<p>Ib,
<p>It’s frequently amusing to tweak the libs and see them go hog-wild. :)</p>
<p>Blue,
<p>I originally set this thread up on a lark as I enjoy taking on liberal academia and the corrupt PA scoring process and so this seemed like a twofer. I didn’t expect much reaction, but after a few of the responses, I did some more digging and found a lot of stuff on the web, including this follow-up column on this topic:</p>
<p>[Katherine</a> Kersten: Battle lines drawn against U initiative | StarTribune.com ](<a href=“http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/79092107.html]Katherine ”>http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/79092107.html )</p>
<p>I don’t know if liberal academia doesn’t get what conservatives are upset about. But whether they do or they don’t, I don’t think that they care that they don’t get it. Tolerance and sensitivity to opposing conservative viewpoints is not the right kind of diversity and thus does not fit into their orthodoxy. </p>
<p>As a result of FIRE’s efforts and Ms. Kersten’s columns, my expectation is that the school’s future response will be worded quite carefully. But does anyone really expect the outcome to be anything different than the one that the libs proselytize is the only acceptable path? Ahh, the tolerance of liberal academia….</p>
<p>Opinions that follow the story run about 60/40 in favor of the author. Not surprising in a very liberal state like Minnehaha that 40% would make the effort to defend the re-education efforts. </p>
<p>To help bc understand that there are a lot of folks who don’t agree with him, here are some comments from posters on the Minneapolis Star Tribune:</p>
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The silly teacher education courses I had to take in 1963-66 pale in comparison to those about to be commanded from on high. Know your subject, know your subject, know your subject, if you want to teach in Jr. or Sr. high. Know how to teach reading, phonics please no more whole language. Be able to spell and teach that and grammar. In my 37 years of teaching, far too many teachers couldn’t spell, punctuate or explain their subjects in more than one way. Letters to parents were abysmal. How about we concentrate on the BASICS of reading and math for elementary teachers and the SUBJECT MATTER for the rest.
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Just what do you use your brain for? You folks get yourselves wrapped around the PC axle and never think straight again. It’s a pity, really. That’s where we get school administrators like the one here in Burnsville who wanted to repress the phrase “Merry Christmas” and instead dictate the use of the phrase “Nature’s Seasons”. Lord, please save us all from a death like this, on the reef of Norman’s Woe.
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Just because KK says it, does not mean it is wrong. The beef here is the document: Race, Class, Culture… People really ought to read this remarkable document. It proposes that ALL teacher education courses to discuss issues of race, class, culture and gender. Students who DON’T meet the cultural competency guidelines, the plan calls for CEHD to develop remedial steps to teach students the material. As Adam Kissel of FIRE - the new boogeyman apparently - put it: “To learn about other cultures and cultural differences is one thing, but to say you’re not going to be considered an acceptable teacher if you don’t have these values and beliefs is unacceptable” and “As much as possible, we do want to defer to experts in the field to promote the views and values they feel are right,” he said. “But they cross the line when they say everyone should hold those views, especially when it’s an issue of genuine controversy.” Come on folks, it is not just the conservatives who are against this.
If you haven’t read the document in question for yourself, you should. The interim dean of the teaching college and the university spokesman who’ve publicly commented have been deeply dishonest about it. It is breathtaking in its anti-Americanism, its hard-left radicalism, and its explicit racialist hatred.
If you tell a kid he doesn’t have a chance, that the world is rigged against him, and tests are unfair, he will be less likely to succeed. The people who promote all this liberal claptrap know it too, but they are cynically promoting an ideology that condemns a large slice of our underclass to poverty. This has been going on for decades and yet they are seldom called out for being hypocrites. Look at the Minneapolis schools, they’ve been run by liberals since the 60’s and things have steadily gotten worse and worse. White privilege, more like leftist exploitation of the poor for their selfish gain. Where does Mayor Rybeck send his kid to school anyway?
"Under the group’s proposed plan, future teachers would be required to pass an ideological litmus test – denouncing “white privilege,” “hegemonic masculinity” and “heteronormativity,” and proving their determination to “fight” for “social justice.” This would be funny were it not so reminiscent of dictatorship re-education camps. What on earth IS this horror? And what is “social justice,” anyway, to the people who dream up these experiments that always find a home in education circles? What education departments need are high standards in universities for those who plan to become teachers. They need solid academic foundations in their subject areas. That is job one. Schools have no business indoctrinating students in views that are at best false,and at worst dangerous and destructive. This hate-filled plan has no place in schools — or anywhere else short of underground meetings of drugged-up people or in Rev. Wright’s church – which his congregation should boycott. At the end of years of this kind of brainwashing, the children in MN will be capable only of rioting and looting, not of living sensible, civil lives. Can this plan possibly be for real?
Why is it that the liberals never argue with Katherine’s logic? They just call her stupid or make other dismissive comments. The only argument a liberal has made so far apparently is that whites cannot possible teach Afro-Americans or other minorities without this type of brainwashing. Let me see if I have this straight, Afro-Americans and White-Americans need to have different teaching methods applied in order to spell c-a-t and to add 2 + 2? If the University is having budget problems, I think I have found a department worth cutting.
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