The Common Core of State Mind Control over Children


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The Common Core of State Mind Control
 
What is it?
 
It's an education program called Common Core State Standards Initiative.
 
I am not all that familiar with it, so I won't comment on details yet. I learned of it from yesterday's Glenn Beck Program--he is making a major campaign against it. Here is the article on TheBlaze:
 
Is the ‘Common Core’ Initiative Dumbing Down America’s Students?
by Tiffany Gabbay
TheBlaze
March 14, 2013
 
From the article:

 

Last week TheBlaze covered in detail the controversial school curriculum system — one that had students actually design a socialist flag — out of Texas dubbed CSCOPE. Thursday, however, the focus turned to another disturbing initiative in America’s education system: Common Core Standards State Standards.
 
The Common Core State Standards initiative is, according to its official website, a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), developed “in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.”
 
. . .
 
With reportedly nearly every state in the union — adopting similar education programs, Common Core is influenced by successes in other countries and was never drafted with full scrutiny from the public.  Beck added that states had a mere two months to commit to the plan during summer months in which state legislators were out of session.
 
Meanwhile, the federal government is, Beck noted, encouraging states to adopt Common Core. States that adopt common core can, according to Beck, receive waivers of the most demanding provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act.

 
Here are the videos of his discussion with some teachers and organizers who are fighting Common Core from TheBlaze:
 

 

 

 
I am disturbed that input into a child's education is being hidden from the parents and the federal government is strongly pressuring the states to adopt this. Like I said, I don't know many details yet, but I do know such a structure will make school-based indoctrination and mind control of students far, far easier to pull off if a really bad guy gets into power--if it is not already happening.
 
This appears from my limited knowledge so far like Ayn Rand's "The Comprachicos" coming into full bloom.
 
Michael

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As a sidenote to the above, when I looked up Common Core, I got the Wikipedia article I am giving at the end of this post. The part that bothers me is that it is slated for deletion. When I looked on the discussion page and on the revision history, I saw that it was first posted in 2007, but has only been slated for deletion last month (Feb, 2013).

I believe this is happening because it deals with "the University of Chicago's implementation of the Great Books program," and not the loopy stuff I have seen in the Common Core State Standards Initiative. "Common Core" is one hell of a search term and it will only become more popular as the government's program gains more strength and regulatory clout. It would not do for the regulator's peace of mind for a person to look up "Common Core" and get a classic books curriculum instead of the indoctrination materials promoted by the government.

Since it will proabably be removed, my next post will be a simple copy-paste of the entire article--with some of the navigation tags and things like that removed. I also left out cross-links and reformatted the table to a more linear form because of the forum software.

Michael

EDIT: Because of the current quirkiness of the forum software with quotes, embedded videos, HTML, etc., I dare not edit my post above. But I wanted to include a comment, so here is as good a place as any.

It appears that the Common Core State Standards Initiative not only has backing from progressives on the left, people like Jeb Bush and others on the progressive right are behind it. Even Bill Gates, fer Keriiiiisakes. The main thing, apparently for them, is to get control of kids as soon as possible and neutralize the influence of parents when it goes against their programming and indoctrination.

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Here is the Wikipedia article I referenced above. The old address is Common Core, but I don't know how long it will be valid.

Common Core
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page. Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the Guide to deletion.

The Common Core (also core curriculum or the Core) is the University of Chicago's implementation of the Great Books program for its college.[1] These courses cover topics in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and sciences. It forms the general education requirements for the college and uses the Socratic method to teach critical analysis of original texts. The purpose of the Core is to provide a common intellectual experience for all undergraduate students regardless of their major. It is also associated with Chicago's highly academic culture and its reputation for rigor.

The Core was founded on the principles of educational perennialism by Chicago President Robert Hutchins and philosophy professor Mortimer Adler in the 1930s.[2] It has been modified and expanded in order to address the accusation of deifying Dead White Men, but in essence it is still as it was originally intended: a broad introduction to the best thinkers of Western Civilization through original source material.

