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Dephi Technique used to force 21st Century Learning into Schools Across America

By Alice Linahan Oct. 9, 2018

Did you know…

The Delphi Technique was developed by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Defense back in the 1950s. It was originally intended for use as a psychological weapon during the cold war.

However, it was soon recognized that the steps of Delphi could be extremely valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a predetermined end.”

When we talk about the “Shift” in Education moving from an academic knowledge-based education of “Opportunity”- (Equal Opportunity), where children are taught reading, writing, math, and history, to an education of “Equity”- (Equal Outcomes), based on Attitudes, Values, Beliefs, Behaviors and changing a child’s worldview, for the good of the community; that is a template to fundamentally change America.

The tactics used have been well defined and executed.

Using effective “Community Engagement”, known as the Delphi technique, in coordination with a strategic planning process; state education boards, commissioners of ed, and school districts, along with trade organizations and non-profits are creating a new education system, known as a (P-20W) Pre-K through the Workforce; focused on the environment, learning standards, assessments and accountability of teachers, forcing them to implement the education transformation.

We have seen it first hand in Texas: TASA’s High Tech High~ Changing a Child’s Mind and America’s Future 

Now, understanding that it was the Rand Corporation that developed the Delphi method, it makes this Women on the Wall interview I had with Diana Anderson, and what we were told during it, even more interesting.

On the Women On the Wall conference call, Diana Anderson shared with us information that got her engaged in the battle to expose Education Reform and Goals 2000 back in the 1990s.

The first dot Diana was exposed to was Goals 2000 in 1995, which she memorized. This caused her to continue to ask questions and research even deeper.

Diana’s second dot came when her local superintendent, Dr. Ted Adams, gave her a Newsletter of the Medford Educational Institute, Inc., Volume 2, No. 5 May-June, 1996- about a symposium between some American  and Russian educators. The goal of the symposium was to discuss recommendations for Global Education Reform. What they did, was to essentially resurrect Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin’s favorite teachers and psychologists.

This symposium might have been dismissed, yet, some who were participants were very impressive.

  • Keynote Speaker: Mikhail Krasovitskij Dir. Institute of Advanced Teacher Training, Ukraine
  • Dr. Roger W. Benjamin from the Rand Corporation.
  • A. Benoit Eklof, Institute for the Study of Russian Education, Indiana Univ.
  • Dimitri Margulis, Former Editor of “Ridna Shkola”, Ukraine
  • Ford Stevenson, Brigham Young Unversity
  • Steven Thorpe, Southern Oregon State College
  • Sherman Rosenfeld with Weizmann Institute of Science and Technology, Isreal 

When Diana read the newsletter she was anxious to find out more about those who participated, and, in particular, about the Russian educators they had resurrected. In the newsletter, it was stated, they wanted to “take the vulgarity out of Leninism”. 

One of the Russian educators they had resurrected was Anton Makarenko. He was born in January 1888  and died in April 1939). Makarenko was a Soviet educator, social worker, and writer, and the most influential educational theorist in the Soviet Union. Markarenko rehabilitated juvenile delinquents at Gorky and Dzerjhinski’s penal colonies and was the one who developed the communistic system for Lenin. He was especially liked by Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, who served as the Soviet Union’s Deputy Minister of Education from 1929 until her death in 1939.

My question then became; how did we get to this point in America? What happened before that prompted the symposium in 1996?

If we go back to the late 19th Century, a lot of influence was gained in the United States by German psychologist William Wundt. As noted by Charlotte Iserbyt, a true hero in the battle to expose the social reconstruction of America…

“Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology, was born in 1832 in Neckarau, Germany, graduated as a medical doctor from Heidelberg University in 1856. He worked at Heidelberg for the next seventeen years, ultimately becoming a professor in the field of psychology. Psychology, at that time, meant simply the study (ology) of the soul (psyche), or mind. In 1874, Wundt left Heidelberg to take a position as professor of philosophy at Zurich, stayed there only one year, and then accepted a chair in philosophy at the University of Leipzig where he spent the rest of his academic career. He died in 1920. Wundt was the founder of experimental psychology and the force behind its dissemination throughout the western world.”

From Wundt’s work, it was only a short step to the later redefinition of the meaning of education. Originally, education meant the drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc. the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve. To the experimental psychologist, however, education became the process of exposing the student to meaningful experiences so as to ensure desired reactions: the situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurons, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences. (Rudolph Pintner, et al, An Outline of Educational Psychology, 1934, page 79).

Wundt’s thesis laid the philosophical basis for the principles of conditioning later developed by Pavlov (who studied physiology in Leipzig, in 1884, five years after Wundt had inaugurated his laboratory there) and American behavioral psychologists such as Watson and Skinner.” 

Then, the 20th Century was a time of major organization building through key foundations. Below is information and dates exposed by Charlotte Isterbyt, in her book, ‘The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.’ 

THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING WAS FOUNDED IN 1905. Henry S. Pritchett served as the Foundation’s first president.

