Bill Ayers, the ‘Critical Pedagogy’ movement and ‘Cultural Marxism’
Geoffrey on December 15, 2009 at 10:30 am
[Morgen: Geoffrey is a regular commenter who we invited to post on occasion, based on his depth of analysis and clear writing ability. The ground war over the future of our nation's values is being waged in our school systems, and people like Bill Ayers are generals in this war. As they are wont to do, they mask their philosophies and strategies under the cloak of academic research and arcane terminology. Geoffrey's piece is a great primer on the core of liberal (socialist) strategy to subvert the education of our children.]
The motivational and foundational philosophical theorems of the American Left’s political, social and educational views are ‘Critical Pedagogy’ theory and ‘Cultural Marxism’. Bill Ayers is simply an influential, ‘celebrity’ advocate of these ideologies.
The Critical Pedagogy Movement is coming to a school near you and it means to change the world.
One child at a time.
Most people have never heard the term, ‘Critical Pedagogy’. That is intentional.
Anyone not involved in the educational community would have little reason to be aware of this leftist theory of education. If it were merely a theory however, there would be little reason for concern.
The primary assumption of critical pedagogy is that disparities between individual and social group outcomes in life are due to entrenched societal oppression. So, if anyone or any group has ‘more’ than another it is because they are either oppressing others or benefiting from the ‘oppression of the masses’.
Thus, all whites benefit from an unjust social system and, as a result are inherently guilty of racism.
Advocates implicitly deny any definition of the ‘pursuit of happiness’, which does not result in equality of outcome. That necessarily limits American’s liberty and their pursuit of happiness to the politically correct calculus of Critical Pedagogy theory.
Pedagogy is defined as ‘the art or profession of teaching’. That definition is sometimes shortened by advocates into ‘the teaching’. The theory of critical pedagogy was first fully developed and then popularized in 1968 by the Brazilian educator and influential theorist Paulo Freire. His seminal work, the Pedagogy [The Teaching] of the Oppressed, was highly influential within the US leftist academic community and in 1969 Freire was offered a visiting professorship at Harvard University.
His subsequent work was highly influential with the Bill Ayers of the world. One might think of Paulo Freire as the Saul Alinsky of the US leftist educational community. Critical Pedagogy is the educational arm of the ‘social justice movement’, which is the political arm of “liberation theology”, all of which are aspects of ‘Cultural Marxism’.
Some of the basic tenants of critical pedagogy are:
- ALL education is inherently political…
- A social and educational vision of justice and equality should be the foundation for all education
- Race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and physical ability are important domains of oppression
- The purpose of education is the alleviation of oppression and human suffering
- Schools must not hurt students–good schools don’t blame students for their failures
- Good schools don’t judge the beliefs students have about their life’s experiences
- Part of the role of any educator involves becoming a researcher into social oppression
- Education must promote emancipatory change
Sixteen of the top educational schools in America are heavily influenced by Critical Pedagogy and are shaping the future leaders of our educational system. This belief system is now spreading out of the colleges into our K-12 systems and being promulgated by radical teachers as its ‘agents of change’. It’s a well-organized, widespread movement, firmly entrenched in many Universities and its advocates are actively seeking to spread it worldwide.
Thus, most recently in Minnesota the agenda of radical teacher education came to light; The University of Minnesota redesigns teachers. Here is what the Univ. of Minnesota’s new teacher certification program requires:
Students are required to adopt “race, culture, class and gender” identity politics in order to be recommended for a teaching license.
Students must accept that teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” is a major reason for many minority students performing poorly in Minnesota schools.
All prospective teachers have to meet 14 “outcomes”, as well as “assessment” methods to assure they had achieved the outcomes. The first outcome is typical: “Future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, hetero-normativity, and internalized oppression.” [Think carefully upon that terminology, it’s quite revealing]
Other highlights deserve attention:
“Future teachers accept that they are privileged or marginalized depending on context.”
“Future teachers will recognize & demonstrate understanding of white privilege.”