Contents

1 History
1.1 The New Plan
1.2 Hutchins' "Great Books" seminar
1.3 Emergence of the Core
2 Structure
2.1 Requirements
2.2 Table of Core Curriculum Requirements
3 References

History

The New Plan

The tradition of general education at the undergraduate level at the University of Chicago started in the early 1920s under the New Plan proposed by Dean Chauncy S. Boucher. Boucher's stated goal was to attract intellectually stronger students to Chicago at the risk of losing its weaker and less committed ones. The first interdisciplinary science survey course for freshman was called "The Nature of the World and Man".

In 1930, when President Robert Hutchins decided to restructure the University into four separate graduate divisions, the College became administratively independent as well. Boucher took this opportunity to expand his general education curriculum to four year-long survey courses administered by faculty from the four graduate divisions: humanities, social sciences, biological sciences, and physical sciences. Boucher believed these courses would provide students with historical perspective into a variety of fields and would benefit students seeking an academic career and those who intended to go into the professions alike. A key component of the curriculum was the absence of grades in favor of six-hour comprehensive final exams.

Hutchins' "Great Books" seminar

Although Robert Hutchins is known for the founding of the Core, the University President was ambivalent towards the leaders of the general education curriculum that Chauncy Boucher had selected for his New Plan. Hutchins' collaboration with Mortimer Adler had led to the creation of a two-year seminar called "General Honors 101", later renamed "Classics of the Western World". Students met for two hours a week on Thursday evenings with no formal lectures. The readings focused exclusively on the Great Books, the first year covering Homer to Cervantes and the second year covering Duns Scotus to Freud. Hutchins' "Great Books" course became an ongoing challenge to Boucher's New Plan and represented a entirely different intellectual approach: one that used classical texts to stress introspection and active interpretation.

Emergence of the Core

The tension between Boucher's New Plan and the Hutchins-Adler "Great Books" approach led to the revolution of 1942. Structural changes in the College led to the development of a two-year core curriculum approach that would stay in place until the 1990s.


Structure


Requirements

Beginning in the 1940s, the College of the University of Chicago had a Common Core curriculum that required 21 courses. In 1998, University President Hugo F. Sonnenschein, an economist, decided to reduce the Core to 15 classes in order to attract more applicants to the college. The protests that followed led to his resignation in 1999.

The structure of the new Core consists of integrated sequences of quarter-long courses in the liberal arts and sciences. The requirements of the Core normally take up one-third of an undergraduate's total course credits towards an A.B. or a S.B..

Table of Core Curriculum Requirements
Discipline

Sample courses

Quarters Required

Discipline

Humanities

Students engage with literary, historical, and philosophical texts through the Humanities Core in the first year.

Sample courses
Greek Thought and Literature
Philosophical Perspectives in the Humanities
Readings in World Literature
Human Being and Citizen
Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange
Media Aesthetics: Image, Sound, Text
Language and the Human

Sample texts: Homer, The Iliad; Aristotle, Poetics; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; "L'enfant sauvage" [The wild child], François Truffaut; Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’ ”

Quarters Required

2-3

Discipline

Social Sciences

Students examine how societies are organized through the Social Sciences Core in the first or second year.

Sample courses
Self, Culture, and Society
Power, Identity, and Resistance
Mind
Classics of Social and Political Thought
Social Science Inquiry

Sample texts: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks; Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations; Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844; Writings by Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Sigmund Freud, and Simone de Beauvoir

Quarters Required

3

Discipline
Civilization

Students can encounter a Western or non-Western civilization on campus or through a study abroad program.

Sample courses
History of European Civilization
Jewish Thought and Literature
America in World Civilization
Jerusalem in Middle Eastern Civilizations (in Jerusalem, Israel)
African Civilization in Africa (in Cape Town, South Africa)
China in East Asian Civilization (in Beijing, China)

Quarters Required

2-3

Discipline
Art, Music, or Drama

Students choose among courses in the theory or practice of the arts in Art History, Music, Theater and Performance Studies, Creative Writing, or Visual Arts programs.

