Camp Constitution is Growing in Influence and Activity
Last week was a busy and productive week for Camp Constitution.
Monday: We presented 1,200 copies of the U.S. Constitution to the Manchester, NH School Committee.
Wednesday, a presentation in Waldoboro, NH and a trip to “Cabin in the Woods” camp ground to do a video promoting our September weekend camp.
Thursday, A float in the Dedham, MA Flag Day Parade.
Friday, an in-studio interview with Karen Testerman in Nashua, NH.
Saturday, an info table and speaking engagement at the 5th Annual Flag Day 2nd Amendment Rally which we videotaped as well.
A special thanks to James Blier, Jeanette Wheeler, Richard H. Girard, Emily Shurtleff, Campers David, Sarah, and Angelica, Tom Moor, Kathleen LaBonte LoFaro, Dave Kopacz and Karen Testerman.
The Weekly Sam: Who Is Teaching the Teachers
The article linked below was a review of a book entitled “The Graves of Academe” by Richard Mitchell which Sam wrote in 1982
http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Articles/Who’s%20Teaching%20The%20Teachers.pdf
The Weekly Sam: Phonics Need Not Apply
Sam Blumenfeld would write to mayors of America’s big cities and governors offering his services to introduce phonics in their government schools free of charge. He occasionally would get a “thank you but no than you” letter, but usually, he received no response. Here are a few examples:
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460 781-354-2040
slblu123@verizon.net
January 7, 2011
Hon. Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall
920 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mayor Booker:
I recently became aware of your efforts to improve education in the city of Newark and
of Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to help you in that endeavor. As a writer of over ten
books on education, I’ve been aware of the problems that beset American public schools
for over forty years and have worked strenuously to find ways to improve the
performance of our children. But the greatest obstacle I have found is the educational
establishment that refuses to make the necessary changes that would guarantee academic
success for all students.
I first became aware of the reading problem back in the 1960s when I was an editor at
Grosset & Dunlap in New York. I was invited to become a member of the Reading
Reform Foundation’s National Advisory Council. It was then that I became aware of the
war among educators between advocates of phonics and advocates of look-say, the
whole-world or sight method that teaches children to read English as if it were Chinese.
I did an investigation of the reading problem and came to the conclusion that the sight
method could cause reading disability and dyslexia among many children. I put all of
this in my book, The New Illiterates, published in 1973. The Establishment response to
my findings was zero.
Determined to provide parents with a way of saving their children from such educational
malpractice, I created a simple, inexpensive, easy-to-use intensive phonics reading
program–Alpha-Phonics–that any parent could use to teach their children to read at
home. It has now been used very successfully by thousands of homeschooling parents
for over twenty years and has produced wonderfully literate children.
In your press release about Newark’s Education Opportunity, it states that “In 2008-2009,
only 40 percent of students could read and write at grade level by the end of the third
grade, only 54 percent of high school students graduated and just 38 percent enrolled in
college.”
I can show you how to get all of the children in Newark’s schools to become proficient
readers, dramatically increase the rate of graduation, and increase the percentage of
students enrolling in college.
I recently received a testimonial from a teacher in Florida who has been using
Alpha-Phonics for the last ten years, and he has literally performed miracles with some of
the worst readers in his classes. I can state without any equivocation, that I can produce
a miracle in Newark if permitted by you to do so. I am enclosing this teacher’s
remarkable testimony of the power of this program.
The “miracle” that Alpha-Phonics performs is really no miracle at all. It is simply the
sensible and proper use of a primary program that puts the emphasis on the development
of the right side of the brain, the language faculty. Today’s schools force children to use
their right brains to perform the functions of the left brain, thereby actually deforming the
children’s brains. This phenomenon can be seen by extensive brain scans conducted by
neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, author of Reading in the Brain. In other words,
common teaching practices in our schools are actually deforming the brains of our
children. And that is why the children act out, knowing that something harmful, which
they can’t understand, is being done to them.
All children are born with a dominant language faculty in their left brains. When the
continued natural development of this faculty is thwarted by faulty teaching methods, you
get educational problems. You get ADD and ADHD. I would like to show you how it is
possible to reverse this process and get kids back into a positive learning mode. I propose
a pilot project whereby I am given the worst elementary school in Newark and allowed to
demonstrate how it can become the best school in the city in about eight months.
Although I have lived in New England since 1965, I know Newark well. My sister lived
there with her husband and children, and as a teenager I spent many pleasant summer
weeks on leafy Elwood Place. I know that Newark today is not what it once was: the
safest, most pleasant place to live in America. But I am more than willing to do
whatever I can to assist you in making Newark’s schools the best in the nation.
I hope you will take me up on my offer. This is an opportunity that Newark can’t afford
to miss.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Cc: Governor Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg: Startup Education
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460 781-354-2040
slblu123@verizon.net
February 12, 2011
Hon. Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall
920 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mayor Booker:
I hope you have had a chance to consider my proposal of January 7th to take the worst
elementary school in Newark and transform it into the best school in the city. Here is an
outline of the plan to accomplish that academic miracle..
But first, I want to convince you why it should be done. Each year over a million black
children enter our public education system eager to learn, yet at the end of the process at
least half are functionally illiterate. You and your administration can stop that process of
failure, provided the will is there to do so.
Second, this country will not be able to compete with the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese,
and Indians who are all learning to read and speak English by methods greatly superior to
the ones being used in our schools to teach American children to read, write, and speak
their own language.
Forty years of experience as a writer and educator have gone into the plan I am
proposing. I hope you will be willing to give the “Newark Experiment,” as I call it, the
backing it will need from the Mayor’s office, the highest level of Newark’s government.
