The Education Bus and Community Organizers

Conservatives used to believe in the true liberation of people from the enslavement by big and encroaching governments. You could hardly tell that today judging by the huge national debt they’ve escalated under a Republican president and a Republican Senate. They have been as profligate spenders as the Democrats, yet we still don’t have a wall to stop the invasion of illegals through the southern border.

Liberals are not really interested in liberty as the term implies, but want to conserve in perpetuity a system that oppresses voters, legal and illegal, and citizens, based on a euphemistically defined socialist/Marxist indoctrination by the government as the benevolent provider of everything without which life would cease to exist.

It does not seem to matter who is in power in Congress or the White House, Cultural Marxism is winning and destroying our own culture by leaps and bounds thanks in no small part to the education system which is now run by cultural Marxists.

There are some Republicans, RINOs, and Independents (those who cannot make up their minds that they are truly Democrats) among the sea of Democrats who run education at all levels, but they have no voice or influence to stop the indoctrinating curriculum and the Marxist community organizing instruction of America’s children.

Liberals, who now call themselves “progressives” even though the term “regressive” would be more appropriate, have constantly used the false narrative that the United States is a “democracy”, but the United States is a Constitutional Republic. 

“Progressives” from all walks of life, with a microphone, a camera, a grade book, or a journalistic pen in front of them, have repeated this lie constantly. Democrat low information voters eventually believed the ‘we are a democracy’ lie and echoed it as an indisputable truth.

A recent case in point, the annual conference of the National Education Association (NEA) which met in Houston, Texas, has hosted sessions on any social justice activism and Democrat political topics imaginable to the detriment of curriculum and instruction issues. http://www.aei.org/publication/nea-embraces-the-woke-agenda-but-votes-down-student-learning/

The 6,000 NEA attendees voted down the resolution “to re-dedicate itself to the pursuit of increased student learning in every public school in America.” Instead, the delegates endorsed “the fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade,” urged reparations for slave descendants, pledged their help with the 2020 U.S. Census, pledged support for the violent Black Lives Matter movement, urged the U.S. government to admit that the illegals crisis at the border is the U.S. government’s fault for destabilizing the Central American countries, and last, but not least, supported teaching the bizarre concept of “white fragility” produced by the “white supremacy culture.”

The NEA delegates seem to have relegated student learning to the back seat of the education bus. Racial justice, social justice, abortion, ethnic and minority affairs, illegal immigration, voting, and women’s issues took the front seats.

The community organizing aspect of NEA’s annual convention was further enhanced by the speakers, i.e., Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Bill de Blasio. NEA has 3 million members, but it is alleged that 60 percent of them have self-identified as Republicans and Independents. Did NEA’s socialist political platform represent them or teaching in general?

The most pressing problem that we face today is the indoctrination of our youth into Cultural Marxism. It is essential to redress the socialist direction this nation is driven into with the force of a leftist tidal wave.

But it will take more than 15 years, perhaps 30 to change this dangerous course back to the tenets of our constitutional republic especially when we have to fight our own brethren, Republicans and Democrats, bent on amending the Constitution under the excuse of reigning in out of control politicians. And you know instinctively it is a bad idea as Soros wants to have a Convention of States (COS). It is a red flag – a gut realization that they probably have their own global Constitution ready to go to replace our U.S. Constitution during a runaway COS. Should the COS run smoothly, and the delegates successfully amend our Constitution, since politicians ignore the current Constitution and lord over us with ever more intrusive legislation, an amended one would be equally ignored.

We must however continue to fight the powerful educational system and our own corrupt elected officials at all levels of government. They consider themselves the ultimate arbiters of wisdom to fundamentally transforming America into a global governance.

My Take on the Teacher of the Year Award

Photo credit: IJR Red

As a former teacher, I was annoyed but not at all surprised by the choice for this year’s Teacher of the Year Award. The recipient with a political agenda showed the nation what an “exceptional teacher” looks like. With her boorish and rude behavior during the ceremony at the White House, she bashed and disrespected our President in front of the entire nation and in front of school children who look up to teachers like her to be objective. Yet many indoctrinate their students into their twisted political world eight hours a day, not into the American-exceptionalism that they should.

President Trump, exhibiting class and respect, mentioned the “incredible devotion that has earned her the adoration, total adoration, of her students and colleagues, the school district, community, and the entire state.” https://www.facebook.com/ijrredpresents/videos/179722432727814/

The petty little ideologue was not just wearing an insufferable smirk the whole time, she was rude and ungrateful and refused to shake the president’s hand or clap when appropriate.  Honored for her “adoration” in the classroom, she could not muster the slightest propriety for the moment and the place.  

