Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

229 the possible dangers of the exploration of the unconscious. The first and foremost is the release of drives and emotions which were locked in the unconscious and which can flood the conscious ego before it is ready and prepared and competent to contain, control and utilize them. It is the situation of the “apprentice sorcerer.” ...We think that cases of suicide or of the development of psychotic states can be due to the premature and uncontrolled release of explosive drives and emotions from the un conscious. The middle school Achievement Skills program also utilizes what are psychotherapeutic values clarification techniques: role playing, open-ended questions, and moral dilemmas. These same values clarification methodologies form the basis of the K–6 “character education” component funded by the grant. Psychologists have warned educators about the dangers of unbridled use of role-playing techniques by untrained people, for the very reasons Assagioli cites as well as others. The K–6 materials were developed by the American Institute for Character Education (AICE) of San Antonio, Texas, and are marketed nationally. The Teacher’s Handbook (1983) from AICE indicates that the program is another “how to learn instead of what to learn” program and admits to the use of values clarification, the promotion of self-disclosure and the creation of a classroom climate where “there are no right answers to any one problem.” The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1985 U.S. P RESIDENT R EAGAN AND S OVIET P RESIDENT G ORBACHEV SIGNED AN AGREEMENT IN 1985 calling for cooperation in the field of science and technology and additional agreements in other specific fields, including the humanities and social sciences; the facilitation of the exchange by ap propriate organizations of educational and teaching materials, including textbooks, syllabi and curricula, materials on methodology, samples of teaching instruments and audiovisual aids, and the exchange of primary and secondary school textbooks and other teaching mate rials.... The conducting of joint studies on textbooks between appropriate organizations in the United States and the Ministry of Education of the U.S.S.R. At the same time, the Carnegie Corporation signed agreements with the Soviet Academy of Sciences which resulted in “joint research on the application of computers in early elementary education, focusing especially on the teaching of higher level skills and complex subjects to younger children.” The U.S.-Soviet education agreements were discussed in an article entitled “U.S. and So viets to Share Insights on Computers” by Fred M. Hechinger, education editor, in the December 10, 1985 issue of the New York Times. The article states in part: A meeting of American and Soviet educational computer experts has produced an agreement to exchange specialists involved in the improvement of elementary and secondary education. The initial American-Soviet exchange is intended as a first step toward cooperation among education reformers from a number of countries, including Britain and Japan. One goal is to reduce the present emphasis on training computer programmers, and stress instead the computer’s potential to restructure the education of young children, beginning in third grade or earlier. Several issues are listed for joint investigation. They include computer-based methods to develop creative abilities of primary school pupils, creation and testing of software for