Critical Thinking: It’s Not What You Think

WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING?
Dennis Cuddy, Phd, educator, well-known researcher and prolific writer, put this subject into simple terms when he said in an article entitled "Critical Thinking and Religion in the Schools," Manchester Union Leader, 4/6/89:

"In other words, critical thinking becomes criticizing, which becomes challenging one's parents and all authority figures as well as the law, one's country, moral absolutes, and God." 

Dr. Dennis Cuddy's articles are available at NewsWithViews.com

 A 3D Research Report by Betsy Kraus

Perhaps the biggest socialistic “Tool of the Mind” is Critical Thinking. It is the cornerstone of Progressive Education. According to Donald Jenner, a Professor of the City University of New York:

"The term, ‘critical thinking’, has gained currency both within the Academy’s walls and outside them....  Listening to the discourse to which this term is central, one might get the idea that what is meant by ‘critical thinking’ is, somehow, more acute thinking, or more acute reading or — well, the same kinds of skills one had before a course in critical thinking rendered superior a sort of hyper-whatever.... Its clearest formulation ... is in Kant’s Critique of Judgment.... Indeed, critique, as a way of thinking, appears to have arisen when it did, at least in part as the resolution of a hiatus between Continental rationalism and Anglo-Scots-Irish empiricism."(1)  

Critical thinking became the prominent intellectual derivative of the Enlightenment tradition which laid the basis for the modern socialism.

 "The Enlightenment abandoned Biblical revelation for reason and sensationalism."(2)

Enlightenment thinking resulted in the publication of the “Encyclopedia,” which was condemned by the Catholic Church.

“The central enterprise of the French Enlightenment, the Encyclopedia embodied that movement's liberal, anti-clerical and scientific spirit, its preoccupation with man as a creature of nature, and its conception of culture and society as mutable products of the evolutionary processes of history. As such, the work challenged the twin authorities of the French monarchy and the Catholic Church, both of which derived their power from the traditional belief in a divinely ordained, unchanging order.” (Emphasis added) (3)

Nick Smith, in his article entitled "Critical Thinking, Enlightenment, and Pedagogy," informs us that: 

“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage...Self-incurred tutelage...is nothing more than the fear of using one’s own capacities to reason, and Enlightenment is our release from this affliction that paralyzes our cognitive faculties. Once freed from the fear of and obedience to law given by others, human or divine, we may then look beyond what we have been told and into what we think."(4)

In other words, total autonomy from God and country.

Immanuel Kant

According to Kant and Enlightenment thinking, Critical Thinking frees man from authority. In the classroom, critical thinking can teach the student to be his own highest authority, rejecting the values learned from family and Church. But then, on the other hand, the student is taught to conform to the group through group dynamics and consensus. Thus, the students are taught to question (abandon?) Christian ethics while being trained in the tenets of socialistic group thought. All diverse views of the group must be respected and considered in order to form the consensus.

Bill Wilson, KIN Senior Analyst, tells us that in the 1960's critical thinking was introduced into the American education lexicon. Critical thinking, we were told, was a way to get students to think for themselves. In reality, 

“Critical Thinking is a dialectic method of criticizing American values in order to change American ideals."(5)

Socrates

Consensus is a part of critical thinking using the Marxist Hegelian dialectic. It is doubtful that it is the Socratic Dialectic as some educators might claim. The Socratic Dialectic was phased out with the Enlightenment and it was replaced largely by the Hegelian Dialectic. Socratic Dialectic’s purpose was to logically arrive at Truth. The Syllogisms of logic embodied such concepts as "opposites cannot be true at the same time," which shatters any hope for logic in “consensus.”

Karl Marx

The Hegelian Dialectic is influenced by Darwinian evolution which does not allow for any lasting truth, only evolving opinions.  In this dialectic, Christianity, the Constitution, etc. are merely opinions that must be questioned and then compromised with conflicting opinions in order to reach consensus. Eternal truths are reduced to opinions of a bygone era and do not fit into today's evolving world.

Wilson goes on to say that: 

"The fathers of the American public school system, Horace Mann and John Dewey, were both disciples of Marxism and established the dialectic as the standard method of teaching teachers how to teach."(6)

Are there any Public, Private, or Catholic schools that do not incorporate "Critical Thinking"?  Which form of the dialectic is Classical education incorporating?

Footnotes:
(1)  Jenner, Donald, What “Critical” Means in Critical Thinking. 1997;
http://www.citigraphics.net/jenner/djenner/archive/CritiqueAndCriticalThinking.pdf
(2)   Samuelson, Eric, A Brief Chronology of Collectivism, October, 1997, http://www.biblebelievers.au.collect2.htm
(3)Norman, Jeremy, The Central Enterprise of the French Enlightenment. http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2876
(4) Smith, Nick. "Critical Thinking, Enlightenment, and Pedagogy", Vanderbuilt University Center for Teaching, http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/library/articles-and-essays/the-teaching-forum/critical-thinking-enlightenment-and-pedagogy/
(5)  Wilson, Bill, The Great Deception – Politicians Using Sophisticated Soviet Era Manipulation Techniques. http://lit4ever.org/revivalforum/index.php?topic=4921.0;wap2
(6) Ibid.