Her rudeness and lack of decorum are a disgrace to the profession. There are so many deserving teachers out there who work in the education trenches every day without being recognized for their work because their politics are of a different kind than the Democrat-sanctioned socialist plantation of Marxist adoration.

Selecting a Teacher of the Year begins at the local level and each school district has their own criteria that tend to match the national guidelines. You will be very surprised to know that parents and students have nothing to do with the selection process even though they say the nominee is adored and respected by the community which they serve. The high ranking administrators form a selection committee composed of administrators, teachers, educational service personnel, student support personnel, and past Teacher of the Year winners and nominees.

Some common denominators are membership in the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), with their financial support for the Democrat Party, and other university-sponsored organizations who are mills for future teachers.

Teaching awards are nothing but a Democrat popularity contest of who is the most progressive, outrageous, and anti-American progressive ideologues in good standing with the top administrators and other decision-makers who can send that person to the top of the heap.

“According to the criteria for the National Teacher of the Year Program, a Teacher of the Year should inspire all students to learn. Teachers who aspire to this award do not stick to the textbook or traditional methods of teaching.”

The nominees usually push the latest fad in education, currently the Common Core curriculum. The top nominees believe in global education, global citizenship, no borders, the anthropogenic global warming, the rights of the illegal aliens and refugees that trump those of American citizens, alternative lifestyles, Islam over Christianity, and deviant sexual behaviors promoted as the norm and introduced by force into the classroom as early as kindergarten in some states.

Mandy Manning, this year’s awardee, is an English teacher in Spokane, Washington, and teaches refugees and immigrant children from countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Myanmar, Mexico, and Tanzania. It is no surprise that a political person like her would be chosen as spokesperson for an entire profession. https://www.yahoo.com/news/mandy-manning-teacher-handed-trump-080024349.html

No mention is made whether these immigrant children are legal or illegal as it does not matter to liberals if we follow the law as long as we have more future Democrat Party voters in our midst.

Is it any wonder that such “educators” are turning our children into communist agitators and snowflakes, with no allegiance to our country, our history, our sovereignty, our flag, our pledge of allegiance, God, and to a sound education?

This teacher of the year affronted our President the entire time.  If she is the teacher of the year, the best and brightest that our country can produce, what must the rest of the teachers be like?

Based on the buttons she was wearing during the ceremony, a rainbow apple, Transgender Rights, Women’s March, and the letters she gave the President from her immigrant students, this person obviously puts the interests of immigrant children, refugee children, and a women’s movement that embarrasses at least half of this country’s female population ahead of America’s students’ interests.

Whatever happened to teaching reading, writing, American history, American exceptionalism, science, and American civics objectively, without the teacher’s political agenda being front and center eight hours a day?

 

Marginalized or Successful Indoctrinator

Photo Credit: Marijane Green

If you’ve ever been marginalized by progressives for your conservative views, for your anti-communist teaching philosophy and other divergent opinions, you were not alone. 

If you’ve worked in highly progressive academic environments and were not re-hired as adjunct, granted tenure, or were not even considered for tenure unless you belonged to organizations such as the NEA, AFT, or other Democrat-supporting organizations, you were not alone.

If you’ve worked in secondary education and were told that your opinions did not matter because the entrenched Democrat bureaucracy did things entirely different from what you perceive as common sense and logical in supporting an American education, you were not alone.

If you taught full-time or part-time and the Dean, Director, or Principal told you that you must use a certain textbook that you found offensive, or that you must teach or grade a certain way, dumb down the curriculum in order to allow everyone to avoid failure and pass students who otherwise did not deserve to pass but their parents were threatening to sue the school, you were not alone.

This is how the politics in education work today and have worked for quite some time. Incisive parents who were involved in their children’s education understood the schemes and fads early on and took measures to protect their children by home schooling them or putting them in private schools.

Other parents who were seldom seen at school or PTA meetings were oblivious, did not care who influenced their children’s world views, or were too trusting of those empowered to shape their children’s minds eight hours a day. Television, Hollywood, violent video games, alcohol and drugs did the rest.

And a small percentage of parents were only concerned that Johnny received free tuition and free meals, thus they did not have to be responsible or participate in the education of their progeny. Why bother if the state provided free education, free meals, and paid teachers?