This is how the plan will be implemented:
1. Preliminary Conference: As Plan Designer I would like to confer with you and Dr.
Clifford B. Janey, the Superintendent of Schools, and others in your administration on the
need to implement the Newark Experiment. Agreement is needed so that the plan can be
implemented willingly by all concerned.
2. Selection of School: The selection of the elementary school for this pilot project
should be made on the basis of test scores. This should not be difficult to do since each
school has published its test scores. Let us select that school with the lowest test scores.
3. School Visit: I would like to visit that school and become acquainted with the
Principal and faculty, as well as the students. I would want to examine the materials
presently being used to teach the children their basics. It would be essential to bring on
board the faculty of the school and for me to explain why they should be willing to take
part in this historic experiment which will have its ramifications throughout the country.
Their enthusiastic cooperation would guarantee success.
4. Teacher Training: The summer would be used to train the faculty in the essentials of
the plan. A team of trainers would be brought to Newark to share their experiences and
practices in using Alpha-Phonics. Obviously, the faculty will have many questions
which the training team will be able to answer.
5. Budget Authorization: The Superintendent of Schools should authorize the purchase
of the necessary books for the experiment: Alpha-Phonics, the Little Readers, Flash
Cards, lined notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, etc. A budget can be provided outlining
the necessary expenditures. Compensation for Dr. Blumenfeld and the trainers, who will
be coming from Texas and Florida, should be included in the budget.
6. Parental Input: In September 2011, parents will be informed of the experiment in
their children’s school. Their cooperation is needed to make sure that their children do
their homework, which will help their children succeed.
7. School Testing: At the beginning of the school year, all third- to sixth-grade
students in the school should be tested with the Oral Reading Assessment Test in order to
create a Literacy Profile of the school. In that way, those students in need of strong
remedial programs will be identified. For example, in the third grade you will find some
students reading at a sixth grade level and others reading at a first grade level. In the
sixth grade you will find students reading at a second grade level and others reading
above their grade level. Testing the students will give the faculty the information they
need about each student’s reading level.
8. The Curriculum: All first and second graders will be taught to read and write with
Alpha-Phonics. We expect 100% success. Everyone in the rest of the school will be
brought up to grade level in reading and writing. Basic arithmetic will also be taught to
all students. We expect 100% success, with extra tutoring for those who are having a
more difficult time reaching the desired goal. Other subjects should include Local
Geography and History, Elementary Science, English Grammar, and other subjects
determined by the Superintendent of Schools. These students will be able to thrive in
high school and go on to college.
9. Final Testing: By June 2012, the entire school should be tested to see the results of
the experiment. By then the school will be the best in the city and able to celebrate its
achievement. Care should be taken to make sure that the school does not revert to its
past practices that made it the worst school in the city. The new curriculum should
become a permanent part of the school.
10, Final Report: The success of the program should be made public by way of a press
release and a news conference and the issuance of a Final Report. The city of Newark
should proudly proclaim its success in transforming its worst school into its best school
through a unique program that can be duplicated in any city in the country. The Report
should be sent to the nation’s leading media and the Mayor and Superintendent should be
available for interviews.
As you can see, Mayor Booker, this is an exciting plan that will bring credit to Newark
and your administration. Your willingness to try something that has not been tried
anywhere before will be seen as proof that the public schools can be reformed to do what
they were created to do: produce a literate, intelligent population. The plan is eminently
doable. All it requires is the will to carry it out. The Newark Experiment can become a
model for the entire country to emulate. It will prove that educational success is possible
in core-city environments.
But what it really requires is thinking out of the box. That is the real key to success.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Cc: Governor Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg
A link to a PDF of the above: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Other/Newark%20Mayor%20Booker-Alpha%20Phonics.pdf
Camp Constitution Honors the Memory of Those Who Died While Serving in the U.S. Armed Forces
Camp Constitution honors the memory of the men and women who died in service to their country.
From This Day in History:
By proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, the first major Memorial Day observance is held to honor those who died “in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” Known to some as “Decoration Day,” mourners honored the Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers. On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.
The 1868 celebration was inspired by local observances that had taken place in various locations in the three years since the end of the Civil War. In fact, several cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, including Columbus, Mississippi; Macon, Georgia; Richmond, Virginia; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; and Carbondale, Illinois. In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon B. Johnson, declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo–which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866–because the town had made Memorial Day an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.
By the late 19th century, many communities across the country had begun to celebrate Memorial Day, and after World War I, observers began to honor the dead of all of America’s wars. In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday to be celebrated the last Monday in May. Today, Memorial Day is celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery with a ceremony in which a small American flag is placed on each grave. It is customary for the president or vice president to give a speech honoring the contributions of the dead and to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. More than 5,000 people attend the ceremony annually. Several Southern states continue to set aside a special day for honoring the Confederate dead, which is usually called Confederate Memorial Day.
How to Get Your Local School Board to Adopt Phonics by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
(This was a speech Sam gave at an event in Saint Louis in the early 1990s)
Every September about 4 million six-year-olds enter the public schools of America
where they expect to be taught to read. Every child wants to learn to read and these
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youngsters eagerly enter their classrooms with great
expectations.
Now these children feel very intelligent. After all they taught themselves to speak
their own language, without going to a school, without the help of a teacher, so that by
the time they enter that first-gradeclassroom, they’ve developed a speaking
vocabulary in the thousands of words. That is not only an extraordinary achievement,
it borders on the miraculous.
But, of course, we are all the products of the miraculous. And perhaps the greatest
proof of the miracles of creation is the fact that we alone of all the species learn to
speak. Why? The Bible makes it very clear. In the Gospel According to St. John we
read : “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God.”
