The Blumenfeld Education Letter September_1993

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The B lumenfeldEducation LetterV ol. 8 , N O .9 (L ette r # 85)

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." HOSEA 4:6S ep te mb er 1 99 3E DIT O R: S am ue l L B lu me nfe ld

Thepurpose of this newsletter isto provide knowledge for parents and educators who want to save the children of Americafrom the destructive forces that endanger them. Our children in the public schools are at grave riskin 4 ways: academically,

spiritually, morally, and phYSically - and only a well-informed public will be able to reduce these risks."Without vision, the people perish."

B e n ja m i n B lo o m : O B E 's G o d f a t h e rH i s W r i t in g s T e l l A l l

The Biumenfeld Education Letter is published monthly. Sources of products and services described are not necessarily endorsed

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by this publication. They are intended to provide our readers with information on a rapidly expanding field of educational activity.Permission to quote isgranted provided proper credit isgiven. Original material iscopyrighted by The Blumenfeld Education Letter.Subscription Rate: 1 year $36.00. Address: Post Office Box 45161, Boise, Idaho 83711. Phone (208) 322-4440.L . ._ . _ ~ _

As everyone knows, American publiceducation has been in crisis for at least thelast three decades. Infact, itwas the famousA Nation at Risk report, issued by the Na-tional Commission on Excellencein Educa-tion in April 1983, that called for drasticmeasures to be taken if the public schoolswere tobe saved from further deterioration.And the calls for educational reform carnefast and furious.

Basically, there were two types of re-forms called for. Conservatives called forgetting back to basics, for teaching readingbyintensive phonics, for strengthening alloftheacademic subjects, forgreater discipline,more homework, etc. The liberal educationestablishment had other ideas. Besidescall-ing formoremoney, higher teacher salaries,all of which they got, their view of reformincluded whole language, invented spell-ing, no memorization in arithmetic but lotsof calculators, a breakdown of traditionalsubjectmatter into relevant topics,and aboveall, a greater emphasis on the affectivedomain, that is, more emphasis on feelings,beliefs, values, attitudes, socialization, sexu-ality, group learning, group therapy, peer

counseling, death education, drug educa-tion, etc.

Obviously, these two views of educa-tion are not only mutually exclusive butproduce totally different outcomes. Theconservative approach represents a tradi-tional Judeo-Christian world view that seeseducation as adevelopment of intellect andspirit. Itsees the school as serving the par-entswho entrust their children to theeduca-torswhoare toteach theyoungsters thebasicacademic skills that will serve them in anyfuture field of work or career they maychoose. Inotherwords, the function ofa freepublic school is to provide a basic, no-non-sense education.

ViceAdmiralHyman Rickoversummedup the non-sectarian traditional view whenhe said the following to a Congressionalcommittee in 1962:

[A] school must accomplish three difficul t tasks;first, it must transmit to the pupil a substantial bodyof knowledge; second, it must develop in him thenecessary intellectual skill to apply this knowledge tothe problems he will encounterinadult life;and third,itmust inculca te in him the habit of judging issues onthe basis ofverified fact and logical reasoning .... [Theschool'sl principal task ... is to develop the mind.


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... Far too many of our teachers do not possess theintellec tual and educational qualifi cations that wou ldpermit them to offer such a course of studies. Thereis an easy way out, and many of our schools are usingit. They teach simpler things that are easy to teach,easy to learn, and more fun besides-how to belovable, likable, and datable, how to be a good con-sumer. These aren't subjects you can grade, the wayyou can grade mathematics or sciences or languages,but they are good for hiding the ignorance of bothteacher and pupil.

Allof that was said in 1962,long beforeitwas ever dreamed that one day theschoolswould be handing out condoms. Appar-ently, the educators didn't listen toAdmiralRickover then, and they have nointention oflistening tohis counterparts today.