Everybody knows that children see teachers as the ultimate authority and respect them. Some teachers are truly exceptional, others speak with authority in their subject area, and yet others are highly respected for their scholarship or as influential role models.

But all teachers are not created equal or driven by the same desire to promote American exceptionalism and to shape tomorrow’s American leaders and thinkers. Most of the students shaped today will be America’s busy bees and compliant followers who believe everything they are told without asking pertinent questions.

Parents blame their children’s problems on teachers and administrators. Administrators blame everything on the lack of funding or the “low” teacher salaries when compared to the private sector. But the private sector does not get three-month vacations each year. Unionized teachers strike because their salaries are deemed inadequate even though they are the best paid teachers in the country.

Corrupt politicians and dishonest bureaucrats who retire from government or are fired receive cushy and well-remunerated teaching assignments in private colleges around the country, tasked with teaching ethics in general, political ropes, or social justice.

Democrats and some Republicans in higher positions of power receive millions in book advances, idolized by the press and book reviewers. Students flock to their classes so that they too can learn how to lie and cheat their way to the top in the name of social justice.

Teachers say that parents are the problem, their lack of involvement in their children’s education. Parents are not teaching their progeny manners, respect for authority, how to get along with other children without throwing a temper tantrum, lack of modesty in clothing and shoes, obscenely priced when compared to a teacher’s entire outfit, but expect teachers to provide pencils, pens, crayons, glue, scissors, writing paper, and other classroom supplies to their students.

Teachers find fault with parents who never show up at school regularly, who never help their children do homework, or check their homework every night. Some of their questions are:

-          Do parents help their children prepare for the next school day?

-          Do they punish their children for being disruptive elements in the classroom or do parents   complain to the principal that the teacher is unfairly singling out their child and thus she/he is the source of the problem?

-          Do they blame the teacher when their child cheats on a test instead of making their child responsible for their behavior?

-          Do they teach their children to listen in class and behave properly, respecting authority?

It is certainly difficult for a teacher to be both educator and parent to someone else’s child, especially when young teachers don’t have children of their own yet, are not allowed to discipline students in any way for fear of lawsuits, and must provide justification in writing for their lesson plans every day.

Using their students as pawns, public school teachers and administrators have nominated themselves the socialist political compass of our country and have allowed students to walk out of the classroom several times in order to protest the Democrat cause d’jour instead of doing the jobs they were hired to do, teach our children.

Teaching is an art and cannot be taught by the College of Education or by the latest education fad but it can be forced in a certain direction. Unfortunately, in order to keep their jobs, most teachers use all the prescribed lesson plans, worksheets, and textbooks provided by Common Core or whatever orders come down from the administration via the Department of Education which attaches their orders to school funding and grants.

Even though President Trump had expressed his intent to end Common Core in our public schools, the current Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, a wealthy business woman and educational activist with no experience in public education, has made no effort to end Common Core which is very much alive and well in most of our public and private schools.

Whether the teacher is marginalized or a successful indoctrinator protected by the teacher’s union or by tenure, at the end of the day they must do as they are told in order to stay employed.

The Role of Education in America-Phobia

“I never let my schooling interfere with my education.”     -  Mark Twain

Poster in D.C. mall advertising citizenship
in the global economy
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

Have God and fervent prayers saved America temporarily from the scourge of global communism by electing Donald Trump for president? It was the hand of God that acted through the voting population to elect Donald Trump but it is up to his chosen administration to implement his promises.

If the President Elect is going to deliver a fraction of his campaign assurances, we are going to make tremendous progress in addressing our huge national debt and our national security.

There is a lot more to be redressed that has been deliberately diminished, fundamentally transformed for the worse, and even destroyed in the last ten years, i.e., the military, jobs, the economy, education, health care, family, faith, our personal freedoms, and our foreign policy.

No matter what problems we attempt to solve, unless we change the “global citizen” course of our educational system dictated from the Department of Education in Washington and the States’ Department of Education, we are doomed to fail, and Common Core will remain the curriculum tool of the global citizenship. America will continue on the globalist path of self-destruction and irrelevancy.

Charter schools will give marginalized students an opportunity for a better school choice, however, there is no guarantee that the indoctrination into Marxism will stop. Those teachers come from the same pool of the College of Education licensed teachers, the corps of “social justice” and “collectivist” thinking.

Socialist teachers will continue to be the vectors of Marxist indoctrination because they are rolled out with little effort on the College of Education assembly line and are encouraged to become proud members of the National Education Association.

