How Modern Education Breeds Good Little Marxists

[Anonymous]

In October 2021, Governor Newsom signed California's ethnic studies mandate for high schools into law. While many school districts are still deciding on the specific curricula contents for their high school ethnic studies courses, a group of teacher activists have been busy introducing the paradigm in lower grades.



On June 10, 2022, the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) hosted an online training program for elementary school educators.



The program featured Dr. Orieal Maria Siu, a self-described "anti-racist" children's book author, with her two new books titled Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over!: The Real History of Christopher Columbus and Rebeldita the Fearless in Ogreland.





The former is branded as "a must for every classroom, library and home" that "teaches the truth about Christopher Columbus, white settler colonialism and history of the Americas from the perspective of indigenous and black resistances." The latter is a fiction about a girl born out of "long-enduring Black and Indigenous resistances in the Americas" who "knows her history and uses it to change her present in Ogreland."



Using colorful cartoon drawings, playful language and bilingual translations, these books are an effective weapon of thought indoctrination into one-sided accounts of American history and activism-oriented lessons for kids ages 5 to 10.



Describing Christopher Columbus as a "ruthless and heartless" Ogre sent by greedy king and queen of "EuroLandia" to steal treasures and land in utopia AbyaYala, Christopher the Ogre Cologre paints a picture of racist conquistadors brutalizing the Indigenous people and imported slaves. In addition to plundering AbyaYala, the ogre Christopher also suppressed the teaching of true history of an ancient land full of life, history, and technological advancements.



Out of the systemic oppression imposed by the ogres, a heroine—the abuelita—emerged to lead the resistance movement of which children were the main foot soldiers. Deriving her power from stereotypically eating beans, the abuelita singlehandedly commanded the "RESISTANCE" to preserve AbyaYala's unique cultural traditions. Under her watch, the children meticulously documented its authentic history in a book called The Forbidden History of AbyaYala that the Ogre, Christopher Cologre, Does Not Want Anywhere Told!



When the new generation amassed enough knowledge and organization, the abuelita then passed on the torch to one of her young proteges named Rebeldita, a fearless girl who could talk to trees and committed herself to truth-telling as the way to liberate AbyaYalans from the cologres.



If you think this is only a fairy-land story to inspire children's imagination and humanity, you are wrong. According to the author, Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over! was written to "counter systemic negation, denial, omissions and lies taught in the K-12 pertaining to the history of the Americas/white settler colonialism."



In other words, "teaching the truth" amounts to overcompensating historical revisionism through which confounding institutional changes as a result of colonialism are replaced by a dichotomy of the evildoing of one-dimensional ogres vis-v-vis the heroic resistances of the indigenous and black populations.



This reductive view of American history disregards many consequential factors explaining colonialism and post-colonial developments, such as different types of colonial institutions, regime types of the home governments, and the political structures of the pre-colonial societies.



Was the evil king and queen of "EuroLandia" better or worse than the Mayan or Aztec emperors who practiced human sacrifice and exploited their own people? How should students view those indigenous leaders who entered alliances with the conquistadors, including Xicotencatl the Elder and Maxixcatzin? The intentional over-simplification damages learning and blunts formation of well-rounded worldviews, while these highly controversial materials are propagated in a cartoon format with the expressive goal of driving up social activism among young kids.



The bicameral lens of racist European settlers versus innocent indigenas is reflective of two interlocking trends. At the national level, "teaching truth" or "teaching hard history" has become synonymous with hard-left propaganda spewed by organized groups like Learning for Justice (LFJ) and the Zinn Education Project. For LFJ, teaching hard history is "an original framework for teaching about slavery and white supremacy." The framework contains six guiding principles:



Teach that slavery is foundational.

Acknowledge that slavery existed in the North and the South.

Talk explicitly about racism and white supremacy.

Rely on responsive pedagogy that is well suited to the topic.

Center the black experience.

Connect to the present.

In no uncertain terms, foundations of "teaching hard history" are identical with the 1619 Project and major tenets of critical race theory (CRT) that treats white racism as a permanent feature of America.



