Posted on 12/11/2009 1:10:19 PM PST by gimme1ibertee
Hollywood & Howard Zinn’s Marxist education project by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2009
The two most important questions for society, according to the Greek philosopher Plato, are these: What will we teach our children? And who will teach them? Left-wing celebrities have teamed up with one of America’s most radical historians to take control of the classroom in the name of “social justice.” Parents, beware: This Hollywood-backed Marxist education project may be coming to a school near you.
On Sunday, December 13, the History Channel will air “The People Speak” – a documentary based on Marxist academic Howard Zinn’s capitalism-bashing, America-dissing, grievance-mongering history textbook, “A People’s History of the United States.” The film was co-produced/written/bankrolled by Zinn’s Boston neighbor and mentee Matt Damon. An all-star cast of Bush-bashing liberals including Danny Glover, Josh Brolin, Bruce Springsteen, Marisa Tomei, and Eddie Vedder, will appear. Zinn’s work is a self-proclaimed “biased account” of American history that rails against white oppressors, the free market, and the military.
Zinn’s objective is not to impart knowledge, but to instigate “change” and nurture a political “counterforce” (an echo of fellow radical academic and Hugo Chavez admirer Bill Ayers’ proclamation of education as the “motorforce of revolution.”) Teachers are not supposed to teach facts in the school of Zinn. “There is no such thing as pure fact,” Zinn asserts. Educators are not supposed to emphasize individual academic achievement. They are supposed to “empower” student collectivism by emphasizing “the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements.” School officials are not facilitators of intellectual inquiry, but leaders of “social struggle.”
Zinn and company have launched a nationwide education project in conjunction with the documentary. “A people’s history requires a people’s pedagogy to match,” Zinn preaches. The project is a collaboration between two “social justice” activist groups, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. Rethinking Schools recently boasted of killing a social studies textbook series in the Milwaukee school system because it “failed to teach social responsibility.” A Rethinking Schools guide on the September 11 jihadi attacks instructs teachers to “nurture student empathy” for our enemies and dissuade students from identifying as Americans. “It’s our job to reach beyond this chauvinism.” And a Rethinking Schools guide to early childhood education written by Ann Pelo disparages “a too-heavy focus on academic skills” in favor of “social justice and ecological teaching” for preschoolers.
Teaching for Change’s objective, in Obama-esque fashion, is to train students not to achieve actual proficiency in core academic subjects, but to inspire them to “become active global citizens.” Today’s non-achieving aspirants are tomorrow’s Nobel Peace Prize winners, after all.
No part of the school curriculum is immune from the social justice makeover crew. Zinn’s partners at Rethinking Schools have even issued teaching guides to “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers” – which rejects the traditional white male patriarchal methods of teaching computation and statistics in favor of p.c.-ified number-crunching:
“Rethinking Mathematics is divided into four parts. The first part is devoted to a broad view of mathematics that includes historical and cultural implications. Part Two includes nine classroom narratives in which teachers describe lessons they have used that infuse social justice issues into their mathematics curriculum. Included here…an AP calculus lesson on income distribution. The third part contains three detailed classroom experiences/lessons. These include a physical depiction of the inequitable distribution of the world’s wealth, the results of a student investigation into how many U.S. Presidents owned slaves, and a wonderful classroom game called ‘Transnational Capital Auction’ in which students take on the role of leaders of Third World countries bidding competitively for new factories from a multinational corporation.
Short lessons, provocative cartoons, and snippets of statistics are scattered throughout Rethinking Mathematics. A partial list of topics includes racial profiling, unemployment rate calculation, the war in Iraq, environmental racism, globalization, wealth distribution and poverty, wheelchair ramps, urban density, HIV/AIDS, deconstructing Barbie, junk food advertising to children, and lotteries.”
Our students will continue to come in dead last in international testing. But no worries. With Howard Zinn and Hollywood leftists in charge, empty-headed young global citizens will have heavier guilt, wider social consciences, and more hatred for America than any other students in the world.
The deciding factor in my quitting Microsoft and moving the family to northern Idaho was encountering Zinn’s ‘A Peoples History of America’ and related teaching materials (posters, etc) in our kids’ class room.
I wrote a letter to the principal and to the teacher involved explaining in exquisite detail just why we were removing our kids from the school. No response was ever received.
Zinn is trying to stay relevant. Obama hasn’t hired him as the czar of history yet so this is the next best thing.
HIDEOUS TO THE MAX!
The left always eats their own kind. This has happened in Russia, China, Cuba, etc. If the Zinn types accomplish their goal of establishing a totalitarian state in the U.S., then they will be among the first to be taken out and shot.
This is where most of us, including our Republican 'leadership' have failed - we refuse to take a stand on the nature and the substance of our kids' education. Those of us who homeschool have made the correct decision. We didn't homeschool, but we got our kids into an educational system where the chief sins were sins of omission rather than the diet of socialism, sheepery and outright lies taught in public schools today. It's much easier to fill in the blanks than to root out bad ideas.
Having said that, our Republican 'leaders' merely argue ove how much we're going to be taxed to fund public education. This amounts to nothing more than a debate over how many seats we're going to fund for a local porn theater. What is being taught and how it is being taught are the two most important questions.
We must take back our local school boards and remove Repub weaklings from office. That's a good start.
It is interesting to note how simplistic and condescending their agitprop pictures, posters and animations are.
They seem to love the “Rising fist of anger” icon so much that the safe school czar even tried to promote it in schools.
Why do they love the fisting icon so damned much? Are they all such simple minded idiots? They just love their red fist of anger waving in the air like a mean spoiled child raising angsty fist in anger at their parents.
>> The left always eats their own kind. This has happened in Russia, China, Cuba, etc. If the Zinn types accomplish their goal of establishing a totalitarian state in the U.S., then they will be among the first to be taken out and shot. <<
That is still of little comfort as we will have our land and most of us our lives taken from us...
Ever wonder why leftists and traitors do so well in Presidential elections in 21st century but lost in landslides in the 80’s? The school systems have been cranking out hundreds of thousands of indoctrinated leftists each year.
How did it come about that the words ‘social justice’ gained relevance or credence . It is a false premise and needs to be rejected at every turn. There is no such thing as social justice. Quit buying into it.
Not unless we stand up and fight. Plan to sell your life dearly should it come to that. These liars and cowards aren't used to having people stand up and say not just 'No', but HELL NO! to their plans.
We are homeschooling.
And we are very careful about what passes through our doors and into our children’s heads.
That’s the ticket - separation of school and state.
Just a sign of the forces stretching the USA apart, which will lead to the social and political earthquake we call CW2.
Thank you....couldn’t have said it any better!!
more lamposts...more rope....@ Ole Miss btw
glorious drive down Trace late last nite with number four in tow
"Say hello to my leetle friend."
Words escape me!!!
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