Vol. 8, No. 6, 1991

Articles on the New Age

Rick Branch

The 1960's motto of the hippie generation was "Anything Goes." Unfortunately, the hippies of the 1960's have become the educated yuppies of the 1990's.

With the ageing of the flower children came many changes. However, one thing that did not change was their basic belief in how to determine what is true.

In the Philosophical realm their idea of truth is called Subjective Truth or Relativism. In education circles, this same concept is renamed and called Values Clarification or Non-directive Education.

But what do all these terms mean to parents and most importantly to the children of America?

It means, "Anything goes!"

Exchanging the PEACE sign and Flower Power buttons for college degrees, the hippie turned yuppie has also exchanged the slogan "Anything Goes" for a more reputable sounding synonym - Non-directive Education.

Non-directive Education

The terms Values Clarification or Non-directive Education are the process whereby each student chooses his or her own moral standards apart from any influence by others.

Outside influence is not to be accepted from anyone, not the child's pastor, not even the child's parents.

As the Eagle Forum has correctly observed, "The use of values clarification techniques clearly results in alienation between children and parents. The whole process conveys the message that parents have no right to even attempt to shape the moral development of their children.

"Children start to believe that parents were wrong to teach them that there are moral absolutes to guide their behavior" (Program 66, p. 4).

No longer can parents send children to school naively believing that they are being taught only the traditional "Three R's."

Perhaps the student is being taught "Three R's." However, rather than being "Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmatic," the school is explaining the New Age concepts of "Relaxation, Relativism and Reality manipulation."

For this reason it is categorically imperative that parents begin to take an active role in the education of their children.

In The Classroom

With the beginning of another school year came a new crop of textbooks. One such book was written by Sidney Simon, Leland Howe and Howard Kirschenbaum.

Watchman Expositor readers will remember the name Howard Kirschenbaum from the article on Quest in a previous issue (Vol. 8, Number 3, 1991).

Kirschenbaum is formerly the director of the National Humanistic Education Center which has been renamed the National Coalition for Democracy in Education (Quest Program, Mel Gabler, p. 1).

What is this new book, published for the new school year? Its name is Values Clarification: A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students.

Published in 1972, it has enjoyed wide circulation in classrooms across America since its inception.

The jacket cover explains the purpose of the book and how it is to be used in a classroom situation.

"Designed to engage students and teachers in the active formulation and examination of values, this book is unique in content and format.

"It does not teach a particular set of values. There is no sermonizing or moralizing.

"The goal is to involve students in practical experiences, making them aware of their own feelings, their own ideas, their own beliefs, so that the choices and decisions they make are conscious and deliberate, based on their own value systems."

This avoidance of moralizing is reiterated in more concise words in the introduction of the book.

It explains, "Thus, the values-clarification approach does not aim to instill any particular set of values" (p. 20).

After explaining that the boundaries for morals are set by each individual, for each individual, and cannot be standardized for all, the students are then given seventy-nine value clarification exercises.

These exercises become progressively complicated.

One example is Exercise Number Six. (An easy one?)

The instructions are, "The teacher gives students or asks them to construct a `forced choice ladder...'

"Then the teacher presents a series of statements, situations, or alternatives which call for value judgments by the students.

"Following the reading of each item the student is to write key words from the item on one of the steps of the ladder according to the strength of his feelings, pro or con, about that item" (pp. 98-99).

Exercise Number Six then continues with the examples which are to be judged by each student. Remember, no moral decision can be deemed incorrect.

"The neighborhood grouch wants to get even with the prankster. She has prepared one apple with a nail in it. She plans to give it to the boy who ruined her carpet."

Another example in this exercise, which is not necessarily morally better or worse (according to non-directive education) is as follows:

"A man reports his neighbor to the Internal Revenue Bureau because he heard him mention at a party that he put something over on the government on his income tax" (p. 103).

According to the philosophy of values clarification and non-directive education, if a student felt it was morally worse to call the IRS than to give a spiked apple to a child, neither the teacher nor the parents should - nor has the right to - correct the student.

Conclusion

From a biblical perspective, the Bible mandates that parents (especially Christian parents) should raise their children according to God's Word (Proverbs 22:6).

From a psychological perspective, although children test the waters of independence occasionally, they do not have the necessary experiences nor psychological capabilities to always make correct moral judgments.

Without instilling the future generation with a knowledge of the obvious necessary moral boundaries and limitations on which civilized society is built, society's ultimate destiny is chaos.