by Wayne Dunn

School violence is on the rise while learning is in decline. Solutions? Some suggest posting religious messages in classrooms and forcing kids into uniforms. Others propose outlawing firearms and hiring more counselors. But religious indoctrination and matching clothes won't quash the violence and ignorance. Nor will banning guns, nor will cheap psychology.

Solving a problem requires treating its cause, not its effects. The manifestations of mindlessness¾ the intellectual shortfalls and violent outbursts¾ are effects. The cause is: reason was expelled from school when "socialization" was promoted to the head of the class.

It's called, innocuously enough, "Progressive education," and according to its founder, John Dewey, the cardinal task of school is not to teach subject-matter¾ not "science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography"¾ but to encourage "the child's own social activities." "The mere absorbing of facts and truths," Dewey maintained, "is so exclusively individual an affair that it…tends toward selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat."

Sacrificing knowledge for the sake of "social motives" can only breed mindless conformists, not independent thinkers. Imagine if Galileo had spurned the "mere" truths of astronomy in order to kowtow to his era's social standard, Church dogma. Or if the Wright Brothers had abandoned "mere" facts to a society that felt man wasn't meant to fly. Facts are facts, whether they bear "clear social gain" or not. And to teach kids otherwise is a travesty.

Whatever actual knowledge the better teachers manage to smuggle into classrooms, is usurped by the prevailing Progressive philosophy that tarnishes every subject with the notion that society trumps truth. History and civics texts are marred by political correctness, and science is doused with environmentalist propaganda.

Even numbers aren't safe. Adopted by some schools, the "constructivist" math, or "whole-math," method (cousin to the Progressives' failed whole-language approach to learning reading) lumps students into groups to then concoct "strategies" for answering problems. "Close guesses" are praised.

Notice the message being drummed into kids: facts must yield to consensus, the individual to the group.

The Progressives don't mean it? Listen to a prominent teacher at the 1992 National Reading Conference: "[We] would like to replace the desire for objective knowledge of reality and truth, the desire to be in touch with reality…with a desire for solidarity with the community."

To such non-thinkers, "solidarity with the community" is apparently a siren's song whose specific lyrics matter not. Once a child jettisons the "desire to be in touch with reality," then what? Then anything! Detached from what's real, maybe he'd pull a knife on a classmate¾ or on the teacher quoted above (who then no doubt would implore him to think rationally).

Community does not trump reality. A child (or adult) needs knowledge and thinking skills to make sound decisions and function in the world. But if he is barraged with the idea that facts are spurious and truth equals majority opinion, then he will likely conclude, at least implicitly, that thinking is irrelevant. His mind thus subverted, the only remaining guide for living will be: his feelings. Spirited solely by the churning of his emotions¾ the haplessness and self-doubt borne of intellectual incompetence¾ he may simply sink into passivity. Or he may lash out aggressively.

By discarding the mind, educators have sewn the seeds of mindlessness and are now reaping a bumper-crop. The "socialization" doctrine, ensconced now for two generations, has produced less, not more, social harmony.

To quell the violence and ignorance, we must begin by dumping Progressive education. Only education that enshrines reason and knowledge¾ not conformity and subservience¾ can equip students to lead independent, productive lives.

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