Nov
24
I thought that our path through life is a fairly straight-forward one. Do well at schools and receive a good education. translate that education and qualifications into a decent job. work hard at that job and gain promotion and receive increased income. Use that increased income to buy those things that make life easier and more enjoyable. And then die. Simple.
But The University of Minnesota has an initiative for it’s education graduates which shows that life is more complicated than that:
Via HotAir:
The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U’s flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.
The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.
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 reeducation camps of China’s Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.
The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an “autoethnography” report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their “cultural” motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a “cultural intelligence” assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other “isms.” They “earn points” for “demonstrating the ability to be self-critical.”
Funny. I would have thought that learning good educating skills should be the “overarching framework” for teaching courses. But then what do I know?
The goal of these exercises, in the task group’s words, is to ensure that “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.”
Future teachers must also recognize and denounce the fundamental injustices at the heart of American society, says the task group. From a historical perspective, they must “understand that … many groups are typically not included” within America’s “celebrated cultural identity,” and that “such exclusion is frequently a result of dissimilarities in power and influence.” In particular, aspiring teachers must be able “to explain how institutional racism works in schools.”
Doesn’t “white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression.” just sum up the liberal educational world we live in today?
Anyway, i’m sure there’s a serious discussion to be had on this subject, but for now I just want to bask in the ridiculousness of this politically correct language.
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3 Responses to “The Liberal World Is A Complicated One”
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C. Cabbie,
Minnesota has gone over the edge…
Gosh, this all fits doesn’t it? Minnesotans voted for ‘Stuart Little’ for their Senator. But…I bet they only have the guilty white teachers fill this profile out…After all, Liberals tell us that minorities have no prejudices.
An American
That’s a good point. What about their minority and gay teachers? One gets the impression that they think that only WASP’s want to be teachers. How’s about that for prejudice.
C. Cabbie,
They will probably excuse minorities from the profile with the excuse that any prejudices minorities may have…they deserve to have, because of the evil white people’s treatment of the last 200+ years.
This kind of liberal crap is driving a wedge between Americans with its racial profiling…I absolutely hate it and frankly it is causing a big backlash. White Americans are sick and tired of having undeserved racial guilt piled upon them. It’s an old Liberal trick…but it’s not working anymore.
When will Liberals just let Americans be Americans?