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4 months ago
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Campaigners have uncovered worrying teaching materials for the Pentagon's 160 military schools that many service members may see as unpatriotic and even scary.
Training manuals for its 8,000 teachers advise that Thanksgiving feasts have no historical basis and that America was founded on land 'stolen' from natives.
Though uncontroversial for some, Adam Andrzejewski, who uncovered the documents via public records requests, calls it a 'perverse' way to teach kids of service members.
His revelations come as Republicans and Democrats clash in the Senate over LGBTQ+ troops and other controversies in the $886 billion defense bill.
Andrzejewski, head of the conservative watchdog OpenTheBooks.com, described a 'secret push within the Pentagon's K-12 public schools to institute radical ideologies' in classrooms.
Military teachers are advised that Thanksgiving celebrations, like this one at a regular school, have no historical basis
Researchers at OpenTheBooks.com say military schools are engaged in a 'secret push' to indocitrinate youngsters
'Encouraging kids to place complex identities ahead of their shared American ideals is particularly shocking when it's happening to military families,' he told DailyMail.com.
'It's a perverse way to approach children of service members who are deployed around the world defending American ideals and principles.'
Aguilar's book says the 'brutality of colonialism has been erased.'
The military's education wing, DODEA, which runs schools across seven states, 11 foreign countries, Guam and Puerto Rico, declined to comment on the report.
Its annual $2.26 billion budget educates some 64,000 students and pays the salaries of 14,000 employees.
OpenTheBooks.com asked the Pentagon for copies of education and training materials related to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program.
Department of Defense educators replied with a range of its texts, including Coaching for Equity by the California-based consultant, Elena Aguilar.
Aguilar's 416-page book tells teachers that America was founded on 'stolen lands' through the 'genocide' of native people.
On the annual Thanksgiving celebration, she writes that there is 'little evidence this historical feast actually occurred' in the Plymouth area in the early 1600s.
But there is 'plenty of evidence of the massacres that the white settlers perpetrated on the native peoples,' she adds.
'History has been sanitized, and the brutality of colonialism has been erased,' says her teaching guide.
'This perpetuates the power of white supremacy.'
Some teachers in military schools have spoken out about the 'Marxist direction' of Pentagon education chiefs
Kelisa Wing made anti-white posts on social media when she ran a Pentagon DEI unit
This widely-shared educational diagram presents the world as divided between the 'marginalized' and the 'powerful,' with slim, educated, English-speaking, straight white people at the top
DailyMail.com asked DODEA if the text was used by all teachers, and whether it reflects official Pentagon thinking, but did not get a response.
Spokesman Will Griffin instead referred to the 'caring, supportive environment' at military schools, their 'culture of high achievement' and their 'dedicated educators and resilient, hardworking' students.
Andrzejewski's 16-page report details other controversial teaching guides that form the basis of lessons in classrooms on military bases.
They include Ibram Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist, Comprehensive Health Skills for Middle School, and lesson plans by the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Adam Andrzejewski says military kids are being 'indoctrinated'
The health book advances the notion that biological sex and gender are separate — a point that is popular among transgender activists but is contested by conservatives and experts in the field.
SPLC lessons encourage students to become community activists, and to pressure businesses and politicians to achieve 'social justice' for minorities, says the report.
Classroom materials also include the notorious 'Wheel of Power/Privilege.'
The widely-shared diagram presents the world as divided between the 'marginalized' and the 'powerful,' with slim, educated, English-speaking, straight white people at the top.
Students also learn about 'racial bias,' 'systemic racism,' 'privilege,' and other ideas aligned to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Taken individually, these materials may be unproblematic.
But Andrzejewski says they have overwhelmed military schools and amount to the 'indoctrination' of the kids of those serving in uniform.
It's not the first time Pentagon educators have come under fire.
Its DEI unit was disbanded last year under pressure from Republican lawmakers amid allegations that its then-director, Kelisa Wing, made anti-white posts on social media.
The Pentagon's education wing operates 160 schools across seven states, two territories and 11 foreign countries
Andrzejewski says educators still teach the same controversial subjects, but keep it under the radar.
Many parents support efforts to tackle deep-rooted racism.
Others say America has worked hard to achieve equality and that zealots just want to make white people feel guilty as a type of 'reverse racism.'
Teachers in military schools have spoken out against the 'Marxist direction' that education chiefs are touting, according to a Fox News article that does not name the teachers.
They complained about 'wokeism' in teaching materials that for one amounted to 'Chinese indoctrination.'
Senators are currently debating culture war issues as part of the annual passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The latest version of the bill would ban the US military from covering surgeries for transgender troops, and bar its health system from providing cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers and other sex change procedures to military kids.
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