. In 1969, the NEA published in their journal, “Today’s Education,” an article entitled “Forecast for the Seventies.” In this article, they summed up their objectives for United States education. Two of the most startling statements are:
“For one thing, the basic role of the teacher will change noticeably. Ten years hence (which would be1979), it will be more accurate to term him (the teacher) a learning clinician. This title is intended to convey the idea that schools are becoming clinics, whose purpose is to provide individualized PSYCHOSOCIAL TREATMENT for the student, thus increasing his value to both him and to society.” It is amazing to me that a teacher’s union would advocate what amounts to medical – psychological treatment by untrained teachers. Even in the hands of experienced professionals, this kind of treatment can be very dangerous. Misused, it can cause anything from loss of self-worth and depression to even suicide.
A second quote from the same source is: “Biochemical and psychological mediation of learning is likely to increase. New drama will play on the educational stage as drugs are introduced to improve in the learner such qualities as personality, concentration, and memory. The application of biochemical research findings, heretofore centered in infra-human subjects, such as fish, could be a source of conspicuous controversy WHEN children become the objects of experimentation.” It is particularity important to note that they say, “when the children become objects of experimentation.” That attitude upsets me as a parent that some educators will be experimenting with our kids by using untested drugs on them. This practice is used today in numerous “experimental” programs.
In reading through NEA materials, it is clear that their education objectives conflict with Orthodox Judaism, Christian Fundamentalism and Evangelical Christianity. A videotape produced by their national headquarters on February 9, 1985 (NEA teleconference, featuring Keith Geiger, NEA vice president) clearly illustrates this. They caution that these, the “Fundamentalists,” want to control education and exhort their members to oppose them at every turn. Their uncompromising stance, use of innuendo and dogmatic opposition, negates any potential cooperation or even dialogue to address the issues in education. Most disturbing about this video is the attitude that they own both the children and public education. It is the parent and taxpayer that owns both.
NEA’s Vision, Mission, & Values – Adopted at the 2006 NEA Representative Assembly
We, the members of the National Education Association of the United States, are the voice of education professionals. Our work is fundamental to the nation, and we accept the profound trust placed in us.
Our Vision: Our vision is a great public school for every student.
Our Mission: Our mission is to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.
Our Core Values: These principles guide our work and define our mission:
Equal Opportunity. We believe public education is the gateway to opportunity. All students have the human and civil right to a quality public education that develops their potential, independence, and character.
A Just Society. We believe public education is vital to building respect for the worth, dignity, and equality of every individual in our diverse society.
Democracy. We believe public education is the cornerstone of our republic. Public education provides individuals with the skills to be involved, informed, and engaged in our representative democracy.
Professionalism. We believe that the expertise and judgment of education professionals are critical to student success. We maintain the highest professional standards, and we expect the status, compensation, and respect due all professionals.
Partnership. We believe partnerships with parents, families, communities, and other stakeholders are essential to quality public education and student success.
Collective Action. We believe individuals are strengthened when they work together for the common good. As education professionals, we improve both our professional status and the quality of public education when we unite and advocate collectively.
NEA also believes every student in America, regardless of family income or place of residence, deserves a quality education. In pursuing its mission, NEA has determined that we will focus the energy and resources of our 3.2 million members on improving the quality of teaching, increasing student achievement and making schools safer, better places to learn.
The NEA’s Vision, Mission and Values are noble but do not reflect the behavior of the organization as they oppose any political changes to education that would undermine the Humanist foundation. For example: they oppose education vouchers, prayer in school, etc.
History – The External Conspiracy
Up to this point, the information I’ve presented has been from individuals or groups concerned directly with education. There are, however, two other notable quotations which reveal the strategy behind the change to values education. First from John Dunphy writing in the Humanist magazine (1983); “I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public-school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith; a religion of humanity that recognizes the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing the classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become the arena of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery and the new faith of Humanism…”
If you doubted the conspiratorial nature of the problem, the above quote should have made it clear; the next will make it even clearer. In an article also from the “Humanist” magazine entitled “Three Cheers for our Secular State,” Paul Blanchard wrote; “I think the most important factor for moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average high school child acquires a high school education, and this mitigates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history When I was one of the editors of “The Nation” in the twenties, I wrote an editorial explaining that golf and intelligence were the two primary reasons that men did not attend church. Perhaps today, I would say golf and a high school diploma.”
The prestigious liberal “think tank” the Brookings Institute published a study titled “Religion in American Public Life” by A. James Reichley. The summary conclusion of this study is: “a moral society cannot be based entirely on secular values.” These values provide no adequate foundation for behavior without some religious content. This study not only speaks clearly for the involvement of religion in public life but speaks out against the trend to remove it from education. It also contains an excellent summary of the historical development of the “church/state separation” myth. The First Amendment of our Constitution GUARANTEES free practice of religion and says nothing about Church-State separation, but only forbids the establishment of a state SPONSORED church. The best model of separation of church and state is found in the old Soviet Union’s constitution and their legal practices.