Why? Because the liberal educationestablishment approaches education withanentirely different world view, ahumanistworld view based on thenotion that there isnoCod, thatman isananimal, theproduct ofevolution, and that thepurpose ofeducationis not to create competent individuals whocanstand on their own twofeetand think forthemselves, but to change society. Human-ist education is basically messianic in itsoutlook. Itnot onlywants tochange society,but also erase from human consciousnessany dependence on a higher authority, thatis, God. Humanist education is at war withthe God of the Bible. It wages spiritualwarfare in the full sense of the word. Andthat is why Admiral Rickover's commonsense fell on deaf ears.Ente r aBE

Outcome-Based Education, orOBE,is atotal reform, or restructuring, of Americaneducation designed explicitly to furtherhumanist goals. First and foremost, it doesaway with every last vestige of traditionaleducation, its methods, its curriculum, itsobjectivemeansofassessment, itstimeframe,its goals. In fact, it represents a complete

takeover of American public education bythe humanist sect,with the soleaim of pro-ducing young humanists who will forwardthe humanist agenda. In other words, OBEintends to do for humanists what Catholicschools did for Catholics.But Outcome-Based Education did notsuddenly arise out of nowhere. Ithas beenworked on and planned for by humanistpsychologists, sociologists, and behavioralscientists for years despite parental clamorfor back to basics. These educational theo-rists and planners feel that they have amis-sion, that they are inevery sense of thewordtrue revolutionaries engaged in a true cul-tural revolution in which traditional valuesare tobe overthrown and replaced with thepagan-socialist values of the New WorldOrder. That is why humanists have neverhad any intention of getting back tobasics,and that is why parents have experiencednothing but frustration in trying to returnpublic education to its earlier, traditionalforms and functionsMess ianism in Action

Ofcourse, thewhole departure from thetraditional academic curriculum started atthe turn of the century when John Deweyand his humanist colleagues decided touseour public school system as the means ofchanging America from a capitalist, indi-vidualistic, believing nation into a socialist,collectivist, atheist society. The humanists,better known as the progressives, spent thenext thirtyyears revising thecurriculurnandwriting new textbooks so that by 1930theywere ready to impose the new socialist-ori-ented curriculum on the public schools ofAmerica. Onemight callthat period the firstphase of the humanist reform movement. Itwas dominated by behaviorist, stimulus-response, animal-tested psychology.

The second phase began in the early

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Education Letter, Pg. 3, September 199319605 with the emergence of Third. Forcepsychology developed by humanist psy-chologists Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers,Sidney Simon and others who tried to injectan emotional and spiritual component in thebehaviorist mix. Since the goal of educationwas now defined as "self-actualization," theemphasis was now on the development ofthe affective domain through such programsas values clarification, sensitivity training,situational ethics, multiculturalism, plural-ism, etc. Reflecting the human-potentialmovement, the goal was to "liberate" humanbehavior from biblical constraints in order tocreate a humanist society.

The New V ocab ularyThird Force psychology also gave edu-cators a whole new vocabulary to describethe expanded realm of the educator withsuch terms as change agents, facilitators,critical thinking, self-esteem, cognitive dis-sonance, experiential learning, congruence,relationship inventory, operant behavior,taxonomy, morphological creativity, behav-ioral objectives, group dynamics, etc.All of this has been engineered mainlyby psychologists who now own Americanpublic education lock, stock and barrel. From1900 to about 1940 you had G. Stanley Hall,John Dewey, Charles Judd, James McKeenCattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and theirproteges Arthur Gates, William SCOl:tGray,William Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg, GeorgeCounts and others, all psychologists, oreducators trained by psychologists, whotransformed American education in theprogressive mold. In1933 there appearedthe Humanist Manifesto which set the spiri-tual foundation for the progressive moment.In the 1940s and '50s you had the stronginfluence of communist social psychologythrough the work of Kurt Lewin at MIT andin the founding of the National Training

Laboratory in Bethel, Maine, under the spon-sorship of the National Education Associa-tion. That's where sensitivity training wasborn.During the 19205,Lewin had worked inBerlin on experiments on how to artificiallycreate behavioral disorganization. He wasso good at it, that A. R. Luria, the Sovietpsychologist, wrote the following aboutLewin in his book, The Nature of HumanC on flic ts : A s tu dy o f th e experimental disorgani-zation and control of human behavior, pub-lished in 1932:

K. Lewin, in our opinion, has been one of themost prominent psychologists to elucidate this ques-tion of the artificial production of affect and of theexperimental disorgansation of behaviour. Themethod of his procedure--the introduction of anemotional setting into the experience of a human, theinterest of the subject in the experiment-helped himto obtain an artificial disruption of the affect of con-siderable strength ....Here the fundamental conception of Lewin isvery close to ours. Every elaborated excitation mani-fests a tendency to a direct discharge ... ; obviouslyprecisely the inhibition of this tendency, connectedwith a certain conflict, can produce an acute disrup-tion of the affect and a series of new phenomena nothitherto observed. The closer the action is to realisa-tion, the greater the affective disruption that can beprovoked by its inhibition. (pp, 207-8)

Obviously, Lewin had mastered the artof artificially inducing behavioral disorgani-zation, and we can only conjecture how thesetechniques have been used by Americanpsycho-educators to create the kind of be-havioral disorganiza tion that afflicts somanyAmerican public school students.Humanis t Manifesto II

In 1973 there appeared Humanist Mani-festo II, which basically outlined the schoolcurriculum of the future. It called for lithedevelopment of a system of world law and aworld order based upon transnational fed-

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eral government." Itfurther stated:Theworld community must engage incoopera-

tiveplanning concerning theuse ofrapidly depletingresources. The planet earth must be considered asingle ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource de-pletion, and excessive population growth must bechecked by international concord. The cultivationand conservation of nature is a moral value; weshould perceive ourselvesasintegral tothesources ofour being in nature. We must free our world fromneedless pollution and waste, responsibly guardingand creating wealth, both natural and human. Ex-ploitation of natural resources, uncurbed by socialconscience, must end.

Should it surprise anyone, therefore,that American students are being brain-washed tobelieve that concern for the envi-ronment ismore important than concernforthe unborn? Recently, Iwas toldbyaproudfather that his little daughter in the secondgrade had already embarked on acrusade tosave theworld from environmental destruc-tion. It didn't occur to him that his youngdaughter was being sowell indoctrinated inthe religion of environmentalism that shemight very well become an eco-fanatic. It'sall in the Humanist Manifesto which, inci-dentally, was signed byAlan F.Guttrnacher,president ofPlanned Parenthood, B.F.Skin-ner, BettyFriedan, and 200other humanists.

Outcome-Based Education is really, forall intents and purposes, Humanist Paro-chial Education. And its proponents makeno bones about it. Actually, the beginningsof aBE can be traced back to 1948when agroup of behavioral scientists, meeting inBostonat theAmerican Psychological Asso-ciation Convention, decided toembark on aproject of classifying the goals or outcomesoftheeducational process since,asthey said,"educational objectivesprovide thebasis forbuilding curricula and tests and representsthe starting point for much of our educa-tional research."

Inother words, you cannot build acur-riculum until you know what the outcomes

of that education should be. For example, ifyou want your student tobecome a human-ist, you must teach the child about evolu-tion,environmentalism, feminism, reproduc-tive rights (abortion), sexual freedom (howtohave safesex),alternative values systems,alternative lifestyles, etc. And you mustprovide tests and assessments along thewayto make sure that the outcomes are beingachieved.

Likewise, the curriculum of a Christianschool is determined by the end goal, ordesired outcome, of theeducative process: awell-educated Christian steeped in theknowledge of God and His law.

Bloom's TaxonomyThe result of the scientists' delibera-

tions has become known as Bloom's Taxon-omy of Educational Objectives, ahumanist-behaviorist classification of outcomes thatdoes away with traditional outcomes, sub-jectmatter and teaching methods. The cen-tral figure behind all of this is behavioralscientist BenjaminS,BloomoftheUniversityof Chicago. Bloom is one of those obscureprofessors who work in their graduateschools with their students trying to findways tochange human behavior and therebychange the world. They are imbued by thesame messianic mission that motivatedHorace Mann, John Dewey, and a hundredother "educators" to bring about their ver-sionofutopia. (R.J.Rushdoony's 1963book,T he M essia nic C ha ra cter of A meric an E duc atio nprovides afascinatingin-depthstudy oftheseAmerican educators.)Bloom's taxonomy, which is littlemorethan a humanist-behaviorist straitjacket forpublic education, is contained in two hand-books, one for the cognitive domain (pub-lished in 1956) and one for the affectivedomain (published in 1964). Bloomwrites:

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,--- Education Letter, Pg. 5, September 1993

