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VA Public Schools other than FCPS
Loudoun School Board meeting
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Anonymous
DP - race essentialism is off putting. |
Anonymous
DP: Show how CRT has anything to do with race essentialism? It's about systemic racism in institutions not anything about race essentialism. |
Anonymous
Wouldn’t you acknowledge that this is a CRT critique of math pedagogy? |
Anonymous
Race essentialism and systemic racism are two sides of the same coin. The only way for institutions to be systemically racist is for those institutions to necessarily act upon people based on their race rather than as individuals. Unless you're talking about individuals somehow existing outside of these systems, their race is going to be essential to their experience and interactions within the systems. |
Anonymous
It could be. But this would not be an indication that kids are being "taught CRT" in K-12 education. Rather it is a program for teachers (who go to graduate school!)where they are being asked to reflect on how systemic racism may influence their teaching. Teachers then in K-12 make decisions based on this reflection on things like whether to require "standardized and prescribed ways" of students' showing their work or to allow varied ways of showing their work on math problems. Looking through the resource PP (not sure if it's you) shared, the outcome of all of this was teacher reflection on their experiences--not prescribed curriculum. Do you think teachers should not reflect on how systemic racism might be embedded in schools and traditional curricular practices? The racist history of US schooling is pretty well-documented--that's not something that got eradicated with Brown vs. Board of Education. Do you think teachers who teach diverse communities should not think about how whether/how their current ways of teaching connect with those from different cultural backgrounds? Do you believe there's one "right" way to teach math? I'm not a teacher, but I have volunteered as a math tutor for GED programs and this resource actually would have been really valuable to me as I tried to connect to and build on students' diverse math knowledge--adult students who had really inventive ways of figuring out sports stats, money, deals etc. but needed help translating that into the often rigid formats presented and required by the GED (some of which made no sense to me as someone with a graduate degree in math, but who completed my high school math education outside of the US--further supporting that math is cultural!). |
Anonymous
Different DP: To be more direct, CRT teaches children to hate each other based on their skin color. |
Anonymous
Well, that’s a little slippery isn’t it? If kids are being taught concepts such as “systemic racism,” “white supremacy culture,” “white privilege,” etc., it seems fair to me that they are being “taught” CRT even though they aren’t reading the primary CRT literature. Lol. But we can agree to use a different formulation in this discussion if you prefer. A lot of the discussion about CRT is a bait and switch from my perspective, because people are cagey about what things like “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” really mean. I think everyone would agree that there was systemic racism in the Jim Crow south, but that’s not what we’re talking about at the moment in Loudoun, I hope you’d agree with at least that. So whether there is indeed “systemic racism” going on in Loudoun County schools—and more importantly, who gets to decide—is precisely the issue here. Your language misleads here, the issue is not whether “systemic racism might be embedded in schools,” the only way I’ve ever heard of these concepts being presented is that systemic racism IS embedded in schools and if you disagree its not whether you “might” be right — it is that anyone who disagrees is showing white fragility at best and is actively racist at worst. In any event, that issue is too important to leave to the voters or the parents. Some parents disagree, of course, which is what we are seeing here. |
Anonymous
CRT has its roots in the philosophical tradition of "critical theory" which was subsequently applied to race when it made its way to the United States, where, it is true that it mainly circulated in legal academia. Another offshoot of critical theory, however, was "critical pedagogy", as developed by thinkers like Paulo Friere and bell hooks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy While critical pedagogy is large and heterogenous, suffice it to say that a large part of the praxis involves seeing the teacher's role as inculcating political consciousness into students with the goal of prompting them to take action against existing power structures, which are axiomatically taken to be authoritarian and exploitative. The things that people are pointing to as objectionable are clearly influenced by strands of both CRT and critical pedagogy, as filtered through graduate schools of education and human resources departments / "equity consultants". So if someone is teaching children that racial oppression is not just inherent but inescapable, that it is the primary determinant of a person's identity and position within the notional "power structures" which govern all of us, that clearly shares intellectual roots in the traditions of critical theory and critical pedagogy, as applied to race. It does not seem unreasonable to call critical theory as applied to race "critical race theory". Saying that ONLY critical theory as applied to race taught at law schools is "critical race theory" is a distinction without a difference. You're like the person at a party trying to tell everyone that what they're drinking isn't actually champagne because it didn't come from the Champagne region of France. Everyone knows what they're drinking. And running around saying "there's no champagne at this party!", when there's tall glasses full of white wine with bubbles in it everywhere, only damages your credibility. |
Anonymous
If we're going with the math pedagogy example here, K-12 kids aren't being taught systemic racism, white supremacy culture etc. TEACHERS who study this are thinking about whether their practices reflect it and then adjust their practices. What kids are taught then is: "there's a lot of correct ways to solve a math problem" and "Use examples from your lives where you use math" rather than a canned word problem. |
Anonymous
This^. If the material were being presented as "here is an interesting and provocative way of looking at the world, one which might occasion some reflection on the ways your life may have been affected by things you can't control," I would have no objection to it. I would encourage it, in fact. The material itself is pretty clear that you are not allowed to disagree without being guilty of white privilege (if you're white) or internalized racism (if you're not). So much of this thread is just people defending LCPS by pleading the alternative, that 1) they aren't teaching this stuff, people are overreacting, but also 2) so what if they did? would it be so bad? I think people who disagree with it are just dumb bigots. It can't be both folks. |
Anonymous
Should we ignore this country's racist past, and not each our kids about things like the Chinese Exclusion Acts, Japanese American Internment camps, segregation and redlining? My kids (not white) have learned all this, but it doesn't make them hate white people. They recognize that their white friends aren't the ones who developed those systemic racist policies. It's like saying we shouldn't teach American children about Pearl Harbor in case that makes them all hate Japanese people. |
Anonymous
Crit Race Theory is taught in grad school--not just law school. In educ grad school it can inform cultural responsive pedagogy. But kids in K-12 don't get taught "cultural responsive teaching" or "critical race theory" -- their teachers decide to draw on these perspectives to inform their own pedagogy. Look for actual examples of what teachers are teaching KIDS to make your point. What you find will be a lot harder for you to be outraged about I think. |
Anonymous
not necessarily. People don't realize that they are privileged unless you call it out and explain why. My kids are privileged, but they didn't realize it until I explained how the real world works. It's like trying to explain what is "good" without knowing what is "bad". That's not to say that white people should feel bad about being white. I think it's ridiculous when I see white people apologizing for their privilege. That's not helpful at all, and only makes racists triggered. Instead, people need to acknowledge that system racism exists, and discuss it. Ignoring it or pretending like it doesn't exist isn't going to help. I hate it when white people say, "Oh, I don't see the color of your skin, just you". Hello.. my skin color is part of who I am. Just don't judge me or hate me because of my skin color. I think that's what MLK was trying to address. |
Anonymous
I was taught about all of those things 30 years ago. I wasn't taught enough about Reconstruction or the ways in which white Southerners used terrorism to re-subjugate black people after Reconstruction. But I don't think teaching about these things has too many people in an uproar. It's more the idea that existing as a white person in a country with institutions rooted in a past that included these events necessarily makes the person racist if he or she is not actively trying to alter these institutions. |
Anonymous
This is a bizarre argument. For instance, the criminal justice system in the US has extensive systemic racism. Insofar as an institution can act, it acts in ways upon people based on their race. Calling it out is going AGAINST the race essentialism embedded in the system. It's about as far opposite of race essentialism as you can get. |