Unfortunately for America, these socialist teachers have our children’s eyes, ears, and minds eight hours a day, ample time to shape them into the communist and environmentalist drones required by the 21^st century “social justice” and impossible equality know-nothing workforce.

Sadly, the establishment no longer educates teachers like some of my former colleagues who taught real American history, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may have been to some. They taught Civics and brought speakers to their classes who have experienced or survived communism, the Holocaust, and various wars. They infused pride in our American culture and honored our American exceptionalism. No revisionist history was taught and Howard Zinn’s popular textbook, “A People’s History of the United States,” was not used. David Greenberg wrote in 2013 about “Howard Zinn’s influential mutilations of American history.” https://newrepublic.com/article/112574/howard-zinns-influential-mutilations-american-history

One day a year students were required to eat just soup so that they could feel what it was like to stand in soup lines during the Great Depression. This type of “fasting” was uncomfortable for the coddled generation who felt deprived of their abundant choices in the cafeteria. Many complained bitterly when their tummies were churning empty.

Posters were hung in the hallway for a week, showing in grisly detail the Holocaust atrocities committed by the German National Socialist Party (the NAZIS) against the Jews, the gypsies, the gays, the priests, the handicapped, and anybody else who did not fit the insane profile of the perfect race as designed by Hitler’s Social Democrat party. No safe spaces for these students to flee from reality -- Judy wanted her students to never forget what evil atrocities monsters were capable of towards their fellow man.

A Christmas Cantata was organized every year and a Christmas tree was proudly decorated by students of all religions who enjoyed the tradition. A staff member dressed as Santa Claus; faculty and students took turns having their photographs taken. There was no “war on Christmas” then and people wished each other ‘Merry Christmas’ instead of the leftist politically correct ‘Happy Holidays.’

Ten years ago, an administrator thought it wise to bring an imam to school to indoctrinate a rapt audience of high school students to the wonders of Islam and the “respect” they afford women. The faculty stood silent, disapproving, but fearful of losing their jobs if they spoke out. Some nodded in agreement with the imam; one of his sons will be caught years later trying to join ISIS with his girlfriend.

Diversity did not have to be mandated by government, our society was already plenty diverse and tolerant but not self-destructive. Legal immigrants assimilated into our country, were proud to be here, learned English, but retained their traditions and language at home. Now, the government-imposed progressive and diversity at every level is splitting society into divided groups, at odds with each other, creating micro-societies within our country, each rooting for the hellhole they’ve escaped from, or pushing the agenda they were paid to advocate.

The America-phobia ginned up by the progressive left has reached a new crescendo. They are projecting and displaying all their hatred and intolerance for Americans, while glorifying third world nations and primitive cultures as better than our civilization, vilifying hard-working ordinary Americans who happen to disagree with them. America-phobes want to change everything in the image of their Marxist ideology, utopian nonsense that has failed fully in every country where it had been forced upon the disarmed population.

Progressives no longer hide their intolerance and disdain for Caucasians and conservatives, inventing terms such as “white privilege,” “micro aggression,” “pathological bias,” “ordinary prejudice,” “pathological bigotry,” requiring collegiate “safe spaces” for their frightened progeny, the Snowflake Generation, telling them lies that all conservatives are racist and bigoted, and are going to harm legal and illegal immigrant children.

At the same time, the progressive and Islamo-phile MSM are busy turning a blind eye to all the violence, mayhem, and crimes that Islamists have committed in this country and around the globe. Nobody in the Christian population at large has attacked, killed, or maimed any Muslims. However, most terror attacks that have occurred in this country in the last fifteen years had been orchestrated and executed by radical Islam.

Symbols of pride and Americanism, our flag, our National Anthem have been burned and disrespected; monuments and veteran cemeteries have been desecrated without much note or mention by the main stream media.

The cable news media ignored the massive fires in Tennessee while spending an inordinate amount of time on the Oakland fire even though both events were tragic. The MSM focused non-stop on paid rioters around the country, on their mercenary and violent demonstrations against the President Elect with whom they vitriolically disagree. Innocent bystanders were subjected to their hateful wrath and suffered physical injuries.

Since the presidential election was not to their liking, the intolerant left is now trying to subvert and destroy the Electoral College process. Baseless recount challenges have been made in three states and millions were raised overnight by the Green Party candidate. Additionally, alleged threats have been made to electors to change their votes before December 19.

Our future depends on who is going to win the war on our “borders, language, and culture,” on our sovereignty, the leftist America-phobes or the America-philes? Unless we change the global communist course and Common Core content of the public education and collegiate education of our children, the future looks uncertain.

