Mom in Va. who lived through Cultural Revolution addresses school board regarding Critical Race Theory

[Melissa Louise]

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-22926-001?doi=1

Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.

No sig increase in sympathy towards Black people struggling with poverty as a pay-off either. 

(Conservative participants don't change attitude at all in any direction).

For anyone on the left with an interest in class, it's worth pondering if privilege discourse is helping the poor at all. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-22926-001?doi=1

Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.

No sig increase in sympathy towards Black people struggling with poverty as a pay-off either. 

(Conservative participants don't change attitude at all in any direction).

For anyone on the left with an interest in class, it's worth pondering if privilege discourse is helping the poor at all. 

I always wind up feeling that these highly dogmatic approaches to difficult issues are putting the cart before the horse. It's like with my personal preoccupation, math education -- they are teaching the outcomes of some deep mental models BEFORE the mental models and it does no good. 

The real point of all these things is the ability to see things from other people's perspectives (including people with a VASTLY different cultural experience) and to be able to be humble and thoughtful about the ways that you did not make your own luck. But if you skip the "golden rule" step and just jump to dogma about which group is more wronged, you get total nonsense. 

I've been in Facebook groups that were explicitly organized via a hierarchy about who was the biggest victim. People abused that hierarchy like people have abused ALL hierarchies (birth, class, education, race) since time immemorial. And people were JUST as intolerant of questioning as anyone else who subscribes to an unshakeable view about right and wrong. 

We don't want that. We oughtn't want that. 

And with all that being said, if you think about white privilege AFTER you've done some actual deep thinking about what different people's experiences look like, you'll see there's something there. But that doesn't mean it's a safe thing or good idea to present it first.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Dmmetler]

I think that's a good point. L took the sociology class several semesters into taking DE, and therefore several semesters after meeting other students. I know it was very eye opening to find out that a study group partner had no computer at home, making submitting assignments difficult, that another couldn't come to class when the public schools were closed due to a lack of child care, and just plain how many students commented on how they wished they could just worry about school, and to take advantage of the chance to learn while still living at home. 

 

I hadn't thought about that experience when I sent my gifted kid to the local community college in a Majority-Minority city. I just needed a classroom that would give my kid reasonable academics in a subject or two and other people to do them with, and nothing else was accessible or working. 

 

But it ended up being a lesson that all of the discussions at home, wide reading of history, and participating in service projects had not been able to get to sink in-that different people have extremely different life experiences, completely out of their control, and that much of your life is out of your control, too. 

 

By the time L took the class on race, class and gender, there had been plenty of opportunity to internalize that lesson, so the class fell on fertile ground. So did classes in more contemporary World history, Black history, Indigenous history, lessons from African American Literature, APUG, and the 2020 presidential election cycle. 

 

Which might be a good argument for saving CRT for after students have more life experience. I'm just not sure what would be effective at giving that life experience. And it seems likely that the bans, as written, would actually make it more difficult for students to gain understanding  because it would tend to shut down discussions that might help provide it. 

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

And it seems likely that the bans, as written, would actually make it more difficult for students to gain understanding  because it would tend to shut down discussions that might help provide it. 

I mean, the bans are pure politics. They are propaganda and pandering. They aren’t an honest response to difficult issues.

[Sneezyone]

52 minutes ago, Plum said:

Bottom line for me is multicultural education has been around for a long time in all grades as a part of social studies and geography. I taught it in my homeschool. Social studies and history have always been contentious. I remember an article about teachers not wanting to bring up the Vietnam war.

I really don't want teachers in all subjects grabbing whatever Teachers Pay Teachers lesson plans they think might work and clumsily approaching the topics of racism and intersectionality. TPT can be great for some purposes, but it's not training and the quality varies wildly. So when people say the outliers are clunky applications, I'm not surprised and think there's more opportunity for clunky than skillful. 

If I search every topic I can think of relating to this on TPT here's how many lessons I can find for all grades. 

Racism: 3,300 lessons

Systemic racism: 300 lessons

Black Lives Matter: 5,700 lessons

Social Justice: almost 10,000

Identity with social studies filter to eliminate math: 19,000

Intersectionality: 67 lessons

Culture: 54,000

Anti-bias: 101

Anti-racism: 900

Some might assume that because I listed these topics, it must mean I think they are all bad. I'll just stop you right there and say nope. 

 

So I'll post this again. 

Five Signs Your Reform Has Become Another Education Fad

1. The Vendor Onslaught:

2. Fawning Media:

3. “Early Adopter” Educators Clamber Aboard:

4. Ubiquity: 

5. Welcome to Late Night:

Enough with the false equivalency. If I go to TPT right now and search for English and math lessons, what numbers will I find? The vast, vast majority of content is not of this nature. There is a clear effort, with which you seem to identify, to blow the extent of this challenge entirely out of proportion in order to justify clearly LESS good policies and laws. That’s not OK.

