Children of a Therapeutic Society
- by B.K.
Eakman
Some 35 years
ago, social scientists began unveiling unworkable philosophies of child
management, characterized by a lack of adult guidance and punctuated with heavy
doses of pop psychology. For openers,
they told parents to lay off the discipline and let kids express
themselves. Professors at
university departments of education joined in with admonishments to prospective
teachers against putting red markings on pupils papers
and criticizing youngsters' work, manner of dress, and speech. School counselors took up the cause and
levied a cease and desist order against adults who
persisted in "shoving" their outdated moral and religious values on
children.
Eventually, the suggestion that parents
had the right to direct the upbringing of their children became synonymous with
overprotectiveness, then with child abuse, while
tolerance of bad manners and obscenities was viewed as "being
flexible."
By 1987, what kids wanted at any given
moment had become more important than their knowledge base. Children were made drunk on their own
importance. Teacher training was
taken up with courses in behavioral psychology ("ed psych")
instead of academic subject matter.
Standardized tests started looking more
like opinion surveys than cognitive assessments. By 1996, even math courses had started
placing correct world views and teamwork (read: "peer pressure") over
correct answers.
Last week the cumulative effect of
therapeutic/socialization-style education hit critical mass. Parents in Littleton, Colo., got a good
jolt of the "mental hygiene" approach to schooling, up close and
personal.
Psychologized education, which first came to Littleton in 1991 under the name
"outcome-based education," changed labels when it came under attack
from parents and the public. But in typical fashion, curricular
"standards" and the thrust of programs remained the same. Rocky Mountain News reported in
June 1994 that the Jefferson County Education Board voted to continue funding
the renamed outcome-based – i.e., psychology-based – education to
the tune of $1 million, over parent protests. Drug education, refusal skills,
self-esteem, and relationships became centerpieces of the curriculum, pushing
academics to the back burner. Yet,
in the aftermath of the Littleton tragedy, the president and pundits are
calling for more of the same.
Only a few seem to connect the sudden
surge of high-profile student violence with the progressive undermining of
adult leadership, denigration of religiously based moral values, lurid media
entertainment, and lack of substantive tasks to occupy the child's mind and
time.
Today, we have human warehouses, not
institutions of learning. The peer
pressure approach to teaching has unleashed a Lord of the Flies mentality
which even police, stationed in school hallways and on rooftops, can no longer
be expected to control. This result
should have been predictable, especially among those calling themselves
"child experts" - psychologists.
"Trench-coat
Mafia"?
Heavy eye makeup? Black hats and knee boots? What on earth did we expect when we
started allowing kids come to school permanently decked out in Halloween
costumes? When we stopped giving
youngsters more to do than primp, preen, strut, intimidate, and spout filthy
song lyrics what we reaped was swastikas and vampire cults.
Curriculums and activities that revolve
around psychological calisthenics instead of serious learning fuel a morbid
preoccupation with self. They don't
increase self-esteem or instill self-respect. It doesn't take a psychiatrist —
or, for that matter, a priest — to figure out that youngsters who are
allowed to spend the largest part of their days acting out fantasies, who are
drilled with "antiauthoritarian" theology, who can get easy A's under
phony "standards" are eventually going to unleash an environment of
social chaos that in 10 years will transform even a United States of America
into a Kosovo, Iraq, or Bosnia.
The Littleton incident, added to those
in Jonesboro, Arkansas; West Paducah, Kentucky; Springfield, Oregon; and Edinboro, Pennsylvania, among others, signals that the
public school system is about to implode.
More importantly, it indicates that schooling isn't about literacy,
basics, or proficiency at anything, no matter what educators pretend. It's time for Americans to send an
unequivocal message to legislators and school boards to pull the plug on
psychology-based education programs and practices.
The above appeared
in the Washington Times Op-Ed Pages, A21, Monday, April 26, 1999
B.K. Eakman is executive director of the National Education
Consortium and the author of Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating
Morality Through Education; Huntington House Publishers, PO Box 53788,
Lafayette, Louisiana 70505
© April 1999
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