God created language, and the Word is God’s power in action. After all, what do we
read in Genesis? “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” It was done
by the Word, not by an electrician, not by a physical act.
God gave man the power of speech, because he made us in His image. And
speech has given man tremendous power. But what were the first instructions God
gave Adam? We read in Genesis: “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into
the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man,
saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Well, we all know the sad story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. They were kicked
out of the Garden of Eden into the cold, cruel world to fend for themselves. But God
did not take back the gift of speech. He knew they would need it more than anything
else if they were to survive as human beings. And that is why every child is born with
that gift, to remind us of where we came from and who made us
The tragedy is that the public schools are not permitted to tell the children any of
this. And so the children enter their schools with great expectations, hardly suspecting
that a group of professors of education have conspired to make it certain that those
expectations will be dashed to pieces. But for centuries, those expectations were
fulfilled, whether the school was in a log cabin or a red brick building. The children
were trained in academic skills that would serve them well for the rest of their lives.
The traditional primary school curriculum, the teaching of the three R’s, has a very
long, successful history. In fact, we have an excellent record of how primary education
Page 2 – St. Louis
was conducted in ancient Rome.
In a little book entitled The Education of Children at Rome by George Clarke,
published in 1896, we read:
“In the elementary school .. . instruction was confined to reading, writing, and
arithmetic…. For the methods employed in teaching reading and writing we are
dependent chiefly on Quintilian, who treats the subject at considerable length and with
his usual good jUdgment, in the first chapter of his book.
“In teaching to read the first step was to obtain familiarity with the forms and sounds
of the letters ….Tiles, on which alphabets or verses were scratched before baking,
were used in the youngest classes. Horace speaks of children being coaxed to learn
their letters by tid-bits of pastry….
“The letters having been thoroughly learned, the next step was to master their
various combinations into syllables . . .. (I]t would seem that it was usual to give pupils
successive combinations such a ba, be, bi, etc., ca, ce, ci, etc., to spell and repeat until
they had memorized them , and then to proceed to more difficult ones. Every possible
combination had to be thoroughly mastered .. . before the child was permitted to read
words… . ‘Much trust must not too readily be placed in the first act of memorizing;
constant and long-continued repetition will be necessary. In reading there must not be
too much haste about connecting syllables into words, or about reading fast, until the
pupil can form the combinations of letters in syllables without stumbling or hesitation,
or at any rate without having to stop to think about it. Then he may begin to form words
from syllables and continuous sentences from words.
“‘It is incredible how much delay is caused in reading by undue haste. It gives rise
to heSitation, interruptions, and repetitions when pupils attempt more than they are
equal to, and when, going wrong, they lose confidence even in what they already
know. Reading should first of all be sure, then continuous; it must for a long time be
slow, until by practice speed and accuracy are acquired. ‘”
That’s how intensive, systematic phonics was taught in ancient Rome. In fact, it was
taught the same way in the United States until the mid-19th Century when educators
began tampering with the basic method that had worked so well for 4,000 years.
That’s the proper way to teach children to read an alphabetic writing system .
Nobody knows exactly when or where the alphabet was invented. Scholars think it
was invented by the Phoenicians around 2000 B.C. Prior to the invention of the
alphabet human beings at first used pictographs which later evolved into ideographs.
A pictograph is a graphic symbol that looks like the thing it represents. You don’t
have to go to school to learn to read pictographs. We use them today on road signs or
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in airports. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the little figures on rest-room doors. One
figure wears a skirt, the other wears pants. But now that so many wear pants, it can be
confusing. In other words, even simple pictographs can be ambiguous.
As civilization became more complex the scribes had to depict things that did not
lend themselves to depiction. It’s easy enough to draw a picture of a tree or an animal.
But how do you draw pictures of abstract ideas? How do you draw pictures of good
and evil, right and wrong, never and forever? You can’t. So the scribes drew little
symbols that did not look like the ideas they represented. We call these symbols
ideographs. And now you did have to go to school to learn what all of these symbols
stood for.
Modern Chinese is an ideographic writing system composed of 50,000 of these little
symbols, none of which look like the things they represent. It’s a terribly complex
system to learn, particularly for westerners.
However, somewhere around 4000 B.C. someone made a remarkable discovery.
Someone discovered that all of human language is composed of a small number of
irreducible speech sounds. And that person decided that instead of using a writing
system composed of thousands and thousands of symbols none of which looked like
the things they represented, and took years to learn and were easily forgotten, why not
create a set of symbols to represent the irreducible speech sounds of the language
and we would have a very simple writing system that required memorizing a very small
number of symbols that stood for sounds. And so the first alphabet was invented.
As I said, all of human speech is composed of a small number of irreducible speech
sounds. How many irreducible sounds do you think there are in English? No, not 26.
That’s the number of letters in our alphabet. The answer is 44. Yes, we have 44
sounds represented by only 26 letters, and that’s why some of our letters stand for ·
more than one sound, and some sounds are represented by more than one letter.
For example, the letter “a” stands for more than one sound. It stands for long “a” as
in April or apron; it stands for the short “a” as in cat or bat; it stands for the “ah” sound
as in father and car; and its stands for the “au” sound as in all and fall. Out “th” sound
is represented by t-h, the “sh” sound is represented by s-h, and the “ch” sound is
represented by c-h. And that is why it is important to teach children our alphabetiC
system in a logical, systematic way, starting with the simplest regular spelling forms
and progressing to the more difficult forms.
The invention of the alphabet was indeed revolutionary. It swept away ideographs
from the Western world and sparked the greatest intellectual advance in history. But
there is something else that is very important to know about the alphabet. As soon as
it was invented, the Scripture began to appear. Why then? Because man had to wait
until he had an accurate, precise means of transcribing the spoken word before the
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word of God could be written down.