Just for kicks…

English over 2.8 million

Math over 1.7 million 

Science over 770k

Spanish over 290k

If this is the metric by which we’re judging how teachers spend their time and what their resource needs are…yeah…it’s not ANYTHING like the picture folks are trying to paint.

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Faith-manor]

5 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Enough with the false equivalency. If I go to TPT right now and search for English and math lessons, what numbers will I find? The vast, vast majority of content is not of this nature. There is a clear effort, with which you seem to identify, to blow the extent of this challenge entirely out of proportion in order to justify clearly LESS good policies and laws. That’s not OK.
 

Yes, this.

 

[KSera]

1 hour ago, Plum said:

Bottom line for me is multicultural education has been around for a long time in all grades as a part of social studies and geography. I taught it in my homeschool. Social studies and history have always been contentious. I remember an article about teachers not wanting to bring up the Vietnam war.

I really don't want teachers in all subjects grabbing whatever Teachers Pay Teachers lesson plans they think might work and clumsily approaching the topics of racism and intersectionality. TPT can be great for some purposes, but it's not training and the quality varies wildly. So when people say the outliers are clunky applications, I'm not surprised and think there's more opportunity for clunky than skillful. 

If I search every topic I can think of relating to this on TPT here's how many lessons I can find for all grades. 

Racism: 3,300 lessons

Systemic racism: 300 lessons

Black Lives Matter: 5,700 lessons

Social Justice: almost 10,000

Identity with social studies filter to eliminate math: 19,000

Intersectionality: 67 lessons

Culture: 54,000

Anti-bias: 101

Anti-racism: 900

Some might assume that because I listed these topics, it must mean I think they are all bad. I'll just stop you right there and say nope. 

 

So I'll post this again. 

Five Signs Your Reform Has Become Another Education Fad

1. The Vendor Onslaught:

2. Fawning Media:

3. “Early Adopter” Educators Clamber Aboard:

4. Ubiquity: 

5. Welcome to Late Night:

I don’t understand the relevance of this. Is there anyone here suggesting that teachers head to TPT to learn how to teach this stuff? Is anyone saying schools are all going to do a good job? The point is, to ignore racial issues and not teach them is to have chosen a particular lens to teach through, and not a good one. There are actual bans that would prevent talking about all kinds of things regarding race that have been passed or are in process. Lots of them. This isn’t even about CRT, which is just a smoke screen for all things race that people don’t want brought up in schools. By and large, schools are not teaching CRT at the K-12 level. I think most people here are not specifically arguing for CRT programs, but are objecting to everything else being eliminated under the cover of CRT objections. 

[Happy2BaMom]

Yes, there are definitely education fads.

There are also definitely hysteria fads.  We've seen a # of them come and go the last 10 years (actually, much longer than that...anyone remember Dungeons & Dragons?)

[KSera]

1 minute ago, Plum said:

It’s what happens when you have a loose framework, haphazard application. That’s all. 

What would you suggest as a good strategy for teaching kids about racially charged history and how race continues to exert effects today? Do you support the recent bans or are you against those? I’ve been in agreement with you throughout the thread about some of the problematic applications, but I don’t think bans are the answer. To ignore these issues is to take a stand. 

[LucyStoner]

1 hour ago, Happy2BaMom said:

Yes, there are definitely education fads.

There are also definitely hysteria fads.  We've seen a # of them come and go the last 10 years (actually, much longer than that...anyone remember Dungeons & Dragons?)

Hey now, D&D never went away.  It’s still massively popular in some circles, LOL.  
 

ETA:  To be clear, those circles include all of the kids in my family.  My sons both run weekly games with their friends.  My nieces and nephews are all into it as well.   It’s actually a great game for perspective taking and learning to follow the group plan.  

Edited June 16, 2021 by LucyStoner

[Sneezyone]

43 minutes ago, Plum said:

 

 

answered that on page 11. It's a fast moving thread and posts get missed.

As I've said many times, I think labeling little kids, separating them into groups, ranking their identities in front of classrooms is not an appropriate way to handle this. People may fit into one identity or another, but have a completely different set of circumstances that negates their so-called privileged or oppressed identity. They are more than that wheel. It's not that hard to read a book and discuss these ideas in front of a class without singling out one kid. 

I'm not against looking at social studies, civics and history through many lenses. As a homeschool, we've covered as many cultures as we can and dug into individual country histories through their eyes to get all sides. I am not opposed to well-rounded view of the world. I am opposed to any one-sided or lop-sided views. 

