BEYOND CLUELESS? WHAT COMES NEXT !!
The classroom discussion came to a close, and Ashley began to pack up her books. Her English class had studied Oedipus, the mythical king haunted by an oracle's tragic prediction that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Moments before the bell rang, the California tenth-grader heard her teacher announce a writing assignment:
You're going to consult an oracle. It will tell you that you're going to kill your best friend. This is destined to happen, and there is absolutely no way out. You will commit this murder. What will you do before this event occurs? Describe how you felt leading up to it. How did you actually kill your best friend?1
Ashley felt eerie. What a strange assignment! Why would her English teacher tell her to imagine something so horrible. I don't want to do this, she told herself. Long after she told her parents, the awful feelings continued to churn inside.
The next day, Ashley's mother called the teacher and asked that her daughter be given an alternate assignment. "I can't encourage my daughter to write a story about murdering her best friend," she explained.
"Certainly Ashley knows the difference between fantasy and reality," said Ms Sawyer with a touch of sarcasm.
"Of course, she does. But when you ask someone to imagine how they would go about murdering a friend, you could stir up nightmarish feelings...."
"I have been giving the same assignment for years," answered Ms Sawyer. Then she added the standard argument parents across the country have learned to expect: "No one has ever complained about this before."
"That's a shame," responded the mother. "It seems to me that parents should be appalled!"
"If I give Ashley a different assignment she will be made to feel foolish."
"Are you saying that she will either get an F or be made to feel foolish? Is this a no win situation for her?"
The teacher didn't answer, and Ashley's mother felt troubled. What kind of education was this?
Moral Confusion
Emotional shock therapy has become standard fare in public schools from coast to coast. It produces cognitive dissonance -- mental and moral confusion -- especially in students trained to follow God's guidelines. While classroom topics may range from homosexual or occult practices to euthanasia and suicide, they all challenge and stretch His moral boundaries. But why?
"[Our objective] will require a change in the prevailing culture--the attitudes, values, norms and accepted ways of doing things,"2 says Marc Tucker, the master-mind behind the school-to-work and "workforce development" program now being implemented in every state. Working with Hillary Clinton and other globalist leaders, he called for a paradigm shift--a total transformation in the way people think, believe, and perceive reality.
This new paradigm rules out traditional values and biblical truth, which are now considered hateful and intolerant. (See "Clinton's War on Hate Bans Christian Values") All religions must be pressed into the mold of the new global spirituality.3 Since globalist leaders tout this world religion as a means of building public awareness of our supposed planetary oneness, Biblical Christianity doesn't fit. It is simply too "exclusive" and "judgmental." President Bush summarized the goal in his 1991 announcement of America 2000, the Republican version of UNESCO's worldwide education reform program:
Nations that stick to stale old notions and ideologies will falter and fail. So I'm here today to say, America will move forward.... New schools for a new world.... Our challenge amounts to nothing less than a revolution in American education.4Immersing students in imaginary situations that clash with home-taught values confuses and distorts a student's conscience. Each shocking story and group dialogue tends to weaken resistance to change. Biblical absolutes simply don't fit the hypothetical stories that prompt children to question and replace home-taught values. Before long, God's standard for right and wrong is turned upside-down, and unthinkable behavior begins to seem more normal than obedience to God.
But it takes more than a twisted conscience to produce compliant world citizens. New values must replace God's timeless truths, and no strategy works better than the old dialectic (consensus) process explained by Georg Hegel, embraced by Marx and Lenin, and incorporated into American education during the eighties.
The Consensus Process
Matt Piecora, a fifth grader from the Seattle area, was told to complete the sentence, "If I could wish for three things, I would wish for..." Matt wrote "infinitely more wishes, to meet God, and for all my friends to be Christians."
Since each student's wishes would be posted on a wall for "open house", they had to be just right. Matt's didn't pass. The teacher told him that his last wish could hurt people who didn't share his beliefs. Matt didn't want to hurt anyone, so he agreed to add "if they want to be."5
Another sentence to be completed began, "If I could meet anyone, I would like to meet..." Matt wrote: "God because he is the one who made us!" The teacher told him to add "in my opinion."
When Matt's parents came to the school, they noticed the phrases that had been added to Matt's sentences. "Why did you add this?" his mother asked.
"The teacher didn't want me to hurt other people's feelings," he answered.
"But these are just your wishes..."
"I thought so, Mom." Matt looked confused. Later, the teacher explained to Matt's parents that she wanted "diversity" in her class and was looking out for her other students. But the excuse didn't make sense. If the papers were supposed to "express the students' diverse views," why couldn't Matt share his views? Didn't his wishes fit? Or was Christianity the real problem?
"I try to instill God's truths in my son," said Matt's father, "but it seems like the school wants to remove them."
He is right. The old Judeo-Christian beliefs don't fit the new beliefs and values designed for global unity. The planned oneness demands "new thinking, new strategies, new behavior, and new beliefs"6 that turn God's Word and values upside-down. Directed group discussion is key to the transformation. Professor Benjamin Bloom, called "Father of Outcome-based Education," summarized it well:
The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students.7Matt's last comment was especially threatening to the teacher. His statement, "God made us", is an absolute truth. It can't be modified to please the group. Therefore it doesn't fit the consensus process -- the main psycho-social strategy of the new national-international education system designed to mold world citizens.9 It demands that all children participate in group discussions and agree to:
....a large part of what we call "good teaching" is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues.8
- be open to new ideas
- share personal feelings
- set aside home-taught values that might offend the group
- compromise in order to seek common ground and please the group.
