Clinton's Ten Steps Toward Lifelong Behavior Modification

by Berit Kjos (415-941-3228)

"The critical point of behavior control, in effect, is sneaking up on mankind without his self-conscious realization that a crisis is at hand. Man will not even know that it is about to happen."1 Professor Raymond Houghton

"President Clinton will be a success if he manages to use American influence to... increase significantly the role of the United Nations. ...Bill Clinton will be a great president... if he can make America the creator of a new world order based on consensus." 2 Mikhail Gorbachev, "New World Order: Consensus."

John Turner, a twelve-year-old honor student, was arrested during a school recess, handcuffed, taken to juvenile hall, finger printed, and forbidden to call his mother. He had to sign a $250 bond and may face steeper punishment along with a lifelong police blot on his personal computerized data file "if found guilty".

What could a good sixth grader do to deserve such bad treatment?

"He hit back," says his mother, Alyne Turner. During a January cold spell in Louisiana, the students at his elementary school were kept inside during recess. "Another student began picking on John, calling him names," says Mrs. Turner. John responded to the intimidation by telling his adversary that he must be stupid if he thought those insulting words were true. The other boy hit him in the face. It hurt-especially since John was wearing braces. John reacted and hit back. The other students agreed that John had been provoked. But that didn't matter. There was "a fight" and John had participated. He had failed to follow the prescribed steps toward "conflict resolution". By suggesting that the other boy was "stupid", he failed to "respect" his tormentor. He had broken the ground rules for the politically correct peace-making process which demands a standard of self-restraint that would disqualify most adults.

John's school had adopted a policy called "zero tolerance", a strategy touted by President Clinton and leading educators across the country. In Ohio, the "Zero Tolerance for violence" policy brings swift punishment on innocent victims as well as aggressors-both are summarily suspended.

So when a young girl in Ohio was beaten by two other girls on her way to the schoolbus, all three girls were sentenced to equal punishment: a ten day suspension. Intent to do wrong, a key element in criminal justice, is irrelevant. "If you are hit, you are suspended, no matter what," explained a concerned mother who asked to remain anonymous. "If somebody wants to get another person, they just hit them.

Some kids don't mind getting suspended, but the students who want to succeed do. Middle school kids are getting hit by high-school kids and they are punished as if they hit back.

The daughter of a school board member was hit in the hallway. She was suspended, even though other students said she didn't provoke it." It's happening from coast to coast. A straight A-student in San Jose, California was expelled for bringing a finger-nail clipper to school. Amber Nash, a high school honor student in Gobles, Michigan, brought a knife to school to cut a friend's brithday brownies. She was suspended for ten days. In Alexandria, Louisiana, eight-year old honor student Kameryan Lueng brought a family heirloom to her second-grade class. She didn't realize that the little knife attached to the chain of her grandfather's gold-plated old pocket watch would violate the "zero tolerance" policy. Her punishment was suspension from school and remediation at Redirection Academy. "They were studying Colonial times, and Kameryan thought her teacher would be interested in seeing something old," said her mother, Cheryl Lueng. "Kameryan cried when I told her she couldn't go back to her school on Monday. She feels like a criminal."3

How can schools justify their harsh punishment when their victims intend no wrong? And why do most of the victims seem to be honor students and high achievers? Some educators "say the benefits of zero tolerance policies in raising a school's overall standard of conduct outweighs the harm done to any child who inadvertently breaks a rule,"4 wrote Tamar Lewin in a New York Times article titled "School Codes Without Mercy Snare Pupils Without Malice." "We don't want to be making exceptions, having a principal say this is a good child from a prominent family so we'll overlook it, or this is a problem child from a poor family so we'll enforce it," added Sylvia Pearson, president of the Rapides Parish School Board, referring to little Kameryan. "We adopted zero tolerance to make a safe environment for children."5

What about their emotional safety? Was the emphasis on self-esteem and self-expression merely a passing fad, a bridge between the old and the new paradigms? Did our permissive humanist stage prepare America to welcome a new suppressive global stage?

