EDUCATION THROUGH THE 20TH CENTURY
Margaret Brogley - July 4, 2003
Today, we have gathered here to celebrate our nation's birthday and the freedoms given to us by our Founding Fathers. Are we keeping them? Let us see if we are, as I take you through the twentieth century of education reform in my own hometown of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Please note the dates and events I relate to you. They are all applicable, not only in Fort Smith but in Anytown, U.S.A. in varying degree.
As the story goes, Representative Asa Hutchinson was speaking to a Christian school in Fort Smith about his experiences in Washington, D.C. When he finished, he opened the session to questions and answers. One little five or six year old boy raised his hand and asked, "While you were there, did you see George Washington?" With a perfectly straight face, Asa answered, "No, I didn't, but Strom Thurmond did!"
I haven't seen George Washington either, but I'm not far behind Strom, so I've seen and heard about as much as he has. And in a few years, I too will be history.
According to today's standards my family was poor; our Fort Smith home was sparsely furnished. There were only two books: the King James version of the Holy Bible and a huge 1915 edition of the unabridged Webster dictionary. There were no newspapers or magazines. My parents nor anyone else read to me and my siblings. And, of course, I was not reading on two books; they were too big to handle. According to the standards of the educrats, I should have become a complete idiot. How did I escape joining demonstrations, crying, "Peace, peace! Make love; not war!"?
I entered the first grade in 1921 before John Dewey and his comrades' influence reached Fort Smith. Dewey was a dedicated socialist/humanist who gained control of education around the turn of the century. I suggest you study socialism and read the Humanist Manifesto that Dewey signed in the mid '30s. Then you will understand why the children have been dumbed down and demoralized.
As far as I can learn the classics were the first to slowly disappear. Then consolidation began. The idea of consolidation was well underway by 1919. According to the statistics of the Arkansas Department of Education, we had 5,112 school districts in Arkansas in 1920 when we began consolidating. By 1925 my fifth grade teacher insisted that we kids encourage our parents to vote for the 18 mil amendment that was to be on the ballot because the schools were in dire need of money. If consolidation lowered school costs, as we are told, why were we in need of more money in 1925? Does consolidation lower costs? I say, no; it is not about cost. It is about control. A few can be controlled more easily than many.
In 1931, Mr. James W. Reynolds, who was an American History teacher and a recent graduate of Columbia University Teachers College, told the class there was a move afoot to make the children wards of the state. Of course, I didn't believe him; no parent would allow that! Unfortunately I have lived to see it happening. Three or four years ago I attended an early childhood conference in Atlanta when former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Reily and several people from foreign countries were great speakers. The entire thrust of the whole conference was to enroll the child at birth. At the time I thought of Mr. Reynolds' statement years ago. So now we have the push for preschool. First was the push for kindergarten, now preschool. This is called gradualism. If not stopped, the child will eventually be enrolled at birth, for we are following the Russian pattern.
By 1950, my students were having trouble understanding the printed page and I wondered why. By 1956, we all learned why when the book entitled Why Johnny Can't Read was published. No phonics being taught! No wonder the classics were eliminated early on. A few teachers claim they are teaching phonics, but other teachers claim that it is mingled with whole language which is very confusing to the child.
At Northside High in Fort Smith, I taught sewing only. When the girls wanted more than one year of sewing, I added tailoring and later pattern drafting and draping which were more on the college level. For the final project of the year in drafting, the girls had to find a picture in a magazine of a dress they wanted to make and then copy it. One girl, Zenda, came with a Cecil Chapman design of a strapless bouffant ball gown that had solid beading on the bodice. Then the beads became more and more scarce until there were no beads at the hemline. I took one look at it and said, "Oh, no, you can't make that!" "Yes, I can," she replied. "No, you don't have time," I answered. "I'll take time," she said. "Look, if you make that dress, you won't have time for your other classes, so I won't let you." But I couldn't talk her out of it. Her heart was set on that dress. Finally, I struck a bargain with her. I said, "O.K. Make your pattern, put the dress together, plan the beading and you do half the beading on the front bodice. Then you can let your mother finish the beading." She made the dress of pale blue satin and when finished it was the most beautiful dress I have ever seen. So beautiful that it was displayed in the Boston Store window. After church the following Sunday evening, I went to the store to view the dress. A couple of soldiers from Camp Chafee walking by stopped to admire it. One of them said, "Now, that's what I call real sewing." Since Zenda was a senior, she wore it to her senior prom. I didn't know it at the time, but years later she told me that her mother wouldn't let her put it on until it had been insured for $1,000. Now, $1,000 was a lot of money in the early '50s!
I tell you this story not for my own aggrandizement. All the accolades go to the girl. She had the desire, the drive, and the ability to make it. I tried to nix the project. I tell you the story to show how much education has deteriorated. I could cry every time I think of it because by the early '70s I struggled to get the girls to even stitch a straight seam. One day while I was struggling with a girl, she stopped, looked at me with a near sneer on her face and said, "Well, you just don't know how to teach!"
In 1957, I heard Nikita Kruchev over the radio say that Russia would take us over and that we would pay for our own destruction. I didn't believe it.
