As I write this, I can practically hear the refrain from that 1984 Band Aid concert “Do They Know It’s Christmas Time?” playing in my head. And I certainly do know that. The gifts are wrapped here and the ingredients for pasta bolognese are ready for Christmas Eve dinner. I hope every one of my readers gets the opportunity to engage in the festivities and rituals they and their loved ones also cherish at this unique time of year. I am going to just play mom, chauffeur, and cook through the New Year after this post although I will likely keep the conversation going in the comments. But two important admissions that clarify what has been going on and what we will likely encounter in 2014 and beyond globally have come my way. This post is just a head’s up, and a reminder that there is a language involved with all these transformational intentions, we now speak it, and we can correctly translate and appraise Whatever comes our way in 2014 in both education and social policies generally.
Clarity is always something to be grateful for even if it does not come in a box with pretty paper and a bow. Some of it did come, however, on this slideshow that arrived in my email to Wish Me a Happy Winter Solstice. http://www.slideshare.net/TheHappinessInitiative/personal-happiness-handbook-25-actions-along-10-domains-of-happiness I suppose longer days of daylight from now on is something to celebrate, but you will find quite a bit of meddling about what is supposed to make us “happy” going forward. Very much grounded in communitarianism as so much else seems to be these days. We had already noted in previous posts that the UN started a World Happiness Report in 2012 and the OECD has been pushing Subjective Well-Being as a means of aiding its Great Transition emphasis.
GT also has its own posts, but briefly one of our 2013 discoveries is a shockingly widespread political belief that it was always the West, not Russia or China, that actually met Karl Marx’s criteria of the high level of technology produced by capitalism (in our case computers and broadband and ICT generally) that would be necessary to achieve his envisioned little c communism stage of human development -”From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” The ‘needs’ or support economy (also distributed capitalism and other tagged names) then is another way of philosophers or sociologists or economists or bureaucrats saying we are shifting to this little c vision without anyone actually needing to inform taxpayers or use either the alarming c word or the notorious M name.
A few weeks ago (Dec. 11, 2013) the US National Research Council and UK (Economic and Social Research Council) released a joint report called “Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience.” When governments decide to shift the “focus of economic measurement from production [i.e. consumer choices] toward people’s well-being,” that is a significant enabler of stealthily shifting to a needs economy. Especially when there is to be a focus on “equality, sustainability and nonmarket dimensions of well-being that cannot be captured well by conventional ‘objective’ means.” We could add that all that data on youth from digital learning will prove useful here, but let’s stick to the actual report for now. It wants to have the feds measuring the experienced (hedonic) well-being (ExWB).
Now that mouthful term means that the governments now want insights into the “emotional states and experiences of people belonging to different groups.” With those insights, factors like “long-term unemployment, depression, or lack of income” that are shown to be drivers of long-term suffering can supposedly be reduced. Because LBJ’s Great Society policies turned out so well. The idea is also that positive experiences can be enhanced or increased. Yes, ‘enhance’ was the word used and this could easily turn into a parody with the catch-phrase “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” but the intentions are quite serious. The feds also want to evaluate the purpose or purposelessness in people’s experiences so that they do not miss what the report regards as ‘crucial,’ ‘central drivers of behavior’.
Going into 2014, let’s keep in mind the intentions described in that report which are clearly laying the ground work for attempts at extraordinary levels of social engineering for the future. Think of it as teed up in the dark away from prying eyes that could ring an alarm. We were quietly lurking in the outfield though and have caught what was intended to be a most troubling concept. Now we get to frame sought 2014 policies through the “lens” of making Subjective Well-Being the domain of governments in the 21st century. As if we are all merely wards of the state in need of constant oversight.
Now for that second admission we can make great use of in 2014. We have long known that the accreditors answered to UNESCO and intend to use education to drive cultural change. We also knew that UNESCO globally is the driver of all the tremendous changes in higher ed. We have suspected UNESCO is the driver of K-12 reforms globally including the US Common Core, but I have been looking for the proverbial indisputable link beyond UNESCO being a named partner in the global 21st century skills movement. I now have that proof downloaded and hard copied along with UNESCO’s desired global curriculum and methods. Helpfully available on CD-ROM so with digital learning we parents will never see it.
Here’s the really fun part, UNESCO says it has, since 2002, been addressing education reforms with “renewed vigour” because it serves as the “Task Manager of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21.” So much for people who consider any mention of Agenda 21 to be proof you are a “conspiracy theorist.” It appears that the Paris-based UNESCO bureaucrats and their supporters have clearly been the ones theorizing how to best conspire and with the aid of our money and children. The stated aim is “the educational strategies and action plans at all levels and sectors of education in all countries.” All means all, folks. UNESCO also confirmed what many of us have long suspected. The International Baccalaureate Organization is working hand in hand with it in implementing Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 in unsuspecting schools and districts. Frames the true intentions behind that IB Learner Profile, doesn’t it?
In this time when we commemorate Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men, I think we actually enhance our chances of ultimately getting there in as many places as possible through awareness of what the UN is actually up to in our classrooms through the aid of ambitious local administrators and oblivious politicians. I now have the needed proof of all those connections and aspirations.
And with those brief disclosures I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!