CLINTON'S TEN-POINT PLAN.

For most of this century, humanist educators have sought ways to use education to transform both the world and its people. "All of us, including the owners, must be subjected to a large degree of social control," wrote NEA leader Willard Givens in 1934. "The major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him an understanding of the transition to a new social order."

Today, self-proclaimed "change agents" see the fruit of their work. Around the world, nations are conforming their education systems to international standards, just as our states are conforming to national standards. President Clinton outlined the U.S. version of this global system in his 1997 State of the Union address to Congress:

1. "Adopt high national standards."

2. "Establish nationally accepted credentials for excellence in teaching."

3. "Help all our children read."

4. "Start teaching children before they start school."

5. "Give parents the power to choose the right public school for their children."

6. "Teach our children to be good citizens."

7. "Help communities finance $20 billion in school construction."

8. "Open the doors of college to all."

9. "Expand the frontiers of learning across a lifetime."

10. "Bring the power of the information age into all our schools."

These goals sound good, don't they? They should. Their purpose is to win public support, not to communicate facts. As New York Times editor Alison Mitchell wrote on February 12, "Clinton... is still using his campaign polling firm of Penn & Schoen to gauge public opinion and help him test and craft language for his speeches."6

Clinton's marketing strategy matches the tactics of educational change agents who say one thing but mean another. North Carolina school superintendent Dr. Jim Causby summarized it well at a 1994 international model school conference in Atlanta: "We have actually been given a course in how not to tell the truth. How many of you are administrators? You've had that course in public relations where you learn to put the best spin on things."

Today's reformers shun clear definitions. Ambiguous promises do far more to persuade the public, subdue the opposition, and create consensus. So truth-telling must wait until polls indicate public readiness.

Clinton has learned his lessons well! He challenges us to learn as well-to be ready always to test what we hear in the light of truth and facts. Unless we decode his noble visions in the light of new regulations and the stated goals of education leaders, we will be deceived. By changing the sequence of Clinton's ten goals we see a different picture -- one that shows how the nice-sounding pieces fit into a monstrous system that would manipulate, manage and monitor "human resources" for the envisioned global village. But keep in mind, the outline below is merely a summary. For factual details explore Internet's education sites, check your state's "workforce development" program, and read Brave New Schools.

* "TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO BE GOOD CITIZENS," said Clinton. "Promote order and discipline.... Impose curfews, enforce truancy laws, remove disruptive students from the classroom and have zero tolerance for guns and drugs." Like "zero tolerance" for guns, the policies for drugs and truancy have been stretched far beyond the realm of danger and reason.

Brooke Olson, a 13-year-old from Texas, was suspended for carrying a bottle of Advil in her backpack. A thirteen-year-old Ohio honor student was suspended and faced possible expulsion for receiving the mild pain-reliever Midol from her friend for cramps.

And the new truancy laws often seem more effective in intimidating home schoolers on the way to libraries than in stopping genuine truancy.

What is happening? A good citizen is a global citizen in the minds of leading educators. These global citizens must be trained to put planetary needs above their own. As governor in 1987, Clinton, together with professor John Goodlad, Carnegie president Ernest Boyer, and other visionary members of the Study Commission on Global Education, wrote a report titled "The United States Prepares for Its Future: Global Perspectives in Education." Its foreword states, "A dozen years ago... teaching and learning "in global perspective" was still exotic doctrine, threatening... those who still thought of American citizenship as an amalgam of American history, American geography, American lifestyles and American ideas... It now seems almost conventional to speak of American citizenship in the same breath with international interdependence and the planetary environment."7

It isn't easy to persuade Americans to trade national pride for planetary loyalties. But our new education system is designed to instill a utopian vision of global interdependence in people everywhere. Contrasted to the exaggerated evils of Western culture, this vision looks enticing enough to motivate many to accept unthinkable environmental and social restraints. Using "zero tolerance" policies to shock, embarrass, and intimidate dutiful students into compliance with irrational rules fits the plan.

