RHODE ISLAND EDUCATOR WORKSHOP SPONSORED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY INSTRUCTS TEACHERS IN HOW TO TRAIN STUDENTS TO REPORT "MISINFORMATION" BY FRIENDS, FAMILY AND TEACHERS.
Any student of history will tell you that the biggest weapons that tyrants and despots use are the children. In Nazi Germany, it was the Hitler Youth. Mao had his "Red Guard," and Stalin had his Komsomol, Young Pioneers, and Little Octobrists. If a leader can turn the children against their parents and families, he/she can expand tyranny and control a country for generations.
Criminal gangs and cults do the same thing.
They are very clever with their indoctrination. It starts small with seemingly innocuous messages and the promise to the children that there are people who love them and want them to be family because their real families don't have the right views and don't really care about them. Counselors tell children that their parents will hurt them. Think of all the children being told they are trans by psychologists and counselors and their parents are harming them by denying it. And then, they prescribe drugs to "help" them.
Now, with funding from the Department of Homeland Security, teachers are being taught how to turn kids into collaborators with government. A group called "Courageous Rhode Island" is training teachers in the techniques to turn children into "misinformation snitches." Here's their website:
Courageous RI | Media Literacy and Violence Prevention | Rhode Island
They are working with this group:
Home page | Media Education Lab
When you go to the Media Education Lab website, you will see reference to a familiar group from the past, "Courageous Conversations" from the Pacific Education Group.
The Rhode Island Group even uses part of the name in their title. This article discusses some of the problems of this group which took millions of dollars from multiple school districts* across the country, and has obviously recreated itself:
Pacific Educational Group Inc. - Parents Defending Education
The article below shares the purpose of the Pacific Education Group training, which is that children should be segregated children by race, that teachers should have separate behavior expectations for minority students, because those students supposedly come from cultures with radically different values, and that minority kids are incapable of learning and succeeding unless K-12 curriculum is specifically customized for them. These are just a few of the precepts. Others include a focus on "white privilege" and systemic racism in order to continue to divide people by race.
School districts spending millions on 'white privilege' training for employees (eagnews.org)
Now, the group Courageous RI has shifted part of the focus to promoting censorship and student activism that is defined by valuing student protest over academic achievement and collaboration with government agencies to report free speech.
Here is their mission:
Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, at least until you understand what they really mean. Let's start with "civic participation." In the recent Courageous RI seminar, one of the sessions was “Performative Activism and Protests,” pushing educators to “instruct children on how to stage student walk-outs and protests.” The article linked below describes how this activist indoctrination from other sources is replacing the teaching of academic content in school:
It's Not Civics Class, It's Progressive Activist Indoctrination! - Easton Gazette
Progressive educators in this country have determined that if they can convince children to protest and become activists for every cause ranging from climate change to transgender rights, they can capture the hearts and minds of these children and turn them against those who disagree with them. All the better if they can name that "civic participation." They do this all in the name of "eradicating hate" while they, at the same time, encourage students to vilify and hate those who disagree with them.
This easily connects with the concept of media literacy.
Rhode Island teacher Ramona Bessinger attended the media literacy training put on by Courageous RI in September 2023. In an article in
“Starting in September 2023, I attended a twelve-week online training through ‘Courageous Rhode Island’ at the University of Rhode Island, funded by a DHS grant of over $700,000,” high school teacher Ramona Bessinger made this comment in the article below:
School teacher sounds alarm on DHS-funded program – Ultimate Newswire
The curriculum also targets Republican elites, including Trump, for spreading conspiracy theories.
“The program is for K-12 teachers and is promoted as ‘media literacy.’ But it’s so much more than media literacy, and the impact of the training turned to teacher interaction with students and how students could be utilized as reporting sources,” Bessinger said.
“In the breakout sessions and project sessions, some teachers complained about their students with opposing views. According to one facilitator, these students were part of the ‘outer-group’ and would need to be brought back into the ‘inner-group’ specifically conservative students that may have outwardly expressed support for Trump,” Bessinger said. “These students were considered ‘violent extremist MAGA Republicans’ in the making. At every juncture, Trump was attacked and used to make the point that ‘violent extremism’ and “disinformation” were a result of ‘influencing entrepreneurs’ like Trump. When I asked for specific examples illustrating their point, none were forthcoming.”
She goes on to describe the curriculum more:
“The last five years have witnessed Republican elites in government and media (most notably Donald Trump) utilizing conspiracy theories in a way unprecedented in the last half century of American politics, and with severe, deleterious consequences for democratic institutions,” the curriculum states. “This alone has encouraged renewed conjecture about an asymmetry in conspiracy theory beliefs. "
So, while pretending to equip children with the discernment to consider sources and the viability and reliability of information, teachers delivering this curriculum are slanting that discernment to negatively portray those who don't agree with Progressive values.
We have seen examples of this in classrooms across America in children being punished for wearing clothing that shares their support of Trump while those wearing clothing supporting extreme political groups on the left are tolerated; children being suspended for using "incorrect" pronouns, and children being encouraged to leave school to protest for various leftist causes. This is all being done while children are the most susceptible to peer pressure.
Two examples:
OUT OF SCHOOL INTO PROTEST: Schools Use Kids To Push Leftist Politics. (youtube.com)
Forcing Kids To Push Leftist Causes Is Not Civics, Yet Schools Are Doing It (thefederalist.com)
Imagine now a school where classmates are told to "snitch" on their friends who state a Conservative viewpoint. Or a family where the children turn their parents in for posting something on social media that the government deems "misinformation." When we note that the Department of Homeland Security is funding this training, neither of these scenarios are out of the realm of possibility.
Is it all a part of the war on free speech in America? Possibly. Remember, once they indoctrinate the youth, they have an "army" of true believers for decades.
We can only hope that training of this sort is limited to certain states and areas. But, judging by what we have seen in the past, it's not.
Digital misinformation / disinformation and children | UNICEF Office of Global Insight & Policy
Here are some lessons and links to lessons from the Courageous RI website:
Snopes.com | The definitive fact-checking site and reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. (Notice whose picture is on the front of this article. And, do they know how unreliable and biased Snopes?)
The Miseducation of Dylann Roof | Learning for Justice (same group that sent materials on social justice to local teachers. Notice the focus on white extremism and not on other extremist groups.)
It would be one thing if they were showing teachers how to teach students to think carefully about information they get online and always check sources for reliability and motives, but they are actually doing the opposite and telling kids that sources which are Progressive are always trustworthy and those that are Conservative NEVER are. That is dangerous and in conflict with our Constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Keep your eyes open!
Curated Educator Resources | Courageous RI (note: The SPLC "Learning for Justice" materials are cited among these.)
*This includes Baltimore County Public Schools and Talbot County Public Schools in Maryland