Again, the importance of the Word. Alphabetic writing is a direct transcription of the
spoken word, and accuracy is the hallmark of alphabetic writing.
The purveyors of whole language are in open rebellion against the concept of the
alphabet. In the first place, they do not believe in accuracy in reading. In an article
entitled “Reading Method Lets Pupils Guess,” in the Washington Post of Nov. 26, 1986,
the reporter wrote:
“The most controversial aspect of whole language is the de-emphasis on accuracy.
. . . American Reading Council President Julia Palmer, an advocate of the approach,
said it is acceptable if a young child reads the word house for home, or substitutes the
word pony for horse. ‘It’s not very serious because she understands the meaning,’
said Palmer. ‘Accuracy is not the name of the game.'”
But even in ancient Rome they knew that accuracy is indeed the name of the game.
Whole language teachers make no distinction between an ideographic writing system
and an alphabetic one. In a recently published book entitled, Whole Language:
What’s the Difference?, the authors write:
“Oral language, written language, sign language — each of these is a system of
linguistic convention for creating meanings. That means none is ‘the basis’ for the
other: none is a secondary representation of the other.” (page 9)
Of course, they are wrong. Alphabetic writing, as distinguished from ideographic
writing, is a graphic representation of the spoken language. That’s what made it so
different from ideographic writing. That’s what made it so much easier to learn. Its
accuracy was a tremendous enhancement to intellectual development, permitting the
unlimited development of new words in every field of human endeavor.
But one can only grasp the true lunacy of whole language theory when we read the
book’s definition of reading:
“From a whole language perspective, reading (and language use in general) is a
process of generating hypotheses in a meaning-making transaction in a
sociohistorical context. As a transactional process, reading is not a matter of ‘getting
the meaning’ from text, as if that meaning were in the text waiting to be decoded by the
reader. Rather, reading is a matter of readers using the cues print provide and the
knowledge they bring with them (of language subsystems, of the world) to construct a
unique interpretation. Moreover, that interpretation is situated: readers’ creations (not
retrievals) of meaning with the text vary, depending on their purposes for reading and
the expectations of others in the reading event. This view of reading implies that there
is no single ‘correct’ meaning for a given text, only plausible meanings. This view is in
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direct contrast to the model of reading underlying most reading instruction and
evaluations.” (page 19)
No wonder the kids are confused! Incidentally, I wonder how many writers would
concur with this definition of reading. Writers generally take great pains to convey a
particular message. The last thing they want is for the reader to “create” a meaning
which is not there. The book elaborates on its definition. The authors write:
“Whole language represents a major shift in thinking about the reading process.
Rather than viewing reading as ‘getting the words,’ whole language educators view
reading as essentially a process of creating meanings …. Meaning is created through
a transaction with whole, meaningful texts (i.e., texts of any length that were written
with the intent to communicate meaning.) It is a transaction, not an extraction of the
meaning from the print, in the sense that the reader-created meanings are a fusion of
what the reader brings and what the text offers . … In a transactional model, words do
not have static meanings. Rather, they have meaning potentials and the capacity to
communicate multiple meanings.” (page 32)
If that isn’t pedagogical insanity I don’t know what is. The insane have a tough time
living in the real world. They live in a world of fantasy, much like our whole language
educators. They tell us that there is no objective meaning to anything you read. The
reader creates the meaning. If that’s the case, what’s the point in reading what others
write? Why not simply stare at the page and say anything you want? Or why stare at
the page at all?
Which brings us to the subject at hand: how to get your local school board to adopt
phonics. I imagine that any sane member of a school board, who took the time to read
what whole-language theorists say about whole language, would be convinced to
switch to phonics. Better still, send the member a tape of this lecture which can be
listened to with little effort while driving a car.
There is no reason why American children should be subjected to this educational
lunacy. They want to be taught to read. They don’t want to be turned into learning
disabled, intellectual cripples, programmed for a life of academic failure.
How can we save them?
School boards do respond to parental pressure, so you must do all you can to alert
and inform parents of what is happening in their children’s school. This can be done
by distributing literature about the harmful effects of whole language. I’ve written
several newsletters on this subject which you might consider using. Also, you should
let the school board know that there are many good phonics programs available on
the market: the Spalding program , Sing, Spell, Read and Write, and my own reading
program , ALPHA-PHONICS, which is presently being used by thousands of
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homeschoolers with great success. It’s inexpensive, simple to use, and all in one
book.
Also, look into the possibility of presenting your case to the school board at a public
meeting. Do this after you’ve sent each board member the same literature you are
distributing to the parents. If you can get to talk to each member individually, that
would be even better. Call them on the phone and see if they are amenable to a oneon-one
meeting.
Also, I would talk to the teachers. I don’t know of a teacher who doesn’t to do a
good job. They want the children to learn. But be diplomatic. Teachers like to
consider themselves the experts in these matters. Some will be very strongly
committed to whole language, but ask them to read the literature and respond to it.
You may be able to get them to think twice about their teaching theories.
But you may also find some teachers willing to listen and learn. My publisher, Peter
Watt, will be happy to supply you with a sheaf of letters from parents who have
successfully taught their children to read with Alpha-Phonics. There is nothing more
convincing than good stories of success.
Also, I strongly advise you to develop good relations with the local media: the
newspaper, local radio talk-show, and TV news and public service departments. Do all
you can to get the media on your side. It should be easy to convince the editor of the
newspaper that the future prosperity of his medium depends on schools turning out
good readers. If young people can’t read, that editor may soon be out of a job.