Most students caught in the confusing web of federal regulations must endure long sessions in "conflict resolution" and "anger management"-two related psycho-social strategies used to instill a submissive, collectivist mentality. They have already become standard procedure in our nation's classrooms.

Thomas Sowell, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, summarized the process: "The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on American school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross-examination of... moral values, and inducing acceptance of alternative values by psychological rather than rational means."8

These unAmerican strategies may shock most parents, but they fit the plan for transformation. While the Carnegie Foundation was importing Soviet psychosocial strategies long before the US-Soviet General Education Agreement9 was signed by Ronald Reagan and Michail Gorbachev, the 1985 treaty made it official. Social studies, science, arts... all facets of education were included in the exchange. "Cooperation would cover all computer-based instruction, instructional hardware and curriculum design for all grades of primary and secondary education, as well as college and university studies," wrote Malachi Martin in The Keys of this Blood. "The obvious goal was a total homogenization not only of the methods of teaching and learning, but what was to be taught and learned. "10 He continued, "Cooperation.... in the 'social sciences' turned a blind eye to the official prostitution of psychiatry and psychology by the Soviet Union as clinical tools for inflicting mental and physical torture as political punishment and for disposing of dissidents. The USSR had been banned from the World Psychiatric Association in 1983 for such practices.... "

Or take cooperation in the humanities. As taught in the Soviet Union, all humanities are marinated in Leninist Marxism as a matter of course. And history is distorted by... the systematic suppression of facts, and by downright lies. One might wonder what common curricula might be drawn up between the USSR and the US...." The aim of the General Agreement was "to transform the shape of the world" and to restructure "institutions so that they are not confined merely to the nations-states."11 It would take a new kind of teacher to instill this message in the hearts of students across our nation.

* "ESTABLISH NATIONALLY ACCEPTED CREDENTIALS FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING," said Clinton. "...reward our best teachers.... Remove those few who don't measure up...."

* This "excellence in teaching" has little to do with traditional academics. It refers to expert training in psycho-social strategies. Like other political promises, the nice-sounding phrase was not designed to tell the truth but to win the support of an uninformed public. "Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now,"12 said Professor John Goodlad, who served on the governing board of UNESCO's Institute for Education before he joined Bill Clinton on the 1987 Study Commission on Global Education. He knew that teachers could only be social engineers in their classrooms when they themselves have been trained in the new values and thinking processes. His dream is nearing reality. "We must require tougher licensing and certifcation standards,"13 says Education Secretary Richard Riley.

Even before 2000 AD, the target year, his new "performance-based" teacher certification process is purging traditional teachers who cling to the old academic ways. With the global paradigm came an emphasis on earth-centered spirituality and pantheistic oneness. Facts and memorization ("drill and kill") were traded for imagination, touchy-feely experiences, and "systems thinking" which puts little weight on pieces of information unless they can be fitted into the new global context.

This thinking compels students to see their future from a socialist point of view. Individualism must yield to the interest of the greater whole. Personal rights must yield to community responsibilities. And the nation-state must be absorbed into the global village where the person merges into "the people" - a mystical, impersonal union to be defined and managed by ruling elites. Individual achievement would clash with collective equality, and traditional learning would raise logical questions globalists prefer to dodge.

