Teaching Tolerance is Not Enough for Many Activist Teachers

I'm full-in for teaching students to be tolerant of each other. As I see it, the most important lessons are A) not to bully anyone, especially because they are seen as different and B) not to judge others because of how they look.

This is not enough for many teachers based on information Abigail Shrier has gathered. With regard to information relating to sexual relationships many middle school teachers are being encouraged to send one message to students, yet send another message to parents. Even more worrisome, many "lessons" about sexual relationships are turning into unauthorized therapy imposed on children without the knowledge of their parents. It is not surprising that many parents are outraged upon learning of these strategies. See here here and here.

Here's a dichotomy that works for me: Public schools should teach students how to think, not what to think. That boundary is not being respected in many schools, according to Shrier's recent article: "How Activist Teachers Recruit Kids: Leaked Documents and Audio from the California Teachers Association Conference Reveal Efforts to Subvert Parents on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation." Here's an excerpt:

Incensed parents now make news almost daily, objecting to radical material taught in their children’s public schools. But little insight has been provided into the mindset and tactics of activist teachers themselves. That may now be changing, thanks to leaked audio from a meeting of California’s largest teacher’s union.

Last month, the California Teachers Association (CTA) held a conference advising teachers on best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. Speakers went so far as to tout their surveillance of students’ Google searches, internet activity, and hallway conversations in order to target sixth graders for personal invitations to LGBTQ clubs, while actively concealing these clubs’ membership rolls from participants’ parents.

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Krystal and Saagar Offer Non-Partisan Discussion of COVID

I often look forward to hearing the nonparisan analysis of the news offered by Saagar and Krystal. On this episode they talk about COVID in ways you will not hear on left-leaning or right-leaning legacy news outlets. You'll hear their views on the segments re the TV show, "The View," and on Saagar's own segment. They love the vaccines but are opposed to mandates. They believe that masks should be optional. They shoot down the hyperbole that we are hearing from the right and the left and they are highly critical of Fauci's arbitrary targets. They offer some statistics that I hadn't heard before, e.g., children are more like to die of the flu than COVID, which means they should be back in school. They urge that it's time for America to move on, as many Americans are now doing.

Krystal and Saagar also offer a worrisome segment about Joe Biden's physical and political performance (they have applauded Biden's decision re Afghanistan, and I agree). If you are trapped in the FOX bubble or the NPR/NYT/WP bubble, I recommend that you listen to an episode of Breaking Points.

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Caitlin Flanagan: What it’s Like to Turn 60 Years Old

Caitlin Flanagan is one of my favorite writers. She just turned 60 years old, which means that it's time to reminisce, celebrate and try to make deep sense of things.

[Y]ou have been on this Earth for a really, really long time. I have a photograph of myself at age 3, standing on the docks of Cork Harbor, about to sail to New York. When I look at the picture of that small child on her sturdy legs in the foggy past, I don’t feel any connection to her. The photograph looks like something I would discover after many days on Ancestry.com. It looks like a snapshot of my own great-aunt. There’s a reason the photograph looks like it’s from another time. Because it is from another time; it was taken more than half a century ago. How can I be in a photograph from that long ago? The math makes sense, but my own life doesn’t.

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Doctor’s Career Damaged for Believing in the Dream of Martin Luther King

Here's what the current climate of hyper-race-consciousness is getting us. It has derailed the career of a top-flight OB/GYN doctor who describes herself as a "bi-racial woman with multi-racial children." Her sin was to believe in the vision of Martin Luther King. She discusses what her employer, Hennepin Healthcare System (HHS), did to her in this short video.

"Dr. Tara Gustilo is of Filipino descent, the mother of black children, and a Harvard-educated physician at Hennepin Healthcare System (HHS) in Minneapolis. She was Chair of the OB/GYN Department, until HHS decided her personal views on race did not correspond with her skin color and revealed her supposed “internalized whiteness.”

Over the last decade, Dr. Gustilo has served successfully in various leadership roles at HHS. She created a program to reflect cultural differences in birthing practices to better serve her diverse patients. But over time, her colleagues transformed this program into racially segregated care.

When Dr. Gustilo voiced her objections, advocated for race-neutral care, and criticized racial essentialism on her personal Facebook page, her colleagues told her that she, as a person of color, should hold the same race-essentialist views they do and could not lead because she does not share those beliefs. HHS then removed her from her position as Chair of the OB/GYN department. Dr. Gustilo has now filed an EEOC discrimination charge against HHS."

Unfortunately, there are many more stories like this. You can read about many of them at Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism ("FAIR").

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We Know We are not Infallible, but We Don’t Know What We are Infalliable About.

Jonathan Haidt, Robert George, Steven Pinker, and Leda Cosmides discuss human biases and why we need healthy institutions and viewpoint diversity to counteract them.

One important change could restore vibrancy to our universities: a renewed celebration of viewpoint diversity.

The university is meant to be a sacred space where we can test novel ideas and engage in thoughtful dialogue without fear of repercussions. When these ideals are no longer prioritized, the culture of open inquiry and truth-seeking dissipates.

Listen to Jonathan Haidt, Steven Pinker, Leda Cosmides, and Robert George discuss how to overcome our biases and foster a healthy academic culture.

Continue ReadingWe Know We are not Infallible, but We Don’t Know What We are Infalliable About.