Another wave of pathetic letters is starting to flow from schoolchildren who can’t spell or write grammatically but who are terribly worried about nuclear war. These are the result of courses, books, or films thrust on pupils by public school personnel who use their authority to impose their political agenda on minor children in the classroom.
We usually find out about such political indoctrination when the authors of the curricula brag publicly, giving interviews or writing articles. That’s how we learned about a nuclear horror tale used in Chicago-area schools called “Warday,” written by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka.
Here are some letters from 10-to-12-year-old children whose teachers required them to read and discuss “Warday.” “I know there will be a war because everybody is so scared they lie to each other.”
“Do you think there is any way a Warday won’t happen? I don’t want it to because I haven’t gotten past 14 yet.” “It is going to be the end of the world. Do you really think anyone will make it? If they do, will they want to? I pray I am lucky and die.”
Commentary magazine calls this kind of nuclear war education “gratuitous sadism” and “the most serious abuse of children.” The magazine warns parents that children are becoming “hostage to these curricula.”
Educator Chester E. Finn, Jr., who is now head of Educational Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education, opposes this use of class time to pursue particular policy agendas. He criticizes “the displacement of learning and cognitive growth by political activity, and the corruption of childhood’s simple truths and pleasures by the confusions and anxieties of the adult world.”
Those who are trying to burden children with fears of nuclear war in order to bend them toward pacifist politics have developed a half dozen classroom curricula. These courses use a biased selection of facts and psychological techniques.
Educators for Social Responsibility launched a text called “Perspectives,” designed for all grades, Kindergarten through Grade 12. It’s not a course in history or science or even current events. It is training for pacifism in general and for opposition to U.S. defense policies in particular.
“Perspectives” teaches the students about “peacemakers” who supposedly can be ranked on a scale of desirability. The lowest category, Peacekeeper, includes such necessary evils as police, judges, military personnel engaged in peacekeeping activities, and politicians who advocate peace through strength.
Higher up on the value scale are Negotiators, Social Activists, Visionaries, and Peace-Builders. Singled out for favorable treatment are Martin Luther King, Jr., Joan Baez, Woodie Guthrie, and Bernadette Devlin.
The schoolchildren are taught that “competitive, win/lose notions of power” are bad and that to “think globally” is good. Social action “in harmony with global and planetary concerns” is held up as ideal.
Repression is characterized as Chile under Pinochet. No mention is made that Soviet regimes might be considered repressive.
In a recent book called “Educating for Disaster,” Thomas B. Smith dissected and exposed the various nuclear war curricula now in use in public schools. “Choices,” published with the imprimatur of the National Education Association and taught in probably 2,000 classrooms, uses psychological techniques chosen to persuade schoolchildren that defense is bad, disarmament is good.
“Choices” imparts shock and fear by graphic depictions of the results of nuclear war. It teaches pupils that America is the bad guy for having used atomic bombs on Japan, that negotiation and compromise are to be preferred over confrontation and competition, that the United States spends too much money on national defense, that the United States and the U.S.S.R. are equal threats to mankind, and that students are better able to deal with the nuclear threat than adults.
Other nuclear war curricula include “Crossroads” and “Decision Making in a Nuclear Age.” The titles may be different but the objectives and methods are the same; they all create and fan students’ fears about nuclear war by imposing on them detailed descriptions of human suffering from nuclear weapons.
