Education or Indoctrination?

“When I look at a child, I see a living, breathing person, made in God's image, for whom God has a plan. As parent educators, we need to embrace a new notion of learning...we need to engage the heart in order to effectively educate the child. Our vision of a well-educated child is a child who has a heart for learning, a child who has the tools he needs to continue to learn for a lifetime and a child who has the love to want to do it.” - Elizabeth Foss

Fleeting Youth
15 000 hours, 900 000 minutes, 54 000 000 seconds. What could we do with this time? Fly around the world 333 times, read more than a 1000 books, hike to the summit of Mount Everest 10 times… or go to school once. This is the average amount of time, a child will spend in school. Who are we giving this time to? Who are we allowing to shape the minds of our children? And whose interests do they have at heart? The Bible clearly states that a child’s education is the responsibility of the parents. Why are we giving this responsibility away? Because the state can do a better job? Because we feel we aren’t competent? Because the responsibility is too much pressure? Because we’re too lazy? Because it’s the status quo? None of these are good enough reasons to let someone else influence the development of your child’s precious mind. Proverbs 22:6 clearly states that how a child’s mind is shaped in his youth, determines his behaviour and ideologies in his future: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Education vs Indoctrination

Let us start by looking at the difference between education and indoctrination:

Education is the process of equipping students with the necessary skills, values and beliefs in order to acquire knowledge; whereas indoctrination, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “teaching a person or group of people to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.”

African American writer, Dick Gregory, puts it quite simply, “Education means to bring out wisdom, indoctrination means to push in knowledge.” This is distinctly accurate, as teaching students how to learn, so that as they get older they can critically analyse every bit of information given to them, whether from a teacher, a parent, a politician, or a priest, a child will have had a thorough and valuable education and will be able to continue to learn and grow for the remainder of his/her life. Whereas, in contrast, teaching them what to think limits the learning and therefore confines and restricts the child – the exact opposite of the intended growth, blooming and flourishing of true learning. The problem with modern “education”, and I use the term loosely, is that it is creating people intelligent enough to repeat what they’re told and to follow orders, dumb enough to think this makes them intelligent, and blind enough not to question it.

Shaping the Minds of Future Thinkers

BBC News reported that children aged 5 to 16 spend an average of 6 hours a day in front of electronic screens – either TV, gaming, cell phones, tablets or computers. All these hours of screen time, being influenced by Hollywood and unachievable worldly ideals, coupled with all the hours of school and being inveigled by a pawn in a government sponsored system, how much time do you as a parent have to actually raise your child with morals and values that are in line with what you believe to be right? As clear-minded, responsible parents who love their children, we need to be very cautious and think very carefully before we give this essential responsibility and privilege to people who not only don’t truly know and care for our children and their future, like you do as the parent, but also simply are using a child as a means for socially engineering their personal progress and benefits, regardless of the detrimental effects it may have on the child and even society as a whole.

Jesus clearly states that the Greatest Commandment is to love the Lord with our whole heart, and soul and mind. We often try to protect the hearts and souls of our children, yet too often, we so swiftly and willingly throw their minds, and our own for that matter, to the world to have and do with as it pleases. This is so dangerous as at the end of the day, it is in our mind that our thoughts and feelings originate, which influences our actions and the way we will then later protect our own hearts and souls. So once the world has control of our minds, we are impressionable and therefore more useful to them than if we were strong, independent individuals rooted in the truths of the Bible - that are clearly the antithesis of what the world teaches. This is why Marxist leaders throughout time have targeted the youth. We need to be informed, we need to know the truth. Unfortunately, ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s just ignorant. It is time we start taking a stand for our children, time we start protecting our youth, and time we resist the agenda of these Marxist-Communists.

Origin of State “Education”

Karl Marx said in the Communist Manifesto, “The education of all children from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” Did he say this out of the goodness of his heart because he wanted every child to receive a good education and he was willing to ensure this, even at the expense of the state or himself? NO! Three of Marx’s own children died of starvation, two committed suicide, and another child conceived with his maid was sent away and never supported financially! Children’s wellbeing was definitely not his priority! It was his own selfish gain and communist agendas that needed children to be brainwashed in order for anyone to actually believe that communism could work. Communism is called a dream of a communal utopia, because you have to be asleep to believe it. John D. Rockefeller said, “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.” Therefore they needed to hijack the system and institutions where children are taught to think, and then limit that process. They don’t want people who could think for themselves and then possibly disagree with them, they simply want puppets and pawns to do their bidding. John Dewey, the father of “progressive education” and drafter of the Humanist Manifesto and signer of the Communist Manifesto, said that “you can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.” Dewey wanted to stop children from being independent and being able to think critically. So what do you think his education system would be teaching them? Definitely not how to read and write and succeed in life. Instead they will be taught to rely on the state and comply with everything it says. This would make it easier for the masses to be controlled and not resist their agenda. Lew Rockwell put it clearly when he said, “It isn’t a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state’s concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government’s propaganda can take root as children grow up, those children will be no threat to the state apparatus. They’ll fasten the chains to their own ankles.” And thus the original Christian model of education, raising children with morals, values, manners, independence, critical thinking and ingenuity, was done away with. And so now the aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, but rather simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality, just as cultural journalist Henry L. Mencken voiced decades ago. The sad truth is that these Communist leaders exploited parents’ desires to do what’s best for their children’s future, and packaged it just right, and now they’ve sold it, and unfortunately too many are buying their lies.

