In Part Five of our look at the SDGs, we noted that the diffuse nature of our education system − thanks to federalism − makes it difficult for our central government to enforce and track progress on SDG 4.7.1. That indicator includes education for “global citizenship.” We have already seen voluntary uptake of the SDGs in higher education. In K-12, the NEA is a primary cheerleader.
According to the Federal government, in 2020-21, the United States had 3 million public school teachers. The nation’s largest teacher’s union is the National Education Association (NEA), and it claims “3 million members.” Even though many of the NEA’s members aren’t necessarily teachers, that’s still impressive reach into US public education.
The NEA has a charitable foundation that “works in partnership with others to promote the very best in public education.” Evidently, “the very best in public education” incorporates the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It also includes the emotional manipulation of 5- and 6-year-old children.
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In 2019, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the NEA Foundation published a book of lesson plans to promote its vision of education for “global competency.” Creative Lessons to Open Classrooms and Minds to the World cites the World Economic Forum’s list of “Global Risks” (p. 5); impending “climate catastrophe” (id.); and the purported worsening of race relations under Donald Trump (p. 7), among other woes, as reasons why education for “global competency” is urgent. And the authors believe the SDGs provide the perfect framework to educate our children into “global citizenship” as a means of averting certain disaster (p. 136):
Twelve[*] Lessons to Open Classrooms and Minds to the World is the result of a collaborative effort organized by the NEA Foundation to support outstanding teacher-leaders in developing 21st century global curriculum that is aligned with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals – a universal call-to-action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
[* The publication appears to have undergone a renaming somewhere between its first and last pages.] The book’s primary author, Harvard professor Fernando M. Reimers, cites many of his own publications, dating back to 2009, on the topic of educating for global citizenship. A recurring theme in his work is promoting the right “affect”, or the correct “mindset”, to lead both students and teachers to embrace the United Nations’ goals . In other words, it’s all about manipulating emotions.
Scaring the Children to Save the Planet
Imagine it’s the first day of kindergarten. It can be an anxious time for parents, as well as a frightening time for children. Some children will be “leaving the nest” for the first time. But as a parent, you know that your child will soon settle in to learn about numbers, colors, shapes, how to tell time, and . . . hunger?
Yes, that’s correct. Through its “Kindergarten Lesson Plans” (pp. 19-28), the NEA Foundation wants to instruct 5- and 6-year-olds on
- What is Hunger?
- Who Doesn’t Have Food?
- Why Is Food a Human Right?
- Hunger Around the World
(An additional lesson plan, “Lesson 4: Students can generate ideas of how to help fight hunger in their community” (see p. 26) seems to have . . . disappeared. Is it also worth noting that this “very best in public education” document consistently misspells “Kindergarten” as “Kindergarden”? Sure it is (pp. 19, 21, 23, 26).)
The goal of the first lesson is to have children “reflect on what it means to be hungry and explore emotions/behaviors that are tied to hunger”, and to develop “an understanding or empathetic attitude” toward those who are hungry. The NEA instructs teachers to appeal to the children’s sense of “fairness” (“Do you think it is fair that some people in our community do not have food to eat?”), and asks them to imagine not having enough food to eat (“How would you feel if you didn’t have any food to eat when you were hungry?”).
The second lesson is about anti-hunger activism (“Students will be able to identify hunger in their community and what community resources there are to help eliminate it.” “Students will understand that they can help alleviate the problem.”). The suggested teaching technique is borderline abusive:
Show students a blank paper plate and a grocery ad. Explain to the students that they are going to get 6-7 minutes to cut out pictures of food and glue it to their paper plate.
[Then], have the students sit in a circle with their paper plates. Explain to students that 1 out of every 5 children in our country struggle with hunger. Show children this statistic by taking away the paper plate from every 5th child in the classroom.
The children are then asked how having their plate taken away, or seeing their friends’ plates taken away, made them feel, and whether they “think it is fair that some children in our community face hunger?”
The third lesson builds on the activism theme by declaring food to be “a human right for all people”; therefore, “students’ actions can make their school, neighborhood, and the world better by helping make sure everyone has the food they need.” (Truly? They’re 5 years old.)This lesson uses photos of drooping plants as a (very poor) metaphor for sharing food (“‘If there is only one pitcher of water, how should we water the plants? . . . . Ask students if one plant should get more water than another [maybe, depending on the type of plant!] and try to steer the conversation toward ‘sharing’ the water we have or ‘spreading around less to give all the plants some water [sic]”.) The lesson also tells teachers to show the children a video from an anti-hunger charity that includes images of children sleeping on sidewalks.
The final lesson, for the small children who probably don’t yet know their own address, or how to find their town or city on a map, is “Hunger Around the World.” They are to be shown the “World Hunger Map.” Once the children have “identif[ied] continents that experience the most hunger” (implying Africa and using Kenya as an object lesson), they “will learn that one way to help people that do not have enough food is to share what you have”. And then, the teacher is to impart the lesson’s grand finale (“Conclusion”):
Food is a human right and everyone in the world should have enough food to eat. If we are going to reach the Sustainable Development Goals to help the world, we need to create ways to make things more equitable.
Absolutely. Right after we learn to tie our shoes.