Sources:
Pavlidis, Periklis. "Critical Thinking as Dialectics: a Hegelian-Marxist Approach," Aristotle University of Tehssaloniki, Greece. http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/08-2-03.pdf
 

"Tools of the Mind"

Habits of the Mind

Deeper Thinking

Metacognition

Thinking About Thinking

Reflection

Learning to Learn

Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)

21st Century Thinking Skills

A Report by Betsy Kraus, 3D Research Group

 

Vygotsky, who proposed the Socialistic alteration of man, developed the concept of "Tools of the Mind."

Here is an example of how this mind “alteration” translates into classroom. The following quote is from an article in American Thinker entitled “Preschools Are Using a Marxist's Theories to Manufacture Collectivists” by Chuck Roger. He says: 

"Vygotsky theorized that by changing “the tools of thinking available to a child, his mind will have a radically different structure…. At Metropolitan State College of Denver, the “Tools of the Mind” organization develops Vygotskyian curricula and trains teachers to wire radically different thinking into the brains of children in 18,000 preschool and kindergarten classrooms throughout America. And the number is growing." (1) 

Progressive education also includes the Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD. This is another sample of Vygosky's mind “wiring” in the classroom. Currently Vygosky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and his “scaffolding” and "vertical" teaching methodologies are also heavily used throughout education. Look for these constructionist techniques which appear to be built into Common Core Standards.

Vygotsky defined his ZPD as the distance between a child's "actual development level as determined by independent problem solving" and the child's level of "potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance and in collaboration with more capable peer."  He thought that the most effective instruction involves giving children challenging material, along with help in mastering it.

Isn't this concept promoted in the U.S. Department of Education's highly controversial publication on "Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance," which calls for biometric devices to study the student's frustration level?

 Here is another sample of how ZPD translates into the classroom. A teacher posted this comment on the Missourians against Common Core web site:

“I was told that I need to challenge students by bringing them to their ‘frustration level’– that doing so would challenge them to work and that they would rise to the occasion. I envisioned students throwing up their hands in resignation and transforming into behavior problems." (2) 

According to information in the book the deliberate dumbing down of america, by Charlotte Iserbyt, this teacher is probably right. Kurt Lewin, another major thinker from the Marxist nest of psychologists, led experiments to purposely frustrate students. Following such experiments it was stated that:

"Frustration as it operated in these experiments resulted in an average regression in the level of intellectual functioning, in increased unhappiness, restlessness, and destructiveness, in increased ultra-group unity, and in increased out-group aggression. The amounts of increase in negative emotionality were positively related to strength of frustration." (Emphasis, Ed.) (3)

Lev Vygotsky was a colleague of Kurt Lewin. Think about Lewin, ZPD, and psychological schoolroom tactics the next time you hear of another instance of groups of students acting out aggressively. If students are highly agitated, will they react accordingly?

Footnotes:

(1)  Roger, Chuck, “Preschools Are Using a Marxist's Theories to Manufacture Collectivists”,  American Thinker. March 27, 2011. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/preschools_are_using_a_marxist.html

(2)The Missourians Against Common Core web site http://www.moagainstcommoncore.com/

(3  Iserbyt, Charlotte, the deliberate dumbing down of america, Page A-61. http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf


Resources:
Lev Voygotsky, “ Voygyskian Approach” http://www.toolsofthemind.org/philosophy/vygotskian-approach/

U.S Department of Education, Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the Twenty-First Century (Draft), February. 2013. http://pgbovine.net/OET-Draft-Grit-Report-2-17-13.pdf

U.S.-USSR Education Exchange Agreements

MARXISM THROUGH . . .

• SCHOOL CHOICE
• CHARTERS
• COMMUNITY RE-EDUCATION

The 1985 U.S.-USSR Education Exchange Agreement signed between Presidents Reagan and USSR President Gorbachev, and the extensive Carnegie Corporation-Soviet Academy of Science Agreements which dealt with joint development of computer courseware, etc., related to Marxist Critical Thinking. For background information, read Soviets in the Classroom... America’s Latest Education Fad at www.deliberatedumbingdown.com (a free download HERE).

This agenda has continued. Of enormous significance is fact that Tony Wagner, the founder in the early 1980s of the far left Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR), is very prominent in the present Marxist U.S. education restructuring. Wagner recommends “The Finnish Model” for American schools.

Wagner has very close ties to Donald Davies, editor of Communities and Their Schools (1981), one of four published books resulting from The Goodlad Study. The other three books are: Schooling for a Global Age (Becker), Arts and the Schools (Hausman) and A Place Called School (Goodlad). All are still available at Amazon.com

Donald Davies is the nation’s foremost leader of the womb-to tomb Community Education movement. This is being implemented across the country under label of community schools, community centers, life long education, workforce training, ALL social services, including taking grandma to see the leaves in the autumn, having an abortion, etc. These government-funded and  controlled services are to be provided under the community school district, also known as community schools, community centers, hubs, etc.

This is all important background information because Tony Wagner has recently assumed the Presidency of Donald Davies leftist group, the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE).

And, lo and behold! IRE’s website letterhead has the late Theodore Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) listed at the bottom of its letterhead! (Quite a nest of red birds out of Cambridge, Massachusetts!)

Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools, after being approved for charter school corporate developmental funding by the New American School Development Corporation in the mid-nineties, received additional funding from Annenberg.

Annenberg is connected to Chicago’s Bill Ayers (Weathermen building bomber) and brother of John Ayers, former VP of the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of Teaching. John Ayers now heads up the School Choice/Charter School and Community Education agenda out of Tulane University, New Orleans. (This agenda is being touted as the national/international model!) John Ayers was deeply involved in President Obama’s early Chicago education restructuring agenda and in the setting up of charter schools in Chicago. (See earlier blog articles HERE and HERE and HERE.)

One excerpt from Soviets in the Classroom... America’s Latest Education Fad, relates to the USA implementation of Marxist curriculum follows:

A Few Examples
A complete listing of the many shocking exchange activities taking place as a result of the 1985 and 1988–1991 agreements would require volumes. A few concrete examples should suffice to convince the reader that all proposals called for in the agreements are being faithfully and fastidiously carried out.

1. Cambridge-based Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR) project, “Educating for New Ways of Thinking: An American-Soviet Institute.” Two such institute sessions have been held (one in Leningrad the summer of 1989) at which “Soviet and American educators examined classroom theory and practice in critical thinking about social and political issues and worked on recommendations and resources for improving the ways we teach about each other’s country, and on A Source-Book for New Ways of Thinking in Education: A U.S.-Soviet Guide for use by teachers and students in both countries.”

“Critical thinking” is the latest fad to hit our children’s classrooms. N. Landa’s Lenin: On Educating Youth, published by the Soviet state-controlled Novosti Press, quotes Lenin on “thinking” as follows:

To pose a real question means to define a problem which demands a new approach and new research.... Sometimes accepted truth no longer answers as a solution for a serious and pressing problem. The school should cultivate in pupils the ability to perceive scientifically evolved truths as stages along the endless road of cognition—not as something stationary and set.

Vladimir Lenin

                                   

Research on Charter Schools

• DYSLEXIC
• READING DISABLED
• PLAIN DUMBED DOWN... OR
• IN BED WITH THE CORPORATIONS? 

DUH?!

The purpose of the post is to show how dense our elected officials are. and to give our readers a very good overview of the history and dangers of charter schools.  Cris Shardelman, an education researcher from the state of Washington and a member of the 3D Research Group, started off with a note to me about problems with charter schools, which stated:

"AFTER WATCHING GLENN BECK'S WE SHALL NOT CONFORM, I DECIDED I NEEDED TO WRITE A QUICK REBUTTAL REGARDING CHARTER SCHOOLS. I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THE BIG FINANCIAL BACKER OF COMMON CORE IS [BILL] GATES, AND THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL BACKER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS IN WASHINGTON, AND PROBABLY MOST PLACES IS ALSO GATES.  SO HOW DOESN'T THAT SAY SOMETHING?"

Below is brief excerpt from an email sent by Cris Shardelman to Washington State Senator Jan Angel:

Dear Senator Angel:

Of great and shocking importance is the American Legislative Exchange Council's model charter school proposals scheduled for consideration at their Aug. 1, 2014 meeting.  One provision states under Section 8 Operations and Autonomy, "(1) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, to the extent that any provision of this Act is inconsistent with any other state or local law, rule, or regulation, the provisions of this Act shall govern and be controlling," 

In other words, if passed by the Legislators in their own states, ALEC's Big Corporations would then be able to wipe out all laws that have protected we, the people, for years. This Act would supersede all the hearings and testimony of citizens on any existing laws that stand in the way of Corporate Charter School Profits.

Signed:  Cris Shardelman

Now, take a look at  Senator Jan Angel's brief response to Cris related to the proposed charter school legislation of ALEC. Senator Angel totally ignores Cris's serious concerns (bolded text above) or does so on purpose, since she has no problems whatsoever with ALEC's use of charter schools to take over public and private education and to wipe out taxpayer representation!

Senator Angel's email reply to Cris Shardelman:

Dear Cris:

Subject: RE: amended email Constitutional Violations of Charter Schools

Cris I am well familiar with ALEC -- they are our friend in all this.

Signed:  Senator Angel

Shardelman's comments regarding Senator Angel's response:

"She may be the one to sponsor it here. She simply accepted ALEC's proposal as a good thing from a friend.  Did I not make clear the  intent of ALEC is that they believe it right to wipe out all previous laws that impede charter schools, rather than debate repealing those laws?"

Please read  Shardelman's correspondence to Sen. Angel below. Cris has been involved in opposition to charter schools since the early 1990s, attending all hearings, writing articles, etc. She is one of the nation's premier experts on the subject since Washington State was one of the first, if not the first, to experiment with the idea.

Below is the full text of Cris Shardelman's excellent expose' of charter schools in her email letter to Senator Angel:

Dear Senator Angel:

This email contains more information than is needed for people to understand the change in our government through Charter Schools. Please read carefully, particularly the 2nd paragraph [bolded words below, ed.]. You may even want to look up who is on ALEC's Board, and what other organizations they belong to that also push privatization with public money.

