Michelle Malkin on Zinn and ‘Social Justice’ Education
This week in Frontpage Magazine Michelle Malkin has an article, “Hollywood and Howard Zinn’s Marxist Education Project.” Here’s an excerpt:
Zinn’s objective is not to impart knowledge, but to instigate “change” and nurture a political “counterforce” (an echo of fellow radical academic and Hugo Chavez admirer Bill Ayers’ proclamation of education as the “motor-force of revolution”). Teachers are not supposed to teach facts in the school of Zinn. “There is no such thing as pure fact,” Zinn asserts. Educators are not supposed to emphasize individual academic achievement. They are supposed to “empower” student collectivism by emphasizing “the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements.” School officials are not facilitators of intellectual inquiry, but leaders of “social struggle.”
Zinn and company have launched a nationwide education project in conjunction with the documentary. “A people’s history requires a people’s pedagogy to match,” Zinn preaches. The project is a collaboration between two “social justice” activist groups, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.
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No part of the school curriculum is immune from the social justice makeover crew. Zinn’s partners at Rethinking Schools have even issued teaching guides to “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers” — which rejects the traditional white male patriarchal methods of teaching computation and statistics in favor of p.c.-ified number-crunching [see NAS's articles on this, "Social Changelings" and "Mathematical Deceptions"].
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Our students will continue to come in dead last in international testing. But no worries. With Howard Zinn and Hollywood leftists in charge, empty-headed young global citizens will have heavier guilt, wider social consciences and more hatred for America than any other students in the world.
The absurdity of this almost drives me to doing something drastic and criminal to protect the last vestiges of educational objectivity we have left.
Actually thinking more about it, those who scream in the streets have no effect or power upon this world, if more believe such false ideals it will allow plutocrats like myself to enjoy power previously unattainable. By teaching these kids social justice and critical pedagogy you allow them to become the weak with which the strong use to build their empires. They’re encouraged to recognize being oppressed or feel guilty about being the oppressors, which allows the guiltless such as my self to jump on opportunities caused by the weakness that they are indoctrinated into.
You change the system by becoming a part of it, you gain power through infiltrating the structures of power, you build wealth through ruthlessness, honor, and an unwavering commitment to building your empire. All of these things are being discouraged by this doctrine, which in turn disenfranchises its believers, turning them into the next worker drone class that serves at the leisure of those who follow logic and reason.