In a 1959 meeting the teachers were treated to New Math. The "expert" told us how to teach it. I thought, "Why? It will only confuse the children." And confuse them it did. A few years later a pupil looked at me with a blank stare when I told her to make a 5/8" seam (which is basic in sewing). As time went by more and more girls came to class ignorant of simple fractions. Therefore, I began opening the school year saying, "Girls, get out your tape measures. Do you see those little black marks? Each one of them is an eighth. When I tell you to make a 5/8" seam, I want you to count five of them; then you'll have it." And I would hope they could count that far!
A few months ago I learned that we had signed an agreement with Russia in 1958 to cooperate with them in education! Is that why we were taught New Math in 1959? Did Kruchev know in 1957? I think he did.
During the mid-sixties schools received federal aid which is unconstitutional, and one of the worst things happened to the public schools. At that time the quality of education took a nose dive. In came situation ethics, sex education, sensitivity training, drug education, death education, self esteem, group learning, team teaching, Fabian socialist economics, and a whole host of other programs detrimental to real education. That is why teachers had to attend seminars and be retrained.
Drs. Abram Maslow, Carl Rogers, and William Coulson were responsible for situation ethics which teaches the children that anything is O.K. if it seems right; in other words, do it if it feels good. Maslow and Rogers have gone on for their rewards; but Dr. Coulson is still living. I met him five or six years ago, and as we were introduced, I said, "So, you are the one responsible for all the discipline problems in my classes!" He said, "I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?" I could because he has been trying to repair the damage that the trio had caused. However, the discipline problems continue, and I can see the effect of situation ethics even today throughout society.
In 1969, Dr. Bessie Moore of the Arkansas Department of Education went around the state promoting economics because, supposedly, everyone was ignorant of the subject. The Fort Smith conference was held all day every day for a week and was attended by 200-300 area teachers. The guest speaker to open the conference was from the University of California at Davis. He hadn't been speaking more than five minutes when I told the teacher next to me that he was promoting Fabian Socialist Economics. I had no more than made that statement when he began extolling the late great Lord Keyens, the father of Fabian Socialist Economics. I said, "See!" But the teacher didn't know who Keyens was. And I couldn't find anyone who knew the kind of economics we were being taught. So, evidently the teachers took it back to the classroom, teaching the children to rely on the federal government. How did I know? While in London, I took a short economics course from Sir Stafford Cripps who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and a socialist. Shortly after I returned home, I read that he had been elected president of the Fabian Socialist Society.
I'll have to leave the stories of the tragedies of sensitivity training (mid-sixties) and sex education (1969) for another time. There is not enough time for me to tell you in this 30 minute slot.
In 1970, an "expert" was brought to Northside High to help us deal with a drug problem if we should ever have one. As I left the meeting, I told the person with me that with such a program we would have a drug problem. Within three years I smelled marijuana in the halls for the first time in my life. Keep in mind that I had graduated from that school and had been teaching there more than twenty-five years before smelling the drug; but only after 2-3 years after listening to the "expert." Incidentally, Dr. William Coulson says that the D.A.R.E. program (which he helped write) used in schools is not effective.
By 1973 the discipline problems were so intense that a few teachers from the Classroom Teachers Association went to the superintendent about the problem. He tried to sidetrack them with the salary schedule but they told him it could wait -- the discipline was more important. I don't know what was done, but when we returned in the fall, all was "quiet on the Western Front." For several years there was peace in the classroom, but I could see trouble beginning to brew again by the time I retired.
I took an early retirement because of a back injury in 1978, so I have lost the "classroom touch." However, education is my love so I keep in touch by reading, researching, attending conferences, testifying before senate and house education committees, etc.
Today we are being faced again with educational reform. I cringe every time I hear the word "reform." The definition of "reform" is: to make better by removing faults, to correct, or to make better by stopping abuses. Is education any better now than 40 or 50 years ago? No! We have been reforming education over a hundred years, and each time it gets worse. Today's reform is nothing but change, and constant change produces chaos which is needed to overthrow this country, as Kruchev predicted in 1957. And you are paying for it. It is my opinion that educrats have always had that goal in mind.
Governor Huckabee is traveling the state to preach education reform, and he is very convincing. Will education be improved? Don't bet on it! If all the educrats during the last century didn't improve it, what makes you think Huckabee can? He is only regurgitating information fed to him by the educrats who are responsible for destroying education in the first place.
Governor Huckabee is following the advice of the puppets of a group who would destroy our country. We have the enemy within. Joseph McCarthy named many of them and although he has been smeared the last fifty years, the Venona papers published recently have proved him correct.
After signing the education agreement with Russia in 1958, the schools received untold detrimental programs in the '60s and '70s. We signed another agreement in 1980 and received O.B.E. We signed another agreement in 1985 and received Goals 2000 and School-to-Work legislation. Vladimir Turchenko, a Soviet educational theorist, wrote a book in 1976 entitled The Scientific and Technological Revolution and the Revolution in Education. Get a copy of the Goals 2000 legislation and compare it with Turchenko's book. You will conclude the legislation was lifted right out of Turchenko's book.
Now, Governor Huckabee is promoting the latest legislation, titled "No Child Left Behind" which builds on O.B.E. and Goals 2000.
Friends, we are following the Soviet system!
Wake up, America! WAKE UP!
This is a 20-minute speech that Margaret Brogley gave at the Fayetteville Freedom Fest on the 4th of July.
|
Margaret Brogley PING!
