How America’s Education System Destroys the Traditional Work Ethic

Written by John Droz Jr on May 28, 2025. Posted in Current News

I recently read an interesting article in the Carolina Journal: “The work habits of Gen Z: A wake-up call for employers and educators.” The author, a current college professor, makes some good observations about what he describes as a deplorable situation.

In essence, he has concluded that many Gen Z students/citizens are averse to traditional employment. He goes on to name a few reasons why many of them would rather be self-employed as “influencers” rather than have a 9-5 job producing helpful products, supplying meaningful services, etc.

I’m writing this as I believe that he missed some of the most significant reasons for this far-reaching attitude change. But first, we must understand who benefits from this degradation: the Left. In other words: Anti-Americans.

One of the historical trademarks of Americans has been their strong work ethic. Those whose goal is to bring America down know very well that if they can undermine that work ethic, we will soon descend into third-world status. Great empires in the past have collapsed for lesser reasons!

To bring about this end, the Left has purposefully infiltrated much of our society, but their top priority is our K-12 education system. Their objective was to take control of the curriculum, which they have done. Our current situation is that we are unwittingly (or is it knowingly?) helping them produce graduates who will be the very agents of our undoing! The professor’s article simply points out a few of the expected (and intended) red-flag results.

Some of the Left’s Education Strategies —

Here are some of the tactics (many of them subtle) that the Left has used to undermine the K-12 education of our children…

Grade inflation is rampant: students are awarded for just showing up. (See here and here.) What type of work ethic is that communicating?

Using a calculator: why bother learning (i.e., understanding) any boring math when you can just click some keys and quickly get the answers?

Artificial Intelligence: why sweat over such mundane things as research or laborious thinking, when AI can do it for you in a minute? (See here.)

Social media: why pay attention in class, when a lot more interesting things are going on every day on social media, just a click away?

Woke: The clear message to students is: a minority or “disadvantaged” status takes precedence over merit. Got it. Sign me up as a victim.

Discard traditional Religion, which instills old-fashioned fundamental values. Instead, grab onto the deceptively attractive — and atheistic — SEL.

Age-inappropriate books and videos are spreading like wildfire in K-12. Their purpose is to undermine traditional values, distract students from learning, and encourage them to join a privileged minority.

Cheating is pervasive. If students have few morals, and the objective is to get high grades (not to actually learn), then the end justifies the means.

Worst of all, the opposite of Critical Thinking (conformity) is aggressively being taught, so students have been purposefully prevented from being able to understand the foolishness of their choices.

Takeaway —

I could go on, but you get the points: a) there are several powerful forces undermining the work ethic [and value system] of our children, b) the most problematic of these is the corrupt K-12 curriculum, c) stunningly, no major conservative organization is doing anything meaningful about this tsunami threat, and d) amazingly, this well-intentioned article didn’t mention a single one of these major problems!…

How can we possibly fix what we don’t acknowledge?

I will repeat what I have argued before: 1) this issue is not only monumental, but arguably the most significant threat to the American experiment, and 2) we currently have the power (and a window of opportunity) to fix MOST of this if we play our cards right with the US Department of Education (see here).

Will we wake up in time, or be enticed by the Pied Piper over the precipice?

Source: criticallythinking.substack.com

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