In Bemoaning What They ‘Won’t Teach Anymore,’ Educators Reveal 6 Ways They Indoctrinate Students

[Kamaji]

In Bemoaning What They ‘Won’t Teach Anymore,’ Educators Reveal 6 Ways They Indoctrinate Students

Instead of teaching their students how to think, educators want to indoctrinate their students and tell them what to think.

By: Auguste Meyrat
March 17, 2023

It turns out that laws against leftist indoctrination in schools are working. When parents and politicians hold teachers accountable, those teachers become more thoughtful with what they do in the classroom.

At least, this is the case for most teachers. Some teachers will complain they just can’t teach under such conditions. According to a recent essay by Hannah Natanson in The Washington Post, conservatives are keeping teachers from teaching their students “basic truths.”

Of course, there’s much more to the story. With one exception, all the teachers complaining prioritized indoctrinating their students over educating them. Fortunately, parents and administrators stopped these teachers, but there are many more educators pushing a similar agenda. For this reason, it’s worthwhile for all Americans (especially those connected to K-12 schooling) to examine Natanson’s examples to learn exactly how teachers are indoctrinating students.

1. Slavery

The first supposed “thing” teachers won’t teach is that slavery is wrong. This conclusion was reached based on the experience of Greg Wickenkamp, who wanted to use materials from an anti-colonialist Marxist (Howard Zinn) and a prominent anti-racist pseudo-academic (Ibram X. Kendi). Although his school offered little direction in what materials were allowed — as though it isn’t obvious that these texts are incredibly one-sided — certain members of the community complained about Wickenkamp pushing leftism on his students and “teaching Critical Race Theory.”

Wickenkamp somehow equated these criticisms of his materials with teaching that slavery was wrong. He asked his superintendent directly at a Zoom meeting whether teachers could teach that slavery was wrong. The superintendent rightly interpreted this stupid question as a trap. If she said yes, she would be contradicting the rule against pushing a political stance in the classroom. If she said no, then she would look like an ignorant bigot. Instead of answering directly, she chose to deflect the question and simply told him not to pontificate and moralize: “We’re not supposed to say to [students], ‘How does that make you feel?’, ‘We can’t’ — or, ‘Does that make you feel bad?’ We’re not to do that part of it.”

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2. Revisionist History

The next “thing” teachers won’t teach is Howard Zinn’s revisionist history — although this is translated by Natanson as teaching “Christopher Columbus’s Journal.” In this instance, an anonymous teacher in North Carolina reported getting pushback from parents for assigning Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of United States,” which quotes lines from Columbus’ journal that portray him as a racist oppressor.

When a parent complained that the teacher made her son feel guilty with this material, the teacher condescendingly replied, “Why would your child feel guilty about what Columbus did to the Arawak?” This caused the parent to complain to the district’s human resources department, which told the teacher not to teach Zinn. This led to her transferring to another school where she could teach her beloved Zinn once more.

There are a few things horribly wrong with this. First, Zinn was an activist pushing a Marxist narrative, not a historian giving proper context. Second, part of history is reading primary sources, not postmodern spins on primary sources. And third, her students should be learning to appreciate the complexity of Columbus’ situation, not obsessing over his politically incorrect views of indigenous people. Instead of ushering ways forward for her students to learn real history and think historically, this teacher is shutting them down and presenting a skewed interpretation of history as fact.

3. Police Use of Force

The third “thing” teachers can’t teach is oddly specific: “A data set on the use of police force.” In all my years of teaching, I’ve somehow managed to avoid this issue, but some teachers apparently struggle. Such was the case for a math teacher at Loudoun County Public Schools, who “taught a lesson built around a data set exploring the outcomes of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program.”

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Source:  https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/17/in-bemoaning-what-they-wont-teach-anymore-educators-reveal-6-ways-they-indoctrinate-students/