CARNEGIE AND ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATIONS PLANNED THE DEMISE OF TRADITIONAL ACADEMIC education in 1918. Rockefeller’s focus would be national education; Carnegie would be in charge of international education.

THE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION (IIE) WAS FOUNDED IN 1919 THROUGH A grant from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Institute’s purpose was to operate a student exchange program. This process of “exchanges” grew in concept and practice with the IIE administering visitor exchange programs for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in the 1990s. The U.S.-Soviet Education Agreements were negotiated by the Carnegie Endowment’s parent organization, the Carnegie Corporation, fostering exchanges of curriculum, pedagogy, and materials as well as students.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York, in 1934 published the most important report ever written on the future of American education.

Here is a copy of the Carnegie report from 1034: file:///Users/alicelinahan/Desktop/Report_On_The_Commission_On_Social_Studies-Krey-Counts-Kimmel-Kelley-1934-179pgs-EDU.sml.pdf  Of utmost importance is the following admission of the planners’ goals to change our free
enterprise/representative republic: 

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES (CHAS. SCRIBNER’S SONS: New York, 1934) compiled by the American Historical Association was published. This book was the result of a project funded to the tune of $340,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York called “Investigation of the Social Studies in the Schools,” and was carried out by the American Historical Association. Professor Harold Laski, a philosopher of British socialism, said of this report: “At bottom, and stripped of its carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a Socialist America.”4

Important excerpts from Conclusions follow:

  • [Preface] The Commission is under special obligation to its sponsor, the American Historical Association. Above all, it recognizes its indebtedness to the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, whose financial aid made possible the whole five-year investigation of social science instruction in the schools, eventuating in the following Conclusions and Recommendations.

 

  • The Commission could not limit itself to a survey of textbooks, curricula, methods of instruction, and schemes of examination, but was impelled to consider the condition and prospects of the American people as a part of Western Civilization merging into a world order. (p. 1)

 

  • The Commission was also driven to this broader conception of its task by the obvious fact that American civilization, in common with Western civilization, is passing through one of the great critical ages of history, is modifying its traditional faith in economic individualism, and is embarking upon vast experiments in social planning and control which call for large-scale cooperation on the part of the people…. (pp. 1–2) Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that in the United States as in other countries, the age of laissez faire in economy and government is closing and a new age of collectivism is emerging…. (p.16)

 

  • The implications for education are clear and imperative: (a) the efficient functioning of the emerging economy and the full utilization of its potentialities require profound changes in the attitudes and outlook of the American people, especially the rising generation—a complete and frank recognition that the old order is passing, that the new order is emerging.... (pp. 34–35)

 

  • Organized public education in the United States, much more than ever before, is now compelled if it is to fulfill its social obligations, to adjust its objectives, its curriculum, its methods of instruction, and its administrative procedures to the requirements of the emerging integrated order.

 

  • If the school is to justify its maintenance and assume its responsibilities, it must recognize the new order and proceed to equip the rising generation to cooperate effectively in the increasingly interdependent society and to live rationally and well within its limitations and possibilities…. Signed: A.C. Krey, Chairman; Charles A. Beard; Isaiah Bowman (signed with reservations printed as Appendix C); Ada Comstock; George S. Counts; Avery O. Craven; Guy Stanton Ford; Carlton J.H. Hayes; Henry Johnson; A.C. Krey; Leon C. Marshall; Jesse H. Newton; Jesse F. Steiner. (Frank A. Ballou, Edmund E. Day, Ernest Hom, and Charles E. Merriam declined to sign these Conclusions.) (p. 35)

 

Charlotte Isterbyt was 100 % on target when she wrote…

“The United States membership in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1946 set in motion the destabilization of our society through the rejection of absolute morals and values, Judeo-Christian tradition, and Roman law. Legislation authorizing United States membership in UNESCO marked the end of United States autonomy in a very crucial area: that of education. From this time on UNESCO would dictate education policy to our government and others.” (Deliberate Dumbing Down of America) (p.27) 

I will be going more indepth with information connecting the dots to UNESCO in subsequent posts, but for now… Please read below and understand, we must educate ourselves, so we can protect our children and grandchildren; the next generation of Americans.

________________
The Delphi Technique: Let’s Stop Being Manipulated!
By Albert V. Burns

More and more, we are seeing citizens being invited to “participate” in various forms of meetings, councils, or boards to “help determine” public policy in one field or another. They are supposedly being included to get ”input” from the public to help officials make final decisions on taxes, education, community growth or whatever the particular subject matter might be.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, surface appearances are often deceiving.

You, Mr. or Mrs. Citizen, decide to take part in one of these meetings.

Generally, you will find that there is already someone designated to lead or “facilitate” the meeting. Supposedly, the job of the facilitator is to be a neutral, non-directing helper to see that the meeting flows smoothly.

Actually, he or she is there for exactly the opposite reason: to see that the conclusions reached during the meeting are in accord with a plan already decided upon by those who called the meeting.

