This is the start of a Trilogy where I cover precisely how the Rapprochement of Cultures, Human Rights Education, and Education for Democratic Citizenship as envisioned by the UN entities, make it all the way to your local school, public or private, and your child’s classroom, without anyone recognizing what is really going on. In the materials that back up this and the remainder of the Trilogy there is not a single mention of the International Decade of the Rapprochement of Cultures. As we will see though, RoC fits invisibly with everything being required. In fact, so does fedEd’s recent insistence that a biologically intact transgender boy must have unfettered access to a high school girl’s locker room. It also is a currently undisclosed initiative tied to the likely 2016 Democratic nominee for President financed while she was Secretary of State.
The phrase “Bottom Up Peace Built From Below” is straight from the RoC materials and the remainder of the title fits with how to do it. To show just how long this has been sought in a way that feeds into the timeline in my book Credentialed to Destroy, let’s go back to the Democratic Education book then Princeton prof Amy Gutmann published in 1986.
“Teachers typically resist changing their teaching methods, often on the well-intentioned misperception that their obligation is to impart knowledge, not to develop the moral character of their students.”
What kind of moral character then is the new purpose of education and the schools and so crucial that parents must not be allowed to somehow ‘exempt their kids’? Character that will allow each student to recognize each other as equals “for deliberating and thereby participating in the democratic processes” for restructuring society going forward. That was Gutmann’s vision long before she became President of the Ivy League, U-Penn. The purpose of Preschool to higher ed for her was to create a “common set of democratic values that are compatible with a diverse set of religious beliefs.”
Democratic Education is all about ALL schools helping to “develop the cooperative moral sentiments–empathy, trust, benevolence, and fairness.” She goes on to cite the same John Dewey I cover in Chapter 2 of my book because of his ideal of a school “whose aim is ‘not the economic value of its products, but the development of social power and insight’ pointed to such a morality” in each student. The presence of such values, cooperative sentiments, beliefs about others, etc are the very learner ‘outcomes’ to now be assessed by schools. How do I know for sure? Last week as part of that Youth Summit and in preparation for the UNESCO General Conference that opened this week in Paris, UNESCO and friends published a rather graphic report Curriculum Development and Review for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education to lay out plans to force EDC/HRE into every subject in every classroom all over the world.
In the bibliography at the end is a cite to a 2014 report called “Teaching Respect for All Implementation Guide” that caught my eye since I had just written the Rapprochement of Cultures post. Found it with UNESCO profusely thanking the US Department of State for “their generous financial contribution and continuous support in the development of the Teaching Respect for All project” that launched in January 2012. Maybe promoting HRE was more important than Benghazi security, but the always italicized Teaching Respect for All was financed and launched by Hillary or her subordinates.
Want to know what its definition is on what constitutes ‘individual achievement’ by a student? In the lead-in under “Part 1-Set of Key Principles for Policy Makers” is the definition that “through education” students will demonstrate the “acquisition and application of awareness, knowledge, skills, and values for the sake of a peaceful society in which individuals treat each other with respect.”
Those are not personal characteristics for students to acquire in addition to math, science principles, historical knowledge, or literature enjoyed for its own sake. ALL school activities are intended to create themes, practices, values, and beliefs needed for “learning to live together as one community.” Amitai Etzioni must be beside himself at what Bill and Hillary have been up to now using their power, influence, and our tax dollars. Remember UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and her admission that education was about promoting ‘scientific humanism’? http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/decreeing-the-interdependence-of-environment-economy-society-and-cultural-diversity-in-the-21st/
A quote from her at the launch of TRforA (its new acronym) leads off “Part 2-Set of Key principles for Headteachers [Principals in the US] and NGO Managers” that “building respect in and through education [is] ‘essential for promoting a new humanitarianism for the twenty-first century.’” Yes, indeed, we have the US State Department, under Hillary and President Obama, underwriting HRE globally and quietly in the US to “enable the education system to fulfill its fundamental aims of promoting the full development of the human personality [a term straight out of Uncle Karl when translated into English] and appreciation of human dignity, of strengthening respect for human rights and of delivering a quality education for all.”
In addition to the focus on Competency and values, attitudes, and beliefs laid out in detail in my book as the real Common Core implementation, this HRE mandate gives the rationale for fed ED suddenly determining in April 2012 (just months after launch) that IDEA be read to require PBIS and other positive psychology interventions in all classrooms with all students to avoid stereotyping. It also fits with the push to issue an Executive Order for Positive School Climate in late July 2012 and all the efforts to hype bullying and disparities in School Discipline offenses. Since I led with the transgender mention, let me quote the relevant part of the “key approaches necessary to successfully counteract discrimination.”
