CRT clubs in schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD wants to start a club at school to discuss CRT. She has faculty sponsors lined up. I think this is a great idea and wonder if there are any National groups that might underwrite a campaign to do this in many schools?

Teens are extremely interested in CRT after all the fuss over the summer. And now with efforts to ban it, it just piques their interest more

I'd avoid the "CRT" label. Maybe a group to discuss matters of race, with CRT being an obvious hot topic?

I, myself, don't have any problem with exploring CRT in the open, but why invite the vultures to descend and kill the idea in the cradle, which they will?

If the point is to provide a forum to discuss these topics, then let the forum get off the ground first, without the forum/group becoming the issue from the get-go.

Sadly, there are people of bad faith just lurking and looking to snuff out things like this.

Agree. CRT needs to be hidden under a different label or acronym.

Try to find something innocent-sounding to mislead those who might question what she is doing.

Op here: I don’t think she intends to hide it. To some degree she and her friends want to be in-your-face of the people who squawked loudest about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine question. Am I the only person that thinks this club would be an utter waste of time? It feels like one of those classes called “current events”, which provide no meaningful instruction. That kind of extracurricular seems to lead to a degree in gender/ethnic studies with a fast track for a barista job at Starbucks. I realize everyone is different, but personally I would dissuade my child to participate in such a club. Why not doing some more meaningful and useful like volunteering, an internship, a sport, band, high school newspaper, or a club that adds some academic benefit like robotics, debate etc.

Of all possible activities, doing a club about CRT seems like one of the worst choices.

Oh total waste of time. Maybe they should do chess instead. Memorizing ways to move people around on some squares would be a much better use of time than discussing thing like how banks charged Black people higher interest rates and the way that has impacted their ability to build wealth.

Not to get into the politics of it, but you are bringing an example from half a century ago. Suit yourself, for sure you’d be wrecking that student’s ability to build future wealth with an ethnic studies degree and $200k in student loans. Another $200k for a Master degree and she’s really screwed for the rest of her life.

It's fine for the white kids. Black kids should just stay away.

Black and white kids that want to be future productive members of society should stay away.

The main tenet of CRT today is that any disparity among racial groups is due to systemic racism. Besides being highly controversial, and providing no tangible employable skill, if this is what you want your child’s future career, good luck to her, she’s going to need plenty of it.

This is hyperbolic BS. As if participating in a CRT (or whatever) club in HS means your going for a college degree in "Marxist-afro-queer intersectional studies."

It’s not hyperbolic at all.

Future engineers participate in robotics clubs.
Future scientists and mathematicians participate in science and math olympiads.
Future lawyers participate in debate and model UN clubs.

People develop their interests and aptitudes way before college, extracurricular clubs in high school is one such venue. See a pattern?

Future waiters with useless degrees and student debt participate in CRT club. I’m quite sure not many in the CRT club will get degrees in engineering and sciences.

The suggestion of setting an ally club is laughable. As if the dream of every teenager is to be the secondary character in someone else’s story. I want my kids to be leaders not followers.

Marxist-afro-queer intersectional studies is exactly what I don’t want my child to study, or at least not while a co-sign their student loan.

OP here. You sound very afraid of my daughter’s intentions. I mean, you sound really threatened.

Are you going to protest if she does it in your school?

She has reached out this snowy weekend to a few groups and is learning about funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Teens are extremely interested in CRT after all the fuss over the summer. And now with efforts to ban it, it just piques their interest more

Really? My teen and his friends do not seem interested in CRT at all. He's gay, as are many of his friends, and they are interested in LGBQT issues, as well as typical teen stuff.

Yes, really. There’s a lot of interest in queer stuff too. Both things are true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who doesn’t believe children should be taught to see each other as a race first or that every bad result someone gets is due to race, I think a club that actually reads Derrick Ball et. al, their backgrounds, what they base the theory on and opposing arguments would be a great idea and really a lot of fun.

I hope the club is a great experience and helpful to the kids.

What the heck does that have to do with CRT? CRT is a lens to look at how racism is embedded in institutions and systems--not people.

CRT assumes every individual unavoidably sees other individuals through the lens of race. See, e.g. "implicit bias" or "white privilege" enjoyed by people who are not, in any realistic sense, "privileged."

You don't need to invoke the boogeyman that is CRT to talk about these concepts. Whether or not people see others through the lease of race is a psychological question, and what constitutes privilege is an economic question as well as a sociological question. CRT was developed in the 1970s and people have been studying race and racism for much longer.

