In that regard you are 100% correct! I make certain that I tell my psych classes that the stated purpose of psychology is to (quote from the TEXT): "Predict and control human behavior!
In sociology, it's socialism/communism/GLOBALISM all the way. I made my students count the number of times the word Global was used in the 4th chapter and all it's various derivatives (global, globalization, globalized economy you get the drift?) over the entire 25 page chapter. It totaled out to 125 incidences! That's five times a page! What is the basic tenet of education? Repeat and remember. If you say it often enough it becomes internalized and ... true. I hate my text book and make no bones about it. Another example from the text this time on so called "gun violence." The text gives a generalized number of the folks killed each year by handguns. I'm also careful to delineate the fact that the figures given don't reflect the true nature of the incidents. The text doesn't say how many were bad guys killing bad guys or GOOD guys killing bad guys or even the number of suicides or accidents! The clear connotation that will be communicated is that guns are simply evil. That in itself is evil. I have fought the liberal agenda (for more on this see my FR home page) in the public schools for 20+ years and each year it grows worse and worse. Again, take a look at my FR home page and you might agree that I'm one of those exceptions. If not, well I take no exception to that. lol That's just Psych & Soc.
You should see the lies and perversions of the truth in my American Gov't and Economics texts. The entire chapter on the Federal reserve is just one huge LIE. In Government that part of the Bill of Rights especially those dealing with the 2nd and 10th Amendments, also huge lies. I don't disagree with you in that, but I teach because like the pebble thrown in the venerable still pond, there is no telling how far the ripple effect will spread.
Two examples of that:
A few years ago, I had a kid I taught that was in a really rough crowd. Gang kid, into drugs and guns and I could tell he was going to die ugly and soon if he managed to graduate. He did well in my class, possibly the only class in which he got decent grades. But graduate he did. He dropped from sight and I didn't see or hear from him again for a couple of years. Then one day he walks into my classroom and he's wearing the uniform and insignia of a Navy SEAL. Coulda knocked me over with a feather! Imagine how I felt when he told me that I was the only reason. Something I'd said somewhere in those classes had caught and fired his imagination. Enough to give him something to hold him together, get him off the streets and into the military. You ever had some kid say that about what you did for a living? That's why educators are important. And it's true as well that many many more teachers will discourage their kids to get them AWAY from the military, but if they encourage them into other valid fields of endeavour like the Law or medicine or a good trade, then that's all good too. So, I think you're dead wrong.
Example number two: My very best friend is a retied Lieutenant Colonel of Army Special Forces. Late in his career, he was deep in the bowels of the Pentagon strategizing special operations policy and dictates with a bunch of other senior officers and they were discussing geopolitical issues when my friend suddenly piped up with the name of OUR high school history teacher and he said: Look Here's what Mister _________ had to say about THAT.... and US military policy was fomented on the idle comments from a high school teacher from many years before! So you see, that stone tossed into that deep pond can have huge effects. I'm not saying these officers went blindly with that comment but I'm sure it was a factor, especially if the others had similar knowledge. I was an active duty army officer for just four years 1980-84 and in the reserves another 10 years. In all that time, I trained a lot of troops in the skills of an infantryman. A lot of those guys went on to engage in some hot combat and later wrote me as to how that training we engaged in, saved their lives when it was all on the line. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the stories my inner city students have come back and related to me. Like it or not, teaching is the only profession in the world that ... creates other professions. Including yours.
“Like it or not, teaching is the only profession in the world that ... creates other professions. Including yours.”
Nope. I’m an autodidact. [Wrote five paragraphs about my accomplishments but decided not to bore you with my biography.]
A little hubris there too, I think. Some teachers might help some individuals learn things that are useful in whatever profession they choose to enter, but teachers don’t produce those professions, the inventors and discoverers of new products, processes, and methods of producing goods and performing services create professions, which they could not possibly have learned from teachers, because those things didn’t exist until the creators created them. They in turn provide teachers with that new knowledge to teach.
I’m glad you are proud of your accomplishments. Everyone should be sure they are doing what is right for them and not let anyone denigrate their choices.
I appreciate very much your comments about psychology, sociology, and the text books that are being used and would like to have more first-hand information about those if you ever care to extend it. Do your write? (I know you have to write in your profession, I mean for publication.)
Hank