Curriculum builders should find the taxonomyhelps them to specify objectives so that it becomeseasier toplan learning experiences and prepare evalu-ation devices .... In short teachers and curriculummakers should find this a relatively concise model forthe analysis of educational outcomes in the cognitivearea ofremembering, thinking, and problem solving.(p.2) A second part of the taxonomy is the affectivedomain. It includes objectives which describe changesin interest, attitudes, and values, and the develop-ment ofappreciations and adequate adjustment .... Itis difficult to describe the behaviors appropriate tothese objectives since the internal or covert feelingsand emotions are as significant for this domain as arethe overt behavioral manifestations .... Our testingprocedures for the affective domain are still in themost primitive stages. (p. 7)

That was written in 1956. But by nowtheir testing instruments have been quiteperfected todo their job ofmonitoring affec-tive change. Indevising these highly intru-sive tests, Bloomhad the help of Ra.lphW.Tyler of the Center for Advanced Study inBehavioral Sciences at Stanford University.In fact, Bloom dedicated the taxonomy toTyler "whose ideas on evaluation have beena constant source of stimulation to his col-leagues in examining, and whose energyand patience have never failed us." Bloomcontinues:

This taxonomy is designed to be a classificationof the student beha viors which represent the intendedoutcomes of the educational process. (p. 10) ... Whatwe are classifying is the intended behavior of stu-dents-the ways in which individuals are to act,think, or feel as the result ofparticipating in some unitof instruction. (p. 12)The taxonomy is not completely neutral. Thisstems from the already-noted fact that it is a classifi-cation of intended behaviors. (p, 15)By educational objectives, we mean explicitformulations of the ways in which students are ex-

pected to be changed by the educative process. Thatis, the ways in which they will change in their think-ing, their feelings, and their actions .... Itis importantthat the major objectives of the school o:r unit ofinstruction be clearly identified if time and effort arenot to be wasted on less important things and if the

work ofthe school is to be guided by some plan. (p, 26)The philosophy ofeducation of the school servesas one guide, since the objectives to be finally in-cluded should be related to the school's view of the"good life for the individual in the good society."What are important values? What is the proper rela-tion between man and society? What are the properrelations between man and man? (p, 27)

Note that the relationship between manand God is not included in the taxonomy.Also, note that the Humanist Manifesto of1933 states that "the good life is still thecentral taskformankind." Obviously, Bloomdrew his inspiration from that philosophy.Cognitive Domain

Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitivedomain contains six major classes: knowl-edge, comprehension, application, analysis,synthesis, and evaluation. Concerningknowledge, Bloomwrites:

Knowledge as defined here includes thosebehaviors and test situations which emphasize theremembering, either by recognition or recall, of ideas,material, or phenomena. (p. 62)

Asample of the knowledge expected tobe learned is given as follows:

To develop a basic knowledge of the evolution-ary development of man .... A knowledge of theforces, past and present, which have made for theincreasing interdependence of people all over theworld .... Knowledge ofa relatively complete formu-lation of the theory of evolution. (p. 71)These are just samples of the kind of

politically correct knowledge the studentwill be expected to demonstrate as learnedbehavior. William Spady, top OBE guru,describes wha t is involved in such ademon-stration:

First, an outcome is a demonstration of learningthat occurs at the end of a learning experience. It is a

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,----- Education Letter, Pg. 6 , September 1993 ...

result of lesrning and an actual visible, observabledernonstra nofthree things: know ledge, combinedwith competence, combined with something my col-leagues and Icall "orientations"-the attitudinal,affective, motivational, and relational elements thatalso make up a performance. Further, this demon-stration happens in a rea1live setting, and is, there-fore, influenced and defined by the elements and fac-tors that make up that setting, situation, or context.

