Hello Friends!
Today, nearly 90% of Christian children attend a public school. Their
families have a vested interest in all that happens there.
Indoctrination
is commonly defined as:
“to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., especially to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.”
If you’re not ready
to take a hard look at the true state of public education from a global perspective, you will want to
avoid this unflinching and highly controversial topic. And, if you think you
already know all that’s necessary about education in America, think again...
Without question, one of the greatest tools for social engineering is in the realm of public education. This is not a blanket statement downplaying the role of education per se, but a judgment call recognizing the tremendous influence that the educational system can play in creating "social change" and conformity. Consider the following quote:
"Fifty years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal - and power." -- Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End.
Consider this statement
from Naresh Singh, a program director at the International Institute for
Sustainable Development:
"Education has been advanced as significant in bringing about changes in attitudes, behavior, beliefs and values...In order to redirect behavior and values towards institutional change for sustainable development there is a need to investigate strategic options in relation to educational philosophies, scope for propagation and adoption, and groups most likely to be susceptible to change." (Naresh Singh, "Empowerment for Sustainable Development: An Overview," Empowerment For Sustainable Development (Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing/Winnipeg, MB: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1995), p. 27)
All of this points to a radical shift now taking place -
a shift which emphasizes "global thinking" and "planetary
norms." According to the IISD literature:
"the task of education for the immediate future is to assist in activating an ethic of planetary sensitivity...We must pass from a human-centered to an earth-centered sense of reality and value." (Budd Hall and Edmund Sullivan, "Transformative Education and Environmental Action in the Ecozoic Era," Empowerment For Sustainable Development (Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing/Winnipeg, MB: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1995 - edited by Naresh Singh) p. 102)
This "global-shift
role" for general education is a foundational platform for UNESCO, the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The first
Director General of UNESCO, Julian Huxley, clearly laid out UNESCO's
educational scope:
"In general, Unesco must constantly be testing its policies against the touchstone of evolutionary progress. A central conflict of our times is that between nationalism and internationalism, between the concept of many national sovereignties and one world sovereignty...
"The moral of Unesco is clear. The task laid upon it of promoting peace and security can never be wholly realized through the means assigned to it - education, science and culture. It must envisage some form of world political unity, whether through a single world government or otherwise...However, world political unity is, unfortunately, a remote ideal, and in any case does not fall within the field of Unesco's competence. This does not mean that Unesco cannot do a great deal towards promoting peace and security. Specifically, in its educational program it can stress the ultimate need for world political unity and familiarize all peoples with the implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a world organization." (Julian Huxley, UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, (Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press, 1947) p.13)
Back in 1968, UNESCO, along with The
Twentieth Century Fund (now called The Century Foundation) and the Ford
Foundation, helped start a new educational body located in Geneva, Switzerland;
the International Baccalaureate Organization. (See "Founding Donors"
at the IBO's webpage, www.ibo.org )
Originally, the IBO was established to
provide a common educational basis for international students that would be
acceptable to universities around the world. With this in mind, IBO curriculum
has, for over 35 years, emphasized that its students broaden their
understanding of various cultures, languages, and points of view.
Understanding others points of view,
cultures and languages is, in itself, a noble task - it's something that I work
at pursuing and instilling within my own children and in myself. But
underlining IBO's philosophy is something deeper; according to George Walker,
the Director General at IBO:
"International education offers people a state of mind: international-mindedness. You've got to change people's thinking." (IBO Background Paper - Themes in Education, Education Weaves Together the Threads of Peace, IBO Head Office, Geneva, Switzerland, 15 June, 2003 (p. 2)
Hence:
"students develop an awareness of moral and ethical issues and a sense of social responsibility... fostered by examining local and global issues." (See "The Six Academic Subjects" at the IBO webpage, www.ibo.org )
This is not simply ambiguous language. In
advancing the international-mindedness of IBO, the organization has endorsed
the Earth Charter
- an earth-centered declaration which venerates global political-ethical-moral
and spiritual unification. Some, such as Mikhail Gorbachev, have gone so far as
to compare the Earth Charter
with "those 10 or 15 Commandments which we
all know about...those famous testaments..." (Mikhail Gorbachev, "The Earth Charter,"
Speech: Rio+5 Forum, March 18, 1997. Green Cross International webpage, www.gci/ch/GreenCrossFamily/gorby/newspeeches/speeches/spech18.3.97.html
This particular website was moved to http://web243.petrel.ch/GreenCrossFamily/gcfamilyhp.html
and Mr. Gorbachev's speech can be read at
http://web243.petrel.ch/GreenCrossFamily/gorby/newspeeches/speeches/speech18.3.97.html. See Gary Kah's book, The New World Religion (Noblesville, IN: Hope International Publishing, 1999), chapter six. Note: As of recent, these links are no longer accessible!
