We are all familiar with cancel-culture, but did you know that this kind of movement is hitting your kids’ history class too? Many teachers are not happy about Critical Race Theory invading their classrooms.
Including a teacher who explains what she sees happening in her district.
“Some Students Have Started Calling Me “America” Because I’m White, and Colleagues Accuse Me of Having “White Privilege.”
I hear from teachers around New Hampshire, and what I’m hearing should have everyone concerned. Teachers are concerned about new teachers hired after recently graduating from UNH after a heavy dose of political indoctrination and by what they see coming from the students they are educating.
Do not assume that all teachers support this radicalization of their local public school; many are just as bothered as the parents who are speaking up. Unfortunately, they work in an atmosphere that is hostile to teachers who show any kind of resistance to this radical fad.
In this article, you will read a few disturbing trends that you need to be aware of. The author wrote:
1) “I am speaking about the controversial critical race theory that has infiltrated our public schools here in Rhode Island under the umbrella of Culturally Responsivelearning and teaching, which includes a focus on identities. You won’t see the words “critical race theory” on the materials, but those are the concepts taught. The new, racialized curriculum and materials focuses almost exclusively on an oppressor-oppressed narrative, and have created racial tensions among students and staff where none existed before.”
Let’s start here. I am seeing a focus on student identities coming through the curriculum in some New Hampshire classes. How will this impact your children?
When the lesson in history does not focus on actual history but your child’s identity, there is a paradigm shift away from the academic content to a new value system forced upon your children. This is done to re-shape and mold the student’s identity to what the “state” has determined as the proper values.
Competency-Based Education is the vehicle for this reshaping of your child’s attitudes and values. CBE does not allow your child to proceed unless they pass their Competencies. So if your child does not show the proper attitude, they will need to be re-educated until they do.
Parents assume that Competencies are academic; many times, they are not. Competency-Based Education is not new or innovative. CBE is the old re-hashed failed Outcome Based Education model from the 1990s. The name is changed, so parents don’t catch on to past failures.
As you can see from this screenshot, children in one NH school have to keep an identity chart in their middle school history class.
(click to embiggen)
Schools use vendors like this one, “Facing History and Ourselves.”
A good question for parents: ask who gave permission to the school district to conduct a psychological exercise on your child in an effort to change their value system?
2) “During fall 2020 semester, we were given our curriculum timeline on the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. I noticed the stories and books seemed to focus almost exclusively on slavery and racism. Those are appropriate topics that we always have taught, but the focus has become narrow, excluding many other aspects of our history.”
The author/teacher highlights the importance of teaching about slavery and racism and that these important topics have been covered, BUT she’s now seeing the elimination of other important aspects of American history.
3) “American history now is being retold exclusively from the perspective of oppressed peoples during the Revolutionary period through to the Civil War, and also in the literature of the Civil Rights movement. From my position in the classroom, it seemed that much of American history and literature was getting wiped out. No one of these new books, standing alone, would be problematic, it’s the new lack of diversity of perspective that is the problem. Although the 1619 Project itself has not yet been introduced, the historical perspective now has shifted to making slavery and racism the defining events of the founding and growth of America.”
American history now has a narrow viewpoint. This denies the student many perspectives and viewpoints. This is how important stories and individuals are being cancelled.
4) “Missing from our curriculum during the 2020/ 21 school year was the diversity, perspective, truth, and rigor that previously were taught. Previously vetted books were removed from our classroom and sent to recycling. Gone was the diverse collection of American and World Literature: House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, James Baldwin Go Tell It On The Mountain, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, essays by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., poetry by Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Anne Frank, Night, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, Macbeth, Walt Whitman, The Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible , Holocaust studies, world genocide, world art, universal themes, universal characters and any book or short story from the literary cannon.”
I’m being told by teachers in New Hampshire that the new young teachers who graduated from UNH recently are coming into their districts radicalized in this CRT doctrine. During one of those conversations, it was revealed that one of the new teachers working in a New Hampshire High School called for eliminating the Holocaust from the curriculum. What is it that UNH is telling their college students that are training to become teachers in our classroom?
5) What saddened me most was that I would not be teaching the Holocaust any longer. The Holocaust unit included one of the following: either Anne Frank, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, and depending on reading level, Elie Weisel’s Night. When I asked the school reading coach where all the Holocaust books were, she said “we do not teach the Holocaust because kids can’t relate to the story.” What? Kids can’t relate to genocide, hate, discrimination, and prejudice? Yes children can relate to these universal themes, we all can. Children would never learn about the evils of hatred during the Second World War? Why? What was it about the truth and perspective that seemed to escape us during the 2020/21 school year? Exactly why was all this great literature removed from our curriculum?
6) In isolation and without historical perspective, the thematic message in every book was clear: White Europeans were and are evil and African Americans were and are victimized by white oppressors. Woven into this new curriculum was a school-wide social push to focus on Black Lives Matter support groups and other social justice identity groups.
But let’s be clear, if social justice was important, then literacy would be the top concern in public education. Those who fight for academic excellence like me are met with resistance from the status quo who push these kinds of radical reforms on your kids.
7) “Teachers were encouraged to participate in “white educator affinity groups” where we would be given essays on how not to be a white supremacist in the classroom.”
This is a clear violation of their civil rights. Where is the ACLU? Why are school administrators violating the civil rights of our teachers?
8) Finally, for some students, standing for The Pledge of Allegiance was no longer something they did. We are not allowed to question why, and the truth is, I knew why. Already these young people were beginning to hate America. I was the only person standing and the only person that could be heard saying “liberty and justice for all”.
When you remove the stories of courage or the message of peace and justice from great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., you are left with a radicalized and angry student who hates America.
9) “Midway through the academic year, some students started calling me “America” because I was white. These students, whom I love, were turning against me because of my skin color. I don’t blame them, I blame the racial narratives being forced upon them in school.”
Here comes the mob mentality after those that they separated out. Is this why they wanted to remove the history of the Holocaust? So students wouldn’t think about comparing how Jews were targeted?
10) “While we must always strive to do better as a society, we cannot allow history and culture to be wiped out by political ideology. We cannot allow our children to be taught they are inferior. We cannot teach young people that white people are the enemy because our students, brown, black, indigenous, and white deserve to be children and not political pawns or political weapons. Any curriculum that shames our children or divides our children by the color of their skin should be banned. Rather, we need to work together, all colors, all races, all parties to restore truth and perspective to our classrooms and stop the indoctrination of our young people.”
Let’s face it. This fad has become a moneymaker for race-baiters. It was Booker T. Washington who warned us about them (see picture above)
Fortunately, New Hampshire has a new state law that opposes this kind of discrimination forced upon students and teachers. Not only do you have equal protection under the Civil Rights Law, you have protection under New Hampshire law too. You can file a lawsuit aimed at your school administrators or file a complaint with the New Hampshire Department of Education. Removing the credentials of those who want to discriminate against you for the color of your skin will land them in the unemployment line. You also now have the opportunity to stop the shaming and blaming that is being inflicted on your children.