In the 1980s Ex-Attorney General Edwin Meese summarized the conflict over religious values in education when he said: “By gradually removing from public education and public discourse all references to traditional religion and substituting the jargon and ritual and morality of cult and self, we run the risk of subordinating all other religions to a new secular religion.” Author: Humanism
This new secular religion doesn’t honor the separation of religion and state. The state takes the place of the church God created.
On a national level, individuals and associations whose agenda for education is to change the values of our society from Judeo-Christian to Humanism have controlled the education process since the 1980s.
Education Myths
In addition to bankrupting the effectiveness of our schools through the change in moral values, Humanism also promotes five politically motivated popular myths in today’s classrooms. They are;
1. Over-population, too many people on Earth
2. Shortage of natural resources, not enough resources to feed and sustain us.
3. Evolution, you came from pond scum and are going to dirt when you die.
4. One world government, we won’t survive without central political control of everything.
5. Socialism is a successful economic system.
All of these represent incomplete and erroneous information in texts for the political purposes of those who control text content. All these myths are FALSE.
1) Over-Population. As I ride around the US, I never cease to be amazed at the tremendous amount of empty land, and this is true all over the world. We are indebted to Gary Newell for the following illustration on population. “If we gave every person about two and one-half square feet, about enough space to stand and turn around, how much space is needed for the world population of six billion? They would all fit within the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida.” If that’s true then why do we have starvation in some parts of the world? Do we have a shortage of natural resources?
2) Shortage of Natural Resources. As a resource is perceived to be becoming scarce, as indicated by higher and higher costs, then creative thinking replaces what that resource provided with another resource or material that is more abundant and less costly to procure. For instance, cars were once nearly all steel in their structure and parts. As steel became more expensive, alternate materials were utilized, such as plastics. The most commonly cited illustration of the scarcity of natural resources is the country of India, where starvation is common. India produces sufficient food to feed all its population and export one-third to feed the other countries of Asia. Why then do they starve? Because they have a religious system that not only allows large amounts of food/grain to be eaten by the “sacred animals” but does not permit the people to eat the food walking among them (animals). Starvation in India is a religious, or spiritual darkness problem not a shortage of resources. In other cases, people may starve because of localized famine, crop failures, inclement weather, wars/conflicts, etc.
3) Evolution. For information on the lie of evolution see two of the books I’ve published ANSWERS For “The Hope That Is In You” and “Without 3 Miracles Darwin’s Dead.” There are video answers to your Christian Apologetics questions at http://www.sixdaycreaton.com.
4) Both One World Government & 5) Socialism are promoted in almost all public-school texts dealing with government, civics, social studies, etc. Neither one promotes individual “freedom.” as practiced in the US which isn’t in itself a biblical concept, but individual responsibility and liberty are. I’ve evaluated many educational resources and NEVER has either one of these political views been criticized or analyzed in an objective fashion. The economic and political situation in Venezuela in mid-2017 clearly illustrate Socialism’s failure.
More Humanist Examples
In keeping with the Humanist values in education, Dr. Pierce of Harvard University addressing 2000 social studies teachers in Denver, Colorado in 1973 stated; “Every child in America who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our founding fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of government…patriotism, nationalism, sovereignty… All of that proves the children are sick because the truly well individual is the one who has rejected all those things and is what I would call the true international child of the future.”
There was a time when, if social studies teachers are told that patriotism and national pride were to be condemned, we would have cried treason. Why not now!!
In a Christian school controversy in Nebraska in 1983-84, a news interview sums up the NEA and other Humanist groups views on Christian influence in education. “We (the state of Nebraska and the NEA) have to control church schools because fundamental, Bible-believing Christians do not have the right to indoctrinate their children in their faith, because, we the state, are preparing all children for the Year 2000 when America will be part of the One World Global Society and their children won’t fit in.” Quoted from; “Globalism, America’s Demise.” Treason Again!! Note: their objective is not only opposed to the principles that America was founded upon, but a rigid control of thoughts and actions of students.
