“A ‘COMMON CORE’ FOR A GLOBAL COMMUNITY” BY BERIT KJOS
Lighthouse Trails Research is offering a booklet tract authored by Berit Kjos on the Global Common Core agenda.
See: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=13825.
Article reprinted in full below, unedited, for educational purposes:
The task before UNESCO . . . is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose.2 —Julian Huxley, the first head of UNESCO, 1947
The goal of education has changed! Our public schools no longer teach the kind of literacy, history, math, and morality we once considered essential to responsible citizenship. The new agenda infiltrating our schools is designed to train a new generation of postmodern “progressive” students to believe whatever might serve a pre-determined “common good.”
The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on American school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross-examination of the individual’s underlying moral values, and inducing acceptance of alternative values by psychological rather than rational means.3
According to one source, “Common Core” education is:
. . . a U.S. education initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of standards-based education reform. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).4
The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.5
Fewer, clearer, and higher, to best drive effective policy and practice
Aligned with college and work expectations
Inclusive of rigorous content and applications of knowledge through higher-order skills
Internationally benchmarked, so that all students are prepared for succeeding in our global economy
Research and evidence-based.6
UNESCO’s efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to influence U.S. school curriculum were unsuccessful. But now UNESCO has found a sugar daddy. On November 17, 2004 at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris, UNESCO signed a 26-page “Cooperation Agreement” with Microsoft Corporation to develop a “master curriculum (Syllabus)” for teacher training in information technologies based on standards, guidelines, benchmarks, and assessment techniques. The Agreement states that . . . “UNESCO will explore how to facilitate content development.”Following the signing of the Agreement, UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura explained it in a speech. One of its goals, he said, is “fostering web-based communities of practice including content development and worldwide curricula reflecting UNESCO values.” No doubt that is agreeable to Bill Gates because the Agreement states that “Microsoft supports the objectives of UNESCO as stipulated in UNESCO’s Constitution.”7
Environmental education will be incorporated in formal education.
Any value or attitude held by anyone globally that stands independent to that of the United Nations’ definition of “sustainable education” must change. Current attitudes are unacceptable.
Education will be belief-and-spirituality based as defined by the global collective.
Environmental education will be integrated into every subject, not just science8
Parents beware! A New World Order is rising. The seeds for this transformation were planted long ago, but few saw the warning signs. Now that the evidence is too vast to deny, we need to prepare our children for a different kind of world—a world where an educated and responsible citizenry no longer exists in sufficient numbers to maintain the rule of law and individual freedom.
[Change agent] Aldous Huxley envisioned a future world society totally controlled by an elite group of scientists. His best-known fictional work explicating this dire prospect bore the title Brave New World. Years later he would “revisit” his prognostications only to conclude that he had underestimated the rate of change.9
Gates’ astronomical wealth has persuaded millions that Common Core is the solution to education problems.10
1905. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress. Together with other Carnegie Foundations, it has been a major promoter and funder of socialistic global education projects.111908. John Dewey, known as the socialist father of modern (i.e., progressive) education, laid the foundations for a revolutionary transformation of American schools. In “Religion and Our Schools,” he wrote, “Our schools . . . are performing an infinitely significant religious work. They are promoting the social unity out of which in the end genuine religious unity must grow. . . . dogmatic [Christian] beliefs . . . we see . . . disappearing.121919. The Institute of International Education was established with a grant from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. . . . John Dewey (socialist) served on its National Advisory Council.131933. John Dewey, honorary president of the National Education Association (NEA), co-authored the first Humanist Manifesto, which stated: “Any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today, must be shaped for the needs of this age.”141934. In a report presented at the annual NEA meeting, Willard Givens (later NEA executive secretary) wrote: “all of us, including the ‘owners’ [who might they be?] must be subjected to a large degree of social control . . . . [T]he major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order.”15 (emphasis added)1942. The editor of The Journal of the National Education Association, J. Elmer Morgan, wrote an editorial titled “The United Peoples of the World.” In it, he explained that a world government would need an educational branch, a world system of money and credit, a world police force, “a world bill of rights and duties.”161946. “The establishment [UNESCO] marks the culmination of a movement for the creation of an international agency of education. . . . Nations that become members of UNESCO accordingly assume an obligation to revise the textbooks used in their schools . . . . Each member nation . . . has a duty to see to it that nothing in its curriculum . . . is contrary to UNESCO’s aims.”17 (emphasis added)1946. In his NEA editorial, “The Teacher and World Government,” J. Elmer Morgan, wrote, “In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher . . . can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children . . . . At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession.”181947. Julian Huxley wrote in UNESCO: “The general philosophy of UNESCO should be a scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background . . . In its education program it can . . . familiarize all peoples with the implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a world organization. . . . Tasks for the media division of UNESCO [will be] to promote the growth of a common outlook shared by all nations and cultures . . . to help the emergence of a single world culture.”191948. The