By: Diane Benjamin
This comment was made today to a story from November of 2019: Unit 5 indoctrinating kids with CNN. I am printing it because most people won’t see it. It breaks my heart that some Unit 5 teachers are doing this to kids. I know some schools have banned To Kill A Mockingbird. They shouldn’t, it’s a great book.
I don’t know if this comment will get seen since this is an old post but I’ll give it a shot. I went to Kingsley few years ago, they did indeed have us watch CNN10. Parents were notified via email and I always tuned it out. I think this was probably the 7-1 social studies teacher. The rest of the class was fine, I liked the 8-2 teacher a lot more though, he was libertarian, avoided politics, made sure kids knew to look into both sides of an issue to make their own conclusion, generally made class fun. I feel like the bigger issue was the 7-1 Lit Comp teacher. We read “Look Both Ways” and “Long Way Down” by Jason Reynolds which are both race related. But worse by far we had to read “Stamped” which is Critical Race Theory. The tone is very demeaning towards kids, makes you feel like you should be ashamed of skin color, and also obviously frames things in a way that is misleading but contributes to the strange point of the book. Everyone in the class felt like we were losing braincells. I think it’s ok to read race literature like To Kill A Mockingbird but the modern stuff is just so demeaning and often racist towards non-black people |
These people want more money? Vote No Again!
Also vote for a new school board so your kids aren’t subjected to racist teaching.
This is very sad and unfortunate. Thankfully this person saw right through this garbage. Others are being indoctrinated and brainwashed. More division and distrust is created among people. The teachers and administration who are onboard with Racializing and Sexualizing children should be ashamed of themselves, but they’re actually proud of themselves.
Any teacher that pushes politics, regardless of party, in their classroom should be disciplined or fired. Teachers should teach how to think, not what to think. Unit 5 disagrees.
Unit 5 has aligned itself with the Equity ideology. Identity related politics is ALL that Equity/CRT is about. One of reference authors listed in Unit 5’s Equity Audit is Robin DiAngelo. In the book referenced, White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism she says her book is – “unapologetically rooted in identity politics.”
Identity politics:
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. Identity politics is deeply connected with the idea that some groups in society are oppressed and begins with analysis of that oppression.
“Any teacher that pushes politics, regardless of party, in their classroom should be disciplined or fired.” Nailed it!
If you’re a good teacher, students can’t tell what your political beliefs are. That’s how it should be.
“If you’re a good teacher, students can’t tell what your political beliefs are. That’s how it should be.”
Equity aims to change that. It intends to turn students into political activists for their cause.
It’s all Heritage readings. American Indigenous authors or new age cultural authors gone are the days of American or Western literature.
I’ve read all of those books in school. They do not teach us to be ashamed of our skin color, but considerate of race in history and current society. Not a single line in any of those books is about shame, but rather African-American experience in the United States.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a white perspective of race in the south. It does not include the perspective of people who actually were affected by the Jim Crow laws. Including books like Long Way Down and Stamped in the curriculum gives students a balanced perspective on racial issues.
My child was in 7-1 Language Arts at Kingsley in Spring 2021, and I can confirm this comment above. More disturbing to me was aside from a short poetry unit and a few books the child could choose – the two Reynolds books and Stamped were ALL they read in 7th grade Lit class. Apparently alternate assignments were available, but my child didn’t realize this until it was too late. Stamped was the primary text in language arts for all of February-April. I read it with my child – it is an very one-sided perspective on American History, from the pilgrims to Malcolm X, that was being read by children who had not yet learned US History. I asked my child if they ever argued the opposing views, and I was told no. I mentioned my concerns to a few staff and was basically called racist. I keep better tabs on what they are reading in class now. I do not think CRT is being taught at an institutional level in the district — but this particular course felt like it and gives me pause whenever people say CRT is not taught in Unit 5.