A worksheet used in a local public middle school (grades 6-8) came into my hands that illustrates the absurd lengths used to promote value discussions in sexual areas which most parents don’t want to be discussed in the classroom. It uses a hypothetical situation to promote discussion focused on human sexuality. Place yourself in this classroom and imagine the discussion required to complete the activity. Extensive knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases would be required of 6th graders! Have you taught your 12-year old all about that?? This will embarrass many students and cause discussion that has NO redeeming value. This is a “modern” version of the lifeboat situation ethics discussion of earlier years. It also makes it seem normal to be sexually deviant. The content of the worksheet is:
The End of the World Has Come
Following the bombing, ten people are alive. The bomb shelter will hold five people. You have ten minutes to reach a group consensus on who is chosen. The following is all you know about the ten people:
25-YO male with Herpes Simplex Virus II
25-YO female cured of gonorrhea, sterile
60-YO male, father of 6 children, free of disease
32-YO female in the third stage of syphilis
25-YO female, three months pregnant, has untreated gonorrhea for two months
30-YO male has a chancre (visible inflamed sore) on lip (symptom of syphilis infection)
25-YO female, free of disease, has never had sexual relations
45-YO physician, single, dependent on amphetamines and barbiturates
28-YO male has pox (syphilis) in the second stage
20-YO female, first stage of syphilis, wife of 28-year old male above
Humanist Manifesto 3
Humanism is a system of doctrine that appears religious; however, humanists deny this and call their system secular humanism to remove the stigma of it being a religious system. Calling Humanism non-religious is a smoke screen because the “Humanist Manifesto” contains multiple religious statements. In several cases before the US Supreme Court Humanism has been defined as a religion. Here’s a summary.
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
Much like other religions, they meet weekly and have leaders called Counselors. There are congregations of Unitarian/Universalists and some liberal Christian churches that would identify themselves as Humanist in philosophy. They have several creedal statements, the latest of which is “Humanist Manifesto 3,” produced and signed in 2003. “Humanist Manifesto 2” (1973) is much more comprehensive. Here is the complete Humanist Manifesto III.
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
The life stance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continued to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.
This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism, not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following:
Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of the unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity and to make informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.
Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the life stance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.
Authors comment: How does this statement end up in abortions and death with dignity stances and practices? Even peace is the opposite of survival of the fittest, isn’t it?
(The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.
Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.
Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.
Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.
Public Domain
Authors comments: “Humanists recognize nature as self-existing,” is a non-scientific statement. Almost right after saying science is the best way to understand everything. They use a lot of words that mean one thing in the Judeo-Christian vocabulary, but their meaning in the Manifesto is different and entirely humanistic.
Humanist Success in Public Schools, Excluding God
The Humanists themselves have proclaimed victory in US public education. Secular Humanism tries to create a civilized society with the exclusion of God and His moral principles. Humanist Charles F. Potter writes, “Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?” (Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion,” 1930). Is this what’s happening? John Dewey, remembered for his efforts in establishing America’s current educational systems, was one of the first signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto. The Humanists have been influencing America’s education system for nearly a century and continue to teach children that God is imaginary and contrary to “science.”
Notice, in 1930 Potter calls Humanism a religion. Identifying themselves as humanists, you will find: atheists, agnostics, materialists, and even some liberal Christians. Read the manifestos, and you will see many noble principles for humankind, but notice the blatant rejection of any theistic view. They are tolerant of almost everything except Christianity, and the words humanists have for us are always bitter and angry. This is another proof that Christianity is true. The apostle Paul in Scripture describes their position masquerading as good but being evil in intent. Read Romans Chapters 1-3.
“And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.” —2 Corinthians 11:14–15
Christians who send their children to public schools need to recognize that humanist presuppositions are the foundation of all subjects their children are taught. As we’ll see, even in math! Humanist principles are strongly opposed to Christ. Responsible Christian parents must carefully monitor what their children are taught and correct whenever necessary. You will have to work very hard to counter this kind of teaching. The church loses many students because of the Humanist foundation in education. When children, who are brought up in Christian homes, go to college or just out on their own, they often “lose” their faith. I’ve counseled many parents whose child has returned from the first year of college to declare, “I don’t believe all that stuff about Jesus anymore!” Many college professors work hard to destroy Christian students’ faith. Ken Ham has written several books, which I recommend, about losing these students. Already Gone, Already Compromised and Ready to Return all by Ken Ham
https://answersingenesis.org/store/product/ready-reformation-set/?sku=40-1-464
Soon after Terry and I became Christians, we moved to Greenville, South Carolina with our two children. We settled at Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church, then pastored by Dr. Thomas Cross. As new Christians, we were uncertain if we should send our children to the church’s school or enroll them in the local public school. Those were the only two choices we had since homeschooling was not an option in 1978. Dr. Cross came visiting to review the school’s programs. This statement he made convinced us: “If you send your children to public school, for at least five hours a day, you put their vulnerable minds in the camp of the Enemy to be educated. They are taught anti-Christian, Humanist views in every subject. As a Christian parent, are you willing to do that?” Our conclusion was “We are not.” Both of our children went to Christian schools until they graduated high school.