 

 

Low Information Voters in the Information Age

As a former college teacher, I know why idealistic young people vote with their hearts and not based on logic or with their pocketbooks. They have yet to mature into serious tax paying adults.

They lack a solid economic education because they are no longer required to take Economics classes in school and, if they do, are often exposed the entire semester to endless graphs that contribute very little to their understanding of how the economy works ; they are unable to put all the puzzle pieces together, they just build beautiful graphs.

Young voters are easily duped and charmed by charismatic, good-looking politicians who deliver scripted and articulate speeches devoid of truth and logic.

They are naïve and idealistic, holding jobs that pay so little that their meager contributions to society get lost in the economic translation.

They still don’t know how the economy works, where money comes from, how it is created, who sets the interest rates, how international trade is handled, or how the so-called Federal Reserve System’s fractional reserve banking creates/prints money out of thin air to the detriment of their pockets.

Once they graduate, after social promotions from grade to grade by those pushing affirmative action, or by those under pressure to justify standardized test scores tied to budgeting, they are not ready for real life prime time.

They are taught by the Common Core curriculum to feel and not think logically, to be community organizers from first grade, and to be angry in order to obtain “social justice.” They are told it’s fine to be wrong in math as long as they can justify their wrong answers and feel good about it.

They receive undeserved awards for participation even if they walk across a stage without tripping. They are told so many times, they are special, that they begin to believe it and make no effort to achieve anything.

Collectivism is good, individualism and creativity, thinking outside the box, and achieving exceptionalism are bad labels.

The media and the police treat terrorist attacks on people by underage racist psychopaths with no capacity for remorse or ability to discern right from wrong as a game, euphemistically calling it the “Knockout Game.” These are people who are going to vote at some point.

The deliberate dumbing down of education driven by teachers and administrators with a liberal political agenda and by the National Education Association, a union that makes it impossible to fire bad teachers, graduates many Americans who are unprepared and primed for failure.

Public school teachers, mentors placed on unshakable pedestals, come from the ranks of the weakest college students – they would be very hard pressed to pass some of the tests their students are taking; without an answer key, they would be lost.

Relaxing and lowering the standards of education to the lowest denominator for political reasons and self-esteem has been driven by a symbiotic relationship between the College of Education and the Department of Education who formulate the curriculum in education.

Fear of lawsuits and physical attacks from students and parents force many teachers to pass students who would otherwise fail multiple classes. The threat of contract non-renewal or firing by the administration if teachers fail undeserving students is also a real issue.

Many teachers are now forced, including via the onerous Common Core, to emphasize self-esteem over competition, the collective over individual achievement. Virginia Beach elementary schools are getting rid of the Honor Roll and the principal’s list. Why let achievement and hard work harm the self-esteem of lazy students? http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/virginia-beach-elementary-schools-ditching-honor-roll

Parents no longer teach their kids a solid work ethic, pride in personal achievement, and shame of failure. They protest and threaten law suits if Johnny does not cut the grade, it must be the racist teacher’s fault.

Apathetic parents are no longer involved in their children’s education, abdicating their jobs to government strangers who mold and influence their kids’ future.

Scandal after scandal of overt corruption and lawlessness overwhelm low information voters who depend on comedians to get their news and information. It is too tiresome to process the deliberate manufactured crisis after crisis. They lose track easily because their minds are on cruise control, sharply focused on texting or the latest social media game.

There is no interest in real history because textbooks reconstruct events and historical documents, often replacing them with the latest liberal drivel masked as authoritative scholarship.

The government indoctrination in schools is evident in the many president-worshipping videos on the web and the communist and “social justice” written assignments given in different grades.

Few teach about pride in America’s achievement, history, and generosity, accomplishments that have lifted billions out of poverty and misery, giving Europeans freedom from Nazi oppression and a free economic fresh start.

Three free meals a day in school, free housing, day care, food, health care, Obama phones, and utilities have created a generational welfare dependency and complacency that does not involve patriotism or love for one’s country, just worship of government.

Adults are overwhelmed. There is too much information, too many sources, and inadequate time. People lack the patience or the ability to discern what is reliable and what is unreliable. Too much information does not necessarily lead to thinking that leads to an informed opinion.

Why wouldn’t 50 percent of Americans care about what is happening to their country and to themselves? Lulled by a false sense of security, by welfare derived from negative income taxes and earned income tax credits, the low information class votes for more freebies, more enslavement to a government that only cares about its citizens’ blind voting allegiance.