http://web243.petrel.ch/GreenCrossFamily/gorby/newspeeches/speeches/speech18.3.97.html. See Gary Kah's book, The New World Religion (Noblesville, IN: Hope International Publishing, 1999), chapter six. Note: As of recent, these links are no longer accessible!
Providing the Earth Charter initiative with advanced
support, the International Baccalaureate Organization has agreed to become an Earth Charter
partnership entity, along with such groups as the Association of World
Citizens, Friends of the Earth, Global People's Assembly, Rain Forest Action
Network, the US branch of the United Nations Association, and the World
Parliament of Religions. (See "Our Partners" at the Earth Charter Community
Summits webpage, www.earthchartersummits.org
) Furthermore, IBO Deputy Director General, Ian Hill, sits on the Earth Charter Initiative
Education Advisory Committee.
Propagating this new global
"testament," IBO is currently looking at ways to incorporate
the Earth Charter
into the following curriculum areas; Theory of Knowledge, Environmental
Systems, Environmental Science, Technology and Social Change, Peace and
Conflict Studies, Experimental Science, Philosophy, Geography, History, Math,
and the Arts. (See "Educational Resources" at the Earth Charter
Community Summits webpage, www.earthchartersummits.org
)
None of this would be very remarkable if
the IBO were a small entity stuffed somewhere in a forgotten corner of the
world - but it's not. Presently, almost 1,300 schools around the globe are
authorized to offer IBO programs. And in the United States and Canada, close to
650 schools are tied in to the IBO, with 473 in the US. Adding to this, the IBO
is linked into a number of United Nations' functions beyond the UN
inspired Earth Charter
and UNESCO - where it holds a special consultative status. Examples of this UN
partnering includes: preparatory work for the UN's World Summit on Sustainable
Development, activities within a number of UN International Schools, and
involvement with a variety of United Nations Model programs. The work of the
IBO at the World Summit on Sustainable Development was published by the
International Institute for Sustainable Development, Earth Negotiations Bulletin,
Special Report on Selected Side Events at WSSD PC-III, 25 March - 5 April,
2002. The other connections can be easily found by doing a basic web search on
the IBO and the United Nations.
Funding for the body also reflects this
global-local-global approach. During the month of October, 2003, in a monetary
show of support, the US Department of Education awarded the IBO a grant of
$1.17 million. According to the IBO press release, these US taxpayer funds were
to be specifically channeled into setting up IBO programs "in six middle
and high school partnerships in disadvantaged areas in Massachusetts, New York
and Arizona." (IBO Press Release, "US Department of Education Grants
IBO US$1.17 Million," IBO Head Office, Geneva, Switzerland, 14 October
2003)
Additional funding for the IBO has come
from 14 other major national governments, including the United Kingdom, Japan,
and Canada. Monies have also been funneled in through contributions from the
Goldman Sachs Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the US Agency for
International Development, the Armand Hammer Foundation and the Armand Hammer
United World College, the United Nations International School, the New York
Times Foundation, Gulf Canada, the IBM World Trade Organization, and many
others. Obviously, incorporating a global mind-change educational agenda
carries a hefty price tag - and it's no surprise that heavy financial hitters
are involved in the play. (See "Founding Donors" at the IBO's
webpage, www.ibo.org [accessed February 18, 2004], it contains a list
of other contributors and regular funding partners)
Progressing the idea of an international
educational platform, Professor Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of
Ismaili Studies, delivered a speech to the International Baccalaureate
Organization on May 5th, 2003, stating that we need to see things in broader
terms than just nation-states and western liberal democracy. Additionally, he
stated that when people's religious beliefs become a vehicle for political and
social agendas, it's an abuse of religion. ("IIS Director Delivers 2003
Peterson Lecture," June 2003, document from the Institute of Ismaili
Studies)
In 1989, Robert Muller received the UNESCO
Peace Education Prize for his work in developing a World Core Curriculum.
