How “educators” want to prepare 16-year-olds to make the “right” choice

In Germany, the left-wing political class has already lowered the voting age for EU and local elections to 16, because underage teenagers are easily influenced with “noble socialist ideologies” and can be won over as young voters. Before the recent elections, test votes (junior elections) were carried out in schools and it was found that in many cases half of the students eligible to vote preferred the AfD, which was also confirmed after the election. Great dismay! Even in a Waldorf school, many teachers now want to change this by no longer remaining neutral, but by expressing their political opinion in front of the students, of course without trying to influence the students, they claim.

They feel encouraged to do so, among others, by a statement from the Education and Science Union (GEW), which announced on its website on April 25, 2024: “Teachers do not have to be neutral.” This is a misconception that persists, the statement claims. It is their task, as defined by the Basic Law and state school laws, to teach students democratic values such as human rights and tolerance, as it further explains. Strict neutrality could prevent important discussions and impair students’ education.

When it comes to political conflicts in school, teachers do not have to remain neutral. Especially when dealing with difficult topics, it is important to examine all perspectives, but at the same time to show a clear stance against anti-Semitism and racism, glorification of violence and inhumane statements, the document claims.

“This also applies to the discussion of the AfD in class. Maike Finnern, the chairwoman of the GEW, called on teachers in an interview with the Stuttgarter Zeitung 2 to deal with the AfD in class. ‘The AfD is a party with anti-constitutional tendencies. Teachers can and should say that in the classroom, ‘ said Finnern.”

So basically it’s about bringing the political struggle of the left-wing parties against the right-wing AfD into schools through left-wing teachers and influencing students aged 16 and over who are eligible to vote so that they don’t vote for this party, which is approved as a democratic party and has not been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court.

Some teachers believe that one does not violate the Beutelsbach Consensus formulated in the 1970s for political education if one only expresses one’s personal opinion (about the AfD) to the students. Point 1 of the consensus states:

“It is not permitted to overwhelm the student – by whatever means – with desired opinions and thus prevent them from forming an independent opinion. This is precisely where the line between political education and indoctrination lies. Indoctrination, however, is incompatible with the role of the teacher in a democratic society and the – widely accepted – goal of the student’s maturity.”

However, the teacher’s own opinion of the AfD is precisely intended to ensure that the students do not vote for them. And since students at this age are still in the phase of trying out their own judgments and are not yet capable of making independent judgements, i.e. are not yet mature, the opinion of a valued teacher carries a lot of weight for them. Of course, he influences the students with this, whether he wants to or not.

This brings us to the real point of the problem.

Judgment

Teachers at Waldorf schools in particular should know that, according to general human science, students do not suddenly become capable of making social judgements because party-political vote-catchers such as the former Federal Minister of Justice Barley (SPD) believe that at sixteen you are “grown up enough to be able to make far-reaching political decisions.”

As a lawyer, she knows from long experience that criminal law generally only treats 21-year-olds as adults and 18-21-year-olds only in justified exceptional cases. Most of the time, the latter and of course 16-18-year-olds are generally sentenced under juvenile criminal law because they cannot yet fully estimate the consequences of their actions.

What are “far-reaching political decisions”?

In a representative democracy, sovereign citizens give certain persons a general power of attorney through their election to pass the necessary laws on their behalf and to appoint and control the government, which implements the laws through its administrations. Modern social life is highly complex. It includes complicated economic relationships and structures, a multi-layered cultural and educational life and legal structures that permeate all state and social life. Although the state parliament is actually only responsible for law in the narrow sense, since absolutism it has assumed legal regulation of all areas of life.

A high degree of social insight is therefore required of a member of parliament. This is the requirement demanded by the matter. To what extent it is fulfilled, or indeed can be fulfilled at all in this false unitary state, is another question. The presumption of omnipotent legislation is in any case necessarily linked to this requirement. And this can of course only be fulfilled with appropriate education and, above all, not without a great deal of life experience, a broad horizon and a great sense of responsibility; for laws have a profound impact on people’s lives and destinies.

A general power of attorney requires that the person granting the power of attorney has the same competences, or at least the same social insight, as the person being appointed. Otherwise, he cannot judge whether the person elected is suitable to perceive the intentions of the voter. This means that he needs also have at least a certain amount of life experience and maturity in forming judgments about social conditions and the ability to distinguish between appearance and reality, phrases and truth, lust for power and genuine interest in the common good in today’s party system.