As for the taxonomy in the affectivedomain, Bloom writes:Affective objectives vary from simple attentionto selected phenomena to complex but internallyconsistent qualities of character and conscience. Wefound a large number of such objectives in the litera-ture expressed as interests, attitudes, appreciations,values, and emotional sets and biases. (p, 7)[Tjheprocess of socialization, with its develop-ment ot behavioral controls, is a topic with which the

affective domain is much involved. (p. 38)Bloom then points out that it is oftendifficult to separate the cognitive from theaffective. He writes:Many of the objectives which are classified inthe cognitive domain have an implicit but unspeci-fied affective component that could be concurrently

classified in the affective domain. (p. 48)Which means that you can easily slip insome affective outcomes with your cogni-tive objectives, thus making it easier to ob-tain the desired behavioral changes. And,according to Bloom's research, this is betterdone at an early age. He writes:The evidence points out convincingly to the facttha tage is a factor operating against attempts to effect

a complete or thorough-going reorganization of atti-tudes and values. (p,85)The evidence collected thus far suggests that asingle hour of classroom activity under certain condi-tions may bring about a major reorganization incognitive as well as affective behaviors. We are of theopinion that this will prove to be a most fruitful areaof research in connection with the affective domain.(p.88)

If you learn nothing else from readingthis article than the fact that the psycho-educators know how to cause a major reor-ganization of values in the mind of a child inone single hour of classroom activity, thenyou've learned why it is so dangerous to puta child in a public school. I know of an 8-year-old second-grader in Michigan whohanged himself because of a film he wasshown in the classroom. It took only onehour in the classroom to change that child'slife for good. The taxonomy continues:[Psychologist Gordon] Allport (1954) empha-sizes the basic reorganization that must take place inthe indi vid ual ifreally new values and character traitsare to be formed. (p. 89)It is not enough merely to desire a new objectiveor to wish others to be molded in the image that wefind desirable or satisfactory. We must find ways ofunderstanding and determining what objectives arecentral and significant ifweare tosummon the appro-priate effort to achieve these more complex objec-

tives. (p. 90)Everything in Outcome-Based Educa-tion can be found in Bloom's writings. Forexample, in his book Human Characteristicsand School Learning, published in 19761Bloomexpounds on his theory of Mastery Learn-ing, which is at the heart of the methodologyin OBE. The basic idea is that most studentscan learn what the schools have to teach "ifthe problem is approached sensitively andsystematically." What makes mas tery learn-ing work, says Bloom, is the feedback-cor-rective procedure. He writes:The feedback procedures typically consist ofbrief formative tests, at the end of each learning task,which indicate what the student has learned andwhat he still needs to attain mastery of the task.Mastery is frequently defined as something approxi-mating 80 to 85 percent of the items on a criterion-

referenced test. (p. 125)In mastery learning the pupil is required

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Education Letter, Pg. 7, September 1993 ---------_

to take as much time as necessary in order toachieve mastery of whatever it is the teacherwants him or her to learn. In fact, the pupilcannot advance to the next task or learningmodule until the previous task or learningmodule has been mastered. This means thatthe pupil may not graduate far beyond theage of 18until he or she can demonstrate thatpolitically correct learning has taken place.A key premise of OBE is that, undermastery learning, all students can lea.rn andsucceed and that the school can control theconditions of success. In other words, timeconstraints will no longer decide how long astudent remains in school. As the OBE poli-cymakers inMinnesota said when Bill.Spadytold them that not every studen t would be inschool for the same length of time or take thesame courses, "If they can't demonstrate theoutcomes of significance, then we shouldn'tbe letting them out of school."NEA Resolution

This may mean changing the compul-sory attendance laws to accommodate thisfeatureofOBE. They may also be changed toforce parents to put their preschoolers in thehands of the public educators. The NationalEducation Association passed a resolutionon early childhood education at their con-vention in July 1993. Itreads:The [NEA] supports early childhood educationprograms in the public schools for children from birththrough age eight. The Associa tion believes that suchprograms should be held in facilities that are appro-priate to the developmental needs of these children.

The Associa tion further believes that early childhoodeducation programs should include a full continuumof services for parents and children, including childcare, child development, appropriate developmentaland diversity-based curricula, special education, andappropriate bias-free screening devices. The Asso-ciation believes that federal legislation should beenacted to assist in organizing the implementation offully funded early childhood education programsoffered through the public schools. These programs

should be available to all children on an equal basisand should include mandatory kindergarten withcompulsory attendance. -

Why this interest in early childhoodeducation? The answer can be found inBloom's 1964 book, Stability and C hange inHuman Chara cte ri sti cs . He wrote:

