THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 77, May 11, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CRITICAL THINKING: OR MAKING ME THE STRAWMAN
By Tom DeWeese
EDUCATION, BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, & POLITICAL INDOCTRINATION: "CRITICAL THINKING" & THE USE OF
SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS & CLASSROOMS TO DISSEMINATE POLITICAL PROPAGANDA & POLITICALLY INDOCTRINATE
CHILDREN & YOUTH, IN PURSUIT OF A RADICAL POLITICAL AGENDA -- SCHOOLS, CURRICULA, & POLITICS
FULL STORY:
They are one of the biggest publishers of textbooks in the world, and they wanted to use some of my writings in one of their
products. My first thought was, “Gee, I’m coming up in the world.” The second was, “How do they intend to use it?” So I
asked for a sample. A good thing I did.
The textbook will be entitled Invitation to Critical Thinking, and, apparently, will be distributed to children’s
classrooms in Canada. It will cost the schools $59 each. “Critical Thinking,” of course, is a major tool in the arsenal of today’s
restructured government schools that are designed, not to educate, but to indoctrinate. Education expert Charlotte Iserbyt, in
her landmark book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, describes Critical Thinking as “challenging students’
fixed beliefs.” It’s a tool to get each student to question his or her values system.
Of course, when I saw the title, my alarm bells began to sound. How could anything I have ever written fit into the concept of
such a book? Everything I have ever produced was designed to expose, attack, and kill such an “educational system.”
So, I began to read the sample pages the publisher sent to me. It contained three excerpts, including mine. Here are two, exactly
as they would be printed in the book:
Critical Thinking Tip 11.5: (These are instructions for the children at the top of the exercise.)
Remember that issues are complex, so a diversion may on occasion be warranted and reasonable. A warranted and reasonable
diversion should eventually return to the issue. Keep the issue(s) in mind. In other words, the teacher will decide what is to be
a “warranted and reasonable diversion,” and, if you take a different path than the predetermined one, your argument will not be
“warranted or reasonable.”
Exercise 11.16 -- Fallacies of Relevance II:
In each of the following examples, check all fallacy categories that apply. More importantly, explain each fallacious instance
you identify.
EXAMPLE: AND THE LORD GOD COMMANDED MAN, SAYING, “YOU MAY EAT FREELY OF EVERY TREE OF THE
GARDEN; BUT THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL YOU SHALL NOT EAT, FOR, IN THE DAY THAT YOU
EAT OF IT, YOU SHALL DIE.” (GENESIS 2:16-17)
(Here are the choices given the children to describe that statement.)
In what category does this example fit and why?
Appeal to anger
Straw Person
Appeal to fear
Two wrongs
Appeal to pity
Common practice
EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER.
Are you starting to get the picture as to how this book is used to challenge a values system? Now here’s my text they wanted
to use in the book.
EXAMPLE: IN A GROUP WORKBOOK (EDUCATIONAL TOOL FOR CHILDREN) ENTITLED SUNDAY SCHOOL
SPECIALS, A CHAPTER TELLS STUDENTS THAT “REAL CONSERVATION MEANS REMEMBERING TO TURN OFF
THE LIGHT, HIKING OR BIKING, INSTEAD OF HITCHING A CAR RIDE, AND COOLING OFF IN THE SHADE, INSTEAD OF
IN AIR CONDITIONING. KIDS ARE OFTEN TEMPTED TO DO THINGS THE EASY WAY, INSTEAD OF THE ‘GREEN WAY.’
THEY NEED LOTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND AFFIRMATION TO DEVELOP AND STICK TO AN
ENVIRONMENT-CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE…” THAT ONE LINE DEMONSTRATES AN IMPORTANT KEY TO THE
PURPOSE OF THE GROUP’S SUNDAY SCHOOL CURRICULUM – TO PROMOTE A POLITICAL AGENDA BASED ON
PAGAN EARTH WORSHIP, RATHER THAN CHRISTIAN VALUES.
(Here’s the choices given the children to describe my statement.)
In what category does this example fit, and why?
Appeal to anger
Straw person
Appeal to fear
Two wrongs
Appeal to pity
Common practice
EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER.
They were using as the exercise in Critical Thinking quotes from an article I wrote a few years ago entitled “Is Your
Church Teaching Pagan Earth Worship in Sunday School?” I wrote that article to describe how a popular new Sunday School
curriculum contained the same Outcome-based education, behavior modification, and indoctrination process that was being
employed in government classrooms. This curriculum taught the children to play a game of tree hugging and taught them that
the Endangered Species Act was the new Noah’s Ark. This is clearly a political agenda; it is political propaganda and political
indoctrination, not education. And I said so.
The point of my article was to expose the very process this new textbook is employing. Now, I found myself being used in an
exercise, as an apparent example of someone promoting fear and creating straw “persons.”
My response to their request to grant them permission to use my article in this way was swift and to the point.
“I’m sorry, but I will not grant permission to use my work in
this way. Your ‘textbook’ is the root of the very curriculum I
was talking about in the article you want to quote. Obviously,
the entire section of the book where my material was to
appear is a critical discussion of Christianity. Your selections
offered Appeal to anger; fear; pity; straw person; two wrongs;
common practice – all are negatives. There is no room for a
person to agree with the statements. I can only imagine the
classroom discussion your teacher’s guide will offer. This is
not education, it is propaganda. Sorry, but no, I will not help
you in perpetrating it on innocent minds. Shame on you for
trying to call it education. Now, is my message an appeal to
anger, fear -- or do I just pity you?”
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Education & America's Schools
A Practical Guide to Homeschooling
Religion, Secularism, & America
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Tom DeWeese is the Publisher and Editor of The DeWeese Report and President of the American Policy Center, a
grassroots activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Virginia, and dedicated to advancing the principles of private
property rights, free markets, and constitutionally limited government. The Center maintains an Internet website at
www.americanpolicy.org.
Copyright 2006 American Policy Center
Published with Permission of the American Policy Center
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