Marxism and Education

By Anthony J. DeBlasi October 7, 2018

At Columbia University's Teachers College, in the early years of the 20th century, a handful of men inspired by "laws of social evolution" gathered to presume a "science" of education linked with a "science" of human behavior. They were no mere researchers. Their sights were on nothing less than the establishment of a new social order. Laws? Science? The scientific method bends out of shape over things like the will. Love, hate, loyalty, treachery, humility, arrogance, and many other common items of human experience melt science down to its core. And the study of humans by humans is – well, circular, is it not?

The intellectual arrogance, not to say quackery, of men like John Dewey may be forgiven as a human weakness. But lording over one's fellows by presuming to make of them a better breed smells not only of conceit, but of treachery. In this plot – a good one for mad scientist movies – parent and pastor were to take a back seat while behavioral "experts" rewired the strands of human behavior, using schoolchildren as experimental subjects.

Their motive?

A new age was dawning. It was a matter of when, not if, collectivism and socialism would come to America. Was it not the task of the public educator to prepare its subjects for the new order? Was it not the job of the public teacher to change basic perceptions, attitudes, social relations? ...........Read more