Agenda-driven curriculum

I have been openly critical of patriotic education from the very beginning. There are a lot of other people right now criticizing the 1776 commission. This might catch some people by surprise, but I am upset with the people who have been vocally critical of the same concept that I have criticized.

If you know me, you might know why I have this seemingly contradictory viewpoint. The same people who are criticizing the1776 commission are the same people who criticize anyone who insists that the schools need to stop indoctrinating children with liberal propaganda. These people have made it very clear that they are not upset because they are against propaganda. They are upset because they want the propaganda in the schools to reflect their personal beliefs.

In a sense, all agenda-driven curriculum could be classified as propaganda. When you start with what you want children to believe, you end up providing a distorted sense of reality. Even if every specific fact is true, the bigger picture ends up as a lie. You emphasize what might not be substantial. You hide anything that could cast doubt to your arguments. No agenda-driven curriculum can be classified as honest curriculum.

This includes Black Lives Matter at Schools, which is based on the beliefs of a known Marxist organization. This includes Teaching Tolerance, a branch of the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center dedicated to creating intentionally skewed curriculum. This includes the 1619 Project. Although I have not read content from the 1619 Project, I have heard the defenses. It is clearly agenda driven.

Even seemingly honorable agendas can have serious consequences. I have already openly stated that I do not want schools to teach children that slavery is wrong. If we have to lie to children or explicitly tell them that they have to oppose slavery, we are doing something seriously wrong. If we want children to know the truth, we should tell them the truth.

Have you ever seen those lists of things that your teachers got wrong? In particular, have you read about some of the civil war myths? Apparently, it's wrong to say there were factors other than slavery in the cause of the Civil War. It's also wrong to say that the North went to war over slavery. How can both of these things be wrong?

In the case of racially-motivated curriculum, things tend to get even worse. Most teachers push more than just the idea that racism is wrong. They push specific beliefs regarding what children should think about racism and what they must believe to be the solution. They are being trained to turn to authoritarian figures to tell them what to think. This approach is definitively anti-thought.

Indoctrinating children with any agenda-driven curriculum is always a bad idea. We can't allow Trump to get away with his proposal for patriotic education. This is for the exact same reason that the schools should reject intentionally skewed curriculum from sources such as Black Lives Matter at School, Teaching Tolerance, and the 1619 Project. The debate should not be over whose propaganda we should use. Instead, we should denounce any attempts to indoctrinate children with any propaganda.

Let me put this another way. I'm not just against patriotic education. I'm against the people who are against it