There are flaws in every system. The school system is full of them. Maybe they should start there. 

 

Sounds like you had/have nothing to worry about since the scenarios even remotely similar to the one you describe were astroturf issues elevated by people with a very different agenda than your own. I stand by my assessment that you falsely equated the actual time/energy expended on this topic in schools (next to nil) with what is being promoted by right wing media. 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Pam in CT]

re Golden Rule in kindergarten v Empathy in middle/high school v Theory of Mind in adulthood

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I always wind up feeling that these highly dogmatic approaches to difficult issues are putting the cart before the horse. It's like with my personal preoccupation, math education -- they are teaching the outcomes of some deep mental models BEFORE the mental models and it does no good. 

The real point of all these things is the ability to see things from other people's perspectives (including people with a VASTLY different cultural experience) and to be able to be humble and thoughtful about the ways that you did not make your own luck. But if you skip the "golden rule" step and just jump to dogma about which group is more wronged, you get total nonsense. 

I've been in Facebook groups that were explicitly organized via a hierarchy about who was the biggest victim. People abused that hierarchy like people have abused ALL hierarchies (birth, class, education, race) since time immemorial. And people were JUST as intolerant of questioning as anyone else who subscribes to an unshakeable view about right and wrong. 

We don't want that. We oughtn't want that. 

And with all that being said, if you think about white privilege AFTER you've done some actual deep thinking about what different people's experiences look like, you'll see there's something there. But that doesn't mean it's a safe thing to good idea to present it first.

I largely agree with this. The abstract concept of privilege is an expression of the wider abstract construct of Theory of Mind. Which is certainly related to the Golden Rule * , but it is both substantially further along on the developmental sequence, and also substantially more abstract. 

(As I think for the first time about the way the meaning of the word "privilege" has evolved over the last ~10 years, its meaning has not only broadened in scope from a pretty concrete "how much stuff a person has" .... to a meaning that is not only vastly more abstract, but in addition gets to multiple layers of Theory of Mind -- how others view me vs how others view others.

(That incident last summer in Central Park, with the white woman who wasn't following the leash rule threatening to call LE on the black man who was asking her to -- and all the layers of Theory of Mind that that incident reveals -- she knew that LE would believe her false claim > his truthful report, and she knew he knew that, and he knew she knew that, and so they both knew the real danger she was putting him in by her threat to lie -- that was why the threat had power. That is "privilege." But it is also developmentally beyond the *powers of expression* of a middle schooler. Although not the *lived experience* of middle schoolers who are forced to walk that walk.)

 

The difficulty we have here -- have always had, and which the current top-down helicoptered drumbeating around CRT only reaffirms -- is that from the outset there has always been a pretty conscious, often even explicit, effort to actually suppress historical events (Sally Demings, Trail of Tears, Tulsa) as well as to vastly misrepresent (many slaveowners were pretty nice!  Civil War was about "states rights"! Lynching was done by vigilantes operating outside the law!). 

It goes beyond the truism everywhere, that history is written by the victors.  The 1776!!! movement is a pretty orchestrated and pretty transparent effort not just to protect fragile white feelz (though there certainly is a component of that) but also to suppress unpleasant *facts* about our history. So to run with your math example, not only abstract mental models little kids are ill-equipped to grapple with, but also the harder but-still-developmentally-appropriate *building blocks* that take a degree of effort to grapple with, like... I dunno, the analogy falters... long division, or negative numbers or something.

 

 

 

 

 

(   *  or its Hillel version, "do not do unto others, what is abominable to you".... or Jesus' version, the most difficult bar of them all for us mortals to strive for, "love your neighbor as yourself," particularly when fused to the Good Samaritan parable answering the question who is my neighbor?)

[Wheres Toto]

2 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Enough with the false equivalency. If I go to TPT right now and search for English and math lessons, what numbers will I find? The vast, vast majority of content is not of this nature. There is a clear effort, with which you seem to identify, to blow the extent of this challenge entirely out of proportion in order to justify clearly LESS good policies and laws. That’s not OK.

Just for kicks…

English over 2.8 million

Math over 1.7 million 

Science over 770k

Spanish over 290k

If this is the metric by which we’re judging how teachers spend their time and what their resource needs are…yeah…it’s not ANYTHING like the picture folks are trying to paint.

 

I decided to look for something a bit more specific but also often considered contentious...

Evolution 220,223

So yeah, does that make evolution a fad?

[Wheres Toto]

1 hour ago, LucyStoner said:

Hey now, D&D never went away.  It’s still massively popular in some circles, LOL.  

I wasn't sure if she meant D&D was a fad or the hysteria about D&D being devil worship was a fad.