- respect all opinions, no matter how contrary to God's guidelines
- never argue or violate someone's comfort zone
Each new truth or "synthesis" would ideally reflect a blend of each participant's feelings and opinions. In reality, the students were manipulated into compromising their values and accepting the politically correct Soviet understanding of the issue discussed. Worse yet, the children learned to trade individual thinking for a collective mindset. Since the concluding consensus would probably change with the next dialogue, the process immunized them against faith in any unchanging truth or fact.
This revolutionary training program was officially brought into our education system in 1985, when President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev signed the U.S. - U.S.S.R. Education Exchange Agreement. It put American technology into the hands of Communist strategists and, in return, gave us all the psycho-social strategies used in Communist nations to indoctrinate Soviet children with Communist ideology and to monitor compliance for the rest of their lives.
Today, American children from coast to coast learn reading, health, and science through group work and dialogue. Most subjects are "integrated" or blended together and discussed in a multicultural context. Thus, fourth graders in Iowa "learn" ecology, economy, and science by "real-life" immersion into Native American cultures. They role-play tribal life and idealize the religion modeled by imaginary shamans. Seeking common ground with the guidance of a trained facilitator-teacher, they share their beliefs, feelings, and "experiences" with each other.
They might agree that "there are many gods" or "many names for the same god" and compare the exaggerated spiritual thrills of shamanism with their own church experiences. Which religion would sound most exciting to the group?
The consensus would merely be a temporary answer in a world of "continual change" -- one of many step in the ongoing evolution toward better understanding of truth -- as defined by leaders who envision a uniform global workforce and management system operating through compliant groups everywhere.
Zero Tolerance for Unwanted Facts and Logic,that is the rage right now we barley know any depth all the way around ...
"The revolution... in curriculum is that we no longer are teaching facts to children"10 announced Dr. Shirley McCune in her keynote speech at the 1989 Governor's Conference on Education.
Facts and absolute truth encourage people to think for themselves. But in tomorrow's managed communities, individual thinking must yield to collective thinking. Factual knowledge must be purged, along with biblical truths that enable people to debate, argue, and resist manipulation.
Even math and science facts conflict with the new thinking. So, in the quest for "constant change", students must learn "new new math" -- math without math facts and computation -- and fuzzy science based on feelings rather than the facts that would anchor a child's mind to certain unchanging realities.
Students who disagree with the planned consensus may face ridicule and intimidation and be marked "uncooperative" or "at risk". Many are assigned to more intense sensitivity training described by nice-sounding labels such as "conflict resolution" and "anger management". Like "critical thinking" and other educational euphemisms, these labels all point to the dialectic process that molds compliance and shows little tolerance for biblical truth.
Christian children may feel anything but free to "express" their beliefs and feelings in such a setting. That's part of the planned intimidation.
Follow God
To stand firm in a world that demands consensus, children need to:
1. Know and memorize God's Word. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind," wrote Paul (Romans 12:2). If children don't renew their minds with truth, they will be transformed by the world, not God.
Even Jesus was tempted to compromise truth and follow Satan's seductive reasoning. In the wilderness, He demonstrated the way to victory: base every response on God's unchanging truth. He answered, "It is written", not "I think" or "I feel." Wielding the sword of God's Word, he cut through the deception and won the battle. (Luke 4 and Hebrews 4:12)
Memorization is key. Memorized truth and facts provide a mental anchor to the biblical world view needed to recognize and resist compromise.
2. Recognize the nature of the spiritual battle. In the Soviet Union, the dialectic process was used to create compliant Communist workers, ready to serve the state. Today, the goal of the consensus process remains almost the same: to create compliant global citizens for the envisioned "sustainable communities." (See Agenda 21 at our website <http://www.crossroad.to>)
Now as then, opposites (right and wrong, truth and lies, fact and fiction) must be challenged, merged, and redefined in order to crush resistance and establish the new unity, compliance, and readiness to flow with "continual change".
The inspiration comes from Satan (1 John 5:19), who adapts his strategies to our changing times. At the dawn of history, he used twisted truths and seductive dialogue to challenge Eve's understanding of God and His ways. Now he uses the same process in groups.
A crowd can easily be manipulated -- especially when trained to despise absolute truth and contrary facts. (Proverbs 13:20, 2 Tim, Hebrews 13:9; 1 Timothy 6:20)
3. Wear God's armor. The strategic truths outlined in Ephesians 6:10-18 will expose and counter every deception. Study the Armor of God chart (found on the "Armor" page at our website or in chapter 4 of Brave New Schools). It lists key Scriptures and shows why the six parts of the armor will expose and counter all the main lies of New Age or earth-based religions.
Then teach your children to pray through the pieces of the armor. Simplify each part to fit their ages. Make sure they know the Scriptures behind their prayer so that their faith will be grounded in God's Word, not their imagination.
4. Count the cost " because you are not of the world the world hates you," said Jesus. "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:19-21)
If children refuse to conform to the world, it will reject them. Are your children willing to count God's favor more precious than peer approval?
Whatever their level of understanding, they need to face the choice. "Choose this day whom you will serve." (Joshua 24:15)
5. Make a commitment to follow the Shepherd. Paul did, therefore he rejoiced: "I count all things loss that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. (Philippians 3:7-9) He had dedicated himself to God, and nothing could shake his resolve.
Children who to follow Jesus may lose friends, but they will gain the best prize of all: the boundless love, life, and protection of our sovereign King. He will provide all the wisdom and strength they need to walk with Him. Remember, "He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it." (1 Thessalonians 5:24) In Him they are safe forever and ever!
and when they exclude you, and revile you,
and cast out your name as evil,
for the Son of Man's sake.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!
For indeed your reward is great in heaven.
(Luke 6:22-23)
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