Of great and shocking importance is the American Legislative Exchange Council's model charter school proposals scheduled for consideration at their Aug. 1, 2014 meeting.  One provision states under Section 8 Operations and Autonomy, "(1) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, to the extent that any provision of this Act is inconsistent with any other state or local law, rule, or regulation, the provisions of this Act shall govern and be controlling," 

In other words, if passed by the Legislators in their own states, ALEC's Big Corporations would then be able to wipe out all laws that have protected we, the people, for years.  This Act would supersede all the hearings and testimony of citizens on any existing laws that stand in the way of Corporate Charter School Profits.

This is a very brief discussion regarding why we cannot simply fight Common Core,  while touting Charter Schools as the answer. We lost all local control when the 1992-93 education reforms changed to a state and national system. Charter Schools are not the answer, and the 135 Gulen Muslim Charter Schools in U.S. should cause people to have huge concerns.

Washington State's Charter Initiative included the provision to allow foreign corporations to establish Charter Schools here, leaving you without a voice about it. To reestablish local control, we must repeal education reform and kick out of the education system all the corporations that have, for years, used experimental education of our students for unbelievable financial gain and political/spiritual indoctrination in the schools.

Parents and taxpayers would then have to monitor the schools very closely through elected officials to ensure the objective subject matter would be restored.

Charter proponents John Chubb and Terry Moe described the intent of charter schools in Politics, Markets, and American Schools, Pg. 218 "Our guiding principle in the design of a choice system is this: Public authority must be put in use in creating a system that is almost entirely beyond the reach of public authority." Willard Garvey wrote President Reagan "Privatization is now an idea whose time has come. The knowledge, communication, and computer industry can make political representatives obsolete."

Charter Schools are well defined in both statements.  They are Contract Schools which are not accountable to taxpayers in the community, yet have flexibility in how they use taxpayer money, and can even contract out instructional services to either a non-profit or for-profit corporation.

Though they operate under different laws and funding than regular schools, the Constitution has not been amended for this purpose. The appointed authorizer who selects and oversees the charter corporation can delegate his/her duties to others yet the authorizer or delegates are immune from liability.

Some of the violations of the Constitution are:

1.      Art. 1:1 All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. (Charters are taxation without representation.)

2.      Art. 1:12 No law shall be passed granting to any corporation other than municipal privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens, or corporations.

3.      Art. 2:28 The legislature is prohibited from enacting any private or special laws in the following cases (6) For granting corporate powers or privileges, (7) For authorizing the apportionment of any part of the school fund.(15) Providing for the management of common schools. (Although this was an Initiative of the people, the Constitution was not amended, and an Initiative can be changed in 2 years, as many have.)

4.      Art. 2:37 No act shall ever be revised or amended by mere reference to its title, but the act revised, or the section amended shall be set forth at full length. (The Initiative didn't amend the  text of Art. 9, simply stated charter schools are public schools.)

5.      Art. 7:1  The power of taxation shall never be suspended, surrendered or contracted away.

6.      Art. 8:5 The credit of the state shall not, in any manner be given or loaned to, or in aid of any individual, association, or corporation.

7.      Art. 9:2 The legislature shall provide for a general and uniform system of public schools. (Not different management and laws.)

8.      Art. 3:22 The superintendent of public instruction shall have supervision over all matters pertaining to public schools, and shall perform such specific duties as may be prescribed by laws. (That supervision has been given to appointed people.)

9.      U.S. Constitution Articles 9 and 10 forbid education being a function of the U.S.  government. (Charter Schools bring about a further erosion of states sovereignty which was designed to  protect representative government. Taxpayers are being forced to submit to federal mandates which give their funds to private corporations over which they have no representation. The Department of Education has an appointed Secretary.)

The Center for Education Reform, through Charter Proponent Jeanne Allen, stated charters have a 15% closure rate. However the article mentioned 500 more that either failed to open, or reverted back to the local schools. If those are added in, the rate is 22.8%. (12-21-2011 New study: Charter schools have a 15%  closure rate)

A 7-7-2011 report (In Florida, Charter Schools had a Failure Rate 740% higher than Public Schools.) That report cited statistics from the FCAT which were reported on CBS4 News. Florida's law is similar to Washington's in that they have freedom (flexibility) over the budget. To understand that pitfall, read several articles in Orlando Sentinel by Lauren Roth beginning with the 10-24-2012 article ($500,000 payout to charter principal sparks outrage, call for probe). This scandal has caused Florida to reconsider their law. 

LIFELONG COMMUNITY EDUCATION

• COMMUNIST 
• LIFELONG 
• COMMUNITY EDUCATION
• WORKFORCE TRAINING 

...thanks primarily to President Reagan and his Trotskyite neoconservative cronies...

(1) THEN... First the history. Early in 1981 the President's Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives was installed at 734 Jackson Place, N.W., Washington, D.C. Membership listed on The White House letterhead read like a “Who’s Who” of individuals in government agencies, universities, tax-exempt foundations, non-governmental organizations, business, media, labor unions, and religion.

Read two previous blog posts for a list of who's who: "The Origins of "Choice" and "Public & Private Partnerships" and also see page 175 of my book the deliberate dumbing down of america.

(2) NOW... for today's press release from the U.S. Department of Education:

(Source)

Note the last paragraph in this excerpted press release above:

The grant is helping increase employer partnerships with the school system while allowing effective programs like the academy’s to expand and serve more students. Secretaries Duncan and Perez will tour classes and participate in a roundtable discussion with school officials, students and local union and workforce leaders....