In his article "Experts Say Too Much is Read Into Illiteracy Crisis," Thomas Sticht, a member of (the Labor) Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) explained that "Many companies have moved operations to places with cheap, relatively poorly educated labor. What may be crucial, they say, is the dependability of a labor force and how well it can be managed and trained -- not its general educational level, although a small cadre of highly educated creative people are essential to innovation and growth. Ending discrimination and changing values are probably more important than reading in moving low income families into the middle class."14 (Emphasis added)

Professor Benjamin Bloom, called "father of outcome-based education" introduced the battle plan for changing values and managing people around the world: "The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students.15 "...a large part of what we call "good teaching" is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues."16

"Discussing issues" is key to the paradigm shift in schools, workplaces, homes, and community meetings. The "ground rules" for this Hegelian dialectic or consensus process forbids debate and arguments. All must participate, compromise, and seek "common ground." In "democratic" classrooms from coast to coast where teachers facilitate rather than teach, students follow manipulative suggestions, "discover their own" truth, and embrace a globalist ideology that censors every reason to be grateful for the land God gave us. The chart below describes the two kinds of schools from an educator's perspective."17

* "BRING THE POWER OF THE INFORMATION AGE INTO ALL OUR SCHOOLS," said Clinton. "Connect every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000, so that... a child in the most isolated rural town, the most comfortable suburb, the poorest inner-city school will have the same access to the same universe of knowledge."

Computer learning will speed the paradigm shift. Every student must be linked to an interactive computer program designed to prod each child toward the "right" beliefs and values, test rate of change, monitor compliance, and remediate when necessary-all at a pace tailored to the individual's progress, cooperation, or resistance.

Dustin Heuston of Utah's World Institute for Computer-Assisted Teaching (WICAT) shares his delight in the power of this technology: "We've been absolutely staggered by realizing that the computer has the capability to act as if it were ten of the top psychologists working with one student. You've seen the tip of the iceberg. Won't it be wonderful when the child in the smallest county in the most distant area or in the most confused urban setting can have the equivalent of the finest school in the world on that terminal and no one can get between that child and that computer?"18

* "HELP COMMUNITIES FINANCE $20 BILLION IN SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION." Dilapidated buildings and peeling paint are good excuses for new buildings, but they don't explain why school district that closed functional schools only a year or two ago-long after the time of declining enrollments-are now demanding millions for new schools. The old schools were sufficient for old paradigm education. But they were inadequate in design and electrical capacity for the computer links needed to bring students into the global cyber-village.

* "ADOPT HIGH NATIONAL STANDARDS," said Clinton. "Every state and school must shape the curriculum to reflect these standards.... To help schools meet the standards and measure their progress, we will... develop national tests...." The "high national standards" are high only to those who measure them against achievements in inner city schools where few could meet traditional standards.

Based on affective standards set by the Department of Health and Human services and work skills and competencies set by the Department of Labor, they are low enough to ensure success for anyone willing to conform to the new values. Individual progress would be tracked and stored through the monstrous national-international information management system.

The new standards fit the "seamless web" of "cradle to grave" learning designed by Marc Tucker. As chief of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which began as an agency within the Carnegie Foundation, Tucker leads the nationwide school-to-work program.

In a jubilant 1992 post-election letter to Hillary Clinton, he described the new education program: "...regulated on the basis of outcomes... in which curriculum, pedagogy, examinations, and teacher education and licensure systems are all linked to the national standards... a system that rewards students who meet the national standards with further education and good jobs...." Tucker's "pedagogy" for developing "human resources" for the global economy follows the school-to-work pattern developed in the former USSR. It's not surprising then, that the massive Goals 2000: Educate America Act would parallel Soviet education in virtually all its details: early childhood education, state-controlled child raising through community "partnerships", vocational training for all, mandated "parental involvement" in government program, indoctrination in the politically correct ideology, lifelong monitoring of compliance, etc..

Vladimir Turchenko summarized Soviet education goals - and the new American goals-in The Scientific and Technological Revolution and the Revolution in Education: "One of the most important functions of education today is... the preparation of a skilled labor force for the national economy.... A second task is to ensure the socialization of the younger generation.... [This] involves shifting the focus of instruction from memorization to teaching how to think... The upbringing of the younger generation will become the affair of all."

* "START TEACHING CHILDREN BEFORE THEY START SCHOOL," said Clinton. "The First Lady ...and I will convene a White House Conference on Early Leaning and the Brain this spring, to explore how parents and educators can best use these startling new findings."

