The philosophy of the classroom in this generation will be the philosophy of politics, government and life in the next. —Abraham Lincoln
UNDERSTANDING what is happening today in America's schools would be impossible without a knowledge of what radical educators proposed over sixty years ago. Without a comprehensive overview of how they planned to change the nation's way of life and culture, few will believe that the "horrible examples"
described and documented in this book could actually be happening.
The goal, which the radical educators spelled out in their writings and speeches, was using the schools to create "a new social order." By 1934, they had enough clout and influence to control most teacher training institutions, the rewriting of many textbooks and the largest organization of teachers, the National Educa- tion Association.
Implementation of their plans in the 60 years since has dramatically changed America's culture and ways of living and the lives of several generations of young Americans, many of whom are not now so young.
Known as "progressivists," or "Frontier Thinkers,"
the reformers were disciples of John Dewey, head of the prestigious Teachers College at Columbia University in New York. He was the nation's most influential educator in the first half of the 20th Century. By the 1950s fully 20% of all American school superintendents and 40% of all teacher college heads had received
advanced degrees under Dewey at Columbia. As an atheist and socialist, Dewey co-authored the revolu- tionary, anti-God, Humanist Manifesto I in 1934.
In the forefront of Dewey's "Frontier Thinkers," as the group called themselves, were Dr. George Counts, professor of education at Columbia, and Dr. Harold Rugg. Dewey's theories had been concerned chiefly with teaching methods. Counts and Rugg, known as
"hard progressivists" added the concept of using the schools as an instrument for "building a new social order."
Harold Rugg concentrated on training teachers and writing teaching materials and books. In his book, The Great Technology, written for teachers in 1933, Rugg said:
A new public mind is to be created. How? Only by creating tens of millions of new individual minds and welding them into a new social mind. Old stereotypes must be broken up and new "climates of opinion" formed in the neighborhoods of America.
Later in his book, Rugg defined how the schools were to be used to transform American political and economic institutions and create the new "public mind"
which would accept complete government control of the individual:
...through the schools of the world we shall disseminate a new conception of government—-one that will embrace all of the collective activities of men; one that will postulate the need for scientific control and operation of economic activities in the interest of all people.
Note that Rugg did not say "a new type of govern- merit" but a "new conception of government." Rugg was proposing that while the outward forms of government would stay the same its functions and powers would be
Using Schools To Create A New Social Order 41 t r a n s f o r m e d a n d e x p a n d e d . T h i s c o u l d b e a c - c omplished, he said, in three ways:
First and foremost, the development of a new philosophy of life and education which will be fully appropriate to the new social order; second, the building of an adequate plan for the production of a new race of educational workers; third, the making of new activities and materials for the curriculum.3 He cooperated with George Counts on the first and second phases of the program while he played a major role in the rewriting of textbooks and curriculum materials to produce the "new philosophy of life and
education."
A CONTROLLED ECONOMY
Dr. Counts made clear that the changes he envisioned
would result in:
... a coordinated, planned and socialized economy.
Accomplishing such a drastic remaking of America would involve many changes, Counts admitted. He said:
Changes in our economic system will, of course, require changes in our ideals.
Counts saw no wrong in abandoning even the tradi- tional concepts of morality to achieve his goals. He pointed out in his book, The Soviet Challenge To America that even in Russia...
...new principles of right and wrong are being forged.
TEACHERS CHALLENGED TO SEIZE POWER
To achieve the "new social order," Counts, in 1932, called for teachers of the nation to provide the impetus.
In his monograph, Dare the School Build a New Social Order? Counts wrote:
That the teachers should deliberately reach for power and then make the most of their conquest is my firm conviction. To the
extent that they are permitted to fashion the curriculum and procedures of the school they will definitely and positively influence the social attitudes, ideals and behavior of the com- ing generation.
Counts published his Dare the School Build a New Social Order? in 1932. Some would say, "That's an interesting bit of ancient history. We're living over 65 years later." That's true, of course, but Counts monograph is still used in training teachers and ad- ministrators today. For example, the widely used philosophy of education text, Philosophical Founda- tions Of Education, by Howard Ozman and Samuel Craver reprints key parts of Counts' monograph includ- ing the call for teachers to reach for power quoted above.
GET CONTROL OF THE NEA TEACHERS UNION
In "reaching for power" the "Frontier Thinkers moved in two directions as Rugg and Counts advocated They rewrote the textbooks and in his call for teachers to grab for power, Counts said:
Through powerful organizations they might at last reach the public conscience and come to exercise a larger measure of control over the schools than hitherto.
Counts and his fellow "Frontier Thinkers" in their grab for power gained the prestige of the largest profes- sional teachers organization. They captured the top jobs and control of the National Education Association At the 72nd annual meeting of the NEA in Washington, D.C. in July 1934, Dr. Willard Givens, then a California school superintendent, in a report entitled, Education
for a New America, said:We are convinced that we stand today at the verge of a great culture...But to achieve these things many drastic changes must be made. A dying laissez-faire must be completely
Using Schools To Create A New Social Order 43 destroyed, and all of us, including the owners, must be sub- jected to a large degree of social control.
A year after delivering this call for destruction of free enterprise and individual freedom (laissez-faire), Givens was named executive secretary of the NEA, a position he held for 17 years until his retirement in 1952. As will be detailed in Chapter 11, the NEA has become possibly the nation's most powerful lobbying organization. It doesn't just lobby for more money for education. In the past decade NEA conventions annual- ly pass a host of non-education, culture-transforming resolutions supporting abortion, homosexuality, radi- cal feminism, nuclear disarmament, world govern- ment, etc.
In the process of using America's schools to create "a new social order," John Dewey's progressivist "Frontier Thinkers" also significantly dumbed down the basic education given to America's young people—the fruits of which were seen in Chapter 1. By the late 1950s, many voices of alarm were being heard. One of the most influential was Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine and our modern nuclear Navy.
In the late 1950s, just 25 years after the Dewey's
"Frontier Thinker" disciples moved to take control of America's schools, Rickover spoke out, saying:
America is reaping the consequences of the destruction of traditional education by the Dewey-Kilpatrick experimen- talist philosophy...Dewey's ideas have led to elimination of many academic subjects on the ground that they would not be useful in life...The student thus receives neither intellectual training nor the factual knowledge which will help him under- stand the world he lives in, or to make well-reasoned decisions in his private life or as a responsible citizen.17
WHAT DID JOHN DEWEY REALLY BELIEVE?