by Lisa McLoughlin
IB Education Reporter
TAIB has demonstrated in numerous ways how IBO is affiliated with the UN. Yet time and time again, IB supporters rail against this fact, claiming that we have no “proof” that IB actually “teaches” UN ideology in the classroom. It is TAIB’s contention that while it’s pretty difficult to inject indoctrination into algebra, IB has embraced the UN’s overall anti-American, one world government agenda and posits questions and topics to students in such a way that the global perspective, is the correct one.
In 2004, when Lisa McLoughlin interviewed with Jay Mathews for his book Supertest, she critiqued a speech of former IBO Director General George Walker’s, in which he celebrated Jean Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy and called for a new “social compact”. While looking for more evidence of IB’s definition of “international education”, McLoughlin came across the following 2005 speech by Walker.
“This movement of – let us now use the accepted name of international education – gathered momentum after the Second World War and in 1946 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was established with the inspirational introduction to its constitution, attributed to the American poet, Archibald Macleish. Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed. I said I would return to UNESCO and I do so because in 1974, its General Conference adopted a recommendation urging all member states to reflect the following guiding principles in the design of their national programmes of education:
– an international dimension and a global perspective in education at all levels and in all its forms
– understanding and respect for all peoples, their cultures, civilizations, values and ways of life, including domestic ethnic cultures and cultures of other nations
– awareness of the increasing global interdependence between peoples and nations – abilities to communicate with others
– awareness not only of the rights but also of the duties incumbent upon all individuals, social groups and nations towards each other
– understanding of the necessity for international solidarity and cooperation
– readiness on the part of the individual to participate in solving the problems of his community, his country and the world at large
Twenty years later, in 1994, these principles, which build a bridge between education for the nation and education for the world, were accepted by the world’s ministers of education meeting in Geneva. So let us be clear what this means. Every country that is a member of UNESCO has agreed to build an international dimension into its national programmes of education.”
I understand the term ‘globalization’ to mean more than the movement of different forms of capital around the world; more than the rapid transfer of information. I understand it to embrace those activities which can only be studied meaningfully from a global, rather than a national, perspective. So, for me, ‘globalization’ includes the steady environmental degradation of our planet, it includes the management of disease, it includes human migration and it includes a knowledge of and respect for the organizations (WHO, IOM, ILO and WMO, for example) that are trying to manage the impact of globalization, particularly on those people who are least able to manage it themselves. And let me remind you that it was the vision and drive of two American presidents, in 1919 and again in 1945, that created first the League and then the United Nations which led to all those UN-related organizations.”
George Walker viewed himself as an international educational diplomat. He was also IBO’s most outgoing, outspoken and prolific snake-oil salesman. His product? IB. There is no way any sane and rational individual can deny beyond a shadow of a doubt that IB’s mission to create “global citizens” is completely, utterly and entirely based upon a UN agenda.
Unfortunately, one of George W. Bush’s major points of confusion was to rejoin the U.S. to UNESCO. Walker’s entire argument above hinges on the United States’ membership in UNESCO as agreeing to buy into IB which to the best of my knowledge is the ONLY international education product on the market. Remember, Ronald Reagan withdrew the U.S.’s membership from UNESCO. Perhaps with Scott Brown’s victory, we can look forward to 2012 when a new President and withdrawal from UNESCO can once again be possible.
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“In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher has many parts to play… He can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation… At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession.” — National Education Association Journal, 1946