Coreless Indoctrination by the Common Core Curriculum

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The Common Core Curriculum is inescapably anti-Christian, and the inevitable results are most evident in the moral relativism (no fixed standards), academic dumbing down, far-left programs, near absence of discipline, and the persistent but pitiable rationalizations offered by government education professionals.

It was observed by Jane Robbins in the April 16, 2013 Nation Association of Scholars that:  “The worldview of Common Core will impose a radically different education on American students, from kindergarten through college. Even English classes will be transformed by utilitarian drilling and potential indoctrination. This new approach undercuts a pillar of American culture, the idea that every citizen should be able to engage in public discourse, equipped to fully exercise his liberties, and capable of stepping forward as a citizen-leader. Whether or not this approach results in better, more politically correct workers for the economy, for it almost certainly will not—cannot—result in better citizens and better people.”

The core of the Common Core Curriculum it can be argued seeks to destroy the core of our culture, the Christian world view that once was basic to learning in the American heritage.  This curriculum is really a tool for the cultivation of division in our society (division into categories of racial and ethnic discrimination, religion discrimination, economic discrimination, sexual discrimination, etc.), as it parades under the covering of developing unity—with the underlying purpose—yes, to divide and conquer.  You can have so much of everything that ultimately you have nothing.  The Core of our Judeo-Christian foundation is being removed by it.

In America today, we are losing the orientation of faith in God and respect for his word that was basic to the foundation of our land, “Endowed by their Creator”, “One Nation under God,” not a form of knowledge “Granted by the State.”.  II Timothy 3:7 warns that in the last days men shall be: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  We have an educational explosion, “ever learning,” but we are failing to develop positive, disciplined direction and behavior, so there results the general educational implosion of “never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” possibly some varied “truths”, but not “Truth”. This “last days” refers to the global end times, but it, as well, could refer to the end times of a nation.

We have an educational explosion, “ever learning,” but we are failing to develop positive, disciplined direction and behavior, so there results from it the general educational implosion, “never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  The faith culturally and individually that was once the core is being replaced by the indoctrination of our society so as to develop to a different basis—the thinking of Progressivism.

James A. Gregson, in an article, “The School-to-Work Movement and Youth Apprenticeship in the U.S.: Educational Reform and Democratic Renewal?” observed that, “As federal control increased, so did the influence of the early twentieth-century Progressives, who believed that the economy (and society) should be centrally managed and directed by experts. Education became an important strand in this theory. Expanding on—and perhaps warping—the belief of iconic Progressive educator John Dewey in “teaching through occupations,” the heirs to Progressive thought decided that education should be reshaped to be utilitarian plan: designed to produce not more complete people, but more useful people.”

Yes, the core of the Common Core Curriculum is one that seeks to destroy the core of the Christian world view that is basic to learning in the American heritage and to replace it with a different core.  The Common Core is a tool for the cultivation of division in our society that parades under the covering of developing unity, as it sets up the stage of pluralism.  It is inescapably anti-Christian, as the inevitable results are most evident in the moral relativism (no fixed standards), academic dumbing down, far-left programs, near absence of discipline, and the persistent but pitiable rationalizations offered by government education professionals.

The Common Core quest is for a single set of standards for all—and inevitably a single curriculum—implemented throughout the nation and controlled by the national government.  However, in this process we can observe how it is degenerating into a form of indoctrination in and by secular humanism. We are witnessing the degeneration of a learning system that once led the world degenerating into basically a tool that indoctrinates the upcoming generations from K-12 and on through college to a mindset that sees our traditions as antiquated and in need of change.  The Common Core Curriculum, is but one more strategy of the progressive elements in our society to “progress” to what they see as a “Post-Christian World”, but is a very destructive one, and it seeks to indoctrinate a so-called morality of what is really immorality.

Some time back in American public education the key was “Back to the Basics,” which sought to build on the basic facts in learning, whereas now the shift has come to the “Common Core Curriculum,” that has beneath it the indoctrination to the development of what they esteem to be type of education for the future motivated by what they call equality.

Under the Constitution, education was set up to be primarily under state and local responsibility.  The basis for education in America from the time our nation began was the foundation of the church, as the church was the dominate force in education from the beginning of our land with the goal of enabling the populace to become educated citizens.  Our democracy worked because of this, and we did not fall into the pit of dictatorships or in to social anarchy. But beginning with the Johnson administration, the federal government shook off the constitutional constraints on its involvement in education policy, and sought to more and more indoctrinate students to the new world view in the Great Society with great decline in educational achievement.

Learning is to gain knowledge of, or skill in a subject and to become aware of it by information or observation.  Psychologists define learning by saying it is the process in which changes in behavior result from experience or practice.  Knowledge and behavior integrate.  We need this integration, for it is basic to living.  Learning must have an anchor or core from which to develop.

Hebrews 6:18-20 includes: “…lay hold upon the hope set before us: ¹⁹ Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast…,” Life in Christ provides a basic anchor, from which to orientate all areas of the development and behavior.  But the anti-Christian Progressives wish to uproot this anchor that was basic to the establishment of our culture and to insert the themes of multiculturalism, religious pluralism, elitist governance, and the benevolent government that will give to the have-nots and take from the haves.

As federal control increased, so did the influence of the early twentieth-century Progressives, who believed that the economy (and society) should be centrally managed and directed by experts, and education became an important strand in this theory. Since that time we have seen American education continually erode and corrode in respect to the American standing in respect to other nations of the world.

The experts of Common Core thinking advocate a single set of standards for all—and inevitably a single curriculum—implemented throughout the nation and controlled by the national government.  It deflates individual learning, and this cultivates societal indoctrination to their new world view, ignoring the unique individuality of each individual.   We are witnessing the degeneration of a learning system that once led the world to one that has degenerated into basically the indoctrination in secular humanism.  Each is not all!

To the Progressive mentality it requires the remolding of the entire American system into a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave.  It is without question, that we are observing this type of societal indoctrination, where many are trained in all kinds of skills that readily prove inadequate in the rapidly changing technological age, while the students have not learned the true education connecting learning with behavior of the real CORE from which our nation was founded, “Endowed by their Creator,” that gave the affirmation “One nation under God” that developed from it.   The world view of “One Nation under God” can provide the core for building a responsible society and avoid the corelessness of secular humanism that will not bring unity, will not bring prosperity, will not develop morality, and not maintain the democracy that our forefathers established.

Ben Carson writing in an article about literacy in The Washington Times, July 15, 2014 said:  “I am convinced that the dreams of our Founders of a free nation filled with knowledgeable and caring people who trust in God and accept personal responsibility is still possible. Each of us has a role to play in the realization of that dream. A big part of that role is self-education. We need to read all kinds of books and articles, and experience a variety of electronic media. We should not engage in self-censorship, which creates a proclivity for indoctrination. I am convinced that a well-informed American populace will not be manipulated into relinquishing a beautiful American dream for all.  Here is hope over the Common Core Curriculum

The coreless indoctrination of the Common Core Curriculum can never achieve what it proposes to achieve, for just as an apple does not grow from the peel inward, nether can true education grow without the right core, and the indoctrination of the Common Core Curriculum by its own definition is really without a core from, but rather a goal toward—the goal being classless, obedient, submissive society controlled and sustained by the state.

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by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Educational Columnist, Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, 5931 West Avenue, Lavonia, Georgia 30553,  706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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