ALARM CLOCKS GOING OFF!

From Past to Present.  Some disturbing history of Charter Schools and Lifelong Community Education...

(1) Back in 1994 Education Week spelled "it" all out for Americans regarding charter schools and change in governance (taxation without representation):

THE NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION (NSBA) RECOMMENDED RADICAL CHANGES for local school boards at its annual meeting in New Orleans in April of 1994. An article entitled “N.S.B.A. Endorses All Alternatives to Traditional School Governance” in Education Week for April 13, 1994 relates the following:

“A New Framework for School Governance” endorses school-based decisionmaking, charter schools, and other alternatives to traditional governance structures, provided they meet local needs.... Much of the report focuses on improving the alignment of government services at all levels so that children can meet high academic standards.

In addition to the national education goals, the new report advocates the creation of national goals for child and youth development.... Establishing explicit, substantive goals based on children’s needs will allow providers to coordinate services more effectively and insure that help is available to those in need.

Ed. Note: What a difference seventeen years can make! On March 27, 1977 the immediate past president of the National School Boards Association warned school board members “to be aware of and leery of… proposals for public involvement in public school operations that would shift decision-making authority to ‘vaguely-defined groups of citizens’ at the school site level,” which is exactly what NSBA meant when it called for “alternatives to traditional governance structures” in 1994. [Excerpted from the deliberate dumbing down of america, p. 326, emphasis added]

(2) "A Bipartisan Argument for Full-Service Community Schools," By Steny H. Hoyer & Aaron Schock, Education Week, July 28, 2014:

One of the most important jobs Congress has is to ensure that our nation’s children have access to a quality education and the opportunities it brings. A strong education is critically important to secure a place in our middle class. However, we are not doing enough as a country to provide all of our children with the educational foundation they need to succeed. That’s why we joined together last week to introduce the Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2014, bipartisan legislation that would create a competitive-grant program to expand the number of full-service community schools around the country.... [Source, bold added]

(3) Education researcher Polly Anglin spelled "it" out regarding charter schools at the Exposing the Global Road to Ruin through Education Conference in August 2012:

Polly Anglin - The Trojan Horse of Charter Schools - Disc 1. Click this link to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMqqQq1_xN4

(4) And now public school teachers blow whistles. "Exclusive: FBI Whistleblower and Teacher Expose Islamic Gülen Movement Infiltrating U.S. Through Charter Schools," By: Joshua Cook Jul 28, 2014,   

"Why Are My Tax Dollars Funding an Islamic Movement?"

In the United States, many of the Gülen schools have long waiting lists. But that comes at a price for our American teachers:

“Our tax dollars are paying for them to come over here and take our jobs,” said Mary Addi, a teacher. “They want to give you the impression that they’re just hard-working guys over here to try and educate our kids, because American teachers are just too stupid.”

According to Addi, those Turkish teachers’ visa applicants oddly include English teachers. Gülen brings in foreign teachers and then takes a cut of their salary. She learned this after marrying a Turkish teacher. She said that after he was paid. He’d cash the check and return 40% of his salary back to the school for a secret fund used by the movement.

These allegations have caused the U.S. government to investigate for immigration fraud as well as misuse of taxpayer money. It has also caused many to wonder about the actual intent of the Gülen school.

Chickens Coming Home to Roost?

See the following articles regarding the world's cooperation with the Russians:

"U.S. and Europe Set to Toughen Russia Sanctions"

Germany’s economic vulnerability may be broader than that of other European nations, reflecting its substantial commerce with Russia and its longstanding position as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. Recent surveys show that optimism among German businesses is sagging because of concern about Ukraine, and economists have begun predicting that the economy could stagnate or even shrink.

I am reminded of Norman Dodd's comments. See my earlier blog post "RESUME THE REECE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION OF THE TAX-EXEMPT FOUNDATIONS!" and read the entire excerpt from my book, in particular:  

Mr. Dodd, all of us here at the policy making level of the foundation have at one time or another served in the OSS [Office of Strategic Services, CIA forerunner] or the European Economic Administration, operating under directives from the White House. We operate under those same directives.... The substance under which we operate is that we shall use our grant making power to so alter life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.

Stunned, Dodd replied, “Why don’t you tell the American people what you just told me and you could save the taxpayers thousands of dollars set aside for this investigation?”

Gaither responded, “Mr. Dodd, we wouldn’t think of doing that.” [Excerpted from pages 47-48, http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com]

Click on following link for complete interview, "Norman Dodd On Tax Exempt Foundations":

Click on this link to hear Norman Dodd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYCBfmIcHM

Draw a Line in the Sand

Regarding the Time Out radio show interview I did on July 25th [Listen HERE],  I transcribed some of my comments for this blog...

Regarding my blog abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com:

"If there is any website listeners have to go to it is a blog I started in May 2014.  Little pieces of important documents that Americans have to read. All the way through [last week's] big event by Glenn Beck where he pulled all conservatives into the agenda for this wretched one world communist system. All you have to do is go to my blogspot and read and you will understand exactly what I am talking about. "...