This "startling news" provides a plausible rationale for bringing "parent educators" into homes of pregnant and new mothers. These "helpers" teach and monitor politically correct parenting skills and guide parents to the proper community "partners." Like classroom teachers, all these parent teachers must soon be trained to discourage Judeo-Christian values which block the "open-mindedness" needed for children to "start school" ready to embrace group thinking and global spirituality. Non-compliant parents put their children "at risk"-a label that could put parents at risk of losing their right to raise their own children. Hillary Clinton's "village" is nearing reality.

* "GIVE PARENTS THE POWER TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR THEIR CHILDREN," said Clinton. "Create 3000... charter schools by the next century." Since all public schools must produce "outcomes" that match national-international goals and standard, it doesn't really matter which parents choose. All students-whether in public, private, or home-schools-must "demonstrate" competency in specified work skills and conform to the "high standards" for global citizenship. If their portfolios and assessments show failure to adapt, they will not earn their CIM (Certificate of Initial Mastery). That means no work or college until after "remediation".

* "HELP ALL OUR CHILDREN READ," said Clinton. "Forty percent of our 8-year-olds cannot read on their own.... We want at least 100,000 college students to help..... Sixty college presidents have answered my call...." A century ago, almost all school children learned to read. The rate of illiterate children soared because schools switched from phonics to "whole language". Unless college volunteers are better trained in phonics than elementary school teachers, their efforts won't solve the problem. There is another advantage. An army of college "volunteers" will be taught through politically correct "service learning"-a blend of politicized social studies and managed multicultural experience. (See Brave New Schools)

* "OPEN THE DOORS OF COLLEGE TO ALL," said Clinton. "Make the 13th and 14th years of education-at least two years of college-just as universal in America as a high school education is today." A new kind of college is the reward for compliance. Only students who have demonstrated the "right" work skills-primarily the collective mind set required for Total Quality Management-and world citizenship attitudes can climb the dubious ladder of the new education system. Since colleges must be "dumbed-down" and adapted to the new "human resource development" goals, Clinton's deceptive promise is little more than a tempting carrot to draw us toward national consensus.

* "EXPAND THE FRONTIERS OF LEARNING ACROSS A LIFETIME," said Clinton. "All our people, of whatever age, must have a chance to learn new skills...." Lifelong learning, an idea first developed by UNESCO, pulls all the complex pieces of the puzzle together into a continuous process of change and behavior modification. Marc Tucker described it well in his letter to Hillary Clinton, "...create a seamless web of opportunities to develop one's skills that literally extends from cradle to grave." grave."

This web, which mandates a massive multi-layered buraucracy of political, community, health, environmental, and business partners, merges education and labor into a national-international workforce program, Every person-young and old, parents and children-must be included in the transforming process. "Parents and the general public must be reached also, otherwise, children and youth enrolled in globally oriented programs may find themselves in conflict with values assumed in the home,"19 said Professor John Goodlad, broadening his vision for for "enlightened social engineering".

Parents are gradually being forced into the massive system through regulations and contracts mandating their "participation" in community partnerships. When a Florida woman who suffers from kidney failure, missed a mandatory PTA meeting, the school punished her by expelling her five-year old son from kindergarten. She had called from the hospital to let the Pasadena Fundamental School in Tampa know she was too sick to come, but hospitalization was not an acceptable excuse. She was told that she should have found someone to go in her place.20

Lifelong learning must prepare all workers for a global economy regulated through international standards based on Total Quality Management. This sounds good to those who see TQM merely as a way to ensure quality products. It looks ominous when the quality product is our children. It looks worse when seen as a means to manage people at every level of society. Beginning with early childhood training in group thinking and global values, the training, counseling, indoctrination, and tracking-along with rewards and punishment-continues through the years of formal schooling and, later, through the standardized workplace and "sustainable community".

