The difference between education and indoctrination

Anyone who listens to the Left knows how they value “education”. they love public schools, and mandatory kindergarten, and how they would love to make K-4, K-3, etc. mandatory as well. Why? well, there is more than one answer you would get if you asked a Leftist why they think children benefit by more “education”. They will tell you it is critical for socialization, and development, and yes, “education” of course.

Now, you will note that I have placed the word education, in parenthesis. Why? Well, because the Left defines education, or at least what the goal of education quite differently than most folks do. To most of us math, writing, vocabulary, history, science, and civics are among the things schools should teach children. Most of us would also include teaching some type of sex education, as long as the curriculum is age appropriate, and as long as it does not teach values, that ought to be taught by parents, and not by schools.

The Left, however, prefers using education to indoctrinate, rather than educate. And face it, think of all the indoctrination that can be done if our children are in public education from age 2, until, say 22, if you include college. And think about this. It is the Left that is pushing to make a college education, “free” isn’t it? Twenty years are a long time isn’t it? Think of how much education indoctrination can take place in those two decades. Think of a person, age 22. Think of that person, if they have been “educated“ by the State, through public education. It is likely that their attitudes towards politics, religion, sex, relationships, Western culture, American history, etc. will closely resemble the Left’s ideology. After all, it is the Left that has a vested interest in  forcing every child to go through those two decades of “education”.

Now I am sure that many reading the preceding thoughts will scoff, and say these assertions are inane, and misguided. For those, I offer an example via Donald Douglas

This was in the news when the legislature authorized teaching homosexual studies some time back.

And now at LAT, “California schools scrambling to add lessons on LGBT Americans.”

If this were being introduced when kids are in, say, 5th or 6th grade, I personally wouldn’t have an issue with it for my own kids. But as it is, kindergarten or 1st grade, and so on? God, that’s almost obscene in its assumptions. It’s understandable why parents would object. I recently asked my 10-year-old if he knew what homosexuality was. He didn’t have a clue, so I explained it to him. He didn’t seem to care that much about it, but the point is I’d prefer it was my wife and I talking about these things with him, especially in the moral context. I would not teach my child that all family structures are equal, for example. My position is that the traditional household with one father and one mother is the most healthy and prosperous for children. Schools will teach kids that all alternative family arrangements are equally valid, and that’s a radical curriculum.

In any case, from the article:

At Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Laurel Canyon, there are lesson plans on diverse families — including those with two mommies or daddies — books on homosexual authors in the library and a principal who is openly gay.

But even at this school, teachers and administrators are flummoxed about how to carry out a new law requiring California public schools to teach all students — from kindergartners to 12th graders — about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in history classes.

“At this point, I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Principal Don Wilson said.

Educators across the state don’t have much time to figure it out. In January, they’re expected to begin teaching about LGBT Americans under California’s landmark law, the first of its kind in the nation.

The law has sparked confusion about what, exactly, is supposed to be taught. Will fourth-graders learn that some of the Gold Rush miners were gay and helped build San Francisco? Will students be taught about the “two-spirited people” tradition among some Native Americans, as one gay historian mused?

“I’m not sure how we plug it into the curriculum at the grade school level, if at all,” said Paul Boneberg, executive director at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.

School districts will have little help in navigating this sensitive and controversial change, which has already prompted some parents to pull their children out of public schools.

Really? Teaching kids that young about Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans-gender people in history? What legitimate purpose is served by this? Certainly, any significant historical figure ought to be included in history, but any teaching about GLBT ought not to be pushed on to small children. Two words age appropriate.

Think of it like this. I have studied the War Between the States for decades now, I started studying it at the age of nine, so, 37 years. I give historical talks, and presentations on battles, leaders, etc. But, I would certainly not delve into the orientation of, say Jefferson Davis, or U.S. Grant unless that were of some particular importance. And I would not talk about that to very small children. Again AGE APPROPRIATE!

The valid purpose of education, is enlightenment, not indoctrination. This is why I give historical talks in a different manner than when I engage in debates on the war. My goal is to educate, to give facts, and let the listener develop their own opinion. The Left, on the other hand wishes to shape opinions, they wish to indoctrinate. They wish to “educate” to further their agenda, and thinkers are the last thing they wish to turn out of school. And make no mistake, history, is their favorite target.

For all their talk of open-mindedness, and education, and tolerance, the Left believes in none of those ideals. The Left realizes that educated, open-minded people will never embrace Marxism, in any form. Indoctrinated, closed-minded people though, well…………..