Are there districts where parents have succeeded in getting phonics into their
schools? Yes. In eight elementary schools in Houston, a phonics program, which had
been removed to make way for whole language, was reinstated. The schools had
been using Chapter 1 funds to pay for a heavily structured phonics program which the
children loved. But the Houston school district decided to cut off the funds and force
the schools to adopt a whole-language approach. The result was dismal.
However, after much pressure from parents, teachers and principals, the funding for
the phonics program was reinstated in the eight schools. Unfortunately, the other 162
elementary schools in the district are continuing to use whole language.
It is also important for the school board to know that there are many serious cri~iCS
of whole language among professors of education. Professors Pat Groff of San Diego
State University and Jeanne Chall of Harvard University easily come. to mind. In fact,
the January 8, 1992 issue of Education Week reports on recent studies that cast doubt
on whole language as a reading teaching technique. The studies were ma?e In
Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. and published in the December 1991 Issue of the
Journal of Educational Psychology. It may be worth your while to get copies of these
studies and hand them to your school board for review and comment.
Page 7 – St. Louis
You would think that it would be easy enough to convince school board members
that intensive phonics is preferable to whole language in teaching children to read.
After all, intensive phonics has a track record of success going back thousands of
years, while whole language is based entirely on theory, not practice.
With the desperate literacy problem this nation now has, it certainly is no time for
experiments in a field where we know what works. Children get only one chance to be
six years old, one chance to be taught to read in the first grade. They ought not to be
experimented on. Nor should the school board want the children to be experimented
on. But if the school board permits this experimentation to take place, it should be
willing to present to the parents the results of the experiment.
Of course, if the children read inaccurately and make up meanings of their own, the
whole language educators can claim success. And if that is also the school board’s
idea of success, then you may have no choice but to take your own children out of the
school and urge your friends and neighbors to do likewise.
But we must assume that your school board is made up of rational, well-meaning,
and decent human beings. We’ve all heard stories of school boards’ utter disdain for
parents. But, who knows? Yours may be different. It’s at least worth a try. Certainly
the children deserve the effort, even if it’s not successful. After all, their welfare, their
future is at stake.
A link to this article in PDF: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Articles/How%20to%20Get%20Your%20Local%20School%20Board%20to%20Adopt%20Phonics.pdf
The Weekly Sam: Cursive First
Sam Blumenfeld advocated that children learn cursive first. Today, few schools even teach cursive, but the Sam Blumenfeld Archives offers a free lesson on how to write. Here is the link to Sam’ cursive class:
The Weekly Sam: “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” A Review by Sam Blumenfeld
Charlotte Iserbyt has put her great exposé of the dumbing-down agenda of American education on the Internet, so that anyone
can now read it and download it free of charge. The DeliberateDumbing Down of America is a big book and so very importantthat anyone interested in the future of this country must read it. I wrote a Foreword for the book that basically explains what Charlotte achieved by her incredible research based on documents she took out of the files of the Department of Education in Washington, where she worked as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) during the first Reagan administration. She is
the consummate whistleblower, with an overwhelming sense of responsibility as a public servant and a parent. Here’s the essence of what I wrote:
Charlotte Iserbyt is to be greatly commended for having put together the most formidable and practical compilation of
documentation describing the “deliberate dumbing down” of American children by their education system. Anyone interested in the truth will be shocked by the way American social engineers have systematically gone about destroying the intellect of millions of American children for the purpose of leading the American people into a socialist world government controlled by behavioral and social scientists. Mrs. Iserbyt has also documented the gradual transformation of our once academically successful education system into one devoted to training children to become compliant human resources to be used by government and industry for their own purposes. This is how fascist-socialist societies train their children to become servants of their government masters. The successful implementation of this new philosophy of education will spell the end of the American dream of individual freedom and opportunity. The government will plan your life for you, and unless you comply with government restrictions and regulations your ability to pursue a career of your own choice will be severely limited. What is so mind boggling is that all of this is being financed by the American people themselves through their own taxes.
In other words, the American people are underwriting the destruction of their own freedom and way of life by lavishly financing through federal grants the very social scientists who are undermining our national sovereignty and preparing our children to become the dumbed-down vassals of the new world order. It reminds one of how the Nazis charged their victims train fare to their own doom. One of the interesting insights revealed by these documents is how the social engineers use a deliberately created education “crisis” to move their agenda forward by offering radical reforms that are sold to the public as fixing the crisis which they never do. The new reforms simply set the stage for the next crisis, which provides the pretext for the next move forward. This is the dialectical process at work, a process our behavioral engineers have learned to use veryeffectively. Its success depends on the ability of the “change agents” to continually deceive the public which tends to believe anything the experts tell them.And so, our children continue to be at risk in America’s schools. They are at risk academically because of such programs as whole language, mastery learning, direct instruction, Skinnerian operant conditioning, all of which have created huge learning problems that inevitably lead to what is commonly known as Attention Deficit Disorder and the drugging of four million children with the powerful drug Ritalin.
Mrs. Iserbyt has dealt extensively with the root causes of immorality in our society and the role of the public schools in the teaching of moral relativism (no right/no wrong ethics). She raises a red flag regarding the current efforts of left-wing liberals and right-wing conservatives (radical center) to come up with a new kid on the block -“common ground” character education — which will, under the microscope, turn out to be the same warmed-over values education alert parent groups have resisted for over 50 years. This is a perfect example of the Hegelian Dialectic at work. (Karl Marx’s communist philosophy is called “Dialectical Materialism.”)
