“Those who are considered uneducated, illiterate, or ignorant represent a lower class that can be made “class conscious” of their circumstances so that they will seek to initiate and complete a cultural revolution that moves them from the margins of society to its center, from which they can transform it.” – The Marxification of Education
A National Center for Educational Statistics 2023 report on the condition of education showed that the percentage of high school seniors who scored at or above proficiency standards in reading, math, and science were a mere 37, 24, and 22 percent, respectively. A dismal indictment of the state of the American education system.
The demise of education achievement can be found in a decades-long shift from traditional education to political activism as educators have increasingly turned to Critical Theory and its ensuing variants. Critical Theory, a Marxist movement that began in the 1930s, first challenged the power structures in society by focusing on Western white culture and the need to dismantle it. That morphed into Critical Race Theory in the mid-1970s which added racial bias to the mix, believing the power structure was designed by whites to oppress blacks. Now, these same toxic beliefs have been transferred to Critical Conscientization, a need to disrupt the education system and replace it with the Marxist theory of the oppressor over the oppressed. While Marxism focused on the economy and class system, Critical Theory brought Marxist thought to social issues.
In James Lindsay’s 2022 book, “The Marxification of Education”, author and noted speaker Lindsay reveals the influence and methods of Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, and how he infiltrated American education with his own brand of collectivism. Dubbed by Lindsay as the Father of Woke, his goal was the abolition of formal American education and the reappropriation of teaching through consciousness, that is, to awaken the underclass into political activism. Taught under the guise of education, the Freire method uses thought reform to decolonize the mind so it can be receptive to its own oppression.
Traditional public education models were largely influenced by the Prussian education system of state-supported mass education with professional teachers whose job it was to cultivate educated productive members of society by learning basic academic and reasoning skills. Marxists instead, saw American education as a banking system where students learned from the top down, with academic learning flowing in one direction from teachers to students, filling their empty minds with new knowledge. For the Marxists, however, this method served to prop up the existing power structure to maintain the status quo, an unjust and bigoted system.
Under the Freire theory – the education system is politicized by first convincing students of existing hierarchies and how they exist to oppress them. By turning students into activists, neo-Marxists hope to dismantle existing traditional Western thought. For maximum effect, students must be provoked and then radicalized to see where they exist in the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. Social-emotional learning (SEL) then aids in stoking feelings of injustice, replacing standard critical thinking with a religious dedication to justice and deliverance from existing white patriarchal domination.
Steps in the Freire method begin by priming the student for potential triggers to evoke emotions and facilitate their radicalization. Injustices are then revealed using educational props, including books. For example, the Gender Queer book is used as a tool to sympathize with the LGBTQ+ community. These aids assist in creating a dialog about politically sensitive issues, allowing the student to reveal their own lived experience. In classrooms, teachers act as social workers in a weird co-partnership with the students, where the child is viewed as an equal with pre-existing knowledge of their own. Thus, pitting the activist teachers and students against the parents, in an attempt to facilitate another Marxist goal, a weakening of the nuclear family.
Likened to Communist thought reform, the act of conscientization draws students into a struggle session to acknowledge and confess their privilege, or oppression. Akin to brainwashing and indoctrination, schools serve more as re-education centers, using reform strategies like those seen under Maoism. Since children are susceptible to grooming, they are vulnerable to not only political activism but more nefarious aims as well.
As statistics confirm, the Marxist way of education may be good at creating activists but has failed at preparing students for future prosperity. Good activists don’t make good learners, as their emotions are highjacked for higher means. For example, in 2017, a student was hospitalized for refusing to drink water over fears he was escalating the climate crisis. Similar political activism continued in 2018, when a high schooler created a petition on change.org, a leftist movement, advocating for a National Walk Out to protest gun violence. On April 20, over 2500 schools took part with students streaming out of the classrooms at 10 am, for a full day of speeches, voter registration, and activism.
The good news is parents are seemingly onto the ruse. In district after district, parent groups are becoming activists themselves, as disturbing changes in school curricula have roused a sleeping dragon. From unsuitable books, the introduction of topics and graphics that parents disprove, and an increase in gender transitions without their knowledge, parents have reached their breaking point. Marxist educators may have finally met their match.
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