In Defense of Teachers: Part Deux

(Warning: The following column features some very liberal views, though based on common sense and decency.)

I got quite a few responses to my column yesterday. A few riled me up. My brother riled me up once..Once!

One of the replies was that education has changed; that there are no longer teachers like the one I profiled.

I wonder when was the last time they actually spoke to a teacher? Teaching runs in my family, and in my friendships and I can tell you, they are the most dedicated and involved people I know. They spend seven hours a day with children, dealing with their opinions, their biases, their psychological issues, their questions, and their issues as children and young adults; often doing the job many parents abdicate. Helicopter parents and Helicopter politicians are still a thing, and they seem to be gaining altitude and copping attitude. Look at Florida.

Their issue is not really with teachers, but with what is being taught, curriculums they deem woke or too liberal. I’m not a fan of wokeness but I am a fan of knowledge and history, culpability and revelation.

A site called Parents Defending Education is not about education; it’s about religion. Religion can often be a good thing. I follow one. This site states: “School activists employ an array of new words and phrases to describe their beliefs and goals. If you hear many of these phrases and can’t figure out what they mean, that’s because it’s by design. This vocabulary is intended to mislead – to make harmful and extreme ideas sound admirable and to conceal meaning through ambiguity.”

Racism is not admirable. Homophobia is not admirable. Believing only one person’s view is right and all the others wrong, is not admirable.

Let’s take Critical Race Theory or CRT. CRT has been weaponized to legitimize racism and demonize those who try to eradicate it. It’s teaching history. It was formalized as a curriculum in 1989, 34 years ago and not something made up by those, people refer to as liberals. This is how educators describe CRT. “Critical theories of education are philosophical, political, and pedagogic responses to real-world circumstances, which attempt to shift the purposes, scope, aims, and delivery of education to enable cultural and social transformation through the progressive growth of individuals.

Let’s be real. This is a country founded on discrimination, slavery, redlining, blockbusting, quotas, ‘separate but equal,’ etc., etc.  The Rosewood Black Massacre in FL 100 years ago. Miami Gentile-only hotel laws in the 1930s boasted: “Enjoy the View, without a Jew.” We, as a nation, have heroes from all parties and cultures who have fought against these social ills—no, social disgraces-and students should know this and fight like hell to ensure we don’t return to being a country like that. But sadly, we are.

White-washing history is not what we need. And no, teachers are NOT telling a white child he or she is responsible for it. But there is a growing population that believes that and wants teachers to stop.

Many will disagree, but this is not about politics as much as it is about politicizing education for one’s own purposes. Think that the makeup of our society today is against your faith? Home school your kid or find a religious school that teaches ‘your values.’ But if you think the Three R’s are all that should be taught and nothing else, you’ll have a kid who MAY know what 2+2 is but have no idea how far we have come or moved backward.

I think public education is vital but sadly, money is being moved away from it and everyone loses. Those who support that live in a bubble.

There’s this clip someone posted, asking kids some basic questions about our country. They fail miserably but judging from the many educators I know; this ignorance comes from the living room, not the classroom. We are clearly headed to be a country of apartheid, and while it is clearly being drawn along cultural and racial, and religious lines, the country is dumbing down.

And teachers are not to blame.

And for those of you who disagree but can read this, thank a teacher.