IMPORTANT FACTS

1. In 1879, German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt declared Man to be an animal, with no soul. With this, he laid the foundation for modern psychology and psychiatry.

2. In the U.S. and elsewhere, strong and effective scholastic-based systems were compromised. Psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike said phonics, multiplication tables and formal writing were “wasteful.”

3. In the 1940s psychiatrists G. Brock Chisholm (Canada) and John Rawlings Rees (Britain), co-founders of the World Federation for Mental Health, said, psychiatrists had carried out a “useful attack” on the “teaching profession” and that the goal of “effective” therapy was the elimination of the concept of “right and wrong.”

4. By the 1960s (and ever since), psychological programs were introduced into schools. Psychiatrists claimed that three sources of stress had to be eliminated from schools: 1) school failure, 2) a curriculum centered around academics, and 3) disciplinary procedures.

5. Psychologists and psychiatrists have insinuated themselves into positions of authority in the educational field and completed an almost total overthrow of the subject, turning schools from places of learning into “mental health clinics.”

CHAPTER ONE Dismantling Workable Education

Teen suicides have tripled since 1960 in the United States. Today, suicide is the second leading cause of death (after car accidents) for 15- to 24-year-olds. Since the early 1990s, millions of children around the world have taken prescribed antidepressants that U.K. and U.S. authorities have now branded as suicidal agents. In September 2004, a U.S. Congressional hearing into these drugs found that not only do studies show the drugs are ineffective in children, they can drive them to suicidal behavior and hostility.

Walk into an average British, Australian, Canadian or U.S. school or even some Mexican schools today, and you could be forgiven for thinking that you had walked into a mental health clinic, as kids line up for their daily stimulant drug dosage. Look closer and you will find a black market drug trade run by schoolchildren, deal- ing in the very same drugs being prescribed for supposed learning difficulties.

After edging upwards for more than a century, U.S. national Student Aptitude Test (SAT) scores have plummeted since 1963, when psychological programs and psychiatric drugs entered the classroom. In South Africa, since the introduction of psychological curricula, school examination results for 1997 showed a national pass rate of only 47%, which was down from 1994’s rate of 58%.

To appreciate the current influence of psychiatric and psychological thinking and practice over the schools and families of the world, it is essential to understand how their doctrines have achieved such an iron grip on the field of education. The story begins more than a century ago.

In 1879, German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt founded “experimental psychology.” He declared Man to be an animal, with no soul, that thought was merely the result of brain activity and that “consciousness is of no avail until these are derived from chemical and physical processes.”
[Emphasis added]

Key players who subsequently implemented Wundt’s theories into education were: Edward Lee Thorndike, John Dewey, James Earl Russell, James Cattell and William James.

Thorndike performed some of the earliest experiments in “animal psychology.” Maintaining Wundt’s “man is an animal” view, he investigated the mechanisms of learning by studying not humans, but chickens, rats and cats. In his 1929 book, Elementary Principles of Education, Thorndike stated: “Artificial exercises, like drills on phonetics, multiplication tables, and formal writing movements, are used to a wasteful degree. Subjects such as arithmetic, language, and history include content that is intrinsically of little value. Nearly every subject is enlarged unwisely to satisfy the academic ideal of thoroughness.”

At the turn of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud, with his emphasis on promiscuity and immorality, bolstered the “man is an animal” view. Despite the appalling lack of scientific foundation, his theories—many made under the influence of cocaine and now largely discredited—had an enormous impact in many countries. Educator and author Beverly Eakman points out, “Freudian psychology...runs through the Mental Hygiene and New Education movements.”

Later, influential figures like Thorndike made their intentions clear: “It will, of course, be understood that directly or indirectly, soon or late, every advance in the sciences of human nature will contribute to our success in controlling human nature.”

One of these “advances” was called “Whole Word,” a “reading” program developed by James Cattell, who had been Wundt’s assistant for three years and became the president of the American Psychological Association. Phonics were ignored, and children were forced to memorize nearly every word without understanding the logical sequence of letters or sounds.

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