The Network for Public Education blog posted this excellent explanation of why the Republican laws banning teaching about racism are wrong. They assert that white children will feel bad about themselves if they learn the truth about the past, about whites’ oppression of Blacks, about lynching and massacres and white supremacy.
From the blog Edukention, a response to the concern that teaching about racial history and institutional racism will make white children feel bad.
One of the myths about teaching accurate racial history and institutional racism is that it will make white children feel bad about themselves. In most cases, this is a trumped up idea intended to dissuade teachers from teaching accurately and it is a rationale for abusing teachers, administrators, and school boards into supporting a white supremacist curriculum. It makes NO SENSE that an accurate education would make the learners “feel bad” about themselves. What they are learning is what was done BEFORE they were alive; they didn’t do anything wrong. They are learning about what OTHER PEOPLE did.
It’s like saying we shouldn’t teach about World War II because it might make Germans, Italians, and Japanese people feel bad about themselves. I’m ¼ German, and I never once felt the slightest bit of guilt or self-loathing when I learned about Nazi Germany. In fact, I felt good because I learned that people who share my heritage who were wrongheaded in their ideas were defeated and then later they made peace with their past, established a better set of conditions, and became important leaders and global citizens–although far from perfect, of course.
It’s not fun to learn about injustice, especially if you are benefitting from that injustice. We can file these feelings under “growing pains,” which is when you learn something that makes you feel temporarily bad but is ultimately important to be a functioning, ethical adult. For example, think about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or any myths that are prominent among children in your culture. Eventually, the truth must out. Life is not fair, and it’s less fair from some than others. Much less fair. To a degree that takes lives and livelihoods from some and makes it much easier for others.
Over the course of centuries, white people have allowed themselves to be treated with a level of care and respect they have not granted to people of color. After so much time, it can seem natural that some deserve more than others. THAT’S where unfair privilege comes in. Some of us (white, wealthy, male, straight, abled) have a lot of privilege. Yeah, it sucks to have that pointed out, but we have to be adults. We need to learn about it, accept it, and make the necessary changes to make ourselves and our world better.
Children and adolescents are especially attuned to fairness, and as they mature they are rarely wounded when they understand that they must share in fair ways.
You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/edukention-good-teaching-about-race-does-not-make-white-children-feel-bad-about-themselves/
I read many online publications from across the political spectrum because I don’t want to reside mentally in any kind of ideological bubble. I have never seen a single article in any conservative outlet that advocates NOT teaching kids about the racism in America’s past and present. The objections are about making history/civics education all about the warts of American history and making the extreme tenets of Critical Race Theory the only thinking that kids are exposed to.
This is just for you Diane. Different topic. Much has been written about the receivership of Lawrence Schools in MA for the last 10 years. The former TFA superintendent who took over is now Education Commissioner in MA.
https://www.teachforamerica.org/one-day/policy-and-advocacy/meet-the-alumni-leading-education-in-their-states
This is what is going on since TFA and the state decided to take over in Lawrence. No miracles here. Just defunding the district, imposing top down charters, getting rid of union power and now teachers are forced to walk out due to safety issues for staff and students
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.masslive.com/news/2021/10/school-violence-and-student-fights-prompt-protest-at-lawrence-high-school.html%3foutputType=amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wcvb.com/amp/article/lawrence-high-school-fight-mother-arrested-jacqueline-sabino/38026036
This is just for you Diane. Different topic. Much has been written about the receivership of Lawrence Schools in MA for the last 10 years. The former TFA superintendent who took over is now Education Secretary in MA. This is what is going on since TFA and the state decided to take over. No miracles here. Just defunding the district, imposing top down charters, getting rid of union power and now teachers are forced to walk out due to safety issues for staff and students
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.masslive.com/news/2021/10/school-violence-and-student-fights-prompt-protest-at-lawrence-high-school.html%3foutputType=amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wcvb.com/amp/article/lawrence-high-school-fight-mother-arrested-jacqueline-sabino/38026036
In response to the backlash against CRT, which is not taught in K-12 anyway, DeSantis does not want Florida students to be “uncomfortable.” The right often accuses the left of being “snowflakes, but it is the right making “much ado about nothing.” Lots of things in life can be uncomfortable, and sometimes discomfort is an opportunity to learn and grow. These right wing Christians are convinced that public schools “indoctrinate” young people with liberal ideas even though most of them never attended a public schools. The right simply wants to undermine the credibility of public schools.
Not only is CRT not taught , how much time is actually devoted to teaching history in K-8 education. Even in HS how in depth are the discussions of historical events. I mean Washington chopped down a cherry tree , or Abe Lincoln walked miles to school was not exactly history in the 60s . A line or a paragraph on the treatment of Native Americans ,Slaves or American workers not either.
Reminds me of the line from “A Few Good Men ”
” The truth you can’t handle the truth ” And those that wield the power in the economy certainly don’t want it taught . Racial division has benefited the landed gentry and then the industrialist since the aftermath of Bacon’s rebellion. The Kochtopus is not funding these assaults out of ideology. It is a pocket book issue.