“Future teachers are able to explain how institutional racism works in schools”
“Future teachers can construct and articulate a sophisticated and nuanced critical analysis of [the American Dream]…. In pursuing this analysis, students will make use of…the following:
o Myth of meritocracy in the United States
o The historical use of scientific racism to justify assumptions of fixed mental capacity
o History of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian values
o History of white racism, with special focus on current colorblind ideologyStudents are evaluated and graded on whether they conform to the “race, class, gender” agenda. They must, for example, write a “self-discovery paper” in which they “describe their own ethno-cultural background.” They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their “cultural” motives for wishing to become teachers, and take two “cultural intelligence”-type assessments. They are graded (for example) on “the extent to which they find intrinsic satisfaction” in “cross-cultural interactions.”
Students must not only demonstrate changed thinking — they must become activists. They must learn that schools are “critical sites for social and cultural transformation.” One outcome reads: “Future teachers create & fight for social justice even if only in the classroom”
Future teachers are required to subscribe to the prescribed ideology, “Every faculty member at our university that trains our teachers must comprehend and commit to the centrality of race, class, culture, and gender issues in teaching and learning, and then frame their teaching and course foci accordingly.”
The goal of critical pedagogy is social transformation, which is the product of the practice of social ‘justice’ at the collective level. Social transformation is accomplished through indoctrination of the young, leading to social transformation of the larger society as succeeding generations inculcate the ‘lessons of awareness’ transmitted to them by their ‘teachers’.
Teachers are urged not to mince words with children about the evils of the existing social order. They should portray “homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder’s choice.” In other words, they should turn the little ones into young socialists and critical theorists.
Young, impressionable children are no longer being taught to feel good about being Americans. Their schools teachers, who traditionally embody socially approved values, are teaching them to be ashamed of being Americans.
Spreading out from the schools that teach our teachers, this ideology is being inculcated into our nations’ K-12 schools and is anti-American in the most profound meaning of the term. It is a movement that is teaching future generations that capitalism and traditional American values are intrinsically evil.
Critical pedagogy and its advocates, in their vehement antipathy toward capitalism, private property and traditional American values amount to a classic fifth subversive column, no less dangerous to freedom than Communism. Its advocates are seeking to transform western societies by covertly indoctrinating our young, through an essentially clandestine and subversive transformation of its culture.
The second part of this article – focused on ‘Cultural Marxism’ – will be published tomorrow.
Category: Health & Education |
Very interesting Geoffrey. I was struck with how well our current safe-schools czar seems to fit into this view of the world. In particular, the phrase hegemonic masculinity seems to explain this quite well.
December 15, 2009 @ 11:34 amGeoffrey,
I get where you are going with this in general, but I think you are making some REALLY broad assumptions and some pretty huge leaps in logic.
You say, “Anyone not involved in the educational community would have little reason to be aware of this leftist theory of education.” I am a teacher of 14+ years and the only reason I am aware of any of what you are talking about is that I have a broad range of interests and a variety of sources of information, and even at THAT I would differ with the extent of your conclusions.
One such tenuous connection that I think you need to clarify and/or substantiate is related to this: Critical Pedagogy is the educational arm of the ‘social justice movement’, which is the political arm of “liberation theology”, all of which are aspects of ‘Cultural Marxism’
Moving from Critical Pedagogy to Social Justice Movement to Liberation Theology to Cultural Marxism, and seeming to use those terms as pejoratives, smacks of the use of broad labels without recognizing that there are essential components of these ideas that even conservatives like me would agree with.
December 15, 2009 @ 12:03 pmScott,
I am making broad assumptions and leaps of logic as they are necessary in the limited length of a blog, rather than the in-depth development that an extensive article or even a book length treatise would provide.
There is also a second part to be posted tomorrow which hopefully will make a bit more obvious the connections between Critical Pedagogy and Cultural Marxism.
My purpose is to alert those concerned citizens unaware of what is currently being implemented across our nation’s K-12 systems and am suggesting avenues of investigation for them to independently confirm, to their satisfaction, my assertions.