The reader will find in this book a plethora of information that will leave no doubt in the mind of the serious researcher exactly where the American education system is headed. If we wish to stop this juggernaut toward a socialist-fascist system, then we must restore educational freedom to America. Americans forget that the present government education system started as a Prussian import in the 1840’s–’50’s. It was a system built on Hegel’s belief that the state was “God” walking on earth. The only way to restore educational freedom, and put education back into the hands of parents where it belongs, is to get the federal government, with its coercive policies, out of education. The billions of dollars being spent by the federal government to destroy educational freedom must be halted, and that can only be done by getting American legislators to understand that the American people want to remain a free people, in charge of their own lives and the education of their childrenAnd since finally conservatives in Congress are seeking ways to reduce the size and cost of government, a good place to start is in dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. That’s one way to stop financing the deliberate dumbing down of America.To get to the free download of Charlotte’s book, click here. https://archive.org/details/DeliberateDumbingDownOfAmericaCharlotteIserbyt
You can still buy the book if you prefer to have a hard copy that you can read at your leisure and pass on to friends and relatives. And if you still have children in the public schools, you’ll know exactly what is going on inside those walls
(Here is a link to a PDF version of the article:
Camp Constitution at the 2018 Mass HOPE Homeschool Show
Since 2010, Camp Constitution has had an information table at Mass HOPE’s annual homeschool convention held at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. This is the largest homeschool show in the region. In the eight years we have attended, we have made numerous friends-many of whom have attended our annual summer camp. We offer those who stop by our table a 10 Question quiz on the U.S. Constitution, free copies of the U.S. Constitution, books, DVDs, introduce them to the Sam Blumenfeld Arechives, and offer a free drawing for a week at camp. This year’s convention took place over this past weekend. Thanks to all who helped to make this possible. Here is a link to Mass HOPE’s web site: http://masshope.us/index.php?sub=About_Us
Our next homeschool show will be in Lancaster, PA hosted by the Christian Homeschoolers of Pennsylavnia June 1-2.
Camp Constitution Honors the Memory of the Men Who Answered the Alarm April 19, 1775
Today marks the 243 anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Over the years, Camp Constitution has been on hand to participate in the celebration of that glorious day, and to videotape the various events of the day. Here is a link to a video of the Lexington Minutemen honoring the memory of the men who fought on that day:
The Weekly Sam: A Short Uncensored History of Sex Ed
By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
The dictum that ideas have consequences is nowhere better demonstrated than in the
ideas that have led to the introduction of sex education in American schools. The first
idea of consequence was Sigmund Freud’s notion that sexual repression causes neurosis.
If sexual repression makes you ill or creates dysfunction, then the remedy, of course, is
free sexual expression. That was not the cure that Freud recommended, but Freud’s idea
so strongly influenced American culture that clothes for women went from the trussed up
sexually repressed fashions of 1900 to the loose liberating flapper skirts of the roaring
twenties-in only twenty years!
The second idea came from Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, who
launched a campaign in 1916 to promote contraception and abortion in order to free
women from the burdens of unwanted pregnancy. Sanger later adopted the views of the
eugenicists who promoted the idea that the fit should be encouraged to have children and
the unfit to not. Sex education became an indispensable part of Sanger’s birth control
movement. As a result, Planned Parenthood has been one of the pioneer advocates of
comprehensive sex education in the schools. In 1953, Planned Parenthood staffer Lena
Levine wrote: “[Our goal] is to be ready as educators and parents to help young people
obtain sex satisfaction before marriage. By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will
prevent fear and guilt. … we must be ready to provide young boys and girls with the best
contraception measures available so they will have the necessary means to achieve sexual
satisfaction without having to risk possible pregnancy.”
The third idea came from sexologist Alfred C. Kinsey, head of the Institute for Sex
Research at Indiana University, subsidized by the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Kinsey’s
best-selling report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, published in 1958, promulgated
the idea that human beings are sexual from birth. The data on 317 infants and young
boys was supposedly the source of that idea. This controversial data was obtained from a
pedophile who had actually masturbated infants and boys and kept records of his
experiments. All of this was exposed years later by Dr. Judith Reisman, who accused
Kinsey of complicity in the sexual abuse of young children. Her book, Kinsey: Crimes &
Consequences (1998), provides all the sordid details.
The fourth idea came from Dr. Mary Calderone, past Medical Director of Planned
Parenthood. She and her colleagues launched SIECUS, the Sex Information and
Education Council of the United States, at the Kinsey Institute, specifically to teach
Kinseyan sexual ideology as sex education. Dr. Calderone transfonned sex education
into sexuality education, presently taught in American schools. SIECUS has provided the
public schools with a wide variety of sex education materials: films, slides, books, and
pamphlets.
The fifth idea came from the Humanist Manifesto of 1973, which challenged the views of
orthodox religion on sexual behavior and proclaimed total sexual freedom among
consenting adults as the new moral standard for sexual behavior. The Manifesto was
signed by many academicians, including Dr. Lester A. Kirkendall, a director of SIECUS,
as well as by Dr. Alan C. Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood.
In 1976, Dr. Kirkendall published A New Bill ofSexual Rights and Responsibilities,
signed by 37 leading sexologists and authors. The book states: “Humanists have had an
important role in the sexual revolution. Although Humanist Manifesto II contains a brief
section on sexuality, we thought a more detailed statement would be useful.”
Out of this interlocking directorate of humanist sex education organizations came the
ideas that have formed the ideology of the sexual revolution and the curriculum of sex
education in American schools. The results have seen dramatic changes in teen sexual
behavior with its tragic consequences: more pre-marital sex experimentation, more teen
pregnancies, more teen abortions, more teen venereal disease, more teen emotional
unhappiness leading to an increase in drug addiction. Inevitably, pre-marital sex leads to
abusive jealousy among teens as they change sex partners. This has resulted in physical
abuse and even murders.