It's well-established that people--including kids--see racist and make attributions about it that mirror the patterns in their larger society. If you don't address the roots of some of the patterns, kids of all races are smart enough to notice some patterns through observation (which kids get into trouble more, who's getting arrested in their community, who is in the gifted program etc.) and not know why these patterns exist. Actively discussing the history of race and how discrimination has been built and persists over generations, gives a lens for kids to see why the patterns they are already noticing are there. Does it explain everything and every individual variation --no. It's a lens to look at institutions for discrimination--and it is a powerful critical thinking tool. People who use a CRT lens also use other lenses and care about different things as well--the tool may be about race, but it's one tool among many. And to the PP engineering/IT departments are thinking deeply about equity issues --and what is missing when they are not getting perspectives of everyone on their teams. Engineering involves designing for humans and communities not just using math. Thoughtful thinking about how race is embedded in institutions would be a good/compelling background for STEM students (I have a STEM degree myself!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who doesn’t believe children should be taught to see each other as a race first or that every bad result someone gets is due to race, I think a club that actually reads Derrick Ball et. al, their backgrounds, what they base the theory on and opposing arguments would be a great idea and really a lot of fun.

I hope the club is a great experience and helpful to the kids.

What the heck does that have to do with CRT? CRT is a lens to look at how racism is embedded in institutions and systems--not people.

CRT assumes every individual unavoidably sees other individuals through the lens of race. See, e.g. "implicit bias" or "white privilege" enjoyed by people who are not, in any realistic sense, "privileged."

You don't need to invoke the boogeyman that is CRT to talk about these concepts. Whether or not people see others through the lease of race is a psychological question, and what constitutes privilege is an economic question as well as a sociological question. CRT was developed in the 1970s and people have been studying race and racism for much longer.

It's well-established that people--including kids--see racist and make attributions about it that mirror the patterns in their larger society. If you don't address the roots of some of the patterns, kids of all races are smart enough to notice some patterns through observation (which kids get into trouble more, who's getting arrested in their community, who is in the gifted program etc.) and not know why these patterns exist. Actively discussing the history of race and how discrimination has been built and persists over generations, gives a lens for kids to see why the patterns they are already noticing are there. Does it explain everything and every individual variation --no. It's a lens to look at institutions for discrimination--and it is a powerful critical thinking tool. People who use a CRT lens also use other lenses and care about different things as well--the tool may be about race, but it's one tool among many. And to the PP engineering/IT departments are thinking deeply about equity issues --and what is missing when they are not getting perspectives of everyone on their teams. Engineering involves designing for humans and communities not just using math. Thoughtful thinking about how race is embedded in institutions would be a good/compelling background for STEM students (I have a STEM degree myself!)

Edited: meant to write "races" here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who doesn’t believe children should be taught to see each other as a race first or that every bad result someone gets is due to race, I think a club that actually reads Derrick Ball et. al, their backgrounds, what they base the theory on and opposing arguments would be a great idea and really a lot of fun.

I hope the club is a great experience and helpful to the kids.

Are you a UMC white person who was taught by parents not to see color? Genuine question.

DP but, yeah, "content of their character" was seen as the more relevant measure of an individual.

[Anonymous]

Is this a troll post? It sure seems like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who doesn’t believe children should be taught to see each other as a race first or that every bad result someone gets is due to race, I think a club that actually reads Derrick Ball et. al, their backgrounds, what they base the theory on and opposing arguments would be a great idea and really a lot of fun.

I hope the club is a great experience and helpful to the kids.

What the heck does that have to do with CRT? CRT is a lens to look at how racism is embedded in institutions and systems--not people.

CRT assumes every individual unavoidably sees other individuals through the lens of race. See, e.g. "implicit bias" or "white privilege" enjoyed by people who are not, in any realistic sense, "privileged."

You don't need to invoke the boogeyman that is CRT to talk about these concepts. Whether or not people see others through the lease of race is a psychological question, and what constitutes privilege is an economic question as well as a sociological question. CRT was developed in the 1970s and people have been studying race and racism for much longer.

It's well-established that people--including kids--see racist and make attributions about it that mirror the patterns in their larger society. If you don't address the roots of some of the patterns, kids of all races are smart enough to notice some patterns through observation (which kids get into trouble more, who's getting arrested in their community, who is in the gifted program etc.) and not know why these patterns exist. Actively discussing the history of race and how discrimination has been built and persists over generations, gives a lens for kids to see why the patterns they are already noticing are there. Does it explain everything and every individual variation --no. It's a lens to look at institutions for discrimination--and it is a powerful critical thinking tool. People who use a CRT lens also use other lenses and care about different things as well--the tool may be about race, but it's one tool among many. And to the PP engineering/IT departments are thinking deeply about equity issues --and what is missing when they are not getting perspectives of everyone on their teams. Engineering involves designing for humans and communities not just using math. Thoughtful thinking about how race is embedded in institutions would be a good/compelling background for STEM students (I have a STEM degree myself!)

One problem is dressing these things up in jargon. Your explanation here was excellent and so much more persuasive than the Twitter activists telling folks to "check their privilege" or calling white people "fragile."