As for the Zinn Education Project, it launched a project called "Pledge to Teach the Truth" last year in defiance of growing state-level legislative bans on K-12 teaching of CRT. The project has collected 8,322 signatures from teachers across the country, pledging to defy legislation banning teaching that "identifies people or groups of people, entities, or institutions in the United States as inherently, immutably, or systemically sexist, racist, anti-LGBT, bigoted, biased, privileged, or oppressed." For the signers, educating American students requires that they hyper-focus on the teaching of "racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history."



Interestingly, the Zinn Education Project also runs a campaign to abolish Columbus Day because "when the school curriculum celebrates Columbus, children are taught that it's OK for white people to rule over peoples of color and that militarily powerful nations can bully weaker nations."



At the state level, infusing social justice, a resistance pedagogy, and anti-racism into elementary school teaching demonstrates the deep inroads into public education made by the liberated ethnic studies movement.



Although the California Department of Education approved a state model curriculum last March, proponents of the liberated camp are pushing for a more radical paradigm after protesting the state version as a compromise for "white supremacist, right wing, conservatives." Dedicated to teaching ethnic studies as "a form of liberation" and a pedagogy of "transformational resistance," the liberated curriculum is almost identical with the state-rejected first field draft, which, according to both Governor Newsom and the State Legislature, would "never see the light of day." Yet, the institution created to market liberated ethnic studies is now hosting professional development webinars targeting K-5 teachers.



So, parents, watch out. If your kid is asked to read Christopher the Ogre Cologre, you should know that a coordinated campaign of anti-American, ideological capture is taking place backstage.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/liberated-ethnic-studies-comes-down-the-pike-to-k-5-classrooms_4551995.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe-nonai&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-23-nonai&utm_medium=email&est=wL6yvzfQy4kLAbxy%2BxAVIOjjpGi5fpaJSGqtsVbuMqL2JTM1ouj1Zr4sfRC1M83Z1A%3D%3D">https://www.theepochtimes.com/liberated ... 3Z1A%3D%3D">https://www.theepochtimes.com/liberated-ethnic-studies-comes-down-the-pike-to-k-5-classrooms_4551995.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe-nonai&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-23-nonai&utm_medium=email&est=wL6yvzfQy4kLAbxy%2BxAVIOjjpGi5fpaJSGqtsVbuMqL2JTM1ouj1Zr4sfRC1M83Z1A%3D%3D



California is embracing divinding kids by race.

[Anonymous]

https://twitter.com/WFSBnews/status/1568589164777508865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1568589164777508865%7Ctwgr%5Efc8a13f2b860f2acd005f678853dfbce6eca2715%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theblaze.com%2Fnews%2Fconnecticut-high-school-teacher-divisive-vocabs">https://twitter.com/WFSBnews/status/156 ... ive-vocabs">https://twitter.com/WFSBnews/status/1568589164777508865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1568589164777508865%7Ctwgr%5Efc8a13f2b860f2acd005f678853dfbce6eca2715%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theblaze.com%2Fnews%2Fconnecticut-high-school-teacher-divisive-vocabs

[Anonymous]

[Herman]

[Herman]

[Herman]

[Herman]

Why is this divisive racist bullshit in Ontario schools?

[Lokmar]

Why is this divisive racist bullshit in Ontario schools?

WHITE POWER!!!!

[Shen Li]

Why is this divisive racist bullshit in Ontario schools?

Too many school boards in some provinces dropped teaching They indoctrinate.

[Herman]

This editorial by John Hilton O'Brien, Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education is about the teacher's union in Alberta. But, it is true of every teacher's union in every province in Canada.

"I guess that it was bound to happen.

There are around 48,000 students in independent schools. That means there are close to 2,000 teachers in them — none of whom are forced to join the Alberta Teachers' Association. To the ATA — which charges $1422 in union dues — that is close to $3 million in foregone revenue.
 
So, no surprise: someone from the ATA Board of Directors has launched a petition for a referendum to defund independent schools. The naked self-interest on display is breathtaking — but there is more to this story. The campaign relies on misinformation — and it is a dog whistle for something far darker.