NEA produced a set of international guidelines called Education for International Understanding in American Schools. It included this statement: “The idea has become established that the preservation of international peace and order may require that force be used to compel a nation to conduct its affairs within the framework of an established world system . . . . Many persons believe that enduring peace cannot be achieved so long as the nation-state system continues as at present constituted. It is a system of international anarchy.”201968. Professor John Goodlad reported that Professor Benjamin Bloom [called Father of OBE] “was invited by UNESCO in 1968 to submit a proposal for a six to nine week training program which would partially fulfill recommendations made at UNESCO’s Moscow meeting dealing with the formation of national centers for curriculum development and research.”211973. The socialist authors of the Humanist Manifesto II wrote: “We deplore the division of human-kind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community.”221976. An NEA program titled A Declaration of Interdependence: Education for a Global Community, was made available to schools across the country . . .. The report said, “Educators around the world are in a unique position to help bring about a harmoniously interdependent global community.”23 Note: That “world community” was officially born in 1945, when Alger Hiss served as Secretary General at the founding of the United Nations.1985. The curriculum arm of the NEA, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), co-sponsored an international curriculum symposium in the Netherlands. According to Education Week, the ASCD executive director, Dr. Gordon Cawelti, urged representatives of other Western nations and Japan to press for the development of a “world-core curriculum” based on knowledge that will ensure “peaceful and cooperative existence among the human species on this planet.”241991. On October 30, the U.S. Coalition for Education for All (USCEFA) convened a conference titled Learning for All: Bridging Domestic and International Education with First Lady Barbara Bush as the honorary chair. It would provide a vital link between the UNESCO plan and U.S. implementation. Partners in this venture included UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, the NEA, and a long string of organizations involved in education at every level:The coalition was part of a 156-nation network working to reform education worldwide by bridging the gap between individual nations and UNESCO’s Education for All. Keynote speaker Elena Lenskaya, deputy to the Minister of Education of Russia, spoke on the topic, “Education for a New World Order.”251993. “The 240 international affiliates of the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers joined to form Education International (EI).”26
In 2006, a world-changing event took place. It would revolutionize education, families, faith, and basic values in our fading “land of the free.” I’m referring to the “Moscow Declaration” that was officially adopted on June 2, 2006, by the Education Ministers of the United States, the Russian Federation, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The members of this international “Group of Eight” (G-8) have committed their nations to “cooperation in education at all levels in the 21st century.”27
Russia’s Science and Education Minister Andrei Fursenko described the declaration as “both a final document of the conference and the document that will be implemented by education ministers of all the world countries and international organizations, including the World Bank, UNESCO, and UN.”28
The U.S. Department of Education said the member delegates “pledged to share best practices across borders” to build “education systems that can allow people . . . to live and contribute to a global society.”What can be expected from the Moscow Declaration? If the historical results of U.S. participation with international reforms continue in the same vein, it is not unreasonable to expect the whole of U.S. education—from preschool, elementary, secondary, and higher education—will encounter further upheaval and decline.29
You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.30
In the global village . . . networks will link students around the world to each other and to a vast body of information and human knowledge.31
A familiar tale told to first-graders in Pennsylvania illustrates both the tactics and the planned transformation of the world. We all know the story of the Little Red Hen who wanted some bread to eat. She asked some of her barnyard friends to help make it. But the cat, the dog, and the goat all said “no.” Finally she did all the work herself. Yet, when the bread was done and its fragrance spread throughout the farm, her unwilling and lazy neighbors were more than willing to help her eat it.
In the context of traditional values, the moral of the story might be: you get what you work for. But those who have learned to think and see from the “new” global perspective are led to a different conclusion. Listen to the kinds of questions the first grade teacher asked her class:
Why was the Little Red Hen so stingy? Isn’t it only right that everyone gets to eat? Why wouldn’t she share what she had with some who had none?33
This shift from factual education to mental manipulation and feeling-based learning began more than seventy years ago. Through the decades, the strategies previously used to manipulate minds in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were developed, first at the Tavistock Clinic near London and later at Germany’s Frankfurt School (originally called Frankfurt Institute for Social Research). Their mind-bending methods soon spread to a rising number of psycho-social research centers in America. They were fine-tuned at Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, and other American universities, at our regional educational laboratories, and at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies where Elian Gonzales was remediated in preparation for his return to a Communist system.
The revolution… in curriculum is that we no longer are teaching facts to children…. We no longer see the teaching of facts and information as the primary outcome of education.34
The central way of thought for this new era will be imagination. . . . Imagination will be the active, creative agent of culture, transforming brute materials to a higher, more knowable state.35
May God show us how we can best equip our children to stand firm in Christ in the midst of the coming battles. Let us remember that our Lord still reigns! In the midst of this spiritual war, He will surely provide His strength, wisdom, and His comforting nearness to all who choose to trust and follow Him!