I say, give the right-wing extremists exactly what they fear.
Because I live in California I have been accused online of being a snowflake.
I just Googled what that word means to most if not all extremist conservatives and learned:
” ‘Snowflake’ is a 2010s derogatory slang term for a person, implying that he or she has an inflated sense of uniqueness, an unwarranted sense of entitlement, or are overly-emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions.”
What a load of Bull Shite!
If anyone is overly-emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions” (especially those based in facts from primary sources) it is first, Traitor Trump, and everyone that still supports him.
The MAGA mob doesn’t debate. It preaches and insults and seldom if ever results to facts from primary sources to defend what they think.
Instead, the MAGA mob calls almost anyone that disagrees with them: communists, socialists, liberals, libtards, snowflakes, et al.
The MAGA mob does not debate. They often burst into violent, uncontrollable anger and spew insults. And when that doesn’t work, they threaten Civil War and/or threaten anyone and the families of those people that don’t do what they want.
Traitor Trump and his dangerous, fanatical MAGA mob does not debate.
I have watched a lot of young people, on their own, become social justice warriors. Far from making these kids “feel bad about themselves,” this made them feel great because they were change agents, making a difference. But that’s the REAL issue that the racist fundamentalist fascists are worried about.
The fundamentalist worriers are AstroTurf funded and organized by an economic elite.
Exactly, Joel
so not so much worriers as minimally-informed puppets?
That too, ciedie! Well said!
I have gotten 3 personal long mailings from anti vaxxers. I guess they figure a seemingly personal mailing from an individual is more effective. And of course the theme is anti Democrat. Strangely the last one I checked had a return address from an individual in South Jersey . Yet the postmark was from Mid Island (LI) NY . There is real money that has organized the “vast right wing conspiracy ” in this country. It is a near 50 year project from Abortion , to school choice , to Anti Vaxx , to CRT. to anti worker pro corporate stands. . The money is largely the same.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that many of the parents who profess to be so concerned about their white children being taught about racism just happen to have voted for Donald Trump – a man who appealed to the racism and xenophobia of his supporters.
But the NYT normalizes these parents as apolitical, typical parents who were just triggered by their concern about what the school was teaching their children.
Would the NYT normalize a group of David Duke supporters, funded by organizations with ties to the Nazi movement, who profess to be “very concerned” that public schools were teaching about anti-Semitism and making their Christian children feel bad?
My guess is that NYT reporters would definitely present David Duke-supporting parents as just apolitical parents very concerned about how awful their kids were made to feel when the schools taught about anti-Semitism if those reporters believed that someone at Fox News would criticize them for being “too pro-Jewish” if they did not normalize these parents as simply caring folks very concerned about their children’s education and well-being.
Here is an interesting story about sharing history with kiddos: Several years ago I found at an estate sale a copy of the most famous photographs published by Life Magazine. (I often used photographs as writing prompts in my Language Arts class; you know… a picture is worth… I often read picture books to them. They loved it! Pink and Say, about the Civil War, still brings tears.) Anyway, I previewed the new book page by page. It contained pictures of lots of movie stars, exciting sports events, but much more. There was a photo of an actual lynching of a black man in Indiana years ago along with the infamous photo of the little Vietnamese girl running in the street whose clothes had been burned off by napalm. There were photos from WWII concentration camps, too (about which my eighth grade ESL students knew nothing, but which became background preparation before reading The Diary of Anne Frank play aloud together from the lit. book.) Hmmm…let the students look at the photos or not… Before I ever set out the book, I had a very serious discussion with each class of my 7th and 8th graders explaining that it contained some horrific photos as well as noteworthy news events; I said the photos were historical and that the events pictured were important to see and were already well known by everyone–good or bad. I told them that they could look at the book, but only if they were very mindful of the suffering pictured in some of them. I told them to read the captions, and I would answer questions or give historical context if needed. My students were so respectful as they went through the book, page by page. I watched their faces and was touched by their empathy. We had many productive and thoughtful class discussions about the photographs. They were most appreciative that I had trusted them to share the book and be honest with them about what was shown. Nobody felt shamed or guilty, but they got to literally “see” some events that are not often in their history book. Fortunately our literature book had a variety of authors such as Gary Soto, Gary Paulson, Mildred Taylor, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni and others to “open their eyes” through stories.
“It’s like saying we shouldn’t teach about World War II because it might make Germans, Italians, and Japanese people feel bad about themselves.”
Yes, it is just like that. But it also isn’t like that because teaching about the history of racism in the U.S. isn’t teaching about something that clearly ended in 1945. Today is October 22, 2021. Yesterday, October 21, 2021 is history, and on October 21, 2021, there was racism in the United States. I’m not in any way saying we shouldn’t have good teaching about real history, but I mean to say that the opposition doesn’t really care about kids feeling guilty about events that took place before they were born.
Racists want kids not to blame them for the racism which just yesterday (and today) exists. That’s why they oppose teaching about racism. They don’t care about the kids’ feelings. They care about continuing their aristocratic domination of others. Today.