 

[LucyStoner]

2 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I wasn't sure if she meant D&D was a fad or the hysteria about D&D being devil worship was a fad.

That was quite the moral panic.  I remember there were kids in our homeschooling orbit who weren’t allowed to play D&D or Magic the Gathering, though that was decades after the height of that moral panic.    

[KSera]

1 hour ago, LucyStoner said:

Hey now, D&D never went away.  It’s still massively popular in some circles, LOL.  
 

ETA:  To be clear, those circles include all of the kids in my family.  My sons both run weekly games with their friends.  My nieces and nephews are all into it as well.   It’s actually a great game for perspective taking and learning to follow the group plan.  

I just noticed I accidentally hit the crying/sad emoji in response to this. I meant to like, as It's very popular around here as well.

[LucyStoner]

Just now, KSera said:

I just noticed I accidentally hit the crying/sad emoji in response to this. I meant to like, as It's very popular around here as well.

I assumed as much!  

[HeartString]

9 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

That was quite the moral panic.  I remember there were kids in our homeschooling orbit who weren’t allowed to play D&D or Magic the Gathering, though that was decades after the height of that moral panic.    

This is still a thing.  A non-DND themed role playing game was being discussed as a fun co-op class.  The mere discussion led to accusations of sexual content and demon summoning.  So much outrage over a pretend game with dice.  

[Wheres Toto]

2 minutes ago, Plum said:

People aren't denying that evolution is being taught in schools. I was repeatedly asked in this thread to find proof this nebulous topic is being taught in schools. 

Actually there are many many many schools where evolution isn't being taught.  In fact, there seems to be a ton of overlap between the locations working on banning these topics and those that don't allow evolution or have very strict requirements for how it's presented.  

[SKL]

1 hour ago, Pam in CT said:

(That incident last summer in Central Park, with the white woman who wasn't following the leash rule threatening to call LE on the black man who was asking her to -- and all the layers of Theory of Mind that that incident reveals -- she knew that LE would believe her false claim > his truthful report, and she knew he knew that, and he knew she knew that, and so they both knew the real danger she was putting him in by her threat to lie -- that was why the threat had power. That is "privilege." But it is also developmentally beyond the *powers of expression* of a middle schooler. Although not the *lived experience* of middle schoolers who are forced to walk that walk.)

A bit off topic but ....

This week my kids (age 14) and I finished the audiobook of Of Mice and Men.  There is a scene where a white woman referred to as a "tart" threatens to accuse a black man of touching her, in response to his threat to report something true about her.  And he backed down, and there was somewhat vague language as to why.  I started explaining the why to my kids, and they interrupted with "we know, like what happened in To Kill a Mockingbird."  The latter is a book my kids and I have read twice and discussed at length.

My kids are not geniuses.  I think teens can digest a serious, well-written book (or a good movie or other effective media) about "someone else, somewhere else, at a different time" and come out with a better understanding of the world.  This can be done without personalizing any of it, and without sweeping statements or stereotypes.

My kids have good friends of all races, and I'd like it to stay that way.  I do have concerns that a direct analysis of racial differences in the classroom will strain relationships too much.  Already my kids have had POC friends tell them "I hate white people," which is probably not the easiest thing to hear when most of your family is white.  And I certainly don't want my kids to make comments about white people around their white friends.  None of it seems likely to encourage more racial empathy or cooperation IMO.

[SKL]

1 hour ago, LucyStoner said:

That was quite the moral panic.  I remember there were kids in our homeschooling orbit who weren’t allowed to play D&D or Magic the Gathering, though that was decades after the height of that moral panic.    

I remember, before the D&D days, when KISS (the rock group) was the fuss.  My brother almost got kicked out of school for having KISS cards.  Then he moved on to D&D, LOL.  Quite the deviant!

Then there was the Harry Potter fuss.  I think some people still don't allow their kids to read Harry Potter, which I think is sad, as I consider H.K Rowling to have done more for childhood literacy in recent decades than just about anyone else.

[KSera]

1 minute ago, SKL said:

I think some people still don't allow their kids to read Harry Potter, which I think is sad, as I consider H.K Rowling to have done more for childhood literacy in recent decades than just about anyone else.

Funny enough, we could get into a whole different cancel culture (I hate that term) discussion about JK Rowling. The groups most likely to prevent their kids from reading Harry Potter now are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the ones that were preventing it when my older kids were younger, for totally different reasons. But we probably don't want to go there 😬.

[SKL]

10 minutes ago, Plum said:

Right.

1) I wouldn't expect evolution be taught anywhere but Science. It's not getting incorporated into every subject. It's something that is easily defined and pinned down to one topic. 

