Dumbing Down Education Key to Dismantling America: Alex Newman

Schools Intentionally Dumbing Down Children for Control as Education Becomes Politicized: Alex Newman | Crossroads The Epoch Times

Critical race theory together with gender ideology and the manmade global warming hypothesis that’s now being taught to young children, all have the goal of dismantling the United States as a free society, said Alex Newman, investigative journalist and Epoch Times contributor.

There is a global effort coming from the United Nations and from China to build a single world system, where individual liberty will be abolished, Newman told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.

This new system is described as a multipolar world order as opposed to the current unipolar world order where the United States is the undisputed sole superpower and the hegemonic force in world affairs today, Newman explained. To achieve this goal the United States must be undermined not just economically, but also intellectually and militarily.

“[This will] allow other nations to be built up, other governments, especially the Communist Chinese government, to grow in prestige and influence in economic prowess for the purpose of really drastically reshaping the world order into this, what they call the multipolar order, where Russia and China and the so-called BRICS [five countries] like Brazil and India will be kind of on an equal standing with the United States.”

“But America, at least the ideas and the essence of what America is, has stood as an obstacle to that agenda. So if you want to make this agenda possible, ... you’re going to have to undermine the principles that the United States was founded on.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “8 predictions for the world in 2030,” which are summarized in a video posted on Twitter, the United States will no longer be the leading superpower, but the world will be dominated by a handful of countries.

https://twitter.com/wef/status/828646291399913472

Promotion of CRT in US

The Chinese regime is promoting critical race theory through its state-run media, right here in the United States—raising big questions about why this is happening.

The China Global Television Network (CGTN), a Chinese state-run media, promotes critical race theory in the United States through its programs. YouTube/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Promotion of critical race theory in America is just a continuation of the Marxist tactic that divides society up into opposing camps to create a conflict between them, Newman said, “and then use that conflict—that typically Marxists will instigate—as a vehicle to bring about a revolution; to bring about the discontent that will finally result in the overthrow of the old system.”

“When Mao took over China, ... [he] divided people up into the red classes and the black classes. The black classes, of course, were the evil classes: the business owners, the Christians, the counter-revolutionaries, the landowners, etc. Whereas the red classes, those were the oppressed; the victims—and they were the workers, the landless peasants, and so on.”

The same tactic, dividing America up into oppressor and oppressed, is used to instigate revolution in the country, Newman explained, but “to try to tell an American worker that he’s oppressed is less compelling.”

It is simply not plausible to tell an American worker who makes $60,000 a year, gets three weeks paid vacation, has a 2,500 square foot air-conditioned home, two nice cars, and four color TVs, that they’re being oppressed by their employer, Newman continued.

Therefore, race was exploited to divide America and conquer the society, Newman said.

America is almost unique in the world; it is not really like a lot of other nations that have the same ethnicity, the same history, the same background,” Newman noted.

“America was different. America was founded on ideas: the idea that God created everyone equally, the idea that God gave everyone rights, the idea that government exists for the purpose of protecting these rights. That is the foundational principle that America was founded on.”

Liberty and the fruit that came from that such as the incredible prosperity, the innovation, the living standards, or even the equality, the safety, and the reduction in human misery were unprecedented in human history, Newman said.

“So to overthrow that old order, you need some kind of very powerful, very seductive mechanism.”

Now children in school are taught: “If your ancestors came from Europe, you’re automatically part of the oppressor class. If your ancestors came from, say, Africa, you’re automatically part of the oppressed class,” he continued.

Newman pointed out that not only race is used to divide American society but also gender. Those who are heterosexual or identify with their birth gender are also considered oppressors.

He believes that “the only way [such tactics are] possible is to have an uneducated population. A well-educated people never would have fallen for these tricks.”

