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Title: The Role of 'Educators'
Source:
Townhall.com
URL Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/thom ... -educators-n1482868/page/full/
Published: Jan 8, 2013
Author: Thomas Sowell
Post Date: 2013-01-08 21:21:54 by Abcdefg
Keywords: None
Views: 1852
Comments: 3
Many years ago, as a young man, I read a very interesting book about the rise of the Communists to power in China. In the last chapter, the author tried to explain why and how this had happened. Among the factors he cited were the country's educators. That struck me as odd, and not very plausible, at the time. But the passing years have made that seem less and less odd, and more and more plausible. Today, I see our own educators playing a similar role in creating a mindset that undermines American society. Schools were once thought of as places where a society's knowledge and experience were passed on to the younger generation. But, about a hundred years ago, Professor John Dewey of Columbia University came up with a very different conception of education -- one that has spread through American schools of education, and even influenced education in countries overseas. John Dewey saw the role of the teacher, not as a transmitter of a society's culture to the young, but as an agent of change -- someone strategically placed, with an opportunity to condition students to want a different kind of society. A century later, we are seeing schools across America indoctrinating students to believe in all sorts of politically correct notions. The history that is taught in too many of our schools is a history that emphasizes everything that has gone bad, or can be made to look bad, in America -- and that gives little, if any, attention to the great achievements of this country. If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers' attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn's book. That book has sold millions of copies, poisoning the minds of millions of students in schools and colleges against their own country. But this book is one of many things that enable teachers to think of themselves as "agents of change," without having the slightest accountability for whether that change turns out to be for the better or for the worse -- or, indeed, utterly catastrophic. This misuse of schools to undermine one's own society is not something confined to the United States or even to our own time. It is common in Western countries for educators, the media and the intelligentsia in general, to single out Western civilization for special condemnation for sins that have been common to the human race, in all parts of the world, for thousands of years. Meanwhile, all sorts of fictitious virtues are attributed to non-Western societies, and their worst crimes are often passed over in silence, or at least shrugged off by saying some such thing as "Who are we to judge?" Even in the face of mortal dangers, political correctness forbids us to use words like "terrorist" when the approved euphemism is "militant." Milder terms such as "illegal alien" likewise cannot pass the political correctness test, so it must be replaced by another euphemism, "undocumented worker." Some think that we must tiptoe around in our own country, lest some foreigners living here or visiting here be offended by the sight of an American flag or a Christmas tree in some institutions. In France between the two World Wars, the teachers' union decided that schools should replace patriotism with internationalism and pacifism. Books that told the story of the heroic defense of French soldiers against the German invaders at Verdun in 1916, despite suffering massive casualties, were replaced by books that spoke impartially about the suffering of all soldiers -- both French and German -- at Verdun. Germany invaded France again in 1940, and this time the world was shocked when the French surrendered after just 6 weeks of fighting -- especially since military experts expected France to win. But two decades of undermining French patriotism and morale had done their work. American schools today are similarly undermining American society as one unworthy of defending, either domestically or internationally. If there were nuclear attacks on American cities, how long would it take for us to surrender, even if we had nuclear superiority -- but were not as willing to die as our enemies were?
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#1. To: Abcdefg (#0)
Germany invaded France again in 1940, and this time the world was shocked when the French surrendered after just 6 weeks of fighting -- especially since military experts expected France to win. But two decades of undermining French patriotism and morale had done their work. Sowell damaged his argument with this nonsense. It's not true.
A few bad apple socialist Catholics turned the French into global communist surrender monkies. Sad, but true.
Not true. It was Marechal Petain, you know, the head of the Vichy government, who blamed the French teachers for France's defeat. Of course, Petain was a professional military officer, part of the leadership - all of them World War I veterans - who ACTUALLY caused France's defeat by losing the Battle of France. And of course Petain said this while he was actively seeking to MURDER the teachers, who joined the Resistance against his government and the Nazis in very large number. To make a (valid) point about problems with American education, Sowell made an absolutely ridiculous overreach and took up Vichy French propaganda as a basis for his argument. Ugly. Embarrassing. Cringeworthy, really. France lost World War II because the French Army was unprepared to fight the blitzkrieg. The simple technological expedient of having radios in the French tanks, like the Germans had, would have allowed the French army to regroup itself after the initial shock and coordinate a response. As the campaign progressed, the French got better and better at adapting to the German tactic, and German casualties soared. But Paris is not far from the border, and France is not protected from her enemies by walls of water like the British and Americans were. The British were also euchered in the Battle of France, and the Americans were surprised in the Philippines and lost an entire army, along with most of their fleet at Pearl Harbor. This was not because American education had destroyed the will to fight in the Americans or the British. It was because they were caught by surprise by a new style of warfare they hadn't faced before. America, Britain and Russia had the strategic space in which to recover from their initial defeats and regroup. France didn't, so Paris fell and the government capitulated in order to end the war. Put radios in the French tanks, and it's even odds that the Germans would have never gotten to Paris. Right up until nearly the Great Depression the French were still proudly recalling their victory in the Great War. The senior officer corps of 1940 were all veterans of 1914-1918. They were not "reducated" by bad French educators, and French education has NEVER been anything but patriotic - gratingly so. Sowell's argument is not true, at all. And if he's wrong on that, what else is he wrong about. The truth is that France lost the war because her veteran, professional officer corps, patriots all, relied on World War I tactics and technology and did not grasp the implications of air and armor as well as the Germans did. Some did. In fact, the German general staff, training in Russia in the 1930s, actually used a paper published for the French War College by a Colonel Charles de Gaulle, which laid out in detail the method of what would become blitzikrieg warfare. De Gaulle's seniors in France disregarded his would and De Gaulle's career went into eclipse by his opposition to Maginot - De Gaulle said: build armor and planes, not static fortresses! He was ignored by the French generals, but followed by the Germans, who perfected the techniques whose theory he laid out, much the same as Patton studied Rommel. The French had patriotic leaders and patriotic soldiers. But their generals were old and conservative, and they lost their country. And then the generals, especially Petain, cast blame on the teachers, of all people!, for their own failures. This is all part of French history. The sad, and really grotesque thing is to see Thomas Sowell uncritically pick up the argument against the teachers, so prominent in the French Resistance, made by the Vichy collaborationist Marshall Petain, and use it to try to seal an argument about American education. It is so ignorant, and so utterly backasswards, that it's just stunning. In effect, Sowell did the equivalent of pick up the political argument against the Continental Army made by Benedict Arnold - and he clearly didn't even realize he was doing it. I am sure that if Sowell realized that he bought, hook line and sinker, the propaganda line of the head of the Vichy government who used it as an excuse to butcher Resistance teachers as HE fought FOR the German side, Sowell would be mortified by his error. It was a bad mistake. Sowell's French example is indefensible. Best not to build a Maginot Line to try to defend it. His overall points about American education have merit. His French example is a catastrophic error on his part, and he should edit the article to get rid of it. Vichy propaganda is a bad basis for an argument.
In France between the two World Wars, the teachers' union decided that schools should replace patriotism with internationalism and pacifism. Books that told the story of the heroic defense of French soldiers against the German invaders at Verdun in 1916, despite suffering massive casualties, were replaced by books that spoke impartially about the suffering of all soldiers -- both French and German -- at Verdun.
#2. To: Vicomte13, *Liberal Rehab Staff* (#1)
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#3. To: hondo68 (#2)
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