Sample courses
Islamic Art and Architecture, 1100 to 1500
Introduction to Music Analysis and Criticism
Visual Language
Words and Bodies in Space and Time

Quarters Required

1-2

Discipline
Mathematics

Students develop skills in formal reasoning and logic in mathematics courses.

Sample courses
Calculus
Elementary Statistics
Multimedia Programming as an Interdisciplinary Art
Honors Introduction to Computer Science

Quarters Required

1-2

Discipline
Biological Sciences

Students choose among course options that explore the process of scientific inquiry in the biological sciences.

Sample courses
Eliminating Infectious Disease
Metabolism and Exercise
Life through a Genomic Lens
Cellular and Molecular Biology

Quarters Required

2-3

Discipline
Physical Sciences

Students are exposed to scientific observation and reasoning in Core physical sciences courses.

Sample courses
Foundations of Modern Physics
The Science of Global Environmental Change
Introduction to Astrophysics

Quarters Required

2-3

Discipline
Foreign Languages

Students must demonstrate skill in a foreign language equivalent to one year of college-level study.

Sample courses
American Sign Language
Arabic
Chinese
French
Latin
Portuguese

Quarters Required

3 (can be fulfilled through placement test)

References

1. ^ University of Chicago Admissions Office. "The Core"
2. ^ William Haarlow (2 September 2003). Great Books, Honors Programs, and Hidden Origins: The Virginia Plan and the University of Virginia in the Liberal Arts Movement. Routledge. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-203-46386-4. Retrieved 27 February 2013.

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Glenn Beck mentioned that Michelle Malkin has a lot of information on the Common Core State Standards Initiative. I looked it up on her site. She has an entire "Rotten to the Core" series. I have not had time to read it, but given my leaning in Glenn and Michelle's direction and my trust in their credibility to get the information right (but not always agreeing with their conclusions), here are the links.

Michelles's site is a bit disorganized to post a single link, so here are several. Once there, you will be offered a bunch of related links under and beside each article. So if I missed something, or if and when she writes about this topic again, it will be easy to to come across it on her site.

Rotten to the Core, Part 1: Obama’s War on Academic Standards

Rotten to the Core, Part 2: Readin’, writin’ and deconstructionism

Rotten to the Core, Part 3: Lessons from Texas and the Growing Grassroots Revolt

Rotten to the Core, Part 4: The Feds’ Invasive Student Tracking Database

Rotten to the Core: Reader feedback from the frontlines

My child’s Common Core-aligned Algebra book is crap (this one goes to another website, but the article is by Malkin and listed as part of the series)

Attention, parents: Common Core opt-out form now available

Michael

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Michael:

Glad you brought this issue forward.

As Deanna pointed out in her post, a parent(s) have to be virtually insane to send any child to a public school.

Either you pick a private, non-sectarian, or, "religious" school, or, you home school.

John Dewey, a "progressive" educator who was the force in training generations of administrators and teachers believed in the creation of the "common child."

In my eight (8) years of serving on one of the top two (2), three (3) school districts in NY City...I consistently read Dewey's statement on creating the "common child." Paraphrasing his conceptual communalism, he stated that we have to "separate" the child from his parents, country and religion, so that we can create the "common child" who will serve society.

Dewey sought to supply that unifying pattern by applying the principles and practices of democracy, as he interpreted them, consistently throughout the educational system. First, the schools would be freely available to all from kindergarten to college. Second, the children would themselves carry on the educational process, aided and guided by the teacher. Third, they would be trained to behave cooperatively, sharing with and caring for one another. Then these creative, well-adjusted equalitarians would make over American society in their own image.

As one author noted, Dewey explained that:

“The school,” ... “must be made into a social center capable of participating in the daily life of the community . . . and make up in part to the child for the decay of dogmatic and fixed methods of social discipline and for the loss of reverence and the influence of authority.” Children were to get from the public school whatever was missing in their lives elsewhere that was essential for their balanced development as members of a democratic country.

