Photo: AFP
Top Three Takeaways – July 12th, 2021
- The battle over the minds Florida’s children is on. Not only has the American Federation of Teacher’s, the parent of all of Florida’s teachers' unions, pledged support for the teaching of Critical Race Theory...they’re now upping the ante. Last week you had the AFT president, on a tour with First Lady Jill Biden, state support for the teaching of CRT. Now, the AFT has raised the stakes. The American Federation of Teachers booked a Critical Race Theory expert to speak at their annual national conference. The AFT president has now stated: Mark my words: Our union will defend any member who gets in trouble for teaching honest history. The AFT, which represents 78% of Florida’s public-school teachers, is openly calling on them to break Florida’s law and stating they’ll take care of any fallout. Also telling is the inherent dishonesty and contradiction of AFT president Randi Weingarten, as she made her case for why they’re doing this. Quoting her, Teaching America's history requires considering all the facts available to us - including those that are uncomfortable - like the history of enslavement and discrimination toward people of color and people perceived as different. Notice anything revealing and telling about that statement...? That takes me to this takeaway.
- Fact vs Theory. Here’s the definition of a fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true. And a theory: a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something. Ok, so one is proven and other is an idea. Evidently, Randi Weingarten isn’t inclined to allow facts or the truth to get in the way of a good story. In her defense of Critical Race Theory...emphasis on “theory”, she states Teaching America's history requires considering all the facts... Umm, if CRT were based on facts, it’d be Critical Race Facts – it's literally not factual by name or definition. The extent to which it’s disturbing that the president of the teacher’s union, of which 78% of Florida’s public-school teachers are members, making that inherently contradictory statement, isn’t something I can adequately convey. As disturbing as it is, it’s also not something that’s new.
- Indoctrination in the classroom has been happening for decades. Ironically, juxtaposed with the Weingarten’s contradictory defense of CRT, it was the teaching of another theory, the Big Bang, which first opened my eyes, as a sixth-grade student, to what was happening inside of the classroom. I’ve occasionally shared this story over the years when it’s supported my concerns about what’s really being taught and it’s worth repeating in the CRT context. In my Physical Science class, the Big Bang Theory, while being brought to us as a theory by name, wasn’t presented as such. When it came time to take the test, presented with multiple choice answers, the question of how life on earth began didn’t leave open the possibility of intelligent design. I refused to answer the question – which would have left me denying God, and I stood my ground challenging my teacher while encouraging other students not to answer. It wasn’t easy or comfortable, however in the end I won. That was over 30 years ago, in a very conservative school district in suburban Atlanta. The point is this, teachers have taken liberties to indoctrinate students for decades by doing things like conflating theories and facts. CRT is just the latest. To defeat Critical Race Theory and to take back our schools it’s critical that we engage and stay engaged. The battle over the minds of Florida’s children is on, however we’ve been decades late in joining it. There’s a lot of work to be done.