The process of coming of age

It is symptomatic that the meaningless term “adulthood” is used much more frequently in public than the old term “maturity”, the meaning of which is thus pushed out of consciousness. “The root of the word goes back to an Old High German and Old Norse noun ‘mund’ = protection, hand; ‘mundboro’ was the guardian (the one who gives protection) in Old High German. Maturity is therefore the ability to take one’s destiny in one’s own hands and protect oneself.”

Wikipedia also states accordingly: “The term maturity describes the inner and outer ability for self-determination and personal responsibility. Maturity is a state of independence. It means that one can speak for oneself and take care of oneself.”

Is that the case for an 18-year-old, or even for a 16-year-old? This question cannot be answered by party politicians who are driven by their own interests, but needs to be clarified by the objective findings of psychologists, anthropologists and educators who are responsible for this as experts due to their professional competence. “If you want to know whether three-year-olds should eat sweets, would you ask health experts for three-year-olds or sale experts for sweets?” the psychiatrist and brain researcher Prof. Manfred Spitzer once asked his audience. One gets the impression that the parliament is full of experts for selling sweets.

An experienced teacher knows that when a young person reaches puberty, their psychic powers of thinking, feeling and willing are freed from their focus on the adults they trust and are now gradually available for their own, sometimes vehement, expression. However, this does not mean that they are safely controlled by a responsible psychic authority within. From a developmental psychology perspective, these processes take place in three stages. From around 14 to 16 1/3 years, the time of psychic puberty, independent thinking is developed; up to 18 2/3 years, in adolescence, independent feeling; and then up to the age of 21, when they reach maturity, independent will.

The experience of one’s own, “free” thinking is therefore the first aspect that occurs. The young person breaks away from the authority of adults, which until then was more or less self-evident, and grows into the feeling that he can now judge for himself. But the concepts are “thrown around by a disorganized will. Thoughts change quickly, criticism is quickly expressed. But the young person can only rarely translate the judgments he makes into actions. For example, students in a 9th or 10th grade can express ‘big’ points of view for a party, but then they are very happy when the teacher takes over the actual planning.”

At that age, you still have the need to lean on someone, to choose an authority of whom you are convinced that you can rely on their judgment and ability if you want to form your own opinion. You have to have the certainty, so to speak, of the adult you are now voluntarily entrusting yourself to: He will let you go, but he will not let you down. Because at that age you are aware of your own insecurity.

During adolescence, from 16 2/3 to the end of the 19th year, one’s own emotional world, which was previously often still chaotic, settles down and matures more and more. The feelings are connected with high ideals of improving the world, which are often accompanied by asceticism in one’s own lifestyle. “Your own room is ‘cleared out’, the furnishings are reduced to the essentials, and you no longer allow friends to get so close to you.” The world of thoughts now becomes more existential, thinking more practical, combined with a strong sympathy for social problems.

In the last part of adolescence, up to the age of 21, the will becomes more and more conscious and available from within. “The new aspect about the situation is that the young person can now do what he has seen and felt. ‘Experience’ becomes a favourite word of this age. The power of judgement can combine with the will, which has become independent, and give it its goals. Thought is filled with the quality of will; it thus reaches reality and can transform it.” Our own movements are also shaped from within by the will. The inner authority from which the will emanates and is guided becomes free and awakens to itself.

Only now, around the age of 21, does the possibility of maturity arise.

A right to vote below this point is madness and betrays the intention to win over voters who can be manipulated – a serious sign of the decadent rule of the increasingly unscrupulous parties in order to maintain their own power.

Task of the educators

The primary task of teachers would be to use their expertise and responsibility for the well-being of the children entrusted to them to protest vigorously against this insanity of setting the voting age too early. Students are being harmed and obstacles are being placed in the way of a healthy development of their judgement. They are being challenged to make judgements that are not based on the necessary comprehensive social knowledge and life experience.

“Because once you have made a judgment about something, you are always influenced by it; you no longer perceive an experience in the same way as you would have if you had not formed a judgment related to that matter. The young person needs to have the spirit of learning first and then judging.”

Subconsciously, students are usually well aware of their lack of judgement. In the 15th Shell Youth Study in 2006, a total of 2,532 young people aged between 12 and 25 were asked: “What do you think of the idea of lowering the age limit for participation in federal elections from 18, so that people could vote from the age of 16?” 52% of those surveyed rejected this, only 24.7% agreed, and 22.8% said they did not care.

What can we say when teachers involve even the 8th and 9th grades, i.e. 15 and 14 year olds, in the primaries, thus drawing them into premature political decision-making? Teachers, knowing that society still lacks maturity in making judgements, exploit this and try to influence their 16 year old students to vote in a desired way, to indoctrinate them. They are deliberately damaging the psychological development of the underage children entrusted to them.

 

yogaesoteric
July 8, 2024