Scott, if you, “a teacher of 14+ years” state that “the only reason I am aware of any of what you are talking about is that I have a broad range of interests and a variety of sources of information” then you appear to confirm my assertion… “Anyone not involved in the educational community would have little reason to be aware of this leftist theory of education.”
In the same paragraph, following that with disagreement as to my conclusions is your prerogative but might I suggest that you haven’t provided a logical rationale for doing so?
Next, you state what I suspect to be part of your rationale; “One such tenuous connection that I think you need to clarify and/or substantiate is related to this: Critical Pedagogy is the educational arm of the ‘social justice movement’, which is the political arm of “liberation theology”, all of which are aspects of ‘Cultural Marxism’”
In any lack of clarity, I am remiss, yet I absolutely maintain that Critical Pedagogy, the Social Justice movement, Liberation theology and Cultural Marxism are developmental aspects of the same philosophical premises and that because they share the same belief system they are inextricably linked. Their most fundamental assumption is that people are socially oppressed. Everything they posit flows from that premise.
I also provided all the confirmation needed of the link between Critical Pedagogy and the concept of Social Justice. Both posit that oppression lies at the heart of individual and group difficulties.
Simply look once again, at some of the main tenants of Critical Pedagogy:
* ALL education is inherently political…
* A social and educational vision of justice and equality should be the foundation for all education
* Race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and physical ability are important domains of oppression
* The purpose of education is the alleviation of oppression and human suffering
* Part of the role of any educator involves becoming a researcher into social oppression
* Education must promote emancipatory change
If you still disagree, then please explain how Critical Pedagogy’s tenants are not completely shared and embraced by Social Justice theory.
“there are essential components of these ideas that even conservatives like me would agree with.”
I might actually agree but would request that you provide some examples of ‘essential components’ before doing so.
December 15, 2009 @ 1:21 pmFair enough. I will pull together some thoughts to illustrate what I am thinking/talking about.
But let me begin with this. Part of what I am concerned about in what you wrote is illustrated in your comment above:
“Across our nation’s K-12 systems?” I think that what you are saying is alarmist to the extreme. You say that “sixteen of the top educational schools in America are heavily influenced by Critical Pedagogy.” First of all, which schools? Second, where did that number come from? Third, who says that they are “the top educational schools in America?” Fourth, what makes you think that what these schools may or may not be pushing is being mirrored at most/every other teacher training program in the U.S. and/or filtering down to most K-12 districts?
My own anecdotal experience in SoCal, where I teach and where I have interactions with many universities and their credentialing programs, is that there is little to no evidence of this type of indoctrination taking place on a wide scale/wholesale level.
I will admit that to a certain extent I might be guilty of being contrarian. I get tired of alarmism, especially in connection to fields to which I am closely connected like education and the Christian faith. And when I read anyone, even someone as smart and articulate as you, pronouncing the subversion and perversion of the United States educational system, I get a little nervous. When making those kind of pronouncements, I think it is up to us (and in this case, you) to provide links and support to shore up what you are trying to say.
December 15, 2009 @ 2:59 pmI do mean to sound the alarm, as I believe the facts warrant. It is only ‘alarmist’ if the facts do not warrant it, you appear to be categorizing my post as alarmist, before you’ve ascertained my assertions veracity.
See:
Bill Ayers: A Terrorist Sandwich
The Renaissance Group mentioned in the post, is the source of the reference to the 16 top educational schools. The Renaisance Group is a consortium of American colleges who focus on Teacher Education programs.
A close look at the membership list on the RG website shows that aside from being excellent colleges and universities there is one common denominator—most of the schools have an added emphasis on Instructor Reform—Ayer’s area of expertise.
The Renaissance Group’s underlying message is a “rebirth of our nation’s schools… through the preparation of qualified educators.” Given Ayers prominence at the conference, that, at the least, implies agreement with his views.
As his major theme is that the American public school system is nothing but a reflection of capitalist hegemony (domination). Thus he reasons that the mission of all progressive teachers is to take back the classrooms and turn them into laboratories of revolutionary change.”