There is little doubt that pre-marital sex is the cause of more social problems than any
other activity in America today. Yet, pre-marital, recreational sex is heavily promoted by
music, television sitcoms, movies, books, and other products of popular culture. All of
this is legitimized by the so-called liberating ideas of Freud, Sanger, Kinsey, Calderone,
and others, while attempts to return to the moral standards based on religion are rejected
as reactionary, repressive, outmoded, and authoritarian.
Meanwhile, the sexual revolution changed America’s views on sex as reflected in actions
by government and the courts. In 1965, the u.s. Supreme Court, in the case of Griswold
v. Connecticut, ruled that Connecticut’s law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by
married couples violated a newly defined right of marital privacy. As a result, ten states
liberalized their family planning laws and began to provide family planning services with
tax funds.
In 1970, Congress enacted Title X of the Public Health Services Act, which provided
support and funding for family planning services and educational programs, and for
biomedical and behavioral research in reproduction and contraceptive development. Title
X also authorized funding for a Center for Population Research within the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
In 1970, New York state enacted the most progressive abortion law in the nation, and
Planned Parenthood of Syracuse, New York, became the first affiliate to offer abortion
services.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the constitutional right of
privacy extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, thereby legalizing abortion
throughout the United States. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Planned Parenthood
of Central Missouri v. Danforth, struck down state requirements for parental and spousal
consent for abortion and set aside a state prohibition against saline abortions.
In 1976, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, named after Planned Parenthood’s president,
published 11 Million Teenagers, which focused attention on the problem of teen
pregnancy and childbearing in the United States.
In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court found the Massachusetts statute, restricting minors’
access to abortion, unconstitutional. It ruled that if states required minors to obtain
parental consent for an abortion, they must also give minors the alternative of obtaining
the consent of a judge, in confidential proceedings and without first notifying their
parents.
In 1979, the California State Department of Education published a draft of its new sex
education curriculum, Education for Human Sexuality: A Resource Book and
Instructional Guide to Sex Education for Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve. The new
program was developed with partial funding from the U.S. Office of Education. It called
for explicit instruction in human sexual intercourse, alternative sexual life styles,
abortion, masturbation and other issues involving sexuality.
Beginning in preschool or kindergarten with mixed-group visits to restrooms, these visits
are followed by a description of male and female genitalia. The children read two
pamphlets from Planned Parenthood which tell them that “masturbation is a perfectly
acceptable, useful, comforting thing to do with sexual feelings” and “masturbation cannot
hurt you and it will make you feel more relaxed.”
At age nine, children begin their study of methods of birth control, including “all the
contraceptive methods and services available.” At age 12, children “visit a local drug
store to check the availability of contraceptive products.” They study the law regarding
emancipated minors who are “making their own decisions.” They learn that “pregnancy
prevention services are available to young people without parental consent.” They take a
field trip to a “family planning clinic” and they go through it “from beginning to end” and
fill out a patient’s form for such a clinic.
Also at age 12, boys and girls study “unplanned pregnancy” and discuss whether it is best
to have the baby, offer it for adoption, or have an abortion. They discuss the “support
system” that is available to them and they listen to a guest speaker from Planned
Parenthood. They learn that the decision for an abortion is theirs alone to make requiring
no consultation with their parents.
The curriculum recommends ten days of sex instruction in each school year from preschool
through the 12th grade. The program calls for the development of “decision making
skills” through exercises in “values clarification.” It should be noted that this
program in sexuality has been implemented throughout the United States in many school
districts.
In 1981, the Alan Guttmacher Institute published Teenage Pregnancy: The Problem that
Hasn’t Gone away, an analysis of teen sexuality, contraceptive knowledge and use, and
pregnancy experience. It emphasized the need for making confidential contraceptive
services accessible to sexually active teens.
In 1982, Planned Parenthood published “Sexuality Alphabet,” a tool for sex education.
George Grant, author of Grand lllusions, writes of this publication: “Planned
Parenthood’s sex education programs and materials are brazenly perverse. They are
frequently accentuated with crudely obscene four-letter words and illustrated by
explicitly ribald nudity. They openly endorse aberrant behavior-homosexuality,
masturbation, fornication, incest, and even bestiality-and then they describe that
behavior in excruciating detail.”
In 1983, the National Education Association included the following resolution in its
Handbook under the title of Family Life Education:
The National Education Association believes that the developing child’s sexuality
is continually and inevitably influenced by daily contacts, including experiences
in the school environment. The Association recognizes that sensitive sex
education can be a positive force in promoting physical, mental, and social health
and that the public school must assume an increasingly important role in
providing the instruction. Teachers must be qualified to teach in this area and
must be legally protected from censorship and lawsuits ….
The Association urges its affiliates and members to support appropriately
established sex education programs, including information on birth control and
family planning, parenting skills, sexually transmitted diseases, incest and sexual
abuse, the effects of substance abuse during pregnancy, and problems associated
with and resulting from preteen and teenage pregnancies.
In 1993 it added “information on sexual abstinence, diversity of sexual orientation,
prenatal care, and sexual harassment” to its list of sex education programs. In other
words, the scope of sex education keeps getting larger and larger. For example,
information on homosexuality has developed into a course of its own within the sexuality
curriculum.
In 1985, the Alan Guttmacher Institute published its report on Teen Pregnancy in
Industrialized Countries, indicating that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate of 96 per 1,000 was
the highest in the developed world. A two-year study by the National Academy of
Sciences agreed with the AGI study and concluded that “prevention of adolescent
pregnancy should have the highest priority,” and “making contraceptive methods
available and accessible to those who are sexually active and encouraging them to
diligently use these methods is the surest major strategy for pregnancy prevention.”
