[tmbchr]™

Behavioral Science Education Project



More crazy stuff from Gatto:

The second document, the gigantic Behavioral Science Teacher Education Project, outlined teaching reforms to be forced on the country after 1967. If you ever want to hunt this thing down, it bears the U.S. Office of Education Contract Number OEC-0-9-320424-4042 (B10). The document sets out clearly the intentions of its creators—nothing less than “impersonal manipulation” through schooling of a future America in which “few will be able to maintain control over their opinions,” an America in which “each individual receives at birth a multi-purpose identification number” which enables employers and other controllers to keep track of underlings and to expose them to direct or subliminal influence when necessary. Readers learned that “chemical experimentation” on minors would be normal procedure in this post-1967 world, a pointed foreshadowing of the massive Ritalin interventions which now accompany the practice of forced schooling.

Man, this shit just gets more and more dire. Another website discussing this and related modern educational principles adds:

[…] curriculum is modified and targeted to specific groups of children to correct “inappropriate” attitudes and, more ominously, (3) certain views that once were considered “principled” now are deemed “rigid” and associated with mental illness or psychological defects.

Among the at-risk “indicators” are viewpoints and behaviors deemed by the testers to be what they call “indicative of a rigid or underdeveloped belief system.” Pupils are referred to psychologists for “remediation” to render their attitudes and responses more “realistic.” Several professional papers, beginning with the acclaimed 1969 Behavioral Science Teacher Education Project (BSTEP), place “firm religious belief” in the “rigid/inflexible” category. BSTEP also projected a world “so saturated with ideas and information [by the 1990s that] few will be able to maintain control over their opinions.”

I know I put down my Ken Wilber sword, but this whole thing about “remediating underdeveloped belief systems” sounds ominously familiar…







3 Reader Responses

  1. Arizona Says:
    July 27th, 2005 at 10:28 pm

    Yep, using those 4 stages of spiritual development, this is stage III moderns dismissing (even harassing or persecuting) stage II believers (who, in their turn, persecuted stage I barbarians). And the stage IV mystics roll their eyes in wonder at it all.

  2. alistair Says:
    July 27th, 2005 at 10:32 pm

    highly sophisticated mind control mechanisms being implemented by rote-learned robots. is the average teacher aware of the type of things they are doing to children? i have heard my children tell me that thier teachers will give them candy as reward for right answers like you would train a dog but some of that shit is deep.

  3. Gary Says:
    July 27th, 2005 at 10:58 pm

    I recall clearly when I first read about Gatto in the New York Times magazine. I was impressed but suspicious. (See what the system can do to a wild-eyed optimist?)

    I still remember that morning in bed zipping over to his website on my laptop. It changed a lot for me. That afternoon I bought the book. Two days later I decided my oldest daughter would not be attending hish school and my youngest daughter would never go to public school at all.

    I mentioned before in Tim’s comments that I used to wonder where all the other people like me are. I think I am finding them. I have always loved education but was shockingly disappointed be the system at every turn. (still am, the funny thing about life is no matter how bad it is, it can always get worse)

    I have always felt and have tried to impress upon my friends and family and anyone interested in hearing that we have an obligation and responisbility to ourselves and our fellow humans to learn. In general but in our society in particular the obligation to be an avid learner is particularly strong. Free time is a luxury that should be judiciously spent and learning is ultimatly the best way to spend free time. A gift, imho, earned by the blood sweat and tears of our ancestors. To me, the only logical way to spend the majority of free time that is allowed to us by our advances in technology, culture etc is to learn. It seems illogical and even a bit insane not to learn.

    Home schooling is very daunting to me - last summer I taught my oldest algebra over the summer. It was good and fun and even her favorite subject but still took a lot of time and effort. The system had really spoiled and narrowed her point of view. This summer is a little easier - we are doing spanish lessons together. The work is harder for her (she doesnt like spanish at all as much as algebra) but I have managed to instill a value for learning that eight years of school could not and so she goes about our tasks cheerfully enough.

    My soon to be born daughter will never go to public school and if I can help it will entirely completely home taught. Montessori schools, (part time only) have not been ruled out, however.



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