Remaking Education

Given that teachers are professionals and experts in what happens in classrooms, it makes sense that parents, taxpayers, and other members of the public will want to hear what teachers have to say. File photo/AP Photo/David Mercer

Traditionally throughout Western history, training the mind to be able to think, understand things, and acquire additional knowledge was at the core of education, Newman said.

Education used to focus on understanding and gaining a better knowledge of God, and the nature of good and evil, the purpose in life, he explained. Institutions such as Harvard University, Princeton, and Yale were founded as Christian institutions.

The departure from traditional education started more than a century ago and was led by John Dewey, who was also a professor at Columbia University and is called the father of American progressive education.

According to Dewey, who was influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, children should be weaned from the traditional tutelage of parents, religion, and culture, and given free rein to adapt to their environments. Dewey was a pragmatist and moral relativist. He believed that there was no unchanging morality and that people were free to act and behave as they saw fit.

In 1929, the rector of the Second State University of Moscow, Albert P. Pinkevich—as quoted by Robin S. Eubanks—wrote favorably of Dewey, saying that his ideas were very close to those of “Marx and the Russian Communists.” Biographer Alan Ryan, also quoted by Eubanks, wrote that Dewey “supplied the intellectual weapons for a decently social democratic, non-totalitarian Marxism.”

Newman noted that Dewey advocated in his writings for a system that in reality would dumb down the population but Dewey didn’t say it explicitly.

According to Newman, Dewey asserted that there is no need to teach kids how to read, write, and do the math. Instead, Dewey recommended that what kids “really need is to be properly socialized. They need to be just totally immersed in this collectivism, so that they will understand that they need to work for the good of the whole—the good of the collective—as opposed to their own individual benefit or the benefit of their family.”

Newman cited Adam Smith, a Scottish economist and philosopher, to argue that in “a free market system based on private property, the individual’s own pursuit of his rational self-interest ends up benefiting society more than if he was actually going out and consciously trying to observe and benefit society.”

He provided an example of a baker who makes cheaper, better tasting bread than his competitors in order to make money thus benefitting his community.

As an example of Dewey’s approach, Newman cited the state of Oregon where testing for proficiency requirements to graduate from high school have been discontinued. So a student who is unable to read, write, or do any math can get a high school diploma.

Newman pointed to National Assessment of Educational Progress data, which shows that less than 1/3 of public school students are proficient in reading, writing, arithmetic, or any other core subject.

Mark Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University, wrote in his book that on the history exam of the 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 57 percent of students scored “below basic” and only 1 percent achieved an “advanced” score.

John Taylor Gatto, a senior teacher and educational researcher in New York City, said in his book, “Pick up a fifth-grade math or rhetoric textbook from 1850 and you’ll see that the texts were pitched then on what would today be considered college level.”

Thomas Sowell, an American scholar and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University observed: “It is not merely that Johnny can’t read, or even that Johnny can’t think. Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is because thinking is so often confused with feeling in many public schools.”

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, a former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Department of Education, wrote in 1999: “The reason Americans do not understand this war is because it has been fought in secret — in the schools of our nation, targeting our children who are captive in classrooms. The wagers of the war are using very sophisticated and effective tools.”

Instead of learning basic skills, children are taught in schools critical race theory. Children in kindergarten are taught that they may have been born in the wrong body and they can take pills or undergo a surgical procedure to reflect their true selves, Newman said.

They are also being taught a distorted version of American history and world history, he continued.

“They don’t teach the children almost anything about the history of communism, the history of socialism, the history of collectivism, because if the children understood what has happened where these ideas have been implemented, they would recoil in horror when they saw them being implemented here.”

Considering the unprecedented scale of attacks on parents trying to be involved in the public school system, Newman advises concerned parents to remove their children from the public school despite the hardship and sacrifices that such a move may imply.

“I tell parents at this point: if you love your children, if you want them to be successful, well adjusted, sensible, well educated, clear thinking individual’s, your only option is to remove them from the public school system. ... You will not be able to get your children a decent education at a public school anymore,” Newman concluded.