As blogger Billy Townsend explains, education officials in Florida are either hypocrites or stupid.
In a post that is second in a series, he shows how they campaign against teaching about racism (which they consider “indoctrination”) yet state standards require teachers to teach about the infamous 1920 Ocoee race massacre. Is it possible to avoid teaching about racism and white supremacy while teaching a mandated lesson about racism and white supremacy?
Townsend describes the teacher’s dilemma. He or she might satisfy Governor DeSantis by assuring him that the teacher is definitely not teaching “critical race theory,” because he or she never heard of it before.
Just the facts:
Dear class, today we are going to discuss the Ocoee pogrom, which killed or expelled virtually the entire black population of this little town near Orlando because that black population attempted to vote on the presidential Election Day of 1920.
Here’s the outcome of the Ocoee pogrom demographically:
Townsend continues:
I need to quote and address the Chris Latvala Corollary to all these rules: “There is a way to teach it without indoctrinating kids about how bad white people are.” That’s the position of state Rep. Chris Latvala, chairman of the House Education & Employment Committee, on history.
I am not sure what “it” is; so let me just say: White people are awesome. We have always been awesome. Without us, you would not have skinny jeans or emo music or square dancing or hipsters — or so I understand from popular American history. So as you listen to this, remember: it doesn’t mean white people are not awesome. We are. Always have been. OK. Got it?
Even with all that disclaiming, I’m not sure if the Florida powers-that-be will fire me for not teaching Ocoee or for teaching it. Such is the life of an educator in America’s worst designed, worst led, most corrupt, most incoherent, and most stupidly performative state education system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Utah is about to pass this same law and I am wondering the same thing: how do I teach the required history and not talk about race? None of these idiots passing these laws seems to have considered that. How do I teach genocide? The treatment of Native Americans? Slavery and the Civil War? Reconstruction? Japanese American internment? The Civil Rights Movement? Current issues? Etc.
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You will teach as you always have. You will point out what was wrong and how all men are created equal. Mankind is a work in progress and no one is innately evil , but may become that way as you have seen by examples you have been given You have opportunities and responsibilities in life. You create your own successes or failures. Never be an oppressor or allow yourself to be oppressed.
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Townsend does a good job exposing the hypocrisy of Florida’s government. The problem with such a vague law that is subject to interpretation, teachers may find themselves on the wrong end of a witch hunt. Teachers that cross an administrator or parent the wrong way could be accused of teaching “critical race theory,” particularly when it is such a subjective term. It gives districts another ground for the dismissal of a teacher. It is an assault on academic freedom. Red states will emulate this flawed legislation so similar laws will likely appear in conservative led states.
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An ultra-conservative group in Utah is encouraging students to secretly record their teachers and then post the (possibly edited) posts to social media. Teachers WILL lose jobs and careers over this.
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So how do teachers fight back?
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While they are employed, teachers have to keep their heads down. Florida is a right to work state. Teachers do not have unions in Florida. Instead, they have professional associations.
In addition to the objectives for each distinct subject that each teacher is supposed to cover there is a list of various other mandates that teachers are responsible for teaching. I don’t know how teachers manage everything they are supposed to do.
Maybe not fight back but cover your back by submitting detailed lesson plans that administrators would then be responsible for checking. That may represent a level of approval to protect yourself some.
I had a principal who would say, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
Good luck.
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Why don’t churches follow Christ’s example and fight in their communities to assure that injustice is acknowledged and ameliorated?
The conservative religious don’t shy away from politics when they demand that the government take away the rights of women and the LGBT community.
Same old, same old, just like reported in the NYT article yesterday about Pope Francis refusing to formally apologize for the deaths of an estimated 6.000 kids, their neglect, the violence against them, and their hunger at the schools the church operated in British Columbia for First Nation children. Rick Santorum’s religion still on display and condoned by Pope Francis. When whites arrived in North America, there was “nothing (and nobody) here”.
“Unlike other religious groups that operated schools, Pope Francis refused to formally apologize”, even after a direct appeal from P.M. Justin Trudeau.
