Understanding Indoctrination vs Teaching
By George Herrera Corrales, Carlsbad, CA, 2024
Schools today don’t teach; they indoctrinate. The difference? Indoctrination is telling students what to think; teaching is showing students how to think.
Teaching equips students with important skills; indoctrination does not. Indoctrination requires only that you believe what you’re told. Teaching is the opposite. Students acquire important life skills such as fact-finding, critical thinking, logic, and analysis.
Is all indoctrination bad? No. There is good indoctrination, and there is bad indoctrination.
In general, good indoctrination is something we all agree is necessary for the good of society. Grounding our children in the tenets of the U.S. Constitution, for example, is necessary to help our nation function and govern itself.
Unwanted or bad indoctrination happens when a significant segment of society negates past agreements and supplants them with its own thoughts, values, and beliefs. This is what we see happening today.
Leftist progressives, for example, believe that the founding principles of our country are grounded in white supremacy. These principles must therefore be rejected and replaced with alternative principles of equity and social justice.
The order of the day is to tell children (not teach them) that America is systemically racist, misogynistic, hateful, and homophobic. It’s even more important that these concepts be integrated into all school subjects, including math, science, and the history of film.
If you don’t believe me, attend a local school board meeting. Your children are being indoctrinated to believe that skin color is more important than character, that identity matters more than merit, and that besmirching those who disagree is perfectly acceptable.
When teaching succumbs to indoctrination, especially indoctrination that few people agree upon, misinformation and lies thrive. In time, those who indoctrinate (teachers, administrators, and activists) resort to smear tactics instead of well-reasoned arguments to bring people into compliance.
Today, individual merit (regardless of identity) has succumbed to immutable differences that have no bearing on character, intelligence, discernment, or self-discipline. The new indoctrination of DEI, for example, has no connection with reality in that what’s inside is what matters, not what’s outside.
The bottom line is that teachers need to get back to authentic teaching. Gone should be the days when children were taught to hate themselves, certain others, their ancestors, their history, and their role models.