THEN
From 3D, pages 131-132
SUPERINTENDENT RAY I. POWELL, PH.D., OF SOUTH ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS spoke out regarding values clarification and sensitivity training in 1975, saying, “It’s all brainwashing!”
Excerpts follow from a memorandum to “All Administrators from Ray I. Powell” concerning Center Bulletin No. 39: 1974–1975, dated February 26, 1975:
1. Parents have the prime responsibility for the inculcation of those moral and spiritual values desired for their children in the areas of abortion and birth control. Indeed, this is an inherent right of parents and must not be denied….
Effective immediately, the teaching, advising, directing, suggesting, or counseling of students in these two (2) areas cannot be/shall not be the responsibility nor the task of the South St. Paul Public Schools.
Rather, the efforts of the public schools, henceforth, shall be directed towards expanding those complimentary learning experiences in other areas of the total curriculum that will enhance these two (2) parental values, i.e.:
• preservation of the family unit.
• feminine role of the wife, mother, and homemaker.
• masculine role of guide, protector, and provider.
• advocacy of home and family values.
• respect for family structure and authority.
• enhancement of womanhood and femininity.
• restoration of morality.
2. There are more and more concerns and questions being registered today regarding the questionable results and the true intent of SENSITIVITY TRAINING, as well as its germaneness to the goals and objectives of public education, the training of educators, and the learning experiences of students.
Consider these two (2) definitions of SENSITIVITY TRAINING (sources furnished upon request):
Sensitivity training is defined as group meetings, large or small, to discuss publicly intimate and personal matters, and opinions, values or beliefs; and/or to act out emotions and feelings toward one another in the group, using the techniques of self-confession andmutual criticism. It is also “coercive persuasion in the form of thought reform or brainwashing.”
Is the prime concern in education today not to impart knowledge, but to change “attitudes,”so that children can/will willingly accept a controlled society? Are the public schools being unwittingly re-shaped to accomplish this and without realizing it?
[Ed. Note: Dr. Powell then lists 54 terms which can all be included under Sensitivity Training, a few of which are: T-Group Training, Operant Conditioning, Management by Objectives, SexEducation, Self-Hypnosis, Role Playing, Values Clarification, Situation Ethics, Alternative Life Styles, etc. Had all our schools had superintendents with Dr. Powell’s character and courage,most of the problems facing our children and families today would not exist.]
NOW
From 3D, pages 192-193
“A RELIGION FOR A NEW AGE” BY JOHN DUNPHY, WRITTEN FOR THE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1983 issue of The Humanist, the journal of the American Humanist Association, lifts the veil of respectability from humanism and humanistic ethics.
Excerpts follow:
I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the
public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subjects they teach, regardless of the education level—preschool day care or a large university.
The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its premise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of “love thy neighbor” will finally be achieved.