Demands to eliminate funding for Alberta's independent schools are old. The age of the arguments is no indicator of quality. As economist Bruce Wilkinson noted in a 1994 book, the arguments are debunked thoroughly every time. But immediately after, self-proclaimed "public education advocates," who always turn out to have a financial stake in the matter, pretend that their arguments are sound. His case in point? His correspondents in the very book he was writing in didn't even try to respond to the economic analysis that proved them wrong.

In 2019, Parents for Choice in Education commissioned a report entitled "How educational choice saved Alberta taxpayers $1.9 Billion and supports student success."  It concluded that independent education actually subsidizes public education. The money saved by underfunding the independent schools goes straight into the public schools.

Remove those independent schools, and you strip hundreds of millions of dollars out of the public system.

That report also busted some of the myths about independent schools that the union is still repeating.

First, independent schools get better results — by any measure. Anti-choice proponents try to claim that this is because the schools "cream" the best students from the public system. While it is true that admission to elite schools is competitive, this is also true of special programs in the public system, such as International Baccalaureate streams. More importantly, the argument does not explain the better results achieved by independent schools in general. Studies done of both elite and non-elite independent schools show that the students in the non-elite schools are also doing vastly better than the public schools. Independent schools simply offer a better educational option than the public system.

Secondly, the ATA claims that funding for independent schools is simply giving a subsidy to "the rich." The truth? Only about 1-in-6 private schools cater to "elites." The overwhelming majority — 83% of them — cater to families whose average income is below the provincial average. The main effect of independent schools is to improve educational access to lower and middle income families. These aren't elite schools: they are for the working class. 

Thirdly, independent schools honour student diversity in a way that the public system simply doesn't. Part of the reason that they get better results is that the learning environments vary between schools. If a child is not thriving in one environment, you can change environments. Public systems — in spite of excellent special programs — are standardized. They simply can't adapt to student needs as quickly or radically as independent schools do.

Beyond that report, we should observe that there is nothing "private" about Alberta's independent schools. The government dictates the curriculum. They are subject to regular inspections which the "public" system does not undergo. And as Section 35.1 of the Education Act makes clear, the government can even tell a private school what clubs it can have.

Government control is absolute.

Underneath the false claims and myths of the public-school lobby, however, lurks something far more sinister.

According to a recent Cardus study, 105 of Alberta's 180 independent schools are religious. They are generally minority religions – various Christian denominations, Sikh, Jewish, and Islamic. If we remove funding for independent schools, we are removing funding for them.

Now, foes of choice may claim that these can simply be programs within the aggressively secular public system. But that amounts to claiming the right to decide what can and cannot be taught as part of someone else's faith. It's not just patronizing — it's an attack on minority religions.

We've seen such attacks before. In 1875, American Senator James Blaine tried to introduce a Constitutional amendment to forbid money from going to sectarian schools. He intended it to eliminate educational rights for minority religions — specifically Catholics. While he failed federally, 38 states adopted their own state-level Blaine Amendments.
 
In fact, the ATA's ballot measure is a Blaine Amendment.  Same language. Same purpose. Same effect.

In the US, however, Blaine Amendments have been dying. Not just in the court of popular opinion, either: one by one, the courts have struck down Blaine Amendments on human rights grounds. And the fact is that we have signed international agreements to the effect that people have a right to their independent schools — and they are entitled to funding for them.
 
While the ATA's move may be morally and intellectually bankrupt, it is flush with cash. In 2022, they announced that they had diverted $16 million from their "Special Emergency Fund" (the strike fund) into a "Defence and Advocacy Fund," intended to be used for political advocacy. Nobody opposing them has comparable resources. Independent schools need to treat this as the existential threat it is.

However, the petition's very attack on religious freedom is the key to defense. Independent schools can potentially certify a class-action lawsuit, alleging religious discrimination for the fact that they have not received equal funding to begin with. That knocks the petition off the table, and the province can negotiate a settlement that protects the rights of independent schools forever.

And if their timing is right, the ATA's management may have plundered the membership's strike fund in vain."

[Herman]

[Herman]

Jesus H, teachers unions are criminals.