“Pupils and students may have multiple cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds, or understandings of their sexuality, which means that these forms interact. These attributes are best understood as real aspects of their identities and as attributes that may be open to change or new interpretations. Pupils and students have a right to self-identify with cultures, sexualities, ‘races’, genders, or ethnicities in ways that feel authentic to them. The authenticity of one’s identity should never be dismissed or seen as insignificant.”
That is the philosophy driving the fed Office of Civil Rights and it is straight out of the HRE we financed. If they have a copy, so should we, but since UNESCO links are quite unstable you will notice I just give titles. Education now, apparently from little tykes on, is actually about “strengthening mutual tolerance and cultivating respect for all people, regardless of colour, gender, class, sexual orientation, national, ethnic, or religious orientation/identity.” TRforA targets “learners of 8-16 years old, and aims to build curiosity, openness, critical thinking and understanding among youth learners, thus equipping them with awareness, knowledge, and skills to cultivate respect and stop discrimination on all levels.”
Even if it takes false narratives or the kind of manipulative mental framing put out last week with regard to STEM. http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/k12-stem-learning.html If you are like me and rather drenched in facts and logic, we can notice that what is an accepted identity and beliefs is not for everyone, especially high school girls unable to mentally cloak a boy’s visible genitalia in the assurance that only social constructions matter. If anyone hopes the reference to ‘critical thinking’ leaves some subject matter intact, the very use of the phrase ‘critical race theory’ and ‘pedagogy’ makes it quite clear how intolerant tolerance intends to be.
“Curricula must dedicate time to sensitive issues, such as discussing stereotypes and recognizing injustices. They must take a reality-based [I can hear some of you snickering from afar] and relevant approach, which recognizes groups’ histories of suffering and marginalization, and provides learners with the critical skills to react to discrimination.”
I am guessing this is where perceived Microaggressions and White Privilege come in and I am supposed to feel bad about being a bookworm when I was younger or teaching myself to read. I actually think that “Curricula should fully incorporate education to fight racism, xenophobia and discrimination at every level, rather than teaching these lessons as separate subjects” may do quite a bit to bring back what was called the Generation Gap decades ago as older adults wonder why young people are becoming such ignorant, self-righteous twits. We may never see the phrase a ‘Whole Child emphasis’ the same again after reading another key approach that “Going beyond cognitive skills, curricula should equip learners to learn about the issues as well as empower them to act in response to racism and discrimination. Learners need to receive training in conflict resolution and in speaking out against social injustice.”
We are all going to need training in conflict resolution if we have to listen to young people deliberately educated to feel both slighted and empowered to transform an existing world they neither understand accurately or appreciate. Since only quoting the Implementation Guide’s key approaches can reveal the true horror of what is intended in the name of school transformation and student success to be appreciated, here’s another: “A fundamental commitment to create an emancipatory culture of schooling that empowers all pupils and students. This includes practices that allow pupils and teachers to work together to acquire, analyse and produce social and self-knowledge.” And we wonder why we keep being told the change to a competency-based emphasis is needed to be ‘internationally competitive’. That’s a framing that works and explaining the true purpose would likely send us all into a frenzy.
I mentioned the “Curriculum redevelopment” paper release last week so let’s close with some of the aims it was also up front about. “The wider aim of EDC/HRE is the establishment of sustainable and participative forms of democracy based on respect for human rights and good governance.” Those human rights principles are described as “non-discrimination, inclusion and participation, and the rule of law.” That’s an affirmative, anti-individualistic view of the rule of law http://gluna.wildapricot.org/resources/Human%20Rights%20Day%202014 /The%20Rule%20of%20Law%20in%20the%20Universal%20Declaration%20of%20Human%20Rights.pdf that is necessary as Harvard Law Prof Mary Ann Glendon described it so that “human affairs are not forever destined to be determined by force and accident, but that they can be affected to some extent by reason and choice.”
Mary Ann is one of Amitai Etzioni’s favorite law profs for obvious reasons. Remember how my Chapter 7 pointed out the real Common Core implementation was all about changing values, attitudes, and beliefs? Remember how that is what learning now means as well? “Efforts to promote EDC/HRE involve the development of dispositions, extending beyond knowledge and skills to include behaviours and actions. research has shown that such dispositions are fostered through participatory and learner-centred teaching and learning processes…” that would be the real reason lectures and textbooks have to go.
Somehow I am sure the now ubiquitous explanation of the antiquated ‘factory-model’ of school is just another group-tested framing meme to alter prevailing behavior without opposition.
See you later when we take on Part 2 on how this is all coming in now and invisibly.