2) It's not being taught in those places because the parents don't want it. They were able to fight the school board and say they didn't want it or they want it presented as a alternative. Just as people on this thread are asking for, the topic was fought about, discussed and a decision was made how to approach it. 

3) Parents have every right to say what and how their child will be taught these topics. If the school wants to step in and teach them, then they should expect parents to react. We may not like how every parent homeschools their kid, but they have a legal right to homeschool them however they want. The school has to answer to every parent in their district. 

I don't disbelieve in evolution, but I wasn't taught it in school.  I was aware of what it was.  In church youth club, we actually did a semester class in evolution vs. creationism.  The schools just avoided it.  And I don't think that was a big deal.  Even in those pre-internet days, people who wanted to read about evolution could do so.  And again, let's be honest - the level of science education was not so high that the lack of evolution left a big gaping hole.

My kids indicated that their elementary science teacher (parochial school, teacher is older than me) told them evolution wasn't true.  They did learn about it in high school biology.  I gave my opinions on evolution/creation, and other than that, I'm not bothered about it.  It's not like my kids even have a rudimentary understanding of ontogenesis yet.

Edited June 16, 2021 by SKL

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, SKL said:

My kids are not geniuses.  I think teens can digest a serious, well-written book (or a good movie or other effective media) about "someone else, somewhere else, at a different time" and come out with a better understanding of the world. 

I agree they can, but I am concerned about the "somewhere else at a different time" aspect, because that ignores the things actually happening in the world now. I grew up reading those books, in schools where race really didn't seem to be an issue and certainly wasn't in my very mixed friend group, but it led me to the mistaken belief that the kinds of things I read about were resolved issues.

[KSera]

4 minutes ago, SKL said:

The schools just avoided it.  And I don't think that was a big deal.  Even in those pre-internet days, people who wanted to read about evolution could do so.  And again, let's be honest - the level of science education was not so high that the lack of evolution left a big gaping hole.

Yikes. They avoided it even at the high school level when you were in school? I don't know how biology can be properly taught without evolution. Someone can decide not to believe in it, but to not be taught it is indeed to leave a gaping hole, in my opinion.

[SKL]

1 minute ago, KSera said:

I agree they can, but I am concerned about the "somewhere else at a different time" aspect, because that ignores the things actually happening in the world now. I grew up reading those books, in schools where race really didn't seem to be an issue and certainly wasn't in my very mixed friend group, but it led me to the mistaken belief that the kinds of things I read about were resolved issues.

For a kid, I think it's OK that they don't have a completely accurate, up-to-date understanding of everything in the world.  If they even could understand it.  We don't teach anything else by giving a full picture of the bad side.  When you started teaching your kids cooking, you didn't start out with stats on how many house fires were burning right now due to cooking accidents, or how many people were puking because of improperly handled food.

The thing about To Kill a Mockingbird and other good books is, they encourage people to question the status quo, to question the easy answers and not follow the crowd, even if you're too young and inexperienced to be sure of anything.  You may not have come out knowing exactly what is happening everywhere in your state/country, but you would have known to doubt and question things that seemed wrong, and that is important.  You would have been, in some small way, part of the solution rather than part of the problem.  And that is valuable IMO.

[KSera]

2 minutes ago, SKL said:

For a kid, I think it's OK that they don't have a completely accurate, up-to-date understanding of everything in the world.  If they even could understand it. 

I don't know. I think I am still failing to make my point about not teaching something still being teaching something, just a different something. Kids who are facing these challenges don't have the privilege (there's that word) of not learning these things from an early age. That doesn't mean I think little kids need to be taught harsh realities before they are ready to process that, but I think in the very least, the adults should be aware of the privilege their kids have by not needing to know about those things yet. Certainly by high school, kids should be able to be learning these things.

[Sneezyone]

21 minutes ago, KSera said:

I don't know. I think I am still failing to make my point about not teaching something still being teaching something, just a different something. Kids who are facing these challenges don't have the privilege (there's that word) of not learning these things from an early age. That doesn't mean I think little kids need to be taught harsh realities before they are ready to process that, but I think in the very least, the adults should be aware of the privilege their kids have by not needing to know about those things yet. Certainly by high school, kids should be able to be learning these things.

It is teaching something. It's teaching that the thing being ignored (b/c the kids, particularly those with lived experiences, will see/hear it anyway) is either bad and not to be discussed or unimportant. TKAM will be banned in affected states. Sorry, it just will. It can't be taught without accurately discussing the banned subject matter. The ignorance of kids coming out of these states will shine through in higher ed and beyond.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

Funny enough, we could get into a whole different cancel culture (I hate that term) discussion about JK Rowling. The groups most likely to prevent their kids from reading Harry Potter now are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the ones that were preventing it when my older kids were younger, for totally different reasons. But we probably don't want to go there 😬.

