Social Predation
101: Now showing in classrooms near you
by Andy
Donnach
"When
you told me there were social predators teaching at the high school I
thought you were a bit nuts -- I'd never heard of such a thing," the
district administrator whispered. "But, I've since come to see you had
understated the problem."
The administrator's discovery process had likely been triggered six
months earlier when I used the word "predatory" to describe the
practices of activist-teachers who were using their positions of
authority in the classroom to recruit children into their personal,
political, social, and religious agendas. These "teachers" were using
the classroom to promote activism, not academics. Worse, they often
exploited children to promote their personal interests by involving
them in protests, meetings, and other activities that supported the
teacher's convictions. They had become teachers to "make a difference"
by using the government education system to indoctrinate children to
their personal interests -- not to educate children to be contributing
members of society.
Using the word "predatory" to describe the practice might seem
harsh. But, what better word is there to describe an adult who uses a
position of power to realign the minds and actions of an
impressionable child with his or her personal interests -- with
neither parental permission nor knowledge, and counter to the values
of the child or family? Some might consider it predatory, others might
consider it harmless, and a few might even prefer it -- as long as the
indoctrinator is advocating beliefs and actions aligned with their
own.
Regardless, people who know children in the government school
systems might want to pay special attention to an entrenched movement
that advocates social, moral, and political indoctrination of children
as a teacher's civic responsibility. Bluntly: the government school
system is being used as a recruiting ground for special interests;
worse, parents are unwittingly, blindly, or willingly participating in
the violation of their own children. Before you dismiss this as "a bit
nuts", you might want to see for yourself Alan Singer's tutorial for
activist teachers.
GETTING KIDS TO "CRITICALLY THINK" INTO A ONE-MIND PARADIGM
In "Student Clubs: A Model for Political Organizing" (Rethinking
Schools, Volume 17, Number 4 -
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/17_04/club174.shtml), Singer
outlines for teachers how to promote personal agendas using students.
While Singer bases his activist-indoctrinator model o要 his activities
as a high school social studies teacher in New York City, similar
models are actively used o要 K-12 campuses across the USA. By
understanding how Singer's model is implemented, parents can gain
insight into how they can recognize predatory practices in their
child's school.
Singer starts by telling teachers that they have a responsibility
to "act as models" for "questioning authority" -- starting with
questioning the values by which the students are being raised. He
justifies this position by evoking a strange interpretation of
"critical thinking".
Critical thinking is vital for the lifetime success and survival of
an individual; which is why most parents try so hard to implement
critical thinking skills into their children. If anything, critical
thinking helps the individual recognize right from wrong, the lie from
the truth. More importantly, critical thinking helps the individual
make correct choices -- even when everyone else is making wrong
choices. In other words, critical thought and independent action are
vital skills that allow children to stand tall against peer pressure
-- and to shield themselves from predators. However, when social
predators say "critical thinking" they seem to mean something entirely
different.
The "critical thinking" that Singer advocates is for students to
"consequently question authority (starting with their parents)," and
he advises other activist teachers to act as models for helping
children to question their values and to accept the values inherent in
the teacher's special interest. This is also commonly called "values
clarification", a process by which predatory indoctrinators help align
the child's values with their own -- for the greater good, of course.
So, when activist teachers say "critical thinking", they apparently
mean to think more like them -- and less like their parents.
Ironically, "more like them" typically means to accept a o要e-minded
collectivist philosophy that has zero tolerance for alternative
viewpoints. (Which brings up an interesting side-note for people who
can think critically: are not critical thought and collectivism
mutually exclusive? Collectivism tends to create homogeneous cultures
that allow little tolerance for critical thought and independent
action.)
SOCIAL PREDATION 101: USING OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN TO PROMOTE A
TEACHER'S INTERESTS
Singer presents workshops and assemblies through which he helps
teachers "understand their right to disagree with and protest against
government policies" and "involve their students in political action"
that promotes the teacher's interests. In other words, Singer seems to
be teaching social predators how to use the classroom to recruit
children to their personal perspective by supplanting the values
taught at home with their own. The values that Singer says teachers
should advocate to children are similar to those he promotes in his
own classroom, including:
- Reproductive freedom, abortion access, and condom availability
for minors;
- Opposition to laws requiring parental consent for abortions;
- Opposition to policies requiring parental consent for exposure to
objectionable materials in the classroom;
- Opposition to American foreign actions and policies.
"One of my primary goals as a high school social studies teacher
was to empower young people so that they could become active citizens
and agents for democratic social change," Singer writes (For an
example of what Singer means by "Democratic Social Change", see the
Democratic Socialists of America web site at: http://www.dsausa.org/).
"This approach requires that teachers... express views o要
controversial issues," and get students to be willing to take action
in support of the teacher's values, Singer says.
For teachers who express concern that enlisting children for their
own causes might jeopardize their jobs, Singer presents "a model [he]
was able to use effectively to engage students as activists," while
avoiding the legal and ethical issues involved in using the classroom
to promote personal interests to children. Following are key excerpts
from Singer's model:
DEVELOP A STUDENT CLUB FOR ADVOCATING SOCIAL ISSUES. "[Singer's
club] provided students who were excited by classroom discussions...
with a place where they could further explore their questions and act
based o要 their beliefs."
Recruit students from the classroom to join the