Frederico Mayor, the Director-General of UNESCO at the time, praised Muller as
an "innovator in education" and gave accolades for Muller's book New Genesis: Shaping a Global
Spirituality, saying that it:
"offers the world a blueprint for a new, spiritual vision of human destiny." (Excerpt from the address by Mr. Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO, 20 September 1989. Reprinted in Robert Muller's book, Dialogues of Hope (Ardsley, NY: World Happiness and Cooperation, 1990), p. 172)
Yes it does! According to New Genesis:
"...humankind is seeking no less than its reunion with the "divine," its transcendence into ever higher forms of life. Hindus call our earth Brahma, or God, for they rightly see no difference between our earth and the divine. This ancient simple truth is slowly dawning again upon humanity. Its full flowering will be the real, great new story of humanity, as we are about to enter our cosmic age and to become what we were always meant to be: the planet of God." (Robert Muller, New Genesis: Shaping a Global Spirituality (Anacortes, WA: World Happiness and Cooperation, 1982), p. 49)
Predictably, Muller's World Core Curriculum
follows this New Genesis
-New Age vein. In fact, Muller's World Core Curriculum is really more of a philosophy
of education than an actual curriculum - a philosophy firmly grounded in New
Age concepts of man's deification and "Earth spirituality." Bridging
all of this, Muller explains:
"Yes, global education must transcend material, scientific and intellectual achievements and reach deliberately into the moral and spiritual spheres."
Why? According to Muller:
"We must manage our globe so as to permit the endless stream of humans admitted to the miracle of life to fulfill their lives physically, mental, morally and spiritually as has never been possible before in our entire evolution. Global education must prepare our children for the coming of an independent...happy planetary age."
Lucile Green, a long-time world government
activist and friend of Robert Muller, describes this new "planetary
age" in her memoir, Journey
To A Governed World:
"The most urgent item on the planetary agenda is to set the limits of freedom and order in supra-national, global affairs. A constitution for the world is needed which combines the achievements of both hemispheres: that is, constitutional limitations and a bill of rights from the West and a spacious world-view from the East." (Lucile Green, Journey To A Governed World: Thru 50 Years in the Peace Movement (Berkeley, CA: 1991), pp. 34-35)
Another contemporary of Muller, William D.
Hitt, wrote in his book The
Global Citizen:
"As global citizens, we will need a new type of thinking." (William D. Hitt, The Global Citizen (Columbus, OH: Battelle Press, 1998), p.110)
This is the crux of global social change: a
"new type of thinking" that bridges international education, global
ethics, world political unity, and the emergence of a "planetary
spirituality." It is the desire to shape and mold man according to man's
image. It is the desire to re-cast history and human endeavor to conform with a
centralized-utopian version of a "world society" - a society shaped
by propaganda, planetary-correctness, and a faulty and exalted image of man and
nature. And finally, when contemplating the move towards this world society and
the propaganda role of "international education," consider the words
of Scott Nearing, an avid socialist and proponent of world government:
"The conversion of a continent of localists into a continent of nationalists in a few generations must rank as one of the outstanding achievements of modern times. Indoctrination works. Human loyalties can be and are speedily shifted by experience coupled with propaganda...
"Worldizing processes are building up a great number and variety of world experiences. Millions of human beings, responding to these experiences, are already world conscious, world minded and prepared to function as citizens in a world society. Such human beings have passed through and graduated from the school of nationalism. They are wordlists. They wait with impatience for the emergence of a world commonwealth." (Scott Nearing, United World (New York: Island Press, 1944), pp. 20-21)
In closing:
As
the line between education, "political correctness," and propaganda
becomes increasingly blurred, it is essential that we navigate this global maze
with wisdom, discernment, clear thinking, and an understanding of the forces that are
shaping our 21st century world.Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!
Blessings on your studies and involvement in understanding and sharing the Truth!
If you have been blessed by this message or have a specific question, prayer request or testimony, please send me a note to: encouragingconcepts@live.com
I love hearing from you. Keep reading Encouraging Concepts!
I love hearing from you. Keep reading Encouraging Concepts!
Blessings!
Shane K. Morin <><
Shane K. Morin <><
Encouraging Concepts
Truth for Today
"Living Life From a Biblical Worldview"
Lighthouse Publications <><
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Lighthouse Publications <><
"Dedicated to the Never Ending Search for the Creator's calling within You" (TM)
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