Utah's Republic

Posts Tagged ‘BYU’

An open letter to the teachers of Alpine School District (ASD) – I encourage all parents to forward this email to their children’s teachers and principals, and then to your friends elsewhere so they can be aware of the transformation taking place in our schools.

Thank you for becoming teachers and engaging in the challenging and rewarding work of inspiring the rising generation. Thousands of families hope for your success in reaching their children to help them achieve all they can. I write you to express my concern over a dangerous agenda which is filtering into schools around our country and even into our own school district to an extent. My hope is to simply raise your awareness so that you are not drawn into these philosophies unaware of their intent.

Last year I started the website UtahsRepublic.org after reading the history standards for the state of Utah. I discovered that the word Republic did not appear one time in the K-12 standards. Article 4, section 4 of the U.S. Constitution guarantees us a republican form of government but it seems that all we ever hear about is that we are a Democracy. The short video at this link clearly explains the difference between a republic and a democracy.
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/get-educated/why-a-republic/

The name John Goodlad is well known in the field of education.  His book, “The Moral Dimensions of Teaching” is the source of the statement in the Alpine School District Professional Development Center which says, “Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy.” When I first encountered that phrase about 6 years ago, I didn’t realize the full ramifications of what it was saying. Only during the past year, with the help of others, were we able to understand what Goodlad meant.

John Goodlad is a follower of John Dewey. Dewey was one of the original signatories on the Humanist Manifesto in the 1930’s. A humanist is one who replaces the worship of God with the worship of man and his “genius.” With no God, there are no absolute truths so all knowledge and morals are relative or as Goodlad says, democratic. This moral relativism is based on evolving majority public opinion and is the core of Goodlad’s belief system. This is why he favors and promotes a constructivist philosophy. It is centered in the notion that the process is more important than the result which he believes may change over time.

Among Goodlad’s beliefs are: (references below)

• “Most youth still hold the same values of their parents… if we do not alter this pattern, if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay.” (1)
• “Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.” (2)
• “The curriculum of the future ‘will be what one might call the humanistic curriculum.’” (3)
• “Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now.” (4)
• “…the state we should strive for is better described in Deweyan terms as a social democracy.” (5)
• “…educators must resist the quest for certainty.  If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism.” (6)
• “Education is a task for both parents and state. The state, parents, and children all have interests that must be protected.” (7)

Do these statements surprise you as much as they did me?

A “social democracy” is defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as a democratic welfare state or the gradual transition from capitalism to socialism. Goodlad seeks to accomplish this transition by his “enlightened social engineering.” Charlotte Iserbyt (worked in the Department of Education under Reagan) in her book “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” wrote that Goodlad is this nations “premier change agent” to take us toward socialism. (www.deliberatedumbingdown.com) In her book she quotes Goodlad as saying:

“The most controversial issues of the twenty-first century will pertain to the ends and means of modifying human behavior and who shall determine them. The first educational question will not be ‘what knowledge is of the most worth?’ but ‘what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce?’ The possibilities virtually defy our imagination.” (pg. 56)

Goodlad espouses centrally planned indoctrination for the modification of human behavior. There is no agency or liberty in Goodlad’s formula for success.

In 1983 John Goodlad came to BYU’s McKay School of Education (MSE) and set up the Public School Partnerships (PSP) which ASD joined (along with Provo, Wasatch, Nebo, and Jordan school districts). In 1986 he established the NNER (National Network for Educational Renewal) and the MSE became a founding member in the hopes of improving education for our children.

In June 2006, during an NNER Executive Board meeting at which Vern Henshaw (ASD Superintendent) was present, Ada Beth Cutler raised concerns that BYU fired an adjunct faculty member for writing an Op-Ed in support of homosexual marriage. Ms. Cutler then shared “her grave concern about BYU’s action and policies that discriminate against homosexuals, given the principles of the Agenda for Education in a Democracy.” You can read more about this and the NNER here:
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/education/daily-herald-what-social-democracy-means-to-utah-county-educators/

As this information spread the last few months, worried parents were happy to hear BYU’s MSE announce at the end of June 2010 that they were dropping their association with the NNER for financial reasons.
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/media-coverage/byu-drops-goodlads-nner/

The story became even more troubling when we discovered the connection between John Goodlad and Bill Ayers. Would you be comfortable with an avowed Marxist revolutionary terrorist teaching your children? Bill Ayers was a founding member of the terrorist group “The Weather Underground” and was involved in activities like bombing the Pentagon and New York Police Department between 1968 and 1975. In 2001 he lamented to a NY Times reporter that he regretted he couldn’t have done more. Ayers realized after the terrorist days that you can’t gain a big following by bombing things. The way to attract followers is to indoctrinate the young into your philosophy. To learn more about his radical philosophy and how he promotes it through teaching democracy to children, please read this page:
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/education/bill-ayers-exposed/

Bill Ayers and John Goodlad are birds-of-a-feather. They have the same fundamental beliefs except Goodlad didn’t blow stuff up. He went straight into education and skipped the violence. If you read the comparison at the link below you will see how similar their philosophies are. Then ask yourself: why has Bill Ayers been invited by John Goodlad to be the KEYNOTE SPEAKER at the 2010 NNER conference this October?
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/education/whats-the-difference-between-john-goodlad-and-bill-ayers/

Both Goodlad and Ayers teach that our form of government is a democracy and push to have it taught in the classroom in order to revolutionize our society. I strongly suggest you read the 2nd link above which lays bare their agenda in their own words. You can read snippets or download the entire Weather Underground manifesto co-written by Ayers. Their Agenda is all laid out just like it is on the NNER website in one of the links above.