He therefore,

...urged that manual training, science, nature-study, art and similar subjects be given precedence over reading, writing and arithmetic (the traditional three R’s) in the primary curriculum. The problems raised by the exercise of the child’s motor powers in constructive work would lead naturally, he said, into learning the more abstract, intellectual branches of knowledge.

This "educator" has done more to destroy the individual mind of the children that move through his "communalist" gristmills than any elected political person.

Dewey aimed to integrate the school with society, and the processes of learning with the actual problems of life, by a thoroughgoing application of the principles and practices of democracy. The school system would be open to all on a completely free and equal basis without any restrictions or segregation on account of color, race, creed, national origin, sex or social status. Group activity under self-direction and self-government would make the classroom a miniature republic where equality and consideration for all would prevail.

This type of education would have the most beneficial social consequences. It would tend to erase unjust distinctions and prejudices. It would equip children with the qualities and capacities required to cope with the problems of a fast-changing world. It would produce alert, balanced, critical-minded individuals who would continue to grow in intellectual and moral stature after graduation.

The Progressive Education Association, inspired by Dewey’s ideas, later codified his doctrines as follows:

1. The conduct of the pupils shall be governed by themselves, according to the social needs of the community.

2. Interest shall be the motive for all work.

3. Teachers will inspire a desire for knowledge, and will serve as guides in the investigations undertaken, rather than as task-masters.

4. Scientific study of each pupil’s development, physical, mental, social and spiritual, is absolutely essential to the intelligent direction of his

development.

5. Greater attention is paid to the child’s physical needs, with greater use of the out-of-doors.

6. Cooperation between school and home will fill all needs of the child’s development such as music, dancing, play and other extra-curricular activities.

7. All progressive schools will look upon their work as of the laboratory type, giving freely to the sum of educational knowledge the results of their experiments in child culture. These rules for education sum up the theoretical conclusions of the reform movement begun by Colonel Francis Parker and carried forward by Dewey at the laboratory school he set up in 1896 with his first wife in connection with the University of Chicago. With his instrumentalist theory of knowledge as a guide, Dewey tried out and confirmed his new educational procedures there with children between the ages of four and fourteen.

This work was subsequently popularized by the leading faculty members of Teachers College in New York after Dewey transferred from Chicago to Columbia University. From this fountainhead Dewey’s ideas filtered throughout most of the teachers training schools and all the grades of public

instruction below the university level. His disciples organized a John Dewey Society and the Progressive Education Association and have published numerous books and periodicals to propagate and defend his theories.

More to follow...

A...

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I have been running certain searches concerning the malignant educational philosopher John Dewey and this appeared in the search. Clearly, and despite the "religious" aspects of the site for "O"bjectivists, they see the same relationship between communalist Dewey and the "common core" that Michael and Beck have revealed...

http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/john-dewey/

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Just another part of the fulmination of America and the rise of the United States.

--Brant

next, the real American-not (Homeland) Empire and world traducification (or, you ain't seen nothin' yet)

Damn that Erie Railroad case*...it's been downhill since then...

*Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), is a landmark[1] decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that federal courts did not have the judicial power to create general federal common law when hearing state law claims under diversity jurisdiction. In reaching this holding, the Court overturned almost a century of federal civil procedure case law, and established the foundation of what remains the modern law of diversity jurisdiction as it applies to United States federal courts.

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In so far as I understand it, I agree with the 1938 decision.

That decision has created a forum shopping "door" that overturned one hundred years of law, which, in and of itself, is not a negative.

I respect your observations on law...take an hour and review this panel's analysis of the decision on CSpan,,,I found it definitive as to the validity of the decision.

http://http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/298797-6

A...

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Here is some gasoline for the fire.

 

Sugata Mitra has had some extremely good results, but his TED presentation sounds like the toxic philosophical underpinning of Common Core.

