We need a lot more of this pushback:
[Added June 10] Here is another recent presentation to a school board:
Public School Teacher Gives Forceful Enlightenment-Inspired Advice to Parents, Students and the Fairfax County School Board
We need a lot more of this pushback:
[Added June 10] Here is another recent presentation to a school board:
Bravo for the teacher. She is performing what has been the highest calling of her profession for centuries: Confronting ignorance and proving it wrong. My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Jones, was an elderly white woman in the only integrated school in the richest county in America. She carefully treated all students the same, regardless of color. I was an exception; I had been labeled a troublemaker since Kindergarten, when I entered school already reading at a high school level. I was bored, so Mrs. Jones challenged me. I was in heaven.
She read Huckleberry Finn to the class and called an important character by the wrong name. His name wasn’t Jim, it was N****r Jim. I asked why she changed it, and she told me that it wasn’t kind or educated to use that language about another person. She then explained to the class that the proper word was “Negro,” and that’s what civilized and mature people were used. The other term was a pejorative. And we spent the rest of that day in 1958 talking about slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Mrs. Jones was careful not to bring up the KKK. I think that was because many students’ fathers and grandfathers were members.
Throughout the remainder of the year, Mrs. Jones never let up. She spoke simple truths, such as “All Men are Created Equal.” She was never strident, never scolding, calmly explaining her conclusions and how she had reached them. I miss Mrs Jones.