We can learn very little about human growth,development, or even about specific human charac-teristics unless we make full use of the time dimen-sion. Efforts to control or change human behavior bytherapy, by education, or by other means will be in-adequate and poorly understood until we can followbehavior over a longer period. (p. 5)The absolute scale of vocabulary developmentand the longitudinal studies of educational achieve-ment indicate that approximately 50% of generalachievement at grade 12 (age 18)has been reached bythe end of grade 3 (age 9). This suggests the greatimportance of the first few years of school as well asthe preschool period in the development of learningpatterns and general achievement. ... The implica-tions for more powerful and effective school environ-ments in the primary school grades are obvious. (p,127) We believe that the early environment is ofcrucial importance for three reasons. The first isbased on the very rapid growth of selected character-istics in the early years and conceives ofthe variationsin the early environment as so important becausethey shape these characteristics in their most rapidperiods of formation.Secondly, each characteristic isbuilt on a base ofthat same characteristic at an earlier time or on thebase ofother characteristics which precede it indevel-opment. ...A third reason ... stems from learning theory. Itis much easier to learn something new than it is tostamp out one set of learned behaviors and replacethem by a new set. (p, 215)

And that is why the OBE people want toget at the children as early as possible, toindoctrinate them before anybody else canget to them. And that is why the NEA ispushing for early childhood education frombirth to age eight. Itis also important to notethat the men in the forefront of the OBEmovement were either graduate students of

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r--- .....ducation Letter, Pg. 8 ISeptember 1993

Bloom or closely associated with him. To-day, Bloom isProfessor Emeritus and in his80s. No doubt he ispleased with thework ofhisdisciples who havemanaged toget virtu-ally every state legislature in America tomandate aBE in their public schools. Thisby far is themost complete cultural revolu-tion ever to hit America, and most Ameri-cans are not even aware that it is takingplace.

Ma ry Foley 's Cu rriculumThefollowing isanexcerpt fromalonger

statement which Mary Foley, a mother offour children, presented to a court on CapeCod inMassachusetts when shewas deniedthe right to homeschool her 9-year-old son,Christian, by the local school superinten-dent because of a lack of an acceptable cur-riculum. She argued:

I do not have a curriculum. I have never usedone.... The state does not have the power to standard-ize children. My education philosophy precludes theuse of a curriculum. My method has been successfulenough to produce a daughter who is amember of theNational Honor Society and twin sons who, after oneyear of school (4th grade), tested in the top onepercent on a national placement test for two consecu-tive years.

The priorities of our curriculum are daydream-ing, natural and social sciences, self discipline, re-spect of self and others, and making mistakes .... Ourcurriculum was best expressed by Blake:To see a world in a grain of sand,And Heaven in a wild flowerTo hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,And Eternity in an hour.If we are not free to educate our children, our

liberty is an illusion.Believe it or not, Mary Foley won her

case!

Math P rob lems S tump S tudentsFew students in theU.S. can solvemath

problems that require more than an edu-cated guess, according to Department ofEducation statistics. Only 16percent of 4th-graders, 8 percent of 8th-graders, and 9per-cent of high school seniors tested could an-swer math questions requiring problem-solving skills.

Nearly 250,000students attending 10,000schools in every state took the test in 1992.Fourth graders were asked tousewords andpictures to show that aboy named Josewhoate half apizza could have eaten more pizzathan a friend, Ella, who ate half of anotherpizza. The answer is Jose could have eatenhalf of a larger pizza. Butonly 23percent ofthe students gave a satisfactory or betteranswer. Nearly half, 49 percent, gave anincorrect answer. Seven percent did notrespond.

The tests were an extension of the Na-tional Assessmen t of Educational Progress(NAEP)exams, administered lastyear. Thoseresults showed that students were gettingbetter at math although nearly 40 percentfailed to reach basic proficiency levels. Butthe new tests did not give students a choiceof answers. Instead, they were required todraw pictures and diagrams and write ex-planations of their answers.

Tests requiring such detailed answersare considered more effective in revealingwhat a student learned. But they are alsomuch more expensive toadminister becausethey must begraded by humans rather thancomputers. (B os to n G lo be , 9/2/93)Comment:

Is itpossible that many of the studentshad more of a reading problem than amathproblem? If they couldn't read the problemwell enough tounderstand it, they certainlywould not have been able to solve it.

'--- The Blumenfeld Education Letter - Post Office Box45161-Boise, Idaho 83711 ..J

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The Blumenfeld Education Letter September_1993

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