Texas teachers warned against being 'heterosexist'
tj
people to become ....
WorldNetDaily ^ | 01/01/10 | Bob Unruh
Posted on 01 January 2010 21:15:15 by American Dream 246
Candidates for certification to teach in public schools in Texas are
being told that they will be held accountable for any "heterosexist"
leanings and must become agents working to change society, according
to one candidate who was alarmed by the demands. The applicant, who
requested anonymity for fear of repercussions, told WND part of the
teachings on multiculturalism required him to read several online
postings about the issue inside the education industry. One warns that
"teachers and administrators must be held accountable for practices
deemed to be racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, or in any other
way discriminatory." And a second warned that educators must not
define education as the basic skills. "How do we create a better
world? How do we do more than simply survive? As educators, we must
help people to become committed to social change," the article
demanded. The teacher candidate told WND the studies were mandated by
the Region 10 service center for the public school educators' program.
The center had a recording that it was closed throughout the holidays
and officials could not be reached by WND.
But spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe at the Texas Education Agency said
the state rules require teacher preparation programs to cover 17
curriculum topics, but not multiculturalism.
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"Although the training should address educating special populations
such as English language learners and children with disabilities," she
added.
"While we establish the broad rules that are to be followed, we do not
write or approve a training program's curriculum," she said.
She said the articles, if part of the program, were chosen at the
region level.
One of the articles was on the EdChange Multicultural Pavilion and
discussed defining "multicultural education."
There it states that there are several focuses for such programs,
including those that insist "on education change as part of a larger
societal transformation in which we more closely explore and criticize
the oppressive foundations of society and how education serves to
maintain the status quo – foundations such as white supremacy,
capitalism, global socioeconomic situations, and exploitation."
The article demands, "Schools must be active participants in ending
oppression of all types, first by ending oppression within their own
walls, then by producing socially and critically active and aware
students."
"The underlying goal of multicultural education is to affect social
change. The pathway toward this goal incorporates three strands of
transformation: 1. The transformation of self; 2. The transformation
of schools and schooling; and 3. The transformation of society," the
teaching material said.
The traditional teaching approaches, it continued, "must be
deconstructed to examine how they are contributing to and supporting
institutional systems of oppression."
It demands that the "transformation of society" be part of a school's
goals.
"It is not enough to continue working within an ailing, oppressive,
and outdated system to make changes, when the problems in education
are themselves symptoms of a system that continues to be controlled by
the economic elite."
A second article that was assigned to the student, the candidate told
WND, was "Multicultural Education and Developmental Education: A
Conversation About Principles and Connections with James A. Banks,"
and included the same concepts of change.
"In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed [the author] says that we must teach
students to read the word, which is basic skills, but we also must
teach them to read the world, and that is to critique and change
society," the article said.
"One of the things that is happening in this assessment mania that is
going on is that we've defined education too narrowly. We've defined
it as only basic skills: reading, writing, and arithmetic. We're
missing that the biggest problem of humankind is not basic skills but
how to get along. How do we create a better world? How do we do more
than simply survive? As educators, we must help people to become
committed to social change," it stated.
The article also warned instructors must lead their students in a
specific social direction.
"I think it is essential that students acquire basic skills and I
don't think they're neutral. The skills are as value laden as the
commitments we want students to share. Although it's essential that
students acquire basic skills, this alone is clearly not sufficient
for them to become effective citizens in a global society. They must
also develop the commitment and ability to critique and change
society," the article said.
A similar issue of demanding a specific social perspective arose
recently at the University of Minnesota.
Officials at the school there backed off a proposal after publicity
about its planned requirements to examine teacher candidates about
"white privilege" as well as provide "remedial re-education" for those
who hold the "wrong" views.
That case was taken up by the the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education, which promotes civil liberties on the campuses of America's
colleges and universities.
FIRE officer Adam Kissel said the report from the Race, Culture,
Class, and Gender Task Group apparently would involve screening
teacher applicants for "wrong" views and withholding their degrees if
"the university's political re-education efforts proved ineffective."
By any "nontotalitarian" standards, he wrote, the plans being made so
far by the school are "severely unjust and impermissibly intrude into
matters of individual conscience."
In Minnesota, among the issues discussed in the plans, are
requirements that teachers would be able to instruct students on the
"myth of meritocracy" in the United States, "the history of demands
for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian meanings and
values," and the "history of white racism."
Those demands appeared to be similar to those promoted earlier at the
University of Delaware.
As WND reported, the Delaware university's office of residential life
was caught requiring students to participate in a program that taught
"all whites are racist."
School officials immediately defended the teaching, but in the face of
a backlash from alumni and publicity about its work, the school
decided to drop the curriculum, although some factions later suggested
its revival.
FIRE, which challenged the Delaware plan, later produced a video
explaining how the institution of the university pushed for the
teachings, was caught and later backed off:
Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten said the
Minnesota plan would have required teachers to "embrace – and be
prepared to teach our state's kids – the task force's own vision of
America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic."
She wrote, "The first step toward 'cultural competence,' says the task
group, is for future teachers to recognize – and confess – their own
bigotry. Anyone familiar with the re-education camps of China's
Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.
"What if some aspiring teachers resist this effort at thought control
and object to parroting back an ideological line as a condition of
future employment?" she posed. "The task group has Orwellian plans for
such rebels: The U, it says, must 'develop clear steps and procedures
for working with nonperforming students, including a remediation
plan.'"
W.T.S.
news:8ed3fc37-80a3-4337...@22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com...
> Texas teachers warned against being 'heterosexist' 'We must help
> people to become ....
> WorldNetDaily ^ | 01/01/10 | Bob Unruh
> Posted on 01 January 2010 21:15:15 by American Dream 246
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