American Elephants

“Environmental Literacy” or Indoctrination? by The Elephant's Child

The state of Maryland has become the first state in the country to impose a new requirement for kids to graduate from high school—something called  “environmental literacy.”

The new rule is a regulation from the State Board of Education, not a law passed by the legislature.  Governor Martin O”Malley offers no  details but praises it saying that “it will infuse core subjects with lessons about conservation and smart growth and the health of our natural world.  O’Malley also said that it will also serve as a “foundation for green jobs.”

An analyst remarks that training for those is just like it is for any other job.  “You need to know how to get there on time, how to be alert, how to work hard, how to absorb a lot of information, how to — learn new skills.

The state board of education leaves all content up to local school boards.  Sarah Boder of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation supports the initiative and says that students could learn by doing. “Kids have the opportunity to participate in some real world learning, such as raising native oysters and replenishing reef habitat.  By raising the oysters they can learn math and read about the history of oystering in the state of Maryland and throughout the Chesapeake Bay and that gets them excited and that helps to boost their achievement.”

Sounds like a pretty complicated way of getting kids to learn math.  Could there possibly be  political agenda?  Well, in short, yes.  The local school boards won’t get any extra money, so a group called the North American Association of Environmental Education offers a teacher’s guide.

An early passage from the guide says “consumption of natural resources, air and water pollution, and the impacts of climate change are among the many complex challenges that threaten human health, economic development, and national security.”  It goes on to talk about the need to “take informed action.”

That’s not education, it’s indoctrination. Myron Ebell of CEI points out that “it’s propaganda and it’s designed to raise up a new generation of easily led and poorly educated and misinformed students.”

Beware of associations and groups that are just delighted to step in and offer all sorts of free materials to help with the education of your children.  They usually have an agenda.  When kids’ ability in math is a problem, it’s not wise to take more time away from the subject to play around with activist agendas.  Environmental literacy, indeed. Our school have been busy indoctrinating kids in “environmentalism” because they can write papers about cute polar bears and find all sorts of pictures on the internet.  Do they learn that polar bear numbers are increasing, and the bears are not endangered?  Not likely.

They call them NGOs.  Non-governmental organizations.  Because they call themselves “an association” and have a website and a 501(3)C designation doesn’t mean that then are anything other than a bunch of activists with an agenda.





[via @adamsbaldwin on Twitter]


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