The Public Schools and Political Correctness
.
.
The schools of today are basic in determining the world of tomorrow. One undeniable factor is that there is a strong current flowing toward the development and maintenance of political correctness. Textbooks are often slanted to give positive support to non-Christian religions and cultures, alternate life-styles, and/or supportive of secularism; all of which are applauded as political correctness!
The Wikipedia defines political correctness, as “a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent.” The term most often is used by groups opposed to the flow of the socio-political climate, while those in accord with the social and religious factors in this climate call it progress, positive change or progressivism. We are living in a time when one mindset projects a pluralistic understanding of life and the other advocates the basic morality and beliefs on which our nation was founded, as “One nation under God.”
Dr. Billy Graham recently wrote: “The legacy we leave behind for our children, grandchildren, and this great nation is crucial. As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election (of 2012) could be my last. I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6th, and pray with me that American will remain one nation under God.” This statement by Billy Graham is not in the tone of political correctness. Graham’s stance is one great segments of our population in America greatly reject; for they have been sufficiently indoctrinated in the progressive thinking that has sought to remove the Judeo-Christian values and focus that once were central in America education.
Political correctness as it is being practiced in America today most often proves to be hostile to the people of biblical faith in our public schools, in the military, politics, and toward biblical values. It actively cultivates the faith in other religious faiths in the name of multiculturalism, while at the same time encouraging the development of the values of secular humanism. It promotes alternate lifestyles to be accepted as desirable and valuable to society at large. What is called “political correctness” when it refers to alleviating moral or ethical injustices could be accepted as very positive, but the problem comes in respect to the particular criteria that is used for judgment in this respect.
Gary DeMar in the October 20th, 2012 Godfather Politics wrote an article, “How Liberalism Took Over America” wrote: “The Left learned some lessons from the radicalism of the 1960s when their political agenda failed to accomplish their stated goals. Their radical agenda was shot down politically because the majority of Americans still retained a remnant of the older Christian worldview. The Left knew it would be necessary to capture those institutions that shape and mold children who will one day become leaders. Once the heart and mind are captured, everything else follows, including politics. This is a major tactical maneuver that most on the Right did not understand.”
Liberalism has used as one of its basic tools, political correctness, and it is very much evident, as can readily be observed in the world-views of our young people educated in public schools since the time Bible reading and prayer were removed, and, nearly ninety percent of Christian children attend a public school. Notice how church attendance with young people increasing fell after this time!
The humanist philosophical foundation of the modern public school system see as its overwhelming success eradicating the Christian world-view from the minds of America’s children, and the fact that most parents seem completely oblivious to what is happening to their kids during their many hours spent in the custody of government employees.
The Urban Dictionary in respect to political correctness says it is a: “Movement in America founded on well-meaning intentions to promote equality in language and representation of diverse groups. However, this has now been oversimplified and misused by politicians in their attempt to win the favor of as many “minority” and interest groups as possible.”
There is an example given in the Urban Dictionary that very much speaks to the educational realm, as it says “The struggle to be ‘politically correct’ has made common people easily irritable and oversensitive to the words of others and their own words. It has created a society that walks on eggshells and that has difficulty being personal with each other because coworkers and potential friends can’t joke around for fear of offending the other. (For example)…the use of the word ‘American’ to describe the United States is being written out of U.S. History and Government textbooks for fear of it being ‘politically incorrect’ and offensive to South Americans and Canadians”
A teacher who openly campaigned for a particular presidential candidate forced a ten- year-old student to do an “Islamic hand sign” in the classroom. She was charged with assault, but the teacher felt she was being politically correct. The mother of the student said when her daughter didn’t get the hand sign right, the teacher went over and yanked her hand out of her desk as her daughter’s hand got hung up on the metal wire on her file folder and the skin got caught on it cutting it. (The Blaze, “Virginia Teacher Charged with Assault,” October 18, 2012.)
In another instance a school bus driver told a twelve-year-old boy that his mother should have aborted him when the student said he supported a presidential candidate who was not pro-abortion. Dave Jolly who wrote about this observed that: “The public school system throughout the United States has become a nest for liberals. Educators have been sucked into the liberal mindset that it is their job to form and mold kids into what progressive politics wants them to become instead of what their parents want them to be.” (The Last Resistance, October 17, 2012.)
John Dewey, the father of Progressivism in American education, is applauded as having set the stage for the politically correct understanding of education, but he denied the basic foundations of the Christian religion and went on to discount all the basic doctrines of faith. “Faith,” he said, “in the continued disclosing of truth through directed co-operation of human endeavor is more religious in quality than is any faith in a completed revelation.” (John Dewey, A Common Faith, p 26, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934.)
A cardinal principle of Dewey’s naturalism is the rejection of any kind of fixed doctrine or creed, based on revelation, as stultifying the progress of human science which must be independent of such chains. Here is the process of progressivism, and it is well set out in what I learned was the bible of modern education, Dewey’s book Democracy and Education. Educators are trained to look to this book often instead of the Bible, basic to the Judeo-Christian faith.
There is a cartoon that shows a certain symbol what could be interpreted as the Progressive leadership with a whole line of sheep following, blindly along, doing what is politically correct. They are moving forward, but in reality they are being led off a cliff. I hope that is not what is happening in American public education, but we are looking to a future without the God of our Fathers and one which will not be one which is ultimately very desirable. We need to strongly think about how we vote, as Billy Graham said!
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
Comments are closed for this Article !