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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a recent graduate of Sheridan (within the past 5 years). The school focuses *heavily* on social justice and activism. I attended Sheridan from Kindergarten until Eighth grade, and even in that time, I noticed changes.

In History/Civics courses, we were not allowed to learn about American history. We learned about every other culture under the sun, but never America. I have no issue with a balanced curriculum that includes a heavy dose of traditionally overlooked cultures, but it was odd for America to be omitted. There was no mention of the American Revolution or the Colonies. There was no talk of America’s contributions to World History. The basics of our government were not covered until the end of 8th grade.

The same was true in the Art and Music departments. We never talked about European composers or Painters. 
 
When I started, we were allowed to take either French or Spanish. Around Middle School, that changed. The school began only offering Spanish classes, purportedly in the pursuit of ‘diversity’. I believe this decision was reversed a year or two later. At the time, they spoke of how Spanish was the language of more traditionally underserved cultures around the world.

One year, our Shakespeare unit was struck from the curriculum in favor of one that I seem to recall was called “social justice”. We watched news coverage of recent events and were lectured on the significance.

Those are just a few concrete examples.

I wanted to also mention the less concrete aspect. At Sheridan, there is “one true opinion.” And you’re expected to buy into it, wholeheartedly. Students are taught debatable opinions as gospel. In an environment like that, intellectual exploration is impossible. Sheridan prides itself on encouraging deep critical thinking, but this practice really cuts against all of the flowery language they stick in brochures. [/quote]

Parent of Sheridan kids who were there when you were there. There was no prohibition on learning US History and in fact both of my kids learned US History while there.  Just a few events I remembered being covered include the battle of Lexington and Concord, the Trail of Tears, Slavery, Westward Expansion, the history and development of Washington, DC, and more.  They also learned about the three branches of government, how a bill becomes a law, and voting.  At their new schools their teachers have commented on how well informed they are and their ability to see things from different perspectives.

My kids sang and performed songs by Bob Dylan, Cole Porter, George Gershwin,, etc.  They were introduced to the music of Charlie Parker.  Artists examined included Van Gogh, Pollock, Calder, etc.

The switch to Spanish was made when my high school student was in 1st or 2nd grade and was not made for diversity reasons from what I recall.  We were upset by the change and followed the issue closely.  It was a switch that was made to focus on one language instead of two with the intent that students would develop more proficiency in a language by the time they graduated.  My kids did well with the change and both were placed in more advanced Spanish classes in high school.  Spanish was selected because more people speak it in the US.

I’m not saying everything about Sheridan was perfect, but I had to explain that what this grad said was not what my kids experienced when they were at Sheridan in the past 5 years.

Both of my kids read Shakespeare in high school and were able to understand it despite not having rad it in middle school.  Both of them had a much easier time analyzing texts in high school from a diverse range of authors than many of their classmates who were encountering the idea of danger of a single story for the first time.  [/quote]

This sounds like a Sheridan parent, the PP wrote like a Sheridan Student but some of the examples read wrong. In art the children learn about artists from all over the world. My child has not started US history yet but we were told that it will be taught. 
[/quote]

NP here and a former Sheridan parent from the years the student PP was enrolled and graduated.  I would make different word choices than the Student did ('allowed', 'prohibited') but the recounting of the facts absolutely tracks with our experience.  You either learn Shakespeare, or you don't.  The curriculum either includes US history in any given year, or it does not.  The school musical is either 90% songs from Africa and South America vs. 10% from the US, or it's not.

The abrupt decision to jettison French, in retrospect, was probably driven by finances more than any other factor.  HOWEVER, that move [u]was presented to the parent body at the time as part of a larger, school-wide embracement of diversity and equity[/u].  [[ie, Spanish is overwhelmingly spoken by POC worldwide, whereas French is the language of white privileged people who order expensive wine from a sommelier. ]]  I think that messaging is relevant to this thread.

As well, there were staffing changes related to the school's then-new equity/justice focus that were laudable in intent but ultimately had a negative effect on the curriculum and programming.  Some very effective staff were terminated so that others could be hired into newly created positions.  Some programs were slashed in order to assure funds for new programming. Our view of these sweeping decisions is not at all universal; clearly they were popular with other families, as evidenced by the fact that Sheridan doubled-down on these types of actions in subsequent years.

To be very clear, we're thrilled with the overall education Sheridan provided.  Many of the veteran teachers pushed DCs to analyze and think critically and to write with evidence.  But, the student PP's experience does align with our family's -- the tacit, erroneous assumption that the kids are all in agreement on how difficult, multi-faceted social and justice issues should be approached.   For example, this poster was everywhere in the school at one point, sending the implicit message that this is a universal take on the subject.  In fact, scholars in the field actually don't agree among themselves on these definitions.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136820825@N05/26798396924[/quote]

Did anyone ever point out that Haiti and Francophone Africa aren't exactly the bastions of white privilege as a counter argument to scrapping French??

[/quote]

[b]Another progressive school history unit: hailing the Haitian revolution. 
No saying negatives or negatives about current situation without blaming someone or something else. Same for S Africa situation.[/b] [/quote]

You do realize this is typical Tucker Carlson/Fox News style whataboutism.

All of Haiti's problems today can be directly laid at the feet of France. And South Africa's problems of today can also be traced directly to the white, European colonizers. One can try to twist things into rhetorical knots about the failings of the current and past governments of Haiti or South Africa, but the truth remains that all of today's issues stem from the fruit of this poisoned tree of slavery, colonialism and white supremacy.  The only people who want to debate about that are people who harbor racist, supremacist beliefs. [/quote]

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