We certainly could go there. The difference, for me, is parental choice versus state sanctioned bans. I never made my kids read Twain. They didn't read TKAM either. Neither is worse for it. Their awareness of the issues raised was developed outside the classroom. As mentioned above, I don't see that happening in all households. Their answer wouldn't be 'we know', like what happened in a book. Some will know 'b/c of what happened to Grandpa and cousin and, and, and'. Others will be totally ignorant. It's not the kids with lived experiences who are gonna really miss out here. It's the ones increasingly becoming minorities by the numbers.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

A bit off topic but ....

This week my kids (age 14) and I finished the audiobook of Of Mice and Men.  There is a scene where a white woman referred to as a "tart" threatens to accuse a black man of touching her, in response to his threat to report something true about her.  And he backed down, and there was somewhat vague language as to why.  I started explaining the why to my kids, and they interrupted with "we know, like what happened in To Kill a Mockingbird."  The latter is a book my kids and I have read twice and discussed at length.

My kids are not geniuses.  I think teens can digest a serious, well-written book (or a good movie or other effective media) about "someone else, somewhere else, at a different time" and come out with a better understanding of the world.  This can be done without personalizing any of it, and without sweeping statements or stereotypes.

My kids have good friends of all races, and I'd like it to stay that way.  I do have concerns that a direct analysis of racial differences in the classroom will strain relationships too much.  Already my kids have had POC friends tell them "I hate white people," which is probably not the easiest thing to hear when most of your family is white.  And I certainly don't want my kids to make comments about white people around their white friends.  None of it seems likely to encourage more racial empathy or cooperation IMO.

I hope they're good enough friends to delve into that comment and ask why and also to share more of themselves and why that was upsetting.

[Sneezyone]

It is interesting, to me, to contemplate the idea that knowledge is power. It's one of those things people say in an offhand way, a truism/cliche with some nuggets of truth. I think the authors of these bans/restrictions (not just in this matter but others too) believe they're preserving power for themselves and their progeny but, in fact, they may be accelerating its loss. Corporate America isn't going to stop firing people like the Central Park Karen, for ex. And Corporate America isn't about to start tolerating ignorance as an excuse when someone steps out and says/does something 'offensive' and uninformed in college. The center of power isn't really in the schools or the leg., that's not where the money is. It feels like, to me, we're setting a lot of kids up to fail.

[Melissa Louise]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

A bit off topic but ....

This week my kids (age 14) and I finished the audiobook of Of Mice and Men.  There is a scene where a white woman referred to as a "tart" threatens to accuse a black man of touching her, in response to his threat to report something true about her.  And he backed down, and there was somewhat vague language as to why.  I started explaining the why to my kids, and they interrupted with "we know, like what happened in To Kill a Mockingbird."  The latter is a book my kids and I have read twice and discussed at length.

My kids are not geniuses.  I think teens can digest a serious, well-written book (or a good movie or other effective media) about "someone else, somewhere else, at a different time" and come out with a better understanding of the world.  This can be done without personalizing any of it, and without sweeping statements or stereotypes.

My kids have good friends of all races, and I'd like it to stay that way.  I do have concerns that a direct analysis of racial differences in the classroom will strain relationships too much.  Already my kids have had POC friends tell them "I hate white people," which is probably not the easiest thing to hear when most of your family is white.  And I certainly don't want my kids to make comments about white people around their white friends.  None of it seems likely to encourage more racial empathy or cooperation IMO.

I taught most everything through literature. 

I believe well-written literature encourages empathy. And that 'well-written' can encompass writers of all races, classics, contemporary fiction, adult literature, children's literature and some YA. 

 

 

[Melissa Louise]

9 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I always wind up feeling that these highly dogmatic approaches to difficult issues are putting the cart before the horse. It's like with my personal preoccupation, math education -- they are teaching the outcomes of some deep mental models BEFORE the mental models and it does no good. 

The real point of all these things is the ability to see things from other people's perspectives (including people with a VASTLY different cultural experience) and to be able to be humble and thoughtful about the ways that you did not make your own luck. But if you skip the "golden rule" step and just jump to dogma about which group is more wronged, you get total nonsense. 

I've been in Facebook groups that were explicitly organized via a hierarchy about who was the biggest victim. People abused that hierarchy like people have abused ALL hierarchies (birth, class, education, race) since time immemorial. And people were JUST as intolerant of questioning as anyone else who subscribes to an unshakeable view about right and wrong. 

We don't want that. We oughtn't want that. 

