And the speaker, as a politician, applied (the equivalent of) “you’re fired” to underlings who showed the slightest sign of disagreement or not being a yes-person. I.e. the most prominent example of “cancelling”.
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If anyone has connections or the ability to get it started (wide viewership on cc!), one of the largest wastes of time in high school are the monthly fire drills that are required. Does one seriously think high schoolers need them monthly or they’ll forget what to do? And how many dangerous fires are there in schools to make it a monthly requirement?
Of course, now we also get to do school shooter/invader drills, but that is quite possibly something they’ll need to know (in school or a workplace down the road) and most don’t already know. I’ll admit I never thought I’d be teaching high schoolers that sort of self defense back when I learned it in the military. I’m glad I learned it in the military though. The teaching we got from school was lower in quality IMO. I’ve had kids tell me after a session that they hope they’re in my class if anything were to go wrong… I’m glad in a way, but it’s scary in a larger way that so many teachers wouldn’t feel as capable as one can be in those situations. Not everyone is cut out for handling things like that - nor should they have to be.
Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others."
The conversation is getting a bit salty; please be mindful. Additionally,
“College Confidential forums exist to discuss college admission and other topics of interest. It is not a place for contentious debate. If you find yourself repeating talking points, it might be time to step away and do something else. Some topics, such as politics, religion and moderation on the forums, lend themselves to debate. If a thread starts to get heated, it might be closed or heavily moderated.”
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One of my frustrations about public school, and one of the (many) reasons we ultimately left, was the concern that teachers were hamstrung about talking meaningfully about hot issues. I was concerned that the kids weren’t learning how to have productive discussions with people who disagree. It felt like conversations in the classroom were verboten.
To the extent “conversations” happened, they were very carefully crafted to the point of quashing debate.
Kiddo is in private school now, and discussion of political issues definitely happens in his classroom. I can’t tell if it is too much or too little, or how much disparate voices are quashed. Probably varies from teacher to teacher.
Right now, it seems like there is a reckoning going on in prep schools. No one can or should deny that prep schools are the epicenter of privilege in this country. It doesn’t make them evil, but it does require them to be thoughtful what they do with what they have - resources beyond belief, impressionable student minds, talented teachers, alumni networks, etc. what I see in my kid’s school is an attempt to listen and change and spend money and resources to do better. It takes time, people will miss their marks, over-correct, under-correct, anger people on all sides.
I kinda see the demonization of prep schools as a red herring. No one would need to care if public schools were adequately funded to give all children the opportunities they deserve and an equal shot at life. That’s where the battle should be. Give people like me a reason not to flee public schools.
So long as the conversations are being had in the classrooms and the boardroom, in homes, on the playing fields, etc, I have faith we will figure it out. When I hear people say things that shut down the talking, that is when I worry. There is some of it on display in this thread, and it seems to be trending generally in the US and worldwide.
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Subjects like history can be influenced by author’s or teacher’s perspectives. However, IMO they all should try to minimize their effects rather than deliberately introducing them. BTW, I don’t think evolution is, or should be, a political issue.
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But those are just your views. Plenty out there disagree. Public school can’t give in to what every parent feels is “right/wrong.”
When evolution comes up in my class as it will in Bio I nip the “discussion” in the bud. “I know not everyone believes in evolution, but quite honestly it’s the dominant belief in the science world right now. In school we teach what most scientists believe. Even if you don’t believe in it, it certainly won’t hurt you to learn about it - at least to know what others believe.”
One can substitute climate change/issues for evolution. Both are big topics in science. People can argue that evolution has limited scope for many students’ future (not needed for every major, etc), but climate change certainly will be affecting the next generation. If they choose not to believe in either, that’s fine, but on a test they better be able to write down the basics as currently believed/known about both. A sample test question would be something like, “Why do most scientists believe climate change is happening?”
A discussion not tested might focus on pros/cons of various types of recycling or disposing of trash. In real life there aren’t really simple answers, but kids should learn what the issues in life are.
