I've been in the room when these people talk about Critical Race Applied Principles which stems from CRT. The material is overly focused on emotional appeal rather than logical or methodological processes and analysis. The material it self seems only to be geared towards pissing people off about the injustices perpatrated on their ancestors. And there is no lack of material there.
So then, CRT in shitty schools would be the worst of both worlds. You'll have bad teachers teaching to underdeveloped children and that is a recipe for disaster. Put on top this concept that certain ethnic groups learn in different ways, i.e. POC children can't think in linear time, and its a freaking catastrophe. In fact, I think more harm can come from CRT in poor schools.
Very good piece. It does seem true that CRT will only influence a small number of people, but the question is how big is this effect? There are many levels to this question. It seems obvious to me that CRT is enforcing a kind of social power dynamic that is meant to manipulate people regardless of whether they understand the underlying theory. People understand power even if they cannot understand theory. Whether this successfully coerces people to acquiesce to the power dynamic is not obvious, but that leads into the other side of the bell-curve.
Clearly, many of the brightest students will be able to grasp at least some amount of the underlying theory of CRT. Some may reject it, but most likely many will come to accept some of the principles in CRT; especially if exposure to other theories is limited. The net effect is a seeding of the higher learning institutions with students sympathetic to CRT.
Now, where does policy and culture flow from? The universities: especially the elite universities. In order for CRT to have an effect, it doesn't need to be understood by even the majority population of the U.S. The only people who need to understand it are the freshman class at Harvard. This alone would be reason enough for a CRT supporter to bring this pedagogy into K-12.
I hope this is helpful or interesting to anyone reading.
t appears that the wokevists want the curriculum steered harder left. I think they want students taught that they are fundamentally nothing more than avatars of their group identities (and the opperssor/oppressed dynamics implied), taught a lot about the atrocity that was/is the USA and less about the competency of the people that made the USA, and an overall "playing up the victim". From what I'm getting, the wokevists aren't necessarily all about educators taking on a "university-level sociological theory," but would be perfectly happy if teachers followed Ibram Kendi's advice from p. 22 of his book where he says we need to apply discriminatory practices against "oppressors" (i.e. mostly the white and Asian students) now and in the future. I think the whole point of it is a sort of "transfer of wealth."
They say "power" of course, too, but I think wealth is the bigger aim.
I do know that our current state 4th Grade reading test in my state are used to determine the number of prison beds the state departments of corrections will need for that cohort of students/young people. This figure is supposedly accurate within some error range. Hence the "Read Well by Fourth Grade" push that's has been promoted for the last 5 years.
I really appreciate this perspective. The public gets lost in the weeds of the debate, caught between left or right, without even considering the capacity of students or faculty to teach such complex phenomenon.
I've been in the room when these people talk about Critical Race Applied Principles which stems from CRT. The material is overly focused on emotional appeal rather than logical or methodological processes and analysis. The material it self seems only to be geared towards pissing people off about the injustices perpatrated on their ancestors. And there is no lack of material there.
So then, CRT in shitty schools would be the worst of both worlds. You'll have bad teachers teaching to underdeveloped children and that is a recipe for disaster. Put on top this concept that certain ethnic groups learn in different ways, i.e. POC children can't think in linear time, and its a freaking catastrophe. In fact, I think more harm can come from CRT in poor schools.
Very good piece. It does seem true that CRT will only influence a small number of people, but the question is how big is this effect? There are many levels to this question. It seems obvious to me that CRT is enforcing a kind of social power dynamic that is meant to manipulate people regardless of whether they understand the underlying theory. People understand power even if they cannot understand theory. Whether this successfully coerces people to acquiesce to the power dynamic is not obvious, but that leads into the other side of the bell-curve.
Clearly, many of the brightest students will be able to grasp at least some amount of the underlying theory of CRT. Some may reject it, but most likely many will come to accept some of the principles in CRT; especially if exposure to other theories is limited. The net effect is a seeding of the higher learning institutions with students sympathetic to CRT.
Now, where does policy and culture flow from? The universities: especially the elite universities. In order for CRT to have an effect, it doesn't need to be understood by even the majority population of the U.S. The only people who need to understand it are the freshman class at Harvard. This alone would be reason enough for a CRT supporter to bring this pedagogy into K-12.
I hope this is helpful or interesting to anyone reading.
t appears that the wokevists want the curriculum steered harder left. I think they want students taught that they are fundamentally nothing more than avatars of their group identities (and the opperssor/oppressed dynamics implied), taught a lot about the atrocity that was/is the USA and less about the competency of the people that made the USA, and an overall "playing up the victim". From what I'm getting, the wokevists aren't necessarily all about educators taking on a "university-level sociological theory," but would be perfectly happy if teachers followed Ibram Kendi's advice from p. 22 of his book where he says we need to apply discriminatory practices against "oppressors" (i.e. mostly the white and Asian students) now and in the future. I think the whole point of it is a sort of "transfer of wealth."
They say "power" of course, too, but I think wealth is the bigger aim.
I do know that our current state 4th Grade reading test in my state are used to determine the number of prison beds the state departments of corrections will need for that cohort of students/young people. This figure is supposedly accurate within some error range. Hence the "Read Well by Fourth Grade" push that's has been promoted for the last 5 years.
I really appreciate this perspective. The public gets lost in the weeds of the debate, caught between left or right, without even considering the capacity of students or faculty to teach such complex phenomenon.