State “Education” Not the Only Way

If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn’t learn to walk without going to school. What the state wants you to believe is that state education is the only way to get educated, that’s just so that you can be easily controlled and manipulated. Not only is it not the only way, but it is the worst way, and state schools shouldn’t be an option. I am a high school teacher, I have seen what is taught in the government-mandated curricula, even in private schools and in many so-called Christian schools, and it is atrocious. I will write a follow-up article focused on the nonsense filling our children’s textbooks and infiltrating their minds. And not only is the content appalling, but the manner in which it is done is not conducive to a child’s learning abilities. John Holt points out that at modern day schools we ask children to do everyday, for most of the day, what few adults are able to do even for an hour. How many of us, attending, say a lecture that doesn’t interest us, can keep our minds from wandering? Hardly any! Then some would like to argue that it is socially important for children to go to school, in order to learn how to interact in society, but once again as John Holt also so accurately points out, that the socializing aspects of school are actually unnatural and more likely to be harmful than helpful. In fact, the Biblical virtues of kindness, patience, generosity and so forth are learned by children in intimate groups of two or three. Human beings tend to behave worse in large groups, such as there is in school. There they learn something quite different. They learn popularity, conformity, bullying, teasing and things like that. Children can make friends after school hours, during holidays, community sports, at church, in the park. Is it really so radical to suggest that the current model of education is not the only way, let alone the only one that is inherently good for all children, as is often implied? Schools are not teaching children to become compassionate and independent human beings but rather, in most cases, just drugged-up obedient slaves. And in the end, we have been brainwashed by school, indoctrinated by propaganda and mesmerised by the mass media into believing that compliance is not only safe, but right and necessary. It is mandatory that we take the responsibility of our children’s education into our own hands – homeschool them, send them to small private Christian schools (not just private secular schools that attach a prayer to the beginning of the day) and most importantly, be aware of what is being taught in their curriculums. We need to be more involved and au fait with our children’s education. Sadly school is no longer a playground, it’s a battleground for the minds of our youth.

The Ugly Truth

We send our children to school to receive an education. Albert Einstein said that “education is not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think,” but this, unfortunately, is not the case in schools and universities today. What you say is monitored, even though we supposedly have freedom of speech. Anything that is contrary to what is being force-fed at these state institutions is considered hate speech. It’s so enforced that one can even commit a thought crime by thinking the wrong thing. So much for freedom. We send our children to school to learn to read, write, do maths, learn social skills, but in actual fact all we are doing is allowing the state to conform and indoctrinate our children to their lies. It’s by no mistake that education is going down hill, there are leaders in charge puppeteering the process, lowering the university standards so that under-qualified teachers are educating our youth, most of what they are actually teaching from the state mandated text books is complete disinformation, the standard to pass is dropping lower and lower, and then the university entrance credentials have to in-turn be lowered, and so we reach full circle on this detrimental downward spiral. They are purposely dumbing us down to protect their own interests. As we said earlier, critical thinking and independent individuals get in the way of their agenda. The government believes that good citizens don’t think, because thinking leads to reasoning, reasoning leads to right and wrong, being able to perceive wrong then leads to reflection, resistance and reformation. This gets in the way of their agenda, which is obviously not what they want. Therefore children are taught with rote learning, parrot fashioned memorisation style, where they are conditioned to regurgitate the propagated disinformation drilled into them. Because if something is true and correct, it must be hammered into the minds of defenseless little children, with no questions allowed, right? So in the end what they are actually learning at school is that truth comes from authority or from a show of hands; intelligence is the ability to remember and repeat; memorization and repetition are rewarded; non-compliance is punished; and ultimately taught to conform intellectually and socially. Instead, originally, education would teach that truth is truth even if no one believes it, a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. You cannot determine truth by seeing what the majority think. Intelligence is the ability to critically analyze information (all of it, not only what is “safe” for you to know) and then come to an accurate conclusion, and to stand for what you believe in. They were then able to learn about other cultures, other religions, all parts of history and come to a conclusion.