And with all that being said, if you think about white privilege AFTER you've done some actual deep thinking about what different people's experiences look like, you'll see there's something there. But that doesn't mean it's a safe thing or good idea to present it first.

You know, the whole Peggy Mackintosh suitcase model of white privilege is just...let's just say, it's very informed by socio-economic status.

And I think that no matter how much smart people on WTM talk about how language changes and we ought to get with the program, most people not on WTM or in other advantaged spaces continue to see privilege as referring to the material. I think it's a word that doesn't do what it sets out to do in many spaces. 

I think it's educated sneering not to make a pragmatic adjustment to how the concept is communicated more broadly. 

That FB group sounds insane. I do not know how people can imagine the world is organised into such static and quantifiable ways. I hope such ways of thinking do not find their way into DE in schools. 

Interestingly, I read a paper last night which made it clear we already know what does and doesn't work in workplace DE. I can't see a reason not to begin from that point when introducing DE in the classroom. 

 

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

Interestingly, I read a paper last night which made it clear we already know what does and doesn't work in workplace DE. I can't see a reason not to begin from that point when introducing DE in the classroom. 

I’m sure I should know, but what is DE in this context? (I keep thinking Dual Enrollment, but that’s clearly not what you’re referring to.)

[Melissa Louise]

Just now, KSera said:

I’m sure I should know, but what is DE in this context? (I keep thinking Dual Enrollment, but that’s clearly not what you’re referring to.)

Diversity education, with or without a CRT lens. 

[Sneezyone]

23 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

Interestingly, I read a paper last night which made it clear we already know what does and doesn't work in workplace DE. I can't see a reason not to begin from that point when introducing DE in the classroom. 

 

 

Agree with this too! Sadly, bans mean that what works cannot be implemented as well as what DOESN'T work. And, at the end of the day, I don't think employers are sitting around waiting for people to get up to speed. The trend is to outsource education and training to the employee. Businesses aren't taking that upon themselves.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone

[LucyStoner]

2 hours ago, KSera said:

Funny enough, we could get into a whole different cancel culture (I hate that term) discussion about JK Rowling. The groups most likely to prevent their kids from reading Harry Potter now are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the ones that were preventing it when my older kids were younger, for totally different reasons. But we probably don't want to go there 😬.

Someone I know posted on FB asking about ways to get rid of her Harry Potter books in such a way that no one else could read them (she thought donating them wasn't sufficient since other people could read them still if she did that).  I thought, "well, there's always matches but WTAF is going on in your mind that this seems like a valuable use of your time?"

I recognize the illiberal tendencies in that vein that I am seeing from the various antics I saw coming from the right for years.  

[Sneezyone]

9 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

Someone I know posted on FB asking about ways to get rid of her Harry Potter books in such a way that no one else could read them (she thought donating them wasn't sufficient since other people could read them still if she did that).  I thought, "well, there's always matches but WTAF is going on in your mind that this seems like a valuable use of your time?"

I recognize the illiberal tendencies in that vein that I am seeing from the various antics I saw coming from the right for years.  

Fortunately, it doesn’t carry the weight of law and many of my Chinese students are big fans, buying it right up.

[Melissa Louise]

5 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

Someone I know posted on FB asking about ways to get rid of her Harry Potter books in such a way that no one else could read them (she thought donating them wasn't sufficient since other people could read them still if she did that).  I thought, "well, there's always matches but WTAF is going on in your mind that this seems like a valuable use of your time?"

I recognize the illiberal tendencies in that vein that I am seeing from the various antics I saw coming from the right for years.  

Moral panics are a human trait..

Having said that, I'm not sure how anyone can consider as righteous the destruction of books and not stop to consider if they've perhaps lost their way! 

Has book burning ever been an indication of being on the right side of history?!

You should have told her to hand sharpie out the entire text of all the  books. 

[Sneezyone]

Another thing that’s rattling around in my head is the extent to which wealthy mainland Chinese parents are working to help their kids become more familiar with other people groups, their stories and triggers and their social expectations, while Americans are working hard to bury these things. They really want to know that it’s not a good idea to call someone fat. I see a big group of little sponges everyday. It colors my view of how the US is responding to globalization and multiculturalism.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Carol in Cal.]

50 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I taught most everything through literature. 

I believe well-written literature encourages empathy. And that 'well-written' can encompass writers of all races, classics, contemporary fiction, adult literature, children's literature and some YA. 

 

 

This reminds me of an author interview locally.

Barbara Kingsolver was on the SF NPR station, being interviewed about one of her then recently published books, and I called in and got through!  I don’t remember what I asked her, but her answer included the assertion that whether novelists set out to be political or not, they always create empathy in readers, and usually for a variety of different kinds of people than the readers themselves, and that creating empathy is a political act.  Loved that!