The Heritage Foundation and its role:

"What we are looking at and which has been implemented mostly by the neoconservative Trotskyite groups in every state... you can look them up... headed up by the Heritage Foundation... is a world system. Why not? Heritage Foundation, as I just said, drafted NAFTA. That is Karl Marx. Marx loved Free Trade. That is how we lost all our jobs. That is how they are implementing the world communist system called for by  (Ford Foundation President) Rowan Gaither (Interview with Norman Dodd)....

The so-called Christian Groups that are NOT Christian:

"OK, folks... yup... we are talking about religion. I am talking about religion. For the first time in forty years I am going out and I am talking about religion - talking about the importance of Jesus Christ. Not importance of Buddha or New Age religions or the Protestant religions that are being lead astray, and the Catholics who now are totally being lead astray. I am talking about the message of Jesus Christ: to go out there and convince people that His is the message of forgiveness and redemption. 

Jerry Falwell, "Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich stated that
Falwell launched the Moral Majority political action committee during 1979..."

It is not pouring money in which is mixed public/private with United Way and all these groups that call themselves Christian. These so-called Christian groups are NOT Christian. They are Reconstructionist and Dominionist. They have taken over. They have (management guru  Peter Drucker's) system in place which is Performance-Based Skinnerian Outcomes Based Education (brainwashing); money-oriented; that is all they are. They are pretending they are Christianity and they are not. [NOTE: For more information about this, listen to my radio interview HERE]

Peter Drucker, business guru

Gallagher asked: "We have only two minutes.  What do you want to get out on air?" My answer:

"I want to get out fact that everything I have said is documented. My book the deliberate dumbing down of america, 1999, was boycotted by the conservative right wing. It is a free download at deliberatedumbingdown.com. The updated 2011 version at Amazon.com covers school choice, charter schools, Bill Gates, the UN agenda, community education which I talked about, which is communist lifelong learning under unelected boards.

"Do you know what the National Alliance of Business called for in the mid-nineties?  Work force training until age 80!!! OK, Grandpa... maybe you are you sitting there in Connecticut looking out over Long Island Sound, having your drink at night? You are lucky if you are 80! This is what we are looking at with limited learning for lifelong labor, which is the communist system. They fooled us like mad, telling us communism was dead. Major thrust of communism is the destruction of message of Jesus Christ, and Christ's message is not a neoconservative message... like (what comes) out of the mouth of Jerry Falwell, and all those Reconstructionist/Dominionists groups that believe in Old Testament Law. That might be the best thing for people to think about... [That they are attempting to build] the Kingdom of God on Earth.  

I am calling on the American people to wake up. Draw a line in the sand....

John Foster Dulles

This one document is very important: Time Magazine, 1942 ["American Malvern," which was an extensive article in its Religion section about a plan of action for of action toward “a just and durable peace” for the years following the end of World War II"]:

These are the high spots of organized U.S. Protestantism’s super-protestant new
program for a just and durable peace after World War II:

• Ultimately, “a world government of delegated powers.”
• Complete abandonment of U.S. isolationism.
• Strong immediate limitations on national sovereignty.
• International control of all armies and navies.
• A universal system of money... so planned as to prevent inflation and deflation.
• Worldwide freedom of immigration. (Take a look down on the border).
• Progressive elimination of all tariff and quota restrictions on world trade. [Thank you Heritage Foundation that is leading out of D.C. the neoconservative movement...which drafted NAFTA ; and we follow them with their support for tax-funded school choice/charters with unelected boards?]
• “Autonomy for all subject and colonial peoples” (with much better treatment for Negroes in the U.S.).
• “No punitive reparations, no humiliating decrees of war guilt, no arbitrary
• dismemberment of nations.”
• A “democratically controlled” international bank “to make development capital available in all parts of the world without the predatory and imperialistic aftermath so characteristic of large-scale private and governmental loans.”

This program was adopted last week by 375 appointed representatives of 30-odd denominations called together at Ohio Wesleyan University by the Federal Council of Churches. Every local Protestant church in the country will now be urged to get behind the program. “As Christian citizens,” its sponsors affirmed, “we must seek to translate our beliefs into practical realities and to create a public opinion which will insure that nthe United States shall play its full and essential part in the creation of a moral way of international living.”...

The meeting showed its temper early by passing a set of 13 “requisite principles for peace” submitted by Chairman John Foster Dulles and his inter-church Commission to Study the Basis of a Just and Durable Peace. [Excerpted from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, p. 32, emphasis added]

Comment from Charlotte:  I worked for Secretary Dulles, U.S. Department of State, in 1957.

For more information on the role of the churches' in Dulles' plan for a "Just and Durable Peace" read Dr. Martin Erdmann's groundbreaking book Building the Kingdom of God on Earth: The Churches' Contribution to Marshall Public Support for World Order and Peace, 1919-1945.

Peer Pressure...

... the EASIEST way to manipulate people

WATCH THIS VIDEO!

To watch this video, click on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTezdMLJoyE

This piece of comedy satire explains what is happening to your children in schools, to people in your church, to workers at your workplace, to politicians, to the news media, etc.

In 1972 when I was a student in an Educational Psychology class we were put through a similar group psychological experiment. We were positioned in a large circle. One person was designated as the first person and given a message to deliver. A group of approximately 8-10 people after them were given the same message.

But the rest of us didn't know that they had been given this message. We only knew that we were given the assignment to find group consensus.