 

 

From what I see, the idiots in the bureaucratic educational system are doing what all idiot bureaucrats and idealists always do with something like this, they make it all or nothing. (Prompted by the power-mongers, of course.)

 

Instead of ADDING Mitra's experiences to traditional education, they are trying to TOTALLY REPLACE traditional education with his approach.

 

For the record, I have not seen Mitra mentioned in any of the Common Core materials I have examined yet, but I see his core ideas all over it.

 

I'm only providing this video because I came across it and it fits so well. But I bet you there are oodles of people out there who have, on a substantial scale, experimented with the same "let the kids work it out" Summerhill-like ideal, and promoted it to the mainstream on a philosophical fundament level.

 

Bill Gates is looming ever more in my perception in this respect. I believe he did a good thing by promoting the online Khan Academy. But somehow that pioneering spirit grew in his soul into a more sinister control society drive. Going from recent press mentions (like Gates wishing Obama had more power to circumvent the Constitution and "get things done"), I think he is developing a piranha-like hunger to play God with others and is seeking political power to do it.

 

At any rate, Mitra is one of the best shots at the approach that learning environment engineering is the be-all and end-all of education, with teachers serving children rather than instructing them at the root. So this video is well worth watching.

 

Although he has a problem of scope, I believe some of his insights do cut deep in human nature, especially in this digital age, and can be quite useful if integrated into the 3 R's (readin, ritin, rithmatick).

 

But the good-ole 3 R system has to be the true common educational core if individualism is a value we wish to encourage in our children. It gives them intellectual autonomy from the digital grid and that, if nothing else, is precious.

 

Michael

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But the good-ole 3 R system has to be the true common educational core if individualism is a value we wish to encourage in our children. It gives them intellectual autonomy from the digital grid and that, if nothing else, is precious.

Michael

Along with the recognition that all children are autodidactic, yes? In the sense that individuals have to integrate or gain their own knowledge, teaching is more presentation the real work has to be 'done' by the student.

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Along with the recognition that all children are autodidactic, yes? In the sense that individuals have to integrate or gain their own knowledge, teaching is more presentation the real work has to be 'done' by the student.

tmj,

This is the either-or thinking I was talking about. And it's a false dichotomy.

Good teaching is a mixture of pushing information on students (so essential stuff doesn't get left out) and fostering their curiosity and love of getting it on their own.

A good teacher doesn't do one or the other. A good teacher does both. A good teacher is task master and storyteller. A good teacher deals in knowledge and inspiration.

But the 3 R's have to be involved. The sorry state of public education makes it necessary to emphasize that point. What use is a calculator to a person who does not know basic math? A crutch? They can call it a "tool" all they want and gush about creative numbers, but it's a crutch when basic math is missing. That's about all it's good for. It's a replacement for the mind.

Sorry, producing students like that is not teaching.

It's like not letting kids learn to walk, but instead, making them ride around in motorized wheelchairs all the time. They're fine so long as they stay on the road and sidewalk system. Once they go off, even in the grass, they are screwed.

Michael

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And this is why my son goes to private school. Yeah, I actually decided it would be easier to unschool the Catholicism he has to study as a Catholic school student then to unschool the likes of The Core.

There is a very good chance he is not paying attention to the Catholic stuff anyway...

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As a person who graduated from public just last year, and I find these accusations of "mind control" (I know you don't mean the fictional, wonky type) to be downright ridiculous. This idea, also, that they are trying to subvert parents is unrealistic.

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As a person who graduated from public just last year, and I find these accusations of "mind control" (I know you don't mean the fictional, wonky type) to be downright ridiculous. This idea, also, that they are trying to subvert parents is unrealistic.

I agree. But if you look at the general quality of education in the public schools at the elementary levels you will say they are engines for mass producing mediocrity. If you came out of school with your excellence intact I praise and congratulate you. You are a lucky fellow.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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As a person who graduated from public just last year, and I find these accusations of "mind control" (I know you don't mean the fictional, wonky type) to be downright ridiculous. This idea, also, that they are trying to subvert parents is unrealistic.