I believe Bill Ayers and John Goodlad both to be dangerous men. Goodlad is well respected in education circles and that allows him to promote his philosophy in friendly environments making it difficult for people to separate the good educational practices from the bad social philosophies. I believe that someone who is an atheist/socialist/humanist has no place in our school system, attempting to indoctrinate teachers how and what to teach our children.
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/education/dealing-with-korihor/

I pass this on in the hopes that as you become aware of what is happening here and around our country you can find ways to resist this agenda.  If you would like further information or to join with us in opposing this socialist movement, please contact me through the UtahsRepublic.org website.

Sincerely,

Oak Norton

Quote References

1) John Goodlad, “Report of Task Force C: Strategies for Change,” Schooling for the Future, a report to the President’s Commission on Schools Finance, Issue #9, 1971
2) John Goodlad, Roger Soder & Timothy McMannon, “Developing Democratic Character in the Young”, pg. 164
3) John Goodlad, “Directions of Curriculum Change”, The NEA Journal, March 1966
4) John Goodlad, “Schooling for a Global Age,” pg. xiii
5) John Goodlad, “Developing Democratic Character in the Young”, 2001, pg. 153
6) John Goodlad, Corinne Mantle-Bromley, Stephen John Goodlad, “Education for Everyone: Agenda for Education in a Democracy”, Woods Learning Center, pg. 6
7) John Goodlad, “Developing Democratic Character in the Young”, 2001, pg. 164

A BYU English professor (Brian Jackson) wrote an op-ed today in the Deseret News all about the McCarthyite parents in Alpine School District who got upset over nothing at John Goodlad and Alpine’s use of his phrase “Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy.” Read the article, and then read the excellent comments that follow which expose how little research and understanding this fellow has of John Goodlad (who Charlotte Iserbyt called America’s “premier change-agent” in her expose on the American education system entitled “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”).

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700037194/Political-sentiment-is-far-from-reason.html

For those of you that saw last Sunday’s Provo Daily Herald front page story, the reporter claimed I made a number of statements which I did not. I understand how a reporter occasionally gets things wrong, especially from oral conversations, but in this case, I gave the Herald a letter in writing and they completely destroyed what I wrote and put words in my mouth I never said. This is my response. Please pass this on to everyone you know to help people understand how wrong the Daily Herald got my story. The original article I sent the Herald can be read here so you can see exactly what I did write.

Oak

The Herald article went wrong by attributing serious charges I leveled against John Goodlad, to BYU and ASD. What parents have been working to do is expose Goodlad’s Agenda which we view as anathema to this community. It can accurately be said that Goodlad is a socialist, humanist, and atheist, and that his influence is filtering into our schools (case in point is the “Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy” sign in ASD’s District office).

I have posted in full, my original letter to the Herald on my website at www.UtahsRepublic.org should any of you wish to see that it barely mentions Alpine district and BYU except by way of their associations with John Goodlad.

It is Goodlad’s philosophy to remove God and traditional family values from the classroom. His main channel is through his NNER (National Network for Educational Renewal) which has on its website a subversive Agenda calling for the transformation of America into a social and political democracy. This Agenda follows the Humanist Manifesto, seeks to completely remove God from our schools, and seeks to ensure children are given a proper education away from parents who might unduly influence them. Here are a few quotes from Goodlad that illustrate his philosophy.

“Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.” (John Goodlad, Developing Democratic Character in the Young, 2001, pg 164)

“In the quest for learning, educators must resist the quest for certainty. If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism.”  (John Goodlad, Woods Learning Center, Education for Everyone: Agenda for Education in a Democracy, pg. 6)

“The curriculum of the future ‘will be what one might call the humanistic curriculum.’” (John Goodlad, NEA Journal, Directions of Curriculum Change, March 1966)

Humanism is replacing the worship of God with the worship of man and his “genius.” For those of you that are LDS, just a week ago at general conference there were strong warnings against moral relativism (ie. standards based on changing cultural norms) and the dangers of the humanistic Korihor doctrine.  It can accurately be said that John Goodlad is a modern day Korihor.

One other error in last week’s article was the notion that I believe a republic is based on the “power of God.” What I actually wrote was “we are a republic with natural rights bestowed upon us by God.” I do believe the Framers of the Constitution were inspired, but our Republic is based on principles of representation where elected officials exercise sovereign power on our behalf to protect our natural rights. If we don’t like the job they do, we vote them out. This differs from a democracy which Goodlad desires to transform us into through his Agenda where everything is subject to a vote of the people…issues, knowledge, and morals.

Now that this is fully public, I ask those at BYU and ASD who have accepted Goodlad into the educational fold to reject him. Does this community really want or need a humanist, atheist, and socialist dictating what the ‘Agenda’ or ‘Moral Dimensions’ are for our schools and thus our children? Honestly, what benefit does Goodlad or his NNER bring to BYU or ASD? I’d say it’s time to drop such dangerous philosophies and connections. I can’t imagine the benefits of this relationship outweigh the costs.

Sincerely,

Oak Norton