These first people had been secretly told to assert strongly that "Black Is White." As the people began go around the circle, more and more pressure was brought to bear. Each secretly-informed person would more assertively and authoritatively state," Black Is White."

There were only a handful of the rest of us at the end who were not privy to the secret. So by the time it got to our last section of the circle we were puzzled and confused. We were supposed to say "Black Is White" in order to accomplish group agreement.

What happened to us? We did the same thing you see happen on the video! As you watch the above video, note the self-doubt. The confusion. The pressure to conform. How the pressure is ramped up by calling upon an "authority." The high stakes! The emotional appeals!

This is the most perfect example I've ever seen of how this process works. There is a reason that the Bible compares people to sheep. We follow the leaders, and we follow our peers. Watch and weep!

 A 3D Research Report by Sarah Leslie

Charlotte on Time Out radio interview

Click link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29czpfuTr2Q

 Time Out: Charlotte Iserbyt (2014-07-25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29czpfuTr2Q
 

Published on Jul 25, 2014
Time Out Productions presents Charlotte Iserbyt.

PARENTS: ARE YOUR STUDENTS THINKING ABOUT THEIR THINKING?

Are your students thinking about their thinking, delving into metacognition, or deep-thinking in their classrooms or classroom assignments?

Is THIS how you want your child to LEARN?
from the "Metacognition and Learning" webpage

Are they writing “Reflective Papers” to help them think about their thinking? This entails talking about one’s self-awareness, feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Are your students developing “Habits of the Mind”? If so, this jargon is surely meant to be part the “critical thinking” of Progressive Education for 21st century thinking skills.

Much of this sort of mind-processing was developed by Marxist psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky to radically rewire the brain for Socialism.

What do all these terms really embrace? Probably the old “Values Clarification” process, now “souped-up” and on steroids to transform your student’s’ opinions and behaviors. These powerful and controlling psychological methods having been perfected and updated by modern educators and applied to the classroom and your student. Such methods to rewire and realign your student’s brain can be considered a part of Progressive Education and “Transformative Learning.”

Here’s how to recognize “Progressive Education” in the classroom:

• Emphasis on learning by doing – experiential learning.
• Thematic - throughout all subjects.
• Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking.
• Group work and development of social skills.
• Understanding and action as the goals of learning, as opposed to rote knowledge.
• Collaborative and cooperative learning projects.
• Education for social responsibility and democracy.
• Highly personalized education accounting for each individual's personal goals.
• Integration of community service and service learning projects into the daily curriculum.
• Selection of subject content by looking forward to ask what skills will be needed in future society.
• De-emphasis on textbooks in favor of varied learning resources.
• Emphasis on lifelong learning and social skills.
• Assessment by evaluation of child’s projects and productions.

In addition, look for terms like "vertical and horizontal learning" and “self-analysis.”

Any classroom using educator Robert Marzano’s learning techniques will be participating in Metacognition and other such tactics described above. Dr. Marzano was the featured speaker at the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) in April of 2014.

OR is THIS how you want your child to LEARN?

Resources:
“Progressive Education” 
Vygotsky, Lev, The Socialist Alteration of Man, 1930.
“Transformative Learning” 
“Metacognition and Learning”     

Glenn Beck's Action Plan

The Data-Mining & Marketing of "Choice"

From a report on Beck's We Will Not Conform event (Source)

"TV host Glenn Beck on Tuesday night leveraged a variety of media tools—including a nationwide simulcast at movie theaters, social media, and his own loyal audience—to call on Americans to rise up against the Common Core State Standards by persuading state lawmakers to reverse their states' participation."
[SOURCE, emphasis added]

"It's a live interactive event linking parents, teachers, students, and more from across the country with a live event in Dallas. This will bring everyone together, on the same page, to develop a comprehensive action plan."
[Comment made by Matt Kibbe, SOURCE, emphasis added]

Reports are coming from participants to Glenn Beck's theater event on Tuesday night, July 22nd, We Will Not Conform. In this interactive event, they took polls repeatedly from the audience. This means that the audience in the 700 theaters across the country functioned as a national FOCUS GROUP. Focus groups are widely used in marketing and politics as a way to ascertain people's feelings, opinions, beliefs, attitudes, values and behavior, etc. in order to discern ways to CHANGE their attitudes and behaviors. A few examples of what was being polled were cited in the media:

For example, audience members were asked to name a national politician who might best serve as a leader against the common core. The winners were U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rand Paul, R-Ky.

In another instant poll, two-thirds of participants said taking to Twitter would be the most effective tactic to battle the standards, followed by 17 percent for Facebook, and single digits for options such as circulating petitions and contacting the traditional news media.

Indeed, a number of parents and educators in the studio discussed how they have been using social media to build opposition to the common core. [Source, emphasis added]

What is a Focus Group?

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members.... Group discussion produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting—listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants.... Focus group data provides the opportunity to analyse the strength with which an individual holds an opinion. [Source, emphasis added]

This theater-based Focus Group approach had been previously used by Hollywood actor and director, Mel Gibson, as he prepared to launch his controversial movie THE PASSION. According to firsthand reports from those who attended his pre-launch screenings, Gibson was seeking to evaluate potential opposition to the movie's message and strong violence in order to fine-tune the marketing for his movie.