Samson,

Do you have a broader perspective than the education you received?

Have you traveled to other cultures and stayed there long enough to become uncomfortable?

Have you read many books of ideas that fall outside the ones you were forced to read in school?

Do you know who Daniel Boone is?

I know you didn't know who Pavlov was because you asked here on OL. With a proper high-school education, you should have learned that. It certainly is not your fault, but it is--just as certainly--not ridiculous to bash the system that limited your access and offered you ideologically filtered stuff instead.

I'm not saying your education made you into a zombie-like a robot controlled by puppet masters, but why do you think the zombie image is so prevalent in the pop culture of your generation? Think about what it might mean as a metaphor.

To me, the kids feel the constant barrage of subconscious "nudges" and they can sense the interference in their choice-making. But at least they eat well, have clothes, shelter and lots of entertainment, so they don't see it as outright toxic. They just don't have words for that creepy feeling of being blocked from developing their volition, of being manipulated into not thinking, but they did find an image, one they can have fun with at that. Zombie is perfect.

(btw - I can point you to all kinds of places where you can learn a litany of subconscious persuasion techniques. I can't make you want to learn it, but I can provide you with where to get the information--credible places--if you ever do.)

When I make my remarks, I'm presuming you had the standard public Progressive-infiltrated, history-rewriting, mind-unfocusing education. I admit this might not be your case because I don't know you and your particular situation.

I do know that I came out of that system when it was just starting (around 1970). I spent years, nay, decades, trying to unlearn some of the crap and procedures I was forced to learn, and more years trying to put the good stuff in my head. Once I got out of school, when I started looking up what I had learned in sources outside the control of that "modern education" system (meaning Progressive), I found to my horror that many, many things were not the way I was taught.

Here's an example. I went to first grade in Coeburn, Virginia--a small coal mining town in the back-hills of Wise County. I learned handwriting--both print and cursive--and could produce beautiful examples. I remember the gushes I would get from adults. (This was back when adults would gush over kids for merit, not just to include them in the group.)

The following year, when my parents moved up to near Washington DC (in Alexandria), I was put into second grade. Modern education. I was excited, even at that age. I loved my folks. I was going to learn better stuff than the hillbilly education they were forced to get.

But then I was told I was not supposed to know cursive until third grade because it interfered with my "development," whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. So I spent one long boring year relearning how to print, then another relearning how to write cursive. Tracing letter by goddam letter week in and week out. The result? I became trouble out of sheer boredom. And my handwriting, even today, is worse than a doctor's. Two years of sheer boredom hammering a topic one already knows is an awfully long time for a 7 year old.

The idea wasn't to develop my mind. It was to teach me to become ordinary and fit in. And back then, to the extent I could think about it, I believed the problem was me.

I won't even go into "modern math." Let's just say I used to do complex formulas with logarithms and things like that in my mind during my middle years--not because I was taught to, but because I did it on my own. I thought they were fun. (I started doing mental chess, too, but I only got up to about 23 moves or so before the board would crash in my mind,)

The system, also, killed that in my soul through the sheer boredom of learning stupid convoluted inefficient systems--over and over and over--that I don't even remember any more. Oh yeah, I forgot... that was accompanied by outright mocking from my teachers for wanting to do it in my head. And this was before calculators. Imagine now...

At least I can still run a tab in my head in the grocery store and simple things like that, but that's about it. Maybe I could recapture some of my former skill, but the negative emotional baggage anchored to it always causes me discomfort when I try. Frankly, for the life I now live, it's not worth going to an analyst over.

I could go on and on, all the way up through college where I had to learn things down cold like Baroque figured bass--and I was a trombone player and composer, fer Kerisssakes!

I dearly wish I had known what was going on all during school. I might have responded as you just did if someone had told me (I have always been a bit of a rebel and defensive to boot), but at least I would have started checking the quality--and bias, and good-little-citizen-making mind control crap--of the information I was being fed day after day without any path open for me to change it.

