I entered the seminar room about 15 minutes before the lecture began, aware that I would miss the night’s fireworks but interested in hearing how International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) would expound on "International Mindedness," one of the organization’s stated goals. At my early-July teacher training in beautiful Montezuma, New Mexico, this seminar opened my eyes to the fact that IBO is more ideological than educational. Moreover, it sent me on moral and ethical quest as I began to question the role of public education, the morality of a program such as IBO in our public schools, my appropriate response to the program in my school, and how I will handle the schooling of my own children.
Dr. Steve Hreha, a physicist from Montreal and an IBO lecturer, spoke. His presentation was rooted in
moral relativism, the worldview that morality is relative, or what is true for one person/group is not necessarily true for another person/group. He instructed that
we cannot make value judgements regarding cultural practices. Rather, we must seek to understand the cultural backgrounds and reasons for such practices. This worldview has indeed become popular in our current post-modern age; but it is not the validity of moral relativism with which I must contend. Instead, my concern lies in the fact that
a single worldview is given to IBO teachers (all IBO teachers must attend conferences such as this) as necessary instruction in their respective IBO classes.
It is a shame when education in skills and thinking is replaced by the presentation of a single worldview. Indoctrination cannot,
in a society which truly aspires to individual liberty, be substituted for education. Author David Horowitz says it this way:
"In authoritarian and totalitarian societies schools exist to indoctrinate students in the orthodoxy of the state. In a democracy, by contrast, we teach students how to think, not what to think. In other words, in a free society the very purpose of education is to open students’ minds and encourage future citizens to figure out what conclusions to draw by themselves. It is not the purpose of a democratic education to force-feed students opinions on controversial issues that the teacher deems ‘politically correct’."
In Mein Kampf, for instance, Adolf Hitler stressed "the importance of winning over and then training the youth in the service ‘of a new national state.’ The government school system would be the means to the end. "When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ he said in a speech on November 6, 1933, "I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’" And on May 1, 1937, he declared, "This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing."
The irony of values-based curriculum instruction is not wasted on this observer, for as a nation, we have spent the last sixty years trying get rid of the teaching of solely one set of values, attempting to clearly delineate, for example, the boundary between church and state.
Yet, under the guise of global citizenry, IBO now does the exact same thing, preaching a gospel of its own values, its own religion.
IBO operates with the stated goal to develop global citizens, taking stands on everything from environmentalism to international diplomacy to population control. At my training, in a subject as seemingly objective as Calculus, I was encouraged to
fill my curriculum with word problems that demonstrate an underlying agenda for the program – declining animal populations, the dangers of pollutants, global warming, etc. Would this technique be viewed innocuous by the
school board if I were to give word problems that focus on the percentage of international terrorists that is Muslim or examine the statistical the correlation between higher gun control and higher crime levels?
Furthermore, IBO as a whole ascribes to the tenets of the Earth Charter, at one point even
giving its full endorsement to this political movement. The Earth Charter initiative includes, among other things, calls for "
universal health care," the "
equitable distribution of wealth," and "
responsible reproduction." (How is that working out in China?) IBO also has strong ties to groups like the United Nations and several of its subsidiaries, again ideologically partisan groups. For instance, the UN Population Fund has defended Chinese population control. Another example is how IBO and the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization have collaboratively formed a "
curriculum framework for peace education." Peace, in itself, is a desirable goal; however, educating about peace can be a very political and ideological task. There are, after all, strongly competing views on how best to achieve peace; one may promote peace through negotiations concessions, another may promote it through strength. Teaching such a thing is indeed values education.
Each is entitled to have his/her own opinion. Each is more over entitled the right to free speech. However, as
Thomas Jefferson noted, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." In other words, it is morally wrong, even "tyrannical" for a program such as IBO to be in the public school systems, paid for by those who fully disagree.
It is unethical for public education to support curriculum that promotes a single worldview to the exclusion of others. In order to be informed citizens, students must be taught to think analytically and logically, as opposed to merely parroting ideas. Therefore, I cannot, in good conscience, support the International Baccalaureate Organization, which favors the indoctrination of students at the taxpayer’s expense.
* I have discussed only several moral and ethical problems with an IBO curriculum in the public school system. There are several practical considerations as well that can be found online at www.ceopa.org/documents/Mar-April2006.pdf.
When the Principal from the IB School came to give his talk a while ago here in Gilford, he repeatedly kept saying that "this is an American philosophy, an American philosophy", I'm really beginning to wonder who is trying the old magic trick here. Yet, when I looked him up and started to find Google references, I began to have doubts...big doubts...