The process used to “facilitate” the meeting is called the Delphi Technique. This Delphi Technique was developed by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Defense back in the 1950s. It was originally intended for use as a psychological weapon during the cold war.

However, it was soon recognized that the steps of Delphi could be very valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a predetermined end.

How does the process take place? The techniques are well developed and well defined.

First, the person who will be leading the meeting, the facilitator or Change Agent must be a likable person with whom those participating in the meeting can agree or sympathize.

It is, therefore, the job of the facilitator to find a way to cause a split in the audience, to establish one or a few of the people as “bad guys” while the facilitator is perceived as the “good guy.”

Facilitators are trained to recognize potential opponents and how to make such people appear aggressive, foolish, extremist, etc. Once this is done, the facilitator establishes himself or herself as the “friend” of the rest of the audience.

The stage is now set for the rest of the agenda to take place.

At this point, the audience is generally broken up into “discussion—or ‘breakout’—groups” of seven or eight people each. Each of these groups is to be led by a subordinate facilitator.

Within each group, discussion takes place of issues, already decided upon by the leadership of the meeting. Here, too, the facilitator manipulates the discussion in the desired direction, isolating and demeaning opposing viewpoints.

Generally, participants are asked to write down their ideas and disagreements with the papers to be turned in and “compiled” for general discussion after the general meeting is reconvened.

This is the weak link in the chain, which you are not supposed to recognize. Who compiles the various notes into the final agenda for discussion? Ahhhh! Well, it is those who are running the meeting.

How do you know that the ideas on your notes were included in the final result? You Don’t! You may realize that your idea was not included and come to the conclusion that you were probably in the minority. Recognize that every other citizen member of this meeting has written his or her likes or dislikes on a similar sheet of paper and they, too, have no idea whether their ideas were “compiled” into the final result! You don’t even know if anyone’s ideas are part of the final “conclusions” presented to the reassembled group as the “consensus” of public opinion.

Rarely does anyone challenge the process, since each concludes that he or she was in the minority and different from all the others.

So, now, those who organized the meeting in the first place are able to tell the participants and the rest of the community that the conclusions, reached at the meeting, are the result of public participation.

Actually, the desired conclusions had been established, in the back room, long before the meeting ever took place. There are variations in the technique to fit special situations but, in general, the procedure outlined above takes place.

The natural question to ask here is: If the outcome was preordained before the meeting took place, why have the meeting? Herein lies the genius of this Delphi Technique.

It is imperative that the general public believe that this program is theirs! They thought it up! They took part in its development! Their input was recognized!

If people believe that the program is theirs, they will support it.

If they get the slightest hint that the program is being imposed upon them, they will resist.

This very effective technique is being used, over and over and over, to change our form of government from the representative republic, intended by the Founding Fathers, into a “participatory democracy.” Now, citizens chosen at large are manipulated into accepting preset outcomes while they believe that the input they provided produced the outcomes which are now theirs! The reality is that the final outcome was already determined long before any public meetings took place, determined by individuals unknown to the public. Can you say “Conspiracy?”

These “Change Agents” or “Facilitators” can be beaten! They may be beaten using their own methods against them.

Because it is so important, I will repeat the suggestions I gave in the last previous column. One: Never, never lose your temper! Lose your temper and lose the battle, it is that simple! Smile, if it kills you to do so. Be courteous at all times. Speak in a normal tone of voice.

Two: Stay focused! Always write your question or statement down in advance to help you remember the exact manner in which your question or statement was made.

These agents are trained to twist things to make anyone not acceding to their agenda look silly or aggressive. Smile, wait till the change agent gets done speaking and then bring them back to your question. If they distort what you said, simply remind those in the group that what he or she is saying is not what you asked or said and then repeat, verbatim, from your notes the original objection.

Three: Be persistent! Wait through any harangues and then repeat the original question. (Go back and reread the previous column.)

Four: (I wish to thank a reader of the previous column for some EXCELLENT suggestions.) Don’t go alone! Get as many friends or relatives who think as you do, to go along with you to the meeting. Have each person ”armed” with questions or statements which all generally support your central viewpoint. Don’t sit together as a group! Spread out through the audience so that your group does not seem to be a group.

When the facilitator or change agent avoids answering your question and insists that he must move on so everyone may have a chance to speak, your own agents in the audience can then ask questions, worded differently, but still with the same meaning as yours. They can bring the discussion back to your original point.

They could even point out, in a friendly manner, that the agent did not really answer your question. The more the agent avoids your question, and the more your friends bring that to the attention of the group, the more the audience will shift in your favor.

To quote my informant: “Turn the technique back on them and isolate the change agent as the kook. I’ve done it and seen steam come out of the ears of those power brokers in the wings who are trying to shove something down the citizen’s throats. And it’s so much fun to watch the moderator squirm and lose his cool, all while trying to keep a smile on his face.”

Now that you understand how meetings are manipulated, let’s show them up for the charlatans which they are.

Published in the September 23, 2002, issue of Ether Zone.

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