University of Minnesota Under Fire for Task Force's Discrimination-Based Teacher Education Plan
Mike
University of Minnesota Under Fire for Task Force's Discrimination-
Based Teacher Education Plan
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
By Diane Macedo
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A branch of the University of Minnesota may require all education
students at the school to understand and accept that they are either
privileged or oppressed and that they be well-versed in issues like
"white privilege," "institutional racism” and the "myth of meritocracy
in the United States."
Critics are condemning the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group
at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, which proposes making
race, class and gender issues the "overarching framework" of all
teaching courses.
The task group, formed as part of the Teacher Education Redesign
Initiative at the state university, aims to change how future teachers
are trained, based on the assertion that the teachers' lack of
"cultural competence" contributes to minority students' poor grades.
Click here to dowload the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group's
final report.
The group is one of seven task forces that university spokesman Dan
Wolter says are examining "a whole range of issues dealing with how
teachers are educated."
"This is a rather long-term comprehensive overhaul of our teaching
education programs," Wolter told FoxNews.com.
But the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says the
Race, Culture, Class and Gender group is going beyond addressing how
teachers are educated and is trying instead to mandate their beliefs
and values.
"Unlike what many schools of education have in terms of cultural
competence, this task group really wants to invade the minds of future
teachers and demand that they hold the 'right' values attitudes and
beliefs about society, about themselves, and about race, class,
culture, and gender, to a degree to which it really violates the
freedom of conscience of future teachers," Adam Kissel, Director of
FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program, told FoxNews.com.
Kissel wrote a letter last week urging the university to reject the
group's proposal on the premise that "as a public university bound by
the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the university
is both legally and morally obligated to uphold this fundamental
right."
But Wolter said FIRE has it all wrong.
"It's not at all what they're suggesting — that it's some sort of
litmus test — it's just making sure that teachers are prepared to deal
with the different situations that they might have for each and every
student — which has been a challenge in the past," he said. "Teachers
obviously come from one perspective, so if they've got 15 other people
of different backgrounds in their classrooms it's a completely
different situation."
Some of the proposed curriculum requirements are:
• "Future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and
current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic
masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression."
• Teachers will be able to articulate a "critical analysis of this
story of America, for what it illuminates and what it hides or
distorts" including:
- "myth of meritocracy in the United States"
- "historical connections between scientific racism, intelligence
testing, and assumptions of fixed mental capacity"
- "alternative explanations for mobility (and lack of it)"
- "history of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class,
Christian meanings and values"
- "history of white racism, with special focus on current colorblind
ideology"
• "Future teachers are able to explain how institutional racism works
in schools" and recognize that "schools and classrooms are often
structured in ways that advantage and disadvantage some groups but are
also critical sites for social and cultural transformation."
But while some teachers might want to be instruments of "social and
cultural transformation," Kissel says, "Some might just want to teach
math."
"The idea is if you don't have the right views then we're going to
give you remedial classes, and if we still can't turn you to the right
views, than we're not going to give you your credential," he said.
Kissel also took issue with some of the assignments students would
have to complete.
"They must reveal a 'pervasive stereotype' they personally held about
an identity group, and evidently must argue in a personal essay that
this view has now been 'challenged' on the basis of their experiences
with that identity group. So if you say, 'well, actually I don't have
a pervasive stereotype' … you're probably going to get a bad grade,"
he said.
As for how university professors will learn to assign those grades,
the report proposes "required training/workshop for all supervisors."
"Every faculty member at our university that trains our teachers must
comprehend and commit to the centrality of race, class, culture, and
gender issues in teaching and learning, and consequently, frame their
teaching and course foci accordingly," it says.
Constitutional attorney Steve Greenberg says that the task group's
plan, if implemented as written, will violate student and teacher
rights.
"They're telling people you have to look back on these feelings that
you have, whether you have them or not — if you don't have them you
better find them — and then you better address them this way, and then
after going through step B, step C is that you have to look at the
world through this viewpoint," Greenberg said.
"You can say it's not a litmus test, because if you say it's a litmus
test you have a problem. But the truth of the matter is — it's a
litmus test," he said.
Wolter, addressing those concerns, said: "I think this kind of
discussion that the FIRE group and others have raised — we think
they're helpful to this process, because this still is a dynamic
process that's underway. So hearing people's thoughts is important to
us as well, as the final product is being shaped."
For Kissel, that's not enough.
"What we're saying is that these plans are so in violation of freedom
of conscience that the college should start reversing course now."
Wolter said the recommendations will be going through a deliberative
process.
"In general, the college will focus discussion during spring term on
the key elements of the program and will have components of the
curriculum ready for review by the college Curriculum Council by late
spring or at the beginning of next fall term," he said.
He said the Univerisity of Minnesota hopes to be ready to admit
prospective students into its redesigned program by fall of 2011.