The modus operandi of the United Nations is to present an impossible-to-criticize wish-list, then to act as though the impossible were somehow achievable (such as SDG 1, “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”; contra Mt. 26:11, “you always have the poor with you”). The devil, as they say, is in the details.
By their very impossibility (“Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development“), and the fact that, like numbers counting up to infinity, there is no end to the project, the goals run cover for a radical plan to restructure our institutions, in particular, and our culture, more broadly.
This is clearly visible in the realm of education. The closer one looks, the more obvious it becomes that “sustainability” functions as a comprehensive worldview – stated otherwise, as a religion – and that the intention is to use schools as one of the primary vehicles to remake all of society. However, as we shall also see, for the master planners, the United States is a particularly tough nut to crack.
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[Sustainable Development] Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Could anyone possibly object to improving lives through education? Or to the idea that you’re never too old or too young to learn? (Set aside for the time being what concepts might be buried within the terms “inclusive,” “equitable,” and “lifelong learning.”) The overall aspirations appear anodyne; the hidden agenda appears within the “targets” that support this “goal.”
While the bulk of the SDG 4 targets call for expanded educational, all-ages access to “quality” education in broadened, “equitable” ways, Target 4.7 just sounds . . . different:
4.7. “By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development“
https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda (emphasis added).
The language of this “target” raises many questions:
- What are “the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development” (which sounds like activism in the classroom)?
- What is “education for sustainable development”?
- What is meant by a “sustainable lifestyle”?
- What is “global citizenship”?
- How does the UN propose to shape students to in turn shape “culture [to contribute] to sustainable development”?
If “sustainability” is starting to sound suspiciously like a secular religion, and “global citizenship” sounds like a call for one-world government, there is a reason. The roots of these concepts run deep at the UN.
Brave UNESCO World
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the UN infrastructure designed to promote its more “soft power” means of attaining heaven-on-earth. It was created in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of World War II to “bring people together and strengthen the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind, through mutual understanding and dialogue between cultures.” Its “clear vision” is that “to achieve lasting peace, economic and political agreements among States are not enough.” https://www.unesco.org/en/history
Some families have an outsized impact on world affairs. In the Twentieth Century, the Huxleys of Britain were such a family. Physiologist Andrew Huxley won the 1963 Nobel Prize in medicine. Writer and philosopher Aldous, in 1932, had published Brave New World, one of the two premier English-language dystopian novels of the twentieth century (along with George Orwell’s 1984). And, most importantly for our purposes, in the years between those singular accomplishments by his brothers, Julian Huxley became the first Director-General of UNESCO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huxley_family
In 1946 in a pamphlet called UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, Julian Huxley called on UNESCO to “stimulate the quest . . . for a world philosophy, a unified and unifying background of thought for the modern world.” [p. 41; emphasis added] In fact, Huxley had long advocated for a one-world, secular religion of “evolutionary humanism”.
Thus, the new Director-General sought “a single common pool of experience, awareness, and purpose” for humanity. [p. 17] He believed that such a “united . . . tradition” was the key to mankind’s progress and “that the best and only certain way of securing this will be through political unification.” [p. 13; emphasis added] Therefore, the seeds of a new, secular religion – given form in our time as “sustainability” – and of the push toward “global [as opposed to national] citizenship” were sown at UNESCO from its inception.
This “utopian world-scale political ideal,” though its popularity has waxed and waned since the publication of Huxley’s pamphlet, appears alive and well in Agenda 2030, and in particular in UNESCO’s “Education 2030 Framework for Action,” an initiative to shepherd the implementation of SDG 4. Nevertheless, while the central planners have a grand vision for all our lives (and, judging by their written output, appear to get paid by the word), they can’t always get what they want.
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We Will Get It Right “This Time”
SDG 4 is far from the UN’s only recent education master plan. Before that, there were the education prongs of the MDGs (“Millennium Development Goals”), as well as the EFA (“Education for All”) initiative. Both sets of goals set 2015 as their target completion date, and none was completed on time (though the UN claims the MDGs were responsible for meaningful improvements on numerous anti-poverty metrics in the developing world).
Undaunted, in the Education 2030 Framework for Action, UNESCO member states strode forward “with a sense of urgency” to implement their new, global, and “transformative” plan. Education 2030 Framework, p. 7. Indeed, “[e]very effort must be made to guarantee that this time the goal and targets are achieved.” [p. 22.] Not only that – these goals are even more ambitious than the previous, unrealized goals. In a companion guide to the framework, UNESCO says,
SDG4 therefore pursues this unfinished education agenda, but also goes beyond. . . . SDG4 continues the EFA focus on quality basic education for all and broadens the agenda further to include concern for equitable access to post-basic education. . . . What is also new to SDG4 is the focus on the relevance of learning outcomes both for the world of work, as well as for citizenship in a global and interconnected world.
Unpacking Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education 2030 Guide, p. 9 (emphasis added).
The Education 2030 Guide also repeats the definitions used in the overall agenda, and (of course) generates some new acronyms. “Sustainable development” is viewed across “three dimensions – economic, social and environmental”. And the sustainability “agenda” asserts “a universality of principles (human rights), [and a] universality of reach (focus on equity and inclusion)[.]” [p. 10] As for the acronyms, education for sustainable development is now “ESD.” Global citizenship education is now “GCED”. [p. 14]
SDG 4 Intrudes FAR Beyond Literacy and Numeracy
According to the guide, ESD and GCED can provide people with education that is
relevant, with a focus on both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of learning. [Via ESD and GCED, “citizens” can acquire the] knowledge, skills, values and attitudes required . . . to lead productive lives[.]
[p. 14, emphasis added.] Linger on that statement for a moment. The UN has its sights set on “transforming” education, from near-cradle to grave, now to include college, university, and vocational training. It also seeks to “transform” the entire global population’s “values and attitudes,” with a focus that includes “non-cognitive aspects of learning” – a.k.a., social-emotional learning, or “SEL.” (We will explore the centrality of SEL to SDG 4 – and to the entirety of the progressive education agenda – in future posts.)
What hubris.
Whither the United States?
The United States has had an on-again, off-again relationship with UNESCO. At the time of the adoption of the Education 2030 documents, the US was not a voting member. It is currently listed on the UNESCO website as a “Non member.”
Still, that does not mean that UNESCO cannot promote SDG 4 within the US. After all, the US government in the Obama years “enthusiastically” supported the adoption of Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (as we saw in Part One), and at least a few members of Congress are SDG champions (as we saw in Part Two). So, what does the organization’s advocacy look like in the United States? Have schools, quietly or explicitly, embraced “ESD,” or “GCED?” And has the federal government done anything to implement SDG 4?
Stay tuned.