Interesting column by former New York Times Columnist Bari Weiss on the anguish of parents of students at super elite private high schools in LA and NY The Miseducation of America’s Elites | City Journal
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Oh the pain and suffering of the Wealthy White folk who now need to fear that their casual racism may cost them more than they are willing to pay. They sound like people who always assumed that they get to call the shots and determine everything and are now scared that this is no longer the case.
Almost every quote there sounds like it is starting with “I’m not a racist, but”.
It isn’t surprising that this was the high school which gave us Varsity Blues, since these parents sound like they have the exact same time of entitled mentality which resulted in varsity blues.
I mean, can you imagine how difficult it is to not be able to express your real opinion for fear of retaliation? Can you imagine needing to watch what you say because if the color of your skin or because of your religion? Wow, it almost sounds as though they are NOT the ruling class.
I also don’t believe many of the stories. They sound to me like the mythological story of the man who claimed to have been punched for holding a door open for a woman. More than half of the stories sound like they were taken from a Fox And Friends anti-left wing hysteria-fest.
I think that Bari Weiss is being to credulous and accepting every one of those claims without actually verifying them.
PS. Just because a family is surounded by other wealthy families doesn’t make them middle class, or “average”. What next, she interviews a family from Beverly Park? “By American standards, this family is wealthy. But they are only average for this neighborhood, so they are practically lower middle class. They are, in fact, just like you or me, so please empathize with them, while I describe their First World Problems as though they were global tragedies”
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Friends who are lifetime liberal Democrats left Sidwell Friends for this reason, although the parents themselves had attended back in the 80s. Fortunately they found another school where their kids weren’t told to feel bad about themselves every single day. If you haven’t been inside these schools, you may not realize quite how awful some have become. No, this is not to minimize the far greater suffering of the underprivileged in inadequate schools, but we can consider both issues, right? A forum dedicated to largely elite college choices among the upper middle class can discuss both issues?
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I don’t see what is so interesting about the travails of the 1%. Unlike families stuck in underperforming school districts, these people have a choice. They don’t need to send their kids to a school that doesn’t align with their values. They should vote with their feet instead of whining about a style of education that they find lacking. If they stay because their sole goal in life is to send junior to the Ivy leagues, that’s just sad.
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That was a pretty boring read considering those folks have enough money to send their dear lads and lasses anywhere they want to. Send them to public school. Homeschool them if you only want them taught certain things. (That’s what we tell parents who complain about X being taught in our ps.) There’s no need to stay in a wealthy private school.
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Yes, these people have the money to send their kids anywhere they would like and they can leave if they choose. That does not change the fact that CRT is an insane, divisive ideology that is destroying some of the best schools in the country. Teaching kids they are helpless victims or evil oppressors will not end well.
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I’m pretty confident the US will survive just fine even if the “best schools in the country” really were destroyed. There are a lot of intelligent kids in the country, even among the actual middle class (or lower).
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Problem is this poison is not stopping at Harvard Westlake. Its spreading into every school both public and private as well as major corporations and government.
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Even back in the 80s in high school and college I wrote things in English, History, and probably a couple of other classes that I didn’t really think or believe in order to get a good grade. This was public school and a public college. Teachers/Profs have always held beliefs and biases. Such is life. It all helped me see different viewpoints and better understand the world.
People who insist on only hearing what they prefer are those who miss out on really learning anything. Granted, this is what one side is claiming is happening in those schools and elsewhere, but I doubt it. They’re just objecting to what they don’t like and want things to go back to “the old ways.” That’s pretty typical with any sort of change or new idea.
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Meh.
Article was all over the place; lazy, sensationalist writing.
Shock horror that kids are having to learn about Beyonce rather than Shakespeare (as long as they are learning to think and analyze/write critically, does it matter?). Shock horror that kids are having to pretend to having views that they don’t actually possess; they are learning to be dishonest (so what, we’ve all had to pretend for a grade in some way or another in our lifetimes). Shock horror that elite kids are learning that the economic system on which their privilege is based is an uneven playing field. And shock horror that wealthy parents can’t intervene because they might interrupt their kids’ ivy trajectory.
Yawn.
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I think it is great that the earth is shifting in the way it is.
However, to the extent there is bullying or quashing of free speech, by anyone about anything, my hackles go up.
Is that what is happening?
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Yes
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In how many different ways and angles will this same topic be covered by Bari and Bret? It’s endless.
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Well said that both issues can coexist and should be discussed - at least I believe that to be the case.
Yes, many of the folks interviewed in this particular piece could choose other schools. But it’s not just elite private schools that are doing this. I’m reading many stories about public school districts taking similar actions. It’s not isolated. This is happening all over the place, and I fear increased polarization.
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You know your society has reached peak bourgeoise decadence when its ruling class will pay top dollar to learn how to hate themselves
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“But physics looks different these days. “We don’t call them Newton’s laws anymore,” an upperclassman at the school informs me. “We call them the three fundamental laws of physics. They say we need to ‘decenter whiteness,’ and we need to acknowledge that there’s more than just Newton in physics.””
Isn’t this extremely counterproductive? This implies that Newton’s laws are somehow more significant than other laws of physics. By renaming Newton’s laws to “the three fundamental laws of physics”, it’s quite literally saying that other laws that may be discovered in the future cannot be considered “fundamental”, since that’s already reserved for Newton’s laws.
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that kids are usually quite resilient. If something doesn’t make sense to them, they usually dismiss it. It’s why many kids can go out into the world and develop their own thoughts/beliefs, etc, as they experience new things.
It’s the parents who can get worried, esp if junior opts to believe or do things differently than mom/dad.
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I don’t consider myself wealthy, and I didn’t send my kids to $50k private schools, but I don’t understand the vitriol by some people in this thread towards others based merely on their income level. Seems like they want what most of the people on CC want - their children to be successful. And they think, as many on this site think, that attending a top-ranked college is the way to get there. My kids don’t attend top colleges, but it seems for a lot of folks, those years of private school give you an advantage when it comes to the ivy league and their peers. It’s not my philosophy, but I don’t disparage people because they do it.
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I don’t disparage people because they do it. As you said, we all want the best for our kids. I roll my eyes when they complain about it. If they don’t like something, they can go elsewhere. If someone were to complain about the lack of room in a Ferrari, uh, buy a different car?
Kids everywhere will have teachers/profs they disagree with about something and many will pretend something in their writings to get grades. Peer pressure has been around since the beginning of time, so even among peers kids learn to keep quiet about some things for fear of repercussions. It might not be right - it wasn’t in the past either - but it is life in public.
Rich people may not have had to keep quiet before. Maybe that’s what’s new?
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What about lower and middle class people who don’t have choices? This isn’t a rich person’s problem. Many schools are doing this, private and public, as has been noted. Anyone with a child in an educational institution should be able to speak their mind about what’s going on in said institution, even if it doesn’t result in a desired outcome.
ETA: Please know that I wasn’t singling you out, Creekland, or anyone else. It was a general observation about the thread.
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