Pure Critical Pedagogy applied.
The University of Minnesota linked in my post is not part of the consortium, and further illustrates that many other colleges and Universities are heavily involved in promoting Critical Pedagogy’s Marxist assumptions.
Then there’s the:
Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC)
“INTASC is an initiative of currently more than 35 states and professional organizations working to develop and implement standards for beginning teacher licensure. The goal [is] of having a highly qualified teacher in every classroom by 2006″…
INTASC and Social Transformation
“The notion of teachers as transformative intellectuals who engage in critical examination of self and society and action upon and within the society begs the question of whether a critical pedagogy is a realistic expectation of beginning teachers. If yes, then the subsequent question is whether standards, specifically the INTASC Core Principles, support such ideals in the pedagogy of beginning teachers. We contend that a critical pedagogy is a viable pedagogy for beginning
teachers. Moreover, we argue the INTASC Core Principles can support a critical approach to teaching. Therefore, together, the two can build a strong foundation for beginning teachers that gives clear pragmatic expectations and a sound theoretical and philosophical perspective for
beginning teaching that reflects social transformation.”
I agree that any claim as to the perversion and subversion of the US educational system is a reason to be nervous and alarmed.
It is up to anyone concerned to verify my claims to their own satisfaction and up to me to provide support for my assertions.
I believe that info and links I’ve provided to The Renaissance Group, the Univ. of Minn. Redesigning Teachers and the INTASC initiative qualify as substantive support for my assertions.
Certainly its a good beginning and I suspect just the tip of the iceberg.
Since this is a covert movement, by the time it’s undeniable, it will probably be far too late.
December 15, 2009 @ 6:39 pmScott I too would be very interested in, but skeptical of examples of “there are essential components of these ideas that even conservatives like me would agree with.”
December 16, 2009 @ 7:32 amConservatives believe in freedom, Liberals in equality of results. Liberals aka: leftists/progressives/socialists, following this world view, believe that any disparity of results must be caused by and are proof of “oppressive discrimination”. Describing “Critical pedagogy” as “a fifth column” requires no “leaps of logic”.
I’m looking forward to part 2
Typical anti-intellectualism by you loony right-wingers. You have no idea what you are even talking about, you ignorance is obvious to any education scholar or student and I hope you know we are all laughing at you. Go to college you moron.
December 19, 2009 @ 9:32 pmOh wow the eloquence of this argument I’m devastated. Did they tell you going to college would cure being a moron?
December 20, 2009 @ 10:55 amThanks so much for this. I am a 35 year teacher and have been trying to warn people since before 1980 about this and finally they are waking up.
If we don’t pay attention to our schools, we will have lost this country to Marxism.
http://www.truthaboutib.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/USPEIN
I have long said that this is what they mean by ‘critical thinking’ when they fail to explain it otherwise.
PS – it is typical to accuse people of being ‘anti-intellectual’ by those who object to our objection to Marxist tenets being taught in teh schools. I have 3 degrees, speak 3 languages and two careers and play an instrument and I’m an accomplished artist. I am sick of these damned elitists claiming they are ‘intellectual’ a word that has become synonymous with ‘fool’.
Someone had damned well better sound the alarm!!!!!!!!!!!
@MATT: Typical non-substantive response including name-calling from someone who really doesn’t know what he is talking about and therefore must lower the bar by swearing.
February 7, 2010 @ 12:12 pmThe only true social justice is built on a foundation of individual liberty, exercised by one able to reason and act. Who imposes an outcome with the credible threat of force sets aside the individual’s will in favor of another will; this is the essence of moral evil.
February 14, 2010 @ 8:41 pm[...] Every once in a while I come across something that takes me to the point where I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry. Sadly, these moments tend to come almost exclusively from the right-wing these days. Today, it’s the resurrection of the theory that our educational system is being taken over by Marxists. [...]
March 3, 2010 @ 7:36 am[...] posted on the Verum Serum blog on December 15, 2009 at 10:30 [...]
July 15, 2010 @ 3:56 pm