There is a beautiful Sufi saying: "You become what you gaze upon."

This goes in spades for most kids.

You might want to read an essay by Ayn Rand called "The Comprachicos." It deals precisely with this issue.

But there's good news. At least, in your case, you have the Internet. That is a great tonic against the busy, busy little mind control squirrels hiding their nuts in the system. It's not ideologically perfect, but that is precisely its strength.

You need mess, not order, to break indoctrination spells.

An independent mind is a messy place, not a neat little package of obedience to the proper authorities--one that salivates like Pavlov's dogs when the bells ding, like for instance, to bash an approved scapegoat when a cliché victim magically appears out of nowhere according to the indoctrination formula (which you imply does not exist and claim it is ridiculous to imagine it does).

They're even codifying the more subtle parts of indoctrination openly as official policy. If you are interested, read Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, or hell, go back through the years and read John Dewey.

Michael

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Here are a couple of stories from TheBlaze that do not deal with Common Core, but directly relate to it.
 
From March 15, 2013:
Obama Admin. Trying to Deport German Evangelical Family Seeking Asylum Over Homeschooling
 
From March 18, 2013:
‘There Is Nothing More Un-American Than This’: Beck’s Interview with the Lawyer Representing Homeschooling Family’s Fight to Stay in the U.S.
 
 
There's also a story on Glenn's personal site dated March 18, 2013:
DOJ stands against legally immigrating German family seeking political asylum
 


 The short version goes like this. There is a law that was enacted in Hitler's administration in Germany, but still in effect, that prohibits parents from homeschooling their children. A German evangelical Christian family, the Romeike family. was running the risk of losing their children to the German state because they were insisting on homeschooling. So they immigrated to the USA and asked for asylum on religious freedom grounds. The first ruling from the immigration judge came out in their favor.
 
But the USA government was not happy. It is seeking to have them deported to Germany, claiming that homeschooling is not a fundamental right of parents.
 
This actually does look like a test case to make a precedent to later attack homeschooling in the USA--and get everyone into the Common Core indoctrination.
 
The really ugly PR thing that could blow up in Holder's face, with plenty of fallout for Obama, is that the resources and might of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are being used to try to enforce a law by Adolf Hitler--within the homeland of the United States.
 
Here's the March 18 interview between Glenn and Michael Farris of HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association), who is defending the family (see here for HSLDA details, legal briefs, etc.):
 

 
On a philosophical level, USA government (current administration) is claiming that other Christian groups do not homeschool, so this is not a human rights problem. This is collectivist thinking to the core. Individuals have no religious freedom to them--only groups do. Look at this excerpt from the interview:
 

Human rights is really equivalent to constitutional rights in this particular context.  We will not survive as a nation if the government wins, and it’s even more insidious than might be apparent because their contention is not only are parental rights not valid, not only is religious freedom not valid on an individual basis but they really take the position that no individual liberty is the subject of human rights protection.  The only thing that qualifies you for asylum, our government is arguing, is if your group is discriminated against.  They don’t care about individual liberty at all.  They write it off in the way they argue this particular case and they say “This family has no liberty because they don’t belong to a church that forces them to homeschool.  Other Christians don’t homeschool in Germany.  Other Christians don’t homeschool in the United States.”  And so it’s unless some kind of a group, this government doesn’t get it.  But our law and human rights law is based on two principles:  Individual liberty and equal protection.  Well, they have just thrown individual liberty out of the equation entirely, both for human rights law and arguably for American law as well.  I mean, they are setting a precedent that’s incredibly dangerous.  They don’t really believe in individual liberty and they are doing everything they can to stomp it out.