Likewise reports from the Beck theater event reveals that he (with his partners, including FreedomWorks) performed extensive data-mining and polling of the audiences. The end result was destined to be an audience ready to commit to activism by signing up for Beck's anti-Common Core Plan of Action.

BUT NOTE -- Beck's anti-Common Core Plan of Action agenda is pre-scripted. This managed agenda is often referred to as "controlled opposition." His agenda to defeat Common Core is very public, accessible to anyone who signs up, but it will mutate with the continual assessment by polling, data-mining, and other modes of monitoring interactions and activities. This means that the outcome will be controlled from the top down, a brazen form of managed change. And with the ongoing data-mining and polling, attitudinal readjustments and marketing realignments can be updated on a continuous basis.

Make no mistake about it! This has nothing to do with grassroots! This is a data-driven method of containing opposition and controlling an education reform agenda. The data-mining will assist in maneuvering this agenda -- through the use of sophisticated psycho-social and political marketing techniques -- to pre-determined outcomes that work in favor of the charter school operators (so-called "choice").

One estimate of Tuesday night's program was that it was to assess the potential strength of any opposition to the next stage of education reform, which is "choice" -- charters, vouchers, etc. The powers-that-be who ran the polls at the Beck event were evaluating the potential areas of conflict and controversy, identifying the laggards, and seeking new ways to market the anti-Common Core agenda which offers the pre-digested solution of fake "choice to unwitting activists.

According to longtime researcher Mary Thompson, who has been observing this process for decades,

these "interactive," and "participatory" events are variations of the same methodology that works to foster the collectivist mentality. The similarity in all applications of the process is that "input" of participants is never intended to be taken into consideration for the agenda which is already predetermined.  The "participation" is to find out where the participants are in accepting the already determined outcome, in order to identify any deviating thoughts or reactions in order to concentrate on bringing them around, or if recalcitrant in their skepticism, identify them to boycott and cut them out of the loop. The participatory process of whatever name it is given, also serves to create a perceived investment in the event or process itself on the part of the those who contribute comments, which works to keep them in the pre-determined action since they think the have become part of the larger agenda through their input. Furthermore Glenn Beck's Plan of Action discourages people from doing the research for themselves.

Confirming Mary's hypothesis about discouraging independent research, one news account noticed that the issues involved with Common Core itself weren't really dealt with in any detailed manner:

One curious aspect of the event: It seemed to expect a certain level of basic knowledge about the debate over common core. Even though participants were asked to invite a friend or neighbor who may be unfamiliar with the debate, there were no primers or taped background pieces.

Several participants made oblique references to common-core-inspired math worksheets that students and parents found perplexing and overly complicated, but there were no displays of specific examples. (Later, though, parents and other activists were encouraged to post such materials online to help build opposition.) [Source]

David Barton at the Glenn Beck event (SOURCE) wearing a paisley shirt that he also wore earlier (SOURCE)

Another researcher also observed that the event seemed dumbed down:

What sort of a man wears black paisley to be on a nationally broadcast forum? That was David Barton of course....

I also noticed that Freedom Works Ellen Wheeler appears to be the same Ellen Wheeler who used to be a soap opera actress.

I was horrified by the lack of info (someone had bought me a ticket and asked me to come) and the audience where I was left complaining that they came to learn and that they really didn’t get much.

What is the PROCESS for this interactive "participatory" sort of orchestrated change? Mary Thompson (cited above) gave a speech about it back in 1972. At that time she was addressing one version of this change process called "Planning, Programming, Budgeting Systems" (PPBS). Below are relevant excerpts of her speech:

What is involved is the use of government agencies to accomplish mass behavioral change in every area…. 

PPBS is the systems management tool made possible by technology of computer hardware to affect the planned change….

Taking each element of PPBS will show how the process is accomplished. PLANNING—Planning phase (please note that the process involved with a systems approach is always described in terms of “phases”) always includes the establishment of goals committees, citizens committees, needs assessment committees.... These are referred to as “community involvement.” The committees are always either self appointed or chosen—never elected. They always include guidance from some trained “change agents” who may be administrators, curriculum personnel or local citizens.

Questionnaires and surveys are used to gather data on how the community “feels” and to test community attitudes. The ingeniousness of the process is that everybody thinks he is having a voice in the direction of public schools. Not so... for Federal change agencies, specifically regional education centers established by ESEA, influence and essentially determine terminology used in the questionnaires and surveys. The change agents at the district level then function to “identify needs and problems for change” as they have been programmed to identify them at the training sessions sponsored by Federal offices such as our Center for Planning and Evaluation in Santa Clara County. That is why the goals are essentially the same in school districts across the country. It also explains why three years ago every school district was confronted with the Family Life Education issue at the same time....

Unknowing citizens’ committees are used by the process to generate acceptance of goals already determined. What they don’t realize is that professional change agents are operating in the behaviorist’s framework of thought and Mr. or Mrs. Citizen Parent is operating in his traditional education framework of thought. So, the local change agents are able to facilitate a group to a consensus in support of predetermined goals by using familiar, traditional terms which carry the new behaviorist meanings.... [Excerpted from the deliberate dumbing down of america, pp. 110-111, emphasis added]