[LucyStoner]

16 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Fortunately, it doesn’t carry the weight of law and many of my Chinese students are big fans, buying it right up.

Oh for sure it's not the weight of law but I just can't imagine being all that worried about *who else might read a book I have decided to get rid of*.  😛

[Melissa Louise]

7 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

This reminds me of an author interview locally.

Barbara Kingsolver was on the SF NPR station, being interviewed about one of her then recently published books, and I called in and got through!  I don’t remember what I asked her, but her answer included the assertion that whether novelists set out to be political or not, they always create empathy in readers, and usually for a variety of different kinds of people than the readers themselves, and that creating empathy is a political act.  Loved that!

That's so exciting you got to ask your question!

Yes, she's right. One of the reasons I'd be wary about replacing literature with more didactic texts in the classroom.

[Danae]

25 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

Oh for sure it's not the weight of law but I just can't imagine being all that worried about *who else might read a book I have decided to get rid of*.  😛

There are books that I feel that way about.  I don’t need to ask what to do with them, though, since it’s fairly obvious. 

[HeartString]

31 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Another thing that’s rattling around in my head is the extent to which wealthy mainland Chinese parents are working to help their kids become more familiar with other people groups, their stories and triggers and their social expectations, while Americans are working hard to bury these things. They really want to know that it’s not a good idea to call someone fat. I see a big group of little sponges everyday. It colors my view of how the US is responding to globalization and multiculturalism.

It’s another way the “anti-China” side of things is actually doing exactly what China would want us to do.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, HeartString said:

It’s another way the “anti-China” side of things is actually doing exactly what China would want us to do.

Indeed. My DH feels the same way and he is faaaarrr to the right of me.

[Dmmetler]

20 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

That's so exciting you got to ask your question!

Yes, she's right. One of the reasons I'd be wary about replacing literature with more didactic texts in the classroom.

Except that what is set up in these bills isn’t replacing literature that provides experience with empathy with more didactic texts. It’s refusing to allow discussion of race (and likely other issues that might make Kids feel bad) at all. Which means that even if the class is allowed to read “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry”, it can’t actually be discussed in any detail. That is a major, major step backwards. And if you look at the lists of most often banned and challenged books in schools, a lot are exactly the type of good, well written texts that could build empathy and context. 
 

https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

[KSera]

57 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

Someone I know posted on FB asking about ways to get rid of her Harry Potter books in such a way that no one else could read them (she thought donating them wasn't sufficient since other people could read them still if she did that).  I thought, "well, there's always matches but WTAF is going on in your mind that this seems like a valuable use of your time?"

I recognize the illiberal tendencies in that vein that I am seeing from the various antics I saw coming from the right for years.  

I see my kids, who absolutely loved Harry Potter and read their copies until they fell apart now saying Rowling is bad but they can’t remember why. I see that kind of thing. They read it all over social media and are dedicated to whatever idea is predominant in their group, but they don’t even know what that is based on. They just know without a doubt it’s true. I see some of the same dynamic with the people telling me it’s lucky I’m homeschooling so my kids aren’t exposed to all this “race stuff” in schools, but I don’t think most of them even know what that is or what is actually going on here on the ground in the schools.

[Melissa Louise]

4 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Except that what is set up in these bills isn’t replacing literature that provides experience with empathy with more didactic texts. It’s refusing to allow discussion of race (and likely other issues that might make Kids feel bad) at all. Which means that even if the class is allowed to read “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry”, it can’t actually be discussed in any detail. That is a major, major step backwards. And if you look at the lists of most often banned and challenged books in schools, a lot are exactly the type of good, well written texts that could build empathy and context. 
 

https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Yeah, I know. I'm not a supporter of the bans. 

[Sneezyone]

9 minutes ago, KSera said:

I see my kids, who absolutely loved Harry Potter and read their copies until they fell apart now saying Rowling is bad but they can’t remember why. I see that kind of thing. They read it all over social media and are dedicated to whatever idea is predominant in their group, but they don’t even know what that is based on. They just know without a doubt it’s true. I see some of the same dynamic with the people telling me it’s lucky I’m homeschooling so my kids aren’t exposed to all this “race stuff” in schools, but I don’t think most of them even know what that is or what is actually going on here on the ground in the schools.

THIS. They’re all for bans and we’re busily teaching them that it’s ok. That’s the right and proper way to do things. Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you want to DISCOURAGE this generation from becoming more familiar with other people’s stories, from interrogating their ideas and each other’s around these issues, from pushing through rather than canceling things they don’t like, and from getting first hand exposure to the democratic process. Adults are teaching them that might makes right and hysteria wins the day.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Sneezyone