The October 7 Hamas atrocity was a cruel and horrifying event in and of itself; it was a pogrom in which the terrorists themselves livestreamed the rape, killing, and abduction of defenseless men, women, and children. When the aftershocks struck America on October 8, a sizable portion of the populace responded with excitement rather than disgust.
On college campuses, radicalized instructors and students appeared to be sleeper cells that had just been roused to assist Hamas. For those of us who have been observing and questioning these tendencies for years, it wasn’t a huge surprise.
However, the magnitude and impact of these fanatics surprised a lot of other people. They portrayed white supremacists and Arabs who opposed the Hamas death cult as collaborators or traitors, and Jews who opposed the murder of their own Jews as colonists. Posters of children who had been abducted and later killed were torn down.
It was the most ludicrous and evil extension of identity politics. Evil arises from good. Evil turns become virtue. And the victim’s or offender’s group affiliation is the only factor used to determine which is which. Identity is all that matters: members of some groups can never be guilty, even if they kill that baby with their bare hands, and members of certain groups can never be innocent, even if they are a baby.
On the altar of identity, people’s agency is sacrificed. The cornerstones of America and other liberal democracies—individual liberties, rights, and agency—are undermined. It is anti-democratic, illiberal, and un-American.
However, this degree of moral reversal did not occur suddenly. Our children were brainwashed for decades as part of this procedure. Some parents are aware that their children must prepare for these kinds of situations when they attend college. However, the grooming process actually began much earlier. Teachers and unions are promoting extreme, anti-democratic objectives even in K–12 education.
How can parents strengthen their ability to deal with these agendas in the classroom as K–12 students get ready to return to school?
Recognizing that there is an issue is the first step. Consider the instructor from United Teachers Los Angeles, the second-largest teachers union chapter in the United States, who presented a PowerPoint presentation headlined “How to be a teacher & an organizer… and NOT get fired” at a union meeting last year.
Or the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which sent out materials to its members that had a billboard saying, “Zionists F*** Off,” a dollar bill folded into a Star of David, and a poster accusing President Biden of being a serial killer. These are not unique instances.
Classroom resources that portray America as a colonial oppressor while ignoring the democratic qualities it brought to the world are becoming more and more common. We’re seeing teacher guides that advocate for destroying American democracy rather than merely addressing its glaring historical flaws and inadequacies, as well as lesson plans that stoke animosities without providing a framework for civic involvement, agency, or constructive change.
That is a design for destroying society rather than providing young people with the means and inspiration to make it better. It is fostering a mindset that prioritizes resentment over appreciation, disunity over solidarity, and pessimism over optimism.
It is necessary to educate young people about racism, inequality, and the value of varied viewpoints. And even if it makes them uncomfortable, we shouldn’t be scared to teach them their nation’s history honestly and rigorously. However, it is not education; rather, it is indoctrination when curriculum teach pupils to hate the United States and Western democracies while promoting undemocratic alternatives.
How did we arrive here? Critical social ideas, which rose to prominence in the 20th century, are the foundation of radical social justice movement in schools. These theories—Marxism, decolonization, and critical race theory—promoted the demolition of established institutions and provided critiques of Western cultures.
These concepts began to permeate university curriculum and academic programs in the late 1960s, frequently masquerading as ethnic studies, impacting not just students but also professors and management. The vocabulary of those beliefs is used by people who celebrate and defend October 7.
Today’s teacher preparation programs, the majority of which are housed in universities, heavily emphasize social justice advocacy. Critical pedagogy, an educational approach based on the ideas of critical theory, is frequently taught to aspiring teachers.
I’m worried about this as a mother. Research indicates that by the time they are eighteen, students who are encouraged to see institutions as unredeemable are less civically active. They are more disengaged and skeptical, and they are more prone to believe nothing and fall for anything. However, people who have a strong sense of history, intricacy, and even pride are more inclined to research, cast ballots, and serve.
Many people would sacrifice their lives to participate in our democratic civil society, and they frequently do. Americans who came here from China, Russia, or the Islamic Republic of Iran will tell you.
Students are not succeeding with this kind of activist education. Test scores are at their lowest points in decades. While teacher unions prioritize adopting anti-Israel policies over the science of reading, two-thirds of fourth and eighth graders struggle academically in both reading and math. Instead of teaching pupils what to think, teachers should educate them how to think.
What then can parents do?
- Know what they re learning. Go through your child s reading list with them. If something strikes you as extreme, go through the right channels to ask the school why it was chosen and what other perspectives are included.
- Model critical thinking and ask schools to do the same: Show your child that you can question authority, respectfully they re allowed to disagree with their teachers, other students and even you. Being able to take part in civil discourse, even and especially when you disagree, is crucial to democracy. Ideological conformity is not.
- Foster agency and not just despair. If lessons emphasize injustice, ask what can be done to fix it, who fought for and achieved progress and what more can be done?
Education must be reclaimed by parents before it’s too late. This concerns whether our kids will be raised to cherish democracy, human rights, and free expression or if they will be indoctrinated to despise the fundamental principles that make this nation what it is. Education is a tool for changing society; we must choose whether to educate or indoctrinate the next generation.
The fight of ideas in education today is not limited to college campuses. Additionally, it is used in classes at elementary, middle, and high schools. Instead of teaching children to despise democracy, we want them to value and strengthen it. Thus, be there. Go over the syllabus. Pose inquiries.
They don’t need to be taught that Western democracy and America are flawless. However, they should be proud that cultures that believe that everyone is created equal are better than those that do not. And that instead of destroying it all, they have the power to live up to those statements as citizens of the greatest democracy in the world.
Two-time New York Times best-selling novelist Tishby was Israel’s first-ever special envoy to fight delegitimization and antisemitism. She recently established the institute Eighteen to promote Jewish pride and fight antisemitism.