Global citizens may not know how to multiply or read books, but they can work as a team, dialogue in cyberspace with young idealists around the world, and submit to a flood of new regulations - blissfully unaware of the freedoms they have lost. Today, as in recent totalitarian regimes, well-chosen compensations distract the masses from the terrors of government tyranny.

In Brave New World, British socialist Aldous Huxley describe some seductive "feelies" that compensate for the loss of freedom. My nest artile will show how educators promote the same compensations today. Small wonder, since Aldous Huxley's brother was Julian Huxley, the first Secretary-General of UNESCO. A gullible public will give its consent unless America soon wakes up. Remember, Gorbachev's warning: "Bill Clinton will be a great president... if he can make America the creator of a new world order based on consensus." Year 2000 is the target date.

The Old Testament shows that the deceptions of ambitious leaders have stayed remarkably constant through the centuries: "'Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you,' says the Lord GOD. 'My hand will be against the prophets who envision futility ....They have seduced My people, saying, 'Peace!' when there is no peace.'" (Ezekiel 13:8-10) The way to genuine peace is found in Isaiah 30:15: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." The words that follow bring a sad reminder of today's spiritual rebellion: "but you would have none of it." Yet, for those who stay true to our Lord and His Word, Isaiah brings a wonderful promise: "The LORD longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" The end *

* * To understand the new education system and what concerned parents and others can do, read Brave New Schools (Harvest House Publishers) by Berit Kjos. Available through Christian bookstores or call 800-829-5646.

Endnotes:

1 Raymond Houghton, To Nurture Humaneness: Commitment for the '70's (The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development of the NEA, 1970),

2 Mikhail Gorbachev, "New World Order: Consensus," The Cape Cod Times, January 28, 1993.

3 Tamar Lewin, "School Codes Without Mercy Snare Pupils Without Malice," New York Times, 12 March 1997.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Alison Mitchell, "Clinton Seems to Keep Running Though the Race Is Run and Won," New York Times, 12 February 1997.

7 "The United States Prepares for Its Future: Global Perspectives in Education, Report of the Study Commission on Global Education," 1987. The report was financed by the Rockefeller, Ford and Exxon Foundations. Cited by Dr. Dennis Laurence Cuddy, A Chronololgy of Education (Pro Family Forum, Inc., Box 1059, Highland City, FL), 80.

8 Thomas Sowell, Ph.D., "Indoctrinating the Children," Forbes, February 1, 1993), 65.

9 The General Agreement on Contacts, Exchanges and Scientific Technical Education and Other Fields

10 Malachi Martin, The Keys of this Blood (New York: Touchstone, 1990), 391.

11 Ibid., 392.

12 John Goodlad, Preface to Schooling for a Global Age, edited by James Becker (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979).

13 Richard Riley, "Master Teachers Can Now Seek National Certification of Excellence," Community Update, U.S.Department of Education, February 1997.

14 Thomas Sticht and Willis Harman, "Experts Say Too Much is Read Into Illiteracy Crisis," The Washington Post, August 17, 1987. Cited by Charlotte Iserbyt, "OBE Choice: the Final Solution," 4

15 Benjamin Bloom, All Our Children Learning (New York: McCraw Hill, 1981); 180.

16 David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom and Bertram Massia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective Domain, (McKay Publishers, 1956), 55.

17 As described by Ira Shor, Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change (The University of Chicago Press, 1992).

18 Dustin H. Heuston, "Discussion--Developing the Potential of an Amazing Tool," Schooling and Technology, Vol. 3, Planning for the Future: A Collaborative Model, published by Southeastern Regional Council for Educational Improvement, P.O. Box 12746, 200 Park, Suite 111, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709/ Grant from National Institute of Education, p. 8. Cited by Charlotte Iserbyt, Back to Basics Reform Or... OBE Skinnerian International Curriculum (Bath, ME: 1993), 27.

19 Goodlad.

20 "Across the USA: News from every state", USA Today, 13 Feb. 1997.

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