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The per student public school funding, at least in our area of the Northeast, is extremely high and almost double the cost of a good parochial school or even equal to the cost of a good parochial prep school. The enrollment has been increasing at these schools partly because they remained open during the pandemic. They also tend to minimize politics in favor of teaching a traditional core curriculum, except of course in a civics or history class. I can’t remember even one time where the Franciscan nuns or Christian Brothers ever brought up politics in our Math or Science classes for any reason. I guess I am really old school but this whole thread would not be necessary if all schools did the same.
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Politics never came up in statistics?
You never discussed the politics behind so much of science from FDA requirements to climate change?
Why should kids have to self study these things to know them?
Now I’m wondering if that’s why so many people out there don’t understand some of the basics going on.
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Not about politics, just think about how factual these statements are:
“They are making my son feel like a racist because of the pigmentation of his skin,” one mother says. Another poses a question to the group: “How does focusing a spotlight on race fix how kids talk to one another? Why can’t they just all be Wolverines?”
“The school can ask you to leave for any reason,” said one mother at Brentwood, another Los Angeles prep school. “Then you’ll be blacklisted from all the private schools and you’ll be known as a racist, which is worse than being called a murderer.”
One private school parent, born in a Communist nation, tells me: “I came to this country escaping the very me fear of retaliation that now my own child feels.” Another joked: “We need to feed our families. Oh, and pay $50,000 a year to have our children get indoctrinated.” A teacher in New York City put it most concisely: “To speak against this is to put all of your moral capital at risk.”
“I am in a cult. Well, that’s not exactly right. It’s that the cult is all around me and I am trying to save kids from becoming members.” He sounds like a Scientology defector, but he is a math teacher at one of the most elite high schools in New York City. He is not politically conservative. “I studied critical theory; I saw Derrida speak when I was in college,” he says, “so when this ideology arrived at our school over the past few years, I recognized the language and I knew what it was. But it was in a mutated form.”
Well said! In many cases its the parents who are up in arms.
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History is made up with perspectives, and you cannot just disregard the perspectives that are different than yours. We need to form our own opinions after expose to multiple perspectives. For example, the 1619 curriculum was introduced to many schools and drew much concerns among critics. There is misleading information within the guide, but I am not against teachers using it at all. There is always bias in human narratives and there is nothing wrong with personal bias. The exposure to a so-called “political correctness in classroom” is an unfair judgement since new perspectives are present in classroom. Again, racial issues is not a political issue, thank you.
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I work at a private school and my kids both attended the same school. The school is religious, but it’s not super conservative. A lot of religion aspect is focusing on helping others, being an upstanding member of the community, being a good person, and being tolerant on others. Kids of various religions attend the school. The school is known for it’s academics, so that’s why we have a wide variety of faiths nd beliefs at the school. We did have a math teacher who was let go because he spent the whole class time talking about religion and why you should save yourself until marriage. He never taught math and the kids didn’t learn anything. Parents were especially mad because he was also doing this in his honors classes. When he was let go, he said that the school was stifling his free speech. Well, he wasn’t supposed to be using class time to talk about religion. He was supposed to teach math.
Other then that, we haven’t had many instances of people feeling like their views are being stifled. We do celebrate Christmas at the school, but we also make sure to teach the kids about other holidays and faiths. For instance the Spanish classes always do something that has to do with Cinco de Mayo and Dia de Los Muertos. We have mock presidential debates that require students to do research. Kids can take world religions, etc. Yes, we have had parents complain about certain things, but most parents seem to be fine.
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Hi everyone!
I’m closing down this thread because it’s getting close to an unhelpful debate. These are hard conversations to have online and too often people work to score points rather than illuminate the topic. It’s not often something people set out to do, but it happens in the heat of the moment. If you have any questions about this, I encourage you to ask me via PM or (even better) start a question in the CC Community category. I’m happy to go into more detail, if you all are interested.
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