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It’s wonderful that Townsend has such a command of the concrete particulars of these wicked acts against Blacks. They should be taught.
But it’s disingenuous for liberals to act as if naked anti-White, anti-Western bias does not dominate some classrooms. Whites are not demons. And it’s disingenuous, as Townsend does here, to suggest all opponents of the rabid critical race theory style want to do nothing but glorify Whites.
Teachers should teach the facts, with little spin. But the CRT crowd, imbued with post-modernism as they are, don’t believe in neutrality (Paolo Freire: “There is no neutral history.”). They’re taught all narratives are indoctrination, power plays by interested parties. So the choice is between a leftist indoctrination or the oppressors’ indoctrination. They insist that a “neutral” seeming narrative history is just “colonial reproduction” in disguise. So they oppose a neutral recounting of the facts. The only acceptable history teaching is a tendentious one. This is the ugly underside of CRT’s virtuous veneer.
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Teachers should ask Corcoran to supply them with a plan for teaching the1920 Ocoee race massacre. He is supposed to be the “grand puba” on education in the state.
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Someone actually had the temerity to write this for public consumption:
“But it’s disingenuous for liberals to act as if naked anti-White, anti-Western bias does not dominate some classrooms. Whites are not demons. And it’s disingenuous, as Townsend does here, to suggest all opponents of the rabid critical race theory style want to do nothing but glorify Whites.
“Teachers should teach the facts, with little spin.”
Discuss.
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Yes, it’s putting one’s own hypocrisy on display!
It’s disingenuous for CRT-haters to act as if naked pro-white, pro-Western bias does not dominate some classrooms. Nonwhites are not demons. And it’s disingenuous to suggest all opponents of the rabid anti-CRT style want to do nothing but glorify non-whites.
And I’m just using “facts, with little spin” to inform in this comment.
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Eurocentric thinking is not neutral thinking.
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How many statues of Jesus show him as a blue eyed blonde?
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Exactly.
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CRT as a theory is not taught in K-12 schools. Not teaching about racism means selectively omitting parts of history which is a racist act in itself. Teaching about people’s lived history is not “spin.” When we have Governor DeSantis approving gerrymandered districts that limit the voting power of particular races, this reflects current problems that exist in our state. To pretend like racism did not exist here is the “spin.”
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Maybe you could just submit very poor lesson plans. Lesson plans are overrated. I take the Robert Burns approach: the best-laid lesson plans of mice and men gang oft aglay.
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People who are preoccupied with keeping their heads down, covering their backs, pleasing their administrators, and avoiding witch hunts and accusations are not going to be part of the solution.
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They may not be part of the solution, unless they know how to go underground with their “subversive’ tactics, but maybe they will still have a job. Do we want talented teachers to make themselves targets?
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There might be a way to teach about the infamous 1920 Ocoee race massacre and do what the kleptocratic racist Republicans that control Florida want.
Teachers write up detailed lesson plans with all the facts and then redact all the facts, just like the government does when they want to hide data that proves they are as guilty as can be.
Then copy and hand out the entire lesson plan with the blacked-out facts and have their students take it home for parent signatures with a printed explanation that the teacher wants proof they did exactly like the censor-loving Republicans wanted the teachers to do.
Parents, please sign this form and have your child return it to class as proof that you understand why we can’t teach the truth. because the Republicans that control the state’s government don’t want us to and will fire us if we do not comply.
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The role of churches in communities? They could follow Christ’s teachings, acknowledging suffering and taking steps to ameliorate it. The church’s leaders and their like-thinking right wing activist congregants don’t shy away from politics when they want the government to take away the rights of women and gay people.
Don’t look to Pope Francis for compassion on the subject of massacres. He told the victims and P.M. Justin Trudeau what he thought about exposing past abuses when he refused Trudeau’s direct request for an apology for the estimated 6,000 lives lost, the neglect, the hunger, and the violence, at the school operated by the Church in British Columbia. The NYT wrote about it yesterday.
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