Critical Race Theory is winning the day in many public schools, as described by Erika Sanzi in her article, “The Monster Is in the Classroom Schools indoctrinate children as young as eight in race and gender essentialism.”

The problem? Increasing numbers of public grade schools are teaching their students to see each other as color categories and to treat each other differently based on those “colors.” In my own mind, I think of these poisonous approaches as neoracism, neosegregationist and racecraft. As I’ve often written, dividing people into colors is as absurd as believing in astrology, though much more pernicious given our country’s long struggle with racism. With regard to sexuality, increasing numbers of schools are preaching to their students that it is bigoted to state that there are only two sexes, even though biologists universally hold that there are only two sexes of every other species of mammal based on the two types of gametes (and the organs that produce those gametes).  Schools are teaching that we should ignore this science when it comes to human animals because it is inconvenient. Schools are teaching that sex is “assigned” at birth by doctors and parents (rather than noticed). Today’s institutional leaders of Wokeness, such as Planned Parenthood, falsely advise that 2% of people are intersex, mangling the scientific definition and rate of occurrence of intersex in the process (the actual rate of intersex conditions is about 0.018%).  These falsehoods are rampant among the Woke and these ideologically-laced teachings are now permeating classrooms, including public school classrooms.

[In the current social environment, I feel the need to add this: I’m writing about sex, which has a long stable scientific definition. And see here. And here. Over the past few decades, “gender,” a non-scientific concept, has become mostly unhinged from sex. In modern times, “gender” can seemingly can mean anything, e.g., a bio female can “identify” as a woman, a man, something “fluid, or apparently anything at all.  I have no problem with any adult claiming any type of gender, but I also insist that people should get their biology right, especially when teaching grade school students. There are only two sexes and rare biological intersex conditions do not constitute a third type of sex. The elephant in the room is that these bankrupt ideas of sexual Wokeness are being encouraged by profit seekers.]

Here is Sanzi’s main concerns:

American schools are teaching young children race essentialism: reducing them to identity groups, putting them in boxes labeled “oppressor” and “oppressed,” and often inflicting emotional and psychological harm. If this sounds extreme, that’s because it is. It is not happening everywhere—but it is happening enough to have juiced a multibillion-dollar, nationwide industry. Sometimes the source is a rogue teacher whom the principal and superintendent admit they are trying to rein in; but increasingly, it is simply public officials implementing approved policies.

She gives several examples of Wokeness in modern day public school classrooms:

Lexington, Massachusetts, where, in October 2019, fourth-graders were taught to “articulate what gender identity is and why it’s important to use nonbinary language in describing people we don’t know yet.” According to photos shared on Twitter by the district’s Director of Equity and Student Supports, students learned about “gender identity,” “gender expression,” “sexual orientation,” and “sex assigned at birth” by examining sticky notes on a “Gender Snowperson” who was drawn in magic marker on a large sheet of paper. The students were also taught that their pronouns had been “assigned at birth.”

.  .   .

This past February, students in Evanston, Illinois, listened to the book Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness. Parents were asked to discuss the book with their children at home. The book says that “whiteness is a bad deal” and “always was,” and that “you can be white without signing on to whiteness.” As Conor Friedersdorf reports in The Atlantic, Evanston schools ask kindergarten parents to quiz their five- and six-year-olds on whiteness and to give them examples of “how whiteness shows up in school or in the community.”

These examples described by Sanzi comprise the tip of the iceberg. I recently commented on Christopher Rufo’s report on eleven additional public schools across the U.S., all of them preaching (not teaching) similar divisive poison to young children. In many schools, our children are being similarly indoctrinated, prepared to participate for the rest of their lives in the oppression olympics. We are enthusiastically producing adult-sized toddlers. And see here. We are creating a generation of students who are so emotionally fragile that they cannot bear the thought that other people think differently than they do. This theme was explored at length by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff in their 2017 book, The Coddling of the American Mind. Here is more on the concerns of Haidt and Lukianoff. And see here for the “Three Great Untruths.”

Here is yet another recent example of Wokeness in the classroom, Grace Church School. 

With regard to sexuality, we are at a crossroads and the correct road is paved with scientific facts, not ideology.  As Heather Heying writes, we should be teaching biology, not ideology.  With regard to “race,” the Woke endgame is Evergreen State College. 

If only there were healthy ways to teach people how to get along with each other . . . Actually, there are healthy approaches, including Chloe Valdary’s “Theory of Enchantment,” (urging that we treat people like human beings, not political abstractions). And see Christopher Rufo’s advice here.  And here. And here is some advice by forty black intellectuals critical of the Woke permeated environment at Smith College.  Here’s yet another alternative approach: Counterweight, which urges us to engage with each other as complex and nuanced human beings, not stereotypes. Consider also this detailed blueprint for reform by the President of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), Greg Lukianoff.  In summary:

10 Principles for Opposing Thought Reform in K-12

• No compelled speech, thought, or belief.
• Respect for individuality, dissent, and the sanctity of conscience.
• K-12 teachers & administrators must demonstrate epistemic humility.
• Foster the broadest possible curiosity, critical thinking skills, and discomfort with certainty.
• Foster independence, not moral dependency.
• Do not teach children to think in cognitive distortions.
• Do not teach the ‘Three Great Untruths.’
• Take student mental health more seriously.
• Resist the temptation to reduce complex students to limiting labels.
• If it’s broke, fix it. Be willing to form new institutions that empower students and educate them with principles of free, diverse, and pluralistic society.

For many more examples of Wokeness upon which I have commented, consider this DI collection of articles on Wokeness.