While many states are banning the teaching of the Marxist-inspired and racist Critical Race Theory in classrooms, some teachers are vowing to defy these laws. According to the Washington Free Beacon:
Thousands of teachers are pledging to teach critical race theory in the face of state laws seeking to ban it from classrooms.
More than 5,000 educators have signed the Zinn Education Project’s “Pledge to Teach the Truth” since June 21. In the letter, the leftist education group claims the United States was founded on “structural racism and oppression”—tenets of the Marxist-based ideology called critical race theory.
Legislatures in several states have passed bills to restrict educators from teaching critical race theory to students. Florida’s education board outright banned teachers from using material from the New York Times’s 1619 Project. Teachers in Idaho are banned from teaching that any race or sex is inherently inferior or superior to another. And Rep. Glenn Grothman (R., Wis.) introduced a bill in the House that would prohibit teachers and students in the District of Columbia from making confessions about inherent racism based on skin color.
Racism is integral to the founding of the United States, the pledge states, and failing to educate students on “the roots of U.S. racism” is deceptive.
“From police violence, to the prison system to the wealth gap, to maternal mortality rates, to housing, to education and beyond, the major institutions and systems of our country are deeply infected with anti-Blackness and its intersection with other forms of oppression,” the pledge states. “To not acknowledge this and help students understand the roots of U.S. racism is to deceive them—not educate them.”
In addition to listing the names, cities, and states of the pledge’s signatories, the Zinn Education Project posted personalized statements from the teachers.
“I refuse to teach my students an alternate history rewritten by the suppressors in power,” Jessica Williams, from Tucson, Ariz., said. “They have the right to learn about the contributions and impact that Black Americans, women, LGBTQ+, Latin/a/ex, Native Tribes, Asian and Pacific Islander, all religions other than Christianity, and all other non-white Europeans have had to America.”
Who do these teachers think they are? What gives them the right to fill impressionable young people with hatred against their own country? Their students are not their children, and they do not have the final say on what they teach in their classrooms. The parents of the students are the ones who ought to decide what the instructors teach. The parents have, in effect, hired the teachers to teach their children the knowledge and skills they require to be successful citizens. I think that very few if any parents would consider a doctrine that foments race hatred and division to be among those skills. It is the parents who are the boss, not the teachers.
Critical Race Theory has no more business being taught in our public schools than scientific creationism or the scientific racism of a century ago. Even if there were any truth or merit behind this poisonous nonsense, the parents are nearly universally against having it taught in the public schools and they or their elected representatives ought to have the final say. The teachers who signed this pledge have practically stated that they do not care what the parents, their bosses, want them to teach in the public schools. They have pledged to work against the wishes of the parents, their bosses. If I ignored the commands of my bosses, I would lose my job. I see no reason why it should be different for these teachers. Every single one of them should be dismissed and barred for life from teaching in any public school system. If they really want to teach Critical Race Theory, let them open up their schools for any parent foolish enough to pay them.
David's Commonplace Book 