Click for original.

You want to know why today’s kids know nothing about America’s past, and in fact in many cases actually believe falsely that America invented slavery and has always been an evil oppressive nation founded on that even more evil concept of capitalism, you need only compare pictures of two typical public school classrooms, one from 1909 and one from 2025.

The picture to the right was taken in 1909, showing an elementary classroom in the Washington, DC area. Note the picture of President Teddy Roosevelt on the wall, surrounded by American flags. Note the blackboard that covers two entire walls, its entire face filled with detailed information these children were expected to learn. Note how there is nothing else. Very clearly the focus is on learning the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, with a lot of American history and science thrown in as well. As noted in the article of many such vintage classroom images from which this picture was drawn:

Students wear their best clothes for this formal photograph. The classroom features standard educational decor of the period—portraits of historical figures, maps, and instructional charts. Such photographs documented not just the students but the educational standards and resources of local communities.

As a child who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, I can say that the classrooms of my day were quite similar. There was almost always a portrait of George Washington and the Declaration of Independence on the wall, along with map of the world and the U.S. And above all, the focus was on learning basic facts and essential skills.

The next picture below was taken in 2025 by a parent of an 11-year-old boy while attending a parent orientation night. It is also typical of the classrooms one sees nowadays in the public schools, and the contrast is more than striking.

Click for original.

Though it also has an American flag, it appears it is there almost as an afterthought. And as for the blackboards (now white), they are covered not by real information that the kids need to learn but by LBGQT+ pride flags. As the parent noted in posting these images,

The classrooms were inundated with DEI messages and trans pride flags. On the walls there were posters, stickers and various decorations that all invoked the various totems of diversity. Black lives matter messaging, decolonization messaging, LGBTQ+ messaging, and basically ever sort of race and gender social justice messaging you can imagine was present. The advertisements for post secondary opportunities featured social justice education prominently, including advertising a course on “indigenous ways of knowing” as something grade 12 students should pursue upon graduation. Many of the teachers has “this is a safe space” sticker sign their doors, and others had variations of “in this house” messaging on their doors or on the walls of the classroom. [emphasis mine]

The “safe space” sticker is especially telling. The academic fad of declaring places “safe spaces” is possible the worst idea any academic ever invented. To have an open-mind and the ability to think critically the last place you want to be is in a “safe space,” where different ideas are banned and you are kept nicely protected from being challenged. That public school teachers today are pushing this idiotic idea tells you they have no concept of what teaching is all about. If anything, they are anti-teachers, working hard to shrink and calcify the minds of the children in their care.

So what do these images tell us?

In 1909, the goal of the public schools was to teach kids knowledge, real information that kids could use to become good and productive adults in a mature society. In 2025, the goal of the public schools is to indoctrinate. Real information is irrelevant and is in fact avoided at all costs. Instead, what is pounded into the kids’ heads is Marxist anti-American racist ideology, designed to make them hate their country while knowing as little about its history as possible.

I’ll say it again: If you have children, home school them. And if they are presently in public schools get them out as quickly as possible. The public schools are not only failing to teach them anything worthwhile, it is poisoning their brains with very bad ideas that have routinely led to poverty, starvation, and the murder of millions.