Actions have consequences that ripple down through the years. Small advantages accumulate and snowball. Anyone who has ever noticed that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer can appreciate that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Genuine question. Am I the only person that thinks this club would be an utter waste of time? It feels like one of those classes called “current events”, which provide no meaningful instruction. That kind of extracurricular seems to lead to a degree in gender/ethnic studies with a fast track for a barista job at Starbucks. I realize everyone is different, but personally I would dissuade my child to participate in such a club. Why not doing some more meaningful and useful like volunteering, an internship, a sport, band, high school newspaper, or a club that adds some academic benefit like robotics, debate etc.

Of all possible activities, doing a club about CRT seems like one of the worst choices.

Oh total waste of time. Maybe they should do chess instead. Memorizing ways to move people around on some squares would be a much better use of time than discussing thing like how banks charged Black people higher interest rates and the way that has impacted their ability to build wealth.

Not to get into the politics of it, but you are bringing an example from half a century ago. Suit yourself, for sure you’d be wrecking that student’s ability to build future wealth with an ethnic studies degree and $200k in student loans. Another $200k for a Master degree and she’s really screwed for the rest of her life.

It's fine for the white kids. Black kids should just stay away.

Black and white kids that want to be future productive members of society should stay away.

The main tenet of CRT today is that any disparity among racial groups is due to systemic racism. Besides being highly controversial, and providing no tangible employable skill, if this is what you want your child’s future career, good luck to her, she’s going to need plenty of it.

This is hyperbolic BS. As if participating in a CRT (or whatever) club in HS means your going for a college degree in "Marxist-afro-queer intersectional studies."

It’s not hyperbolic at all.

Future engineers participate in robotics clubs.
Future scientists and mathematicians participate in science and math olympiads.
Future lawyers participate in debate and model UN clubs.

People develop their interests and aptitudes way before college, extracurricular clubs in high school is one such venue. See a pattern?

Future waiters with useless degrees and student debt participate in CRT club. I’m quite sure not many in the CRT club will get degrees in engineering and sciences.

The suggestion of setting an ally club is laughable. As if the dream of every teenager is to be the secondary character in someone else’s story. I want my kids to be leaders not followers.

Marxist-afro-queer intersectional studies is exactly what I don’t want my child to study, or at least not while a co-sign their student loan.

OP here. You sound very afraid of my daughter’s intentions. I mean, you sound really threatened.

Are you going to protest if she does it in your school?

She has reached out this snowy weekend to a few groups and is learning about funding.

Not in the least. She can do whatever she wants, including wasting her time and getting saddled with a huge student debt for a useless degree, should she choose so. Since you asked on a public forum I am giving my perspective. You don’t need to agree with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD wants to start a club at school to discuss CRT. She has faculty sponsors lined up. I think this is a great idea and wonder if there are any National groups that might underwrite a campaign to do this in many schools?

Teens are extremely interested in CRT after all the fuss over the summer. And now with efforts to ban it, it just piques their interest more

When you say "discuss," do you mean the kind of discussion where there is a diversity of thought and ideas, or the kind where everyone has to agree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD wants to start a club at school to discuss CRT. She has faculty sponsors lined up. I think this is a great idea and wonder if there are any National groups that might underwrite a campaign to do this in many schools?

Teens are extremely interested in CRT after all the fuss over the summer. And now with efforts to ban it, it just piques their interest more

When you say "discuss," do you mean the kind of discussion where there is a diversity of thought and ideas, or the kind where everyone has to agree?

Only people with lived experience of oppression are likely to have a perspective worth hearing. White people should be good allies by listening.

[Anonymous]

This is either a troll or you and your child do not know what CRT is.

You could have a civil rights club, or history club that discusses Race, or a philosophy club that discusses race, but CRT is a philosophy that I doubt anybody in the school can properly teach or guide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD wants to start a club at school to discuss CRT. She has faculty sponsors lined up. I think this is a great idea and wonder if there are any National groups that might underwrite a campaign to do this in many schools?

Teens are extremely interested in CRT after all the fuss over the summer. And now with efforts to ban it, it just piques their interest more

When you say "discuss," do you mean the kind of discussion where there is a diversity of thought and ideas, or the kind where everyone has to agree?

Only people with lived experience of oppression are likely to have a perspective worth hearing. White people should be good allies by listening.

So that’s going to be a listening club. Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD wants to start a club at school to discuss CRT. She has faculty sponsors lined up. I think this is a great idea and wonder if there are any National groups that might underwrite a campaign to do this in many schools?

Teens are extremely interested in CRT after all the fuss over the summer. And now with efforts to ban it, it just piques their interest more

When you say "discuss," do you mean the kind of discussion where there is a diversity of thought and ideas, or the kind where everyone has to agree?

Only people with lived experience of oppression are likely to have a perspective worth hearing. White people should be good allies by listening.

The best satire is the satire you aren't even sure is satire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this a troll post? It sure seems like it.

OP here. No, it’s not. It’s quite possible though that DD has a part of her who is doing this to troll certain adults.