 
Michael

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Take a good look a Eric Holder. Lighten him up a bit, change his mustache a bit, change his hair a bit and guess who he looks like?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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My step-mother once was an Immigration Judge (then called Special Inquiry Officer [sIO]). Their rulings tend to be sound legally for they are not true judges, but only the highest ranking of Government Service (GS). This means if their rulings aren't sound they could lose their jobs and be reprimanded. That's why an associate of hers, Ira Fieldsteel, ruled in the early 70s that John Lennon should be deported even though he was a huge Lennon fan. A true, autonomous judge then over-ruled him, incorrectly, and Lennon got to stay only because the Dept. of Justice declined to appeal. (Thus Lennon was murdered in NYC in 1980.) It's going to be interesting to see how the appeals turn out in this case.

--Brant

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  • 2 weeks later...

And this is why my son goes to private school. Yeah, I actually decided it would be easier to unschool the Catholicism he has to study as a Catholic school student then to unschool the likes of The Core.

There is a very good chance he is not paying attention to the Catholic stuff anyway...

He recently suffered great despair over not getting to participate in reconciliation with his classmates. The source of his despair was actually the missing out on milk and cookies, so yes there's a good bit of the "Catholic stuff" that he doesn't pay attention to.

On the other hand, he still has to pass religion class which means we study for those tests right along with the other subjects. Imagine a single mother explaining Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery to an 8-year-old whose parents never even considered marrying each other. I was pleasantly surprised to see he got full credit on the test for his interpretation of the commandment - "dunt cheet yur kontraks." (Don't cheat on your contracts.)

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And this is why my son goes to private school. Yeah, I actually decided it would be easier to unschool the Catholicism he has to study as a Catholic school student then to unschool the likes of The Core.

There is a very good chance he is not paying attention to the Catholic stuff anyway...

He recently suffered great despair over not getting to participate in reconciliation with his classmates. The source of his despair was actually the missing out on milk and cookies, so yes there's a good bit of the "Catholic stuff" that he doesn't pay attention to.

On the other hand, he still has to pass religion class which means we study for those tests right along with the other subjects. Imagine a single mother explaining Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery to an 8-year-old whose parents never even considered marrying each other. I was pleasantly surprised to see he got full credit on the test for his interpretation of the commandment - "dunt cheet yur kontraks." (Don't cheat on your contracts.)

Excellent.

Clearly, you are doing/being an effective parent in this insane world.

Not a simple job.

A...

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As a person who graduated from public just last year, and I find these accusations of "mind control" (I know you don't mean the fictional, wonky type) to be downright ridiculous. This idea, also, that they are trying to subvert parents is unrealistic.

It does seem ridiculous, doesn't it? Especially at the level of individual administrators and teachers who, for the most part, are good people who just want to teach children. Thing is, though, that at high levels there are people who are thinking in the very terms that seem ridiculous. I'll even give most of them the benefit of the doubt and say that they have the best of intentions. Yet, some of them do not. Some of them have no intentions whatsoever, and a small minority have truly malicious intent. Unfortunately, it's that small minority who talk the loudest, are the most persuasive, have the deepest pockets and the most influence.

It's daunting to consider, and your own personal experience doesn't support it. Your personal experience will expand, though, especially when you have children of your own who require an education. (I apologize if I incorrectly assume you do not already, but you must be a bit young yet, after all.) Also, there's a multitude of other people who have quite different experiences. Perhaps you could explore those?

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It's daunting to consider, and your own personal experience doesn't support it. Your personal experience will expand, though, especially when you have children of your own who require an education. (I apologize if I incorrectly assume you do not already, but you must be a bit young yet, after all.) Also, there's a multitude of other people who have quite different experiences. Perhaps you could explore those?

Deanna:

You, as I, have children and that fact has seriously effected the advance of Ayn's philosophy.

Most of the folks who attempt to advance Ayn's philosophy lack the perspective of nurturing the child[ren] that they chose to conceive, or, chose to bring to birth after conceiving them.

In my particular case, my lady and I had the third [3rd] child ever born in Sloan Kettering's history. He was, frankly, due to our rational, risk related choices, a complete miracle.

A...

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