O our God . . . we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee. (2 Chronicles 20:12)The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust. (Psalm 18:2)But God said: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
1. Tiffany Gabay, “Students Asked to ‘Argue That Jews Are Evil’ and Prove Nazi Loyalty in Assignment Linked to Common Core” (The Blaze, April 12, 2013 “http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/12/students-asked-to-argue-that-jews-are-evil-and-prove-nazi-loyalty-in-assignment-linked-to-common-core).
2. Julian Huxley—see http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/globalism/julian-huxley.htm.
3. Thomas Sowell, “Indoctrinating the Children” (Forbes, February 1, 1993), p. 65.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative.
5. http://www.corestandards.org.
6. http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Criteria.pdf.
7. Phyllis Schlafly, “Bill Gates Teams Up With UNESCO” (Eagle Forum, November 30, 2005, http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2005/nov05/05-11-30.html).
8. Ibid.
9. Martin Erdmann, “The Spiritualization of Science, Technology and Education in a One-World Society” (European Journal of Nanomedicine, January 2009, Volume 2, http://www.clinam.org/images/stories/pdf/volume2.1.pdf), p. 31.
10. “Top Ten Scariest People in Education Reform: #5 – Bill Gates” (August 2013, http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/top-ten-scariest-people-in-education-reform-5-bill-gates).
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Foundation_for_the_Advancement_of_Teaching.
12. John Dewey, “Religion and our Schools” (July 6, 2006. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0141620980200202#preview).
13. Dennis Laurence Cuddy, Ph.D., Chronology of Education With Quotable Quotes(Highland City, FL: Pro Family Forum, Inc., 1993), p. 18. Many of the quotes in my chronological list on pages 8-11 are from Dr. Cuddy’s Quotable Quotes book; used with permission.
14. The Humanist Manifesto 1 (1933) was the first public declaration of the views and objectives of humanism. It rejected God and His values but affirmed humanist faith in the power and evolution of man. http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I.
15. Willard Givens presented a report titled “Education for the New America” at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the NEA, held in Washington, D.C. in July 1934.
16. Joy Elmer Morgan, “The United Peoples of the World” (The Journal of the National Education Association, December 1942), p.261.
17. I.L. Kandel, “National Education in an International World” (The Journal of the National Education Association , Vol. 35, 1946), p. 191.
18. J. Elmer Morgan, “The Teacher and World Government” (The Journal of the National Education Association, January 1946), p.1.
19. Julian Huxley (Washington DC: Public Affairs Press, 1947). See http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/globalism/julian-huxley.htm.
20. Dennis Cuddy, Ph.D., “The Grab for Power: A Chronology of the NEA” (Marlborough NH: Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1993); p. 8.
21. John I. Goodlad & Associates, Curriculum Inquiry—the Study of Curriculum Practice(NY: McGraw Hill, 1979), p. 261.
22. Humanist Manifesto II, Tenet #12. http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II .
23. The NEA promotes “A Declaration of Interdependence: Education for a Global Community” (September, 1976. Cuddy, Chronology of Education, p. 59).
24. Susan Hooper, “Educator Proposes a Global ‘Core Curriculum’” (Education Week, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1985/11/27/06110023.h05.html).
25. The Conference on “Learning for All: Bridging Domestic and International Education” with Barbara Bush (Honorary Chair) and a Russian keynote speaker, Elena Lenskaya, October 30-November 1, 1991.
26. Dennis Cuddy, Chronology of Education With Quotable Quotes, op. cit., p. 100.
27. “Moscow Declaration” Adopted by G-8: Education Ministers—Secretary Spellings Commits U.S., Eagle Forum, U.S. Dept. of Education, June 2, 2006. http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2006/june06/moscow.html.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Nikita Khrushchev, “Dark Predictions of a KGB Defector,” 1959 at http://frontpagemag.com/2010/10/19/dark-predictions-of-a-kgb-defector/print.
31. From a publicity flier announcing the trans-Atlantic conference held April 10-13, 1994.
32. Ibid.
33. This story was included in the first grade curriculum in New Pittsburgh, PA. The story was also told–using the new paradigm context—at a parents’ meeting explaining Character Education. Anita Hoge, formerly a Pennsylvania mother and researcher, reported the story to me.
34. At the time of her 1989 keynote speech, Shirley McCune presided over the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL). The Regional Educational Laboratories are private, non-profit corporations which are funded, in whole or in part, under Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
35. Spoken at a 1988 forum address at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. This address formed the nucleus for his book, Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age.