In 1970, less than half of the nation’s school districts offered sex education curricula and
only one had school-based birth control clinics. In 1998, more than seventy-five percent
of the districts teach sex education and there are more than one hundred clinics in
operation. Yet the percentage of illegitimate births has only increased during that time,
from only fifteen percent to a mind-boggling fifty-one percent. In California, where
public schools have had sex education for more than thirty years, the rate often
pregnancy is the highest in the nation. (Grant, p. 128)
Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic in the United States, which began with eleven cases in
1979, had grown to 24,000 cases in 1986, to 339,250 cases in 1993, to 665,357 cases in
1998. The National Education Association has recommended that AIDS education
become an integral part of the school curriculum. “AIDS education must include
education about all means of transmission, including sex and intravenous (IV) drug use.
Information on prevention options must include abstinence and medically accepted
protective devices. Instruction in decision-making skills to assist students in correlating
health information and personal behavior is essential.”
On September 15,1985, the Chicago Sun-Times reported: “Free birth control pills and
condoms are being dispensed to Du Sable High School students by a new clinic in the
South Side school. A second clinic is scheduled to open Feb. 1 at Orr High School on the
West Side for the same purpose …. William Young, director of teen health for the Ounce
of Prevention Fund, a member of a coalition of foundations fmancing the two clinics, said
the opening of medical clinics in high schools is “part of a national trend. ” Young said
that cities with clinics in high schools included St. Paul, Minn., Dallas, New York,
Kansas City, Cleveland and San Francisco …. The Du Sable clinic’s operating costs are
$225,000 a year, Young said, all being provided by the coalition of foundations, which
includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, N.J.; the Joyce Foundation of
Chicago; Pittway Corp. Charitable Foundation of Northbrook; and the Commonwealth
Fund of New York.”
It was inevitable that sexuality education would have to include same-sex behavior, or
homosexuality, in a very open way. On February 10, 1992, Governor William F. Weld of
Massachusetts, signed an executive order creating the nation’s first Governor’s
Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. The Commission was formed in response to the
epidemic of suicide by young gays, lesbians, and bisexuals as revealed in the 1989
federal report on youth suicide. That report concluded that gay youth represented “up to
30 percent of (the estimated 5,000) completed youth suicides annually.”
The Governor’s Commission made five key recommendations for schools: (1) School
systems should make public commitments to ensure that schools are safe places, free of
discrimination, violence, and harassment for gay and lesbian students. (2) Teachers,
guidance counselors, and all school staff should be trained to respond to the needs of gay
and lesbian students. (3) Every high school in the Commonwealth should establish a
support group where gay and straight students can meet each week and discuss gay and
lesbian issues. (4) All school libraries should develop a collection of literature, books,
films, and pamphlets for students seeking to learn more on gay and lesbian issues. (5)
Gay and lesbian themes and issues should be integrated into all subject areas in the
school curriculum.
In August 1994, the Governor’s Commission produced a report on the “Prevention of
Health Problems Among Gay and Lesbian Youth” and “Making Health and Human
Services Accessible and Effective for Gay and Lesbian Youth.”
It has become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between sex education and
pornography, for sex education is not about education, it’s about sex, and it’s difficult to
teach about sex explicitly without it becoming pornographic. For example, on March 25,
2000, the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Governor’s Commission for Gay
and Lesbian Youth, and the Gay and Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)
co-sponsored a statewide conference at Tufts University called “Teach Out.” Teenagers
and children as young as 12 were encouraged to come from around the state, and many
were bussed in from their home districts. Homosexual activists came from across the
country to take part in the conference.
According to audio tapes made at the conference, participants discussed oral sex, anal
sex, vaginal sex, oral-vaginal sex, clitoral sex, and a homosexual practice called “fisting.”
Needless to say that when the public became aware of the substance of the Teach Out, it
caused a scandal that made headlines and was vigorously discussed on radio talk shows.
In February 1999, SIECUS conducted a public poll on its Internet site asking readers
‘”who had the greatest impact in bringing about a positive change in the way America
understands and affirms sexuality. The top ten, chosen from a list of 100, were Judy
Blume, Mary Calderone, Ellen DeGeneres, Joycelyn Elders, Hugh Hefner, Anita Hill,
Magic Johnson, Madonna, Gloria Steinam, and Ruth Westheimer.”
Obviously, there are many parents who do not share the views of the top ten. Judy
Blume’s novels have often been cited as too sexually explicit. But objection to sex
education is nothing new. Various parent and religious groups have been critical of
explicit sex education from the day it became known what was in the materials that
Planned Parenthood and SIECUS were providing the schools.
Since neither parents nor religious groups have been able to stop the sexual revolution or
the humanist sexuality juggernaut, they have called for greater emphasis on abstinence
and less on contraception and condom distribution. They achieved a substantial victory
when the Congress voted in favor of an $88 million “Abstinence Only” program as part
of President Clinton’s “National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.” Starting in the fall
of the year 2000, abstinence-only programs began to receive automatic re-funding every
year for the next five years during the federal government’s appropriations process.
One would have thought that the sex educators would have been happy with a federal
program funding “Abstinence Only.” Instead, SIECUS has launched a no-holds-barred
campaign against “Abstinence Only,” claiming that it won’t prevent teenage pregnancies
or STDs. They call the program “fear-based.” But what’s wrong with being afraid of
getting an unwanted pregnancy or getting AIDS? Fear prevents people from doing
wrong things and foolish things. It is an important part of our self-protective instinct.
If “Abstinence Only” is fear-based, is sexuality education pleasure-based? These
increasingly hot debates over sex education will continue for years to come as humanists
and Christians struggle for control of what goes on in the public schools.
A link to this 1999 article from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives: