Legal Insurrection by William A. Jacobson Friday, July 16, 2021
Providence Teachers Union Confirms Affinity Group Segregation, Historical Books Destroyed, Holocaust Education Ended (Ramona Bessinger Update)
Union president: “So there’s people of color in one group and white folks in another group…. both the people of color and our teachers of color and our white teachers have said that they’re uncomfortable with it … some people feel like this is further segregationist and feel like it’s more divisive than helpful.”
Ramona Bessinger is the Providence, Rhode Island, middle school teacher who went public in a post at Legal Insurrection about the negative impact of Critical Race teaching, I’m A Middle School Teacher And See How Critical Race Curriculum Is Creating Racial Hostility In School:
This past 2020/21 school year was a sad and worrisome turning point for me as an educator. Providence K-8 teachers were introduced to one of the most racially divisive, hateful, and in large part, historically inaccurate curriculums I have ever seen in my teaching career.
We did not need a new curriculum for students to learn about slavery and racism. We already did that, in great depth, relying in part on the writings of great African-American authors.
American history now is being retold exclusively from the perspective of oppressed peoples during the Revolutionary period through to the Civil War, and also in the literature of the Civil Rights movement. From my position in the classroom, it seemed that much of American history and literature was getting wiped out….
Missing from our curriculum during the 2020/ 21 school year was the diversity, perspective, truth, and rigor that previously were taught. Previously vetted books were removed from our classroom and sent to recycling. Gone was the diverse collection of American and World Literature: House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, James Baldwin Go Tell It On The Mountain, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, essays by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., poetry by Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Anne Frank, Night, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, Macbeth, Walt Whitman, The Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible , Holocaust studies, world genocide, world art, universal themes, universal characters and any book or short story from the literary cannon.
What saddened me most was that I would not be teaching the Holocaust any longer. The Holocaust unit included one of the following: either Anne Frank, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, and depending on reading level, Elie Weisel’s Night When I asked the school reading coach where all the Holocaust books were, she said “we do not teach the Holocaust because kids can’t relate to the story.”
Bessinger pointed out the growing racial hostility:
Teachers were encouraged to participate in “white educator affinity groups” where we would be given essays on how not to be a white supremacist in the classroom.
More:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/07/ramona-bessinger-update-providence-union-head-confirms-teacher-affinity-group-segregation-historical-books-destroyed-holocaust-education-ended/
