History is one big struggle of various groups fighting against the big, bad white man.

Here’s the harsh truth of it: We, the Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials, thought we were doing good by teaching our children about the world through this lens. Some of us felt guilty about being white and privileged, so this was a correction for it.

We Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials sent our children to school without really looking into what was being taught. We had a profound lack of interest in the moral values our children failed to learn. After all, our parents were hands-off, and we turned out alright. But our parents weren’t parenting in the 21^st century. It’s an entirely different playing field. We didn’t have teachers who spewed terrible ideas or social media that echoed them.

And now we see that because we were hands-off, because we were passive and blindly trusted the school system, young people are lost and confused and have backward ideas about the world. They are leading the charge when it comes to the deterioration of the West.

Who can blame them? How can young people feel good about the West when they learn that it’s just an evil oppressor? This is reinforced when they log onto TikTok, where victimhood saturates every single video. Heck, young people were sympathizing with Osama bin Laden in November of 2023, when his “Letter to America” — which demonized the U.S. for funding and carrying out military operations in the Middle East — went viral. Things have become so bad that Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer who killed thousands of innocent Americans, is now seen as a victim by some young people.

We need to admit it: This is our fault. We didn’t teach young people the full history or give them real knowledge. We focused on the oppressor vs. oppressed and let social media handle the rest. Now, we cannot pretend to care about the West unless we start by caring about what is being taught in the classroom.

Over the past few years, there has been endless talk about progressive ideologies infecting college campuses.

Students at Columbia held an anti-Veterans Day protest called “Martyrs Day” to honor Middle Eastern martyrs; several professors have been fired or faced other forms of retaliation for going against progressive talking points; and only about 1 to 3% of professors at Harvard identify as conservative, with the rest of the staff being liberal to outright leftist.

While what’s happening on college campuses is shocking, the truth is that the problem with our education in the West starts much, much earlier. It begins as soon as children enter the school system.

From an early age, they learn everything through the lens of the oppressor and the oppressed.

The early U.S. settlers were bad white male colonizers who did horrible things to the native population.

Women were oppressed, and through the suffrage movement, they defeated the patriarchy and gained the right to vote.

The white man has repeatedly and exclusively enslaved Black people.

The good news? There is still time to turn it around for the younger generations.

Parents: Now that you know the dangers of being passive, be proactive about your children’s education. See what they are learning in school. Don’t be afraid to question it. Switch schools or homeschool if you have to. And for goodness’ sake, monitor what they are looking at on their phones. Or give them a dumbphone so you don’t have to worry.

If you are considering a new school, look at their curriculum and how the children behave in that school. Are they respectful towards their teachers — and each other — in the classroom? Do they go from class to class quietly? Do they stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and know it by heart?

Teach your children the “small c” conservative values your grandparents taught you: Personal responsibility. Duty to others. Loyalty to country. Respecting elders and authority. Being a good citizen.

Do not teach the world through the oppressor/oppressed lens. Teach your children not to emphasize victimhood. Show your children they are responsible beings with agency, no matter their race or religion.

This is a civilization failure that belongs to us. We did this to our children.

But it isn’t too late. Instill in them knowledge, truth, and values, and care about what goes on in the classroom. Then, we won’t have such troubles by the time they hit college and then go out into the real world.

If we save our children, it’s clear: we’ll save the West, too.

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Katharine Birbalsingh is headmistress and co-founder of Michaela Community School. She is known as Britain’s Strictest Headmistress and hosts the podcast “Strictly Education.”

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Why The Next Generation Sees The West As The Enemy