The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education

by James Lindsay

In many cases, especially under the auspices of Social-Emotional Learning, these sorts of generative themes are not just used politically but to evoke emotional discussions about the themes. This is consistent with Robert Jay Lifton’s italicized remark that the penetration of the brainwashing materials into the emotional lives of the prisoners is the outstanding fact of thought reform. Students will be asked how it must have felt to be Ruby Bridges, or a person (who looks) like Ruby Bridges, or a person (who looks) like the racists who owned or sold slaves or someone who discriminated against racial or sexual minorities. A particular angle on this might be to try to get students to explain what it would feel like to be, say, a poor black person who believes the reason they are poor is systemic or structural racism. This forces the children to enter into a state of believing systemic racism is real instead of a particular (and purposed) interpretation of the world through their emotions, which easily deny logic and evidence.