Truth doesn’t fear investigation. If something is true, it doesn’t mind if you ask questions, if you analyse everything and do your research, because it would be confident that you would always come back to the same conclusion. You would always come back to the Truth. When something is not allowed to be questioned and is instead drummed into your head and forced to be memorized, you should probably be cautious! That’s the wise thing to do, but that’s not what is taught, and that is not what is rewarded. Even the version of history that is taught in school, is heavily revised to favour our own government’s agenda while hiding its crimes, and in doing so fosters an unrealistic sense of false patriotism used to manufacture our allegiance to a corporate entity masquerading as our government. Blade Nzimande, secretary of the South African Communist party, was also our Minister of Higher education for 8 years, up until last year. Why are politicians involved in educating our youth? The media and state education have successfully lobotomised society - all the better to manipulate them through fear, confusion and sensation. This isn’t a radical right wing conservative viewpoint, they have admitted it themselves. Vladimir Lenin said, “give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Benjamin Kidd, Darwinian author who wrote in his book The Science of Power, “the chief end of education…[is] to impose on the young the ideal of subordination to the common aims of organized humanity …give us the young and we will create a new mind and a new earth in a single generation.” Max Horkheimer was one of the leading Jewish Marxists of the Frankfurt school, which pioneered Cultural Marxism, and he said, “The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.” This is black and white, it doesn’t get any clearer as to what their aim is. And as writer G. Nascimento said, “If a man is born ignorant, to parents who are ignorant, in a society that is ignorant, lives a life of ignorance, and eventually dies ignorant, then ignorance is the norm. And thus indoctrination can be called education, hypnotism can be called entertainment, criminals can be called leaders, and lies can be called Truth, because his mind was never truly his own.” Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.

True Education

John Holt so accurately points out that “a person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take from someone his right to decide what he will be curious about we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must not think about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.” This dismal truth echoes throughout our school corridors.

And furthermore, state education destroys the love of learning in children which is so strong when they are small, by “encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards, gold stars, or papers marked with a 100 and tacked to the wall, or A’s on a report card, or honour rolls, or dean’s lists, or Omega Beta Kappa keys. In short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else.” And this is what gets rewarded, by educators, by society, by organizations, and by parents. What I’d rather hear, is a parent who says, “I am the proud parent of a child who has resisted his teachers’ attempts to break his spirit and bend him to the will of his masters.” Children are born curious, they are always exploring. From the time a child is young, we lovingly teach them how to walk, how to talk, and once they have learned this, society tells them to sit down and shut up. “Sadly, children’s passion for learning often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only”, says educator Robert John Meehan. Education is more than just learning facts, it’s about instilling values and morals, it’s the ability and skills required to think critically and continually furthering the learning process as they engage with new information. This will help them to foster a love for solving problems and adapting to new details and circumstances in real life. Sandra Dodd points out that “kids who are in school just visit life sometimes, and then they have to stop to do homework or to go to sleep early or to get to class on time. They’re constantly reminded that they are preparing for ‘real life’, while being isolated from it.” John Holt, writer, educator and pioneer in youth rights theory, surmised that “any child who can spend an hour or two a day, with adults that he likes, who are interested in the world and like to talk about it, will on most days learn far more from their talk than he would learn in a week of school.” Don’t misunderstand me, this doesn’t replace learning literacy and numeracy. As an educator, I know the need for children to gain these skills, but they can very sufficiently be taught at home, or by a trustworthy friend of the parents’, without having all the propaganda and Marxist disinformation underlying every subject and lesson. Trade up with another mother, “you teach our children Bio, and I’ll teach them math”, or whatever it may be. This way of learning will be surpassingly greater for them spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. The greatest gift we can give our children is our time, because when we give our time, we are giving a finite portion of our life that we can never have back. Thus every moment shared with our children must therefore be both presented and perceived as being highly valued and irreplaceable. A child will feel this and therefore also value it more. Great classrooms, whether in a field, in a library, in the kitchen, in a museum, or in a rock pool, are characterized by positive, open relationships, mutual respect, and a shared responsibility for the learning process. Instead of trying to fill children with facts and knowledge that we think will be most important and needed in the future, we don’t know what field they will go into or how society will develop, for example, so rather we should try to shape children into people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned. Fostering this culture of intrinsic motivation for continuous learning, coupled with beliefs and virtues instilled through the affectionate and good example of a loving parent or guardian - that is a true education. That will lead to a family, a community, a nation, that will thrive on unity and mutual respect. A nation that will excel with surpassing understanding. This is true education - the education God intended for us and is described in the Hand Book of Life.

By Emma Vaughan-Jones

Henry Morton Stanley School of Christian Journalism Researcher

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