The Best Defense Against Discrimination is Full Throated Facts, Ideas and Critical Reason

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Critical Race Theory Is not a pedagogy, but it is a method of propaganda. It’s a political agenda of a singularly a skewed ideology picking winners and losers by skin color. This is very troubling but more so when we are talking about our children.  The theory has determined that the darker pigmented groups need to be built up and that the lighter pigmented group needs to be broken down by having their inherently biased thoughts re-directed away from their learned oppressiveness. Is this absurd? Is it even education?  Yes, it’s absurd and no, it’s not educating because it’s constructed and designed in such a way to prevent full-throated rationale discussions and diverse critical inquiry. Let me be clear, no person(s) should ever stand SILENT to any injustice and this includes censoring free speech! All these complex components form the profound principles behind the theory. Isn’t this discriminatory and since inherent bias is being so ill-defined, isn’t it likely to be wielded as an oppressive tool to prevent critical and rationale discussions? Yes, and yes! I can’t help but think of the old adage, “teach a kid how to think but don’t tell them what to think”. Of course, it isn’t this simple or straightforward and further elaboration is required.

This year no Connecticut public schools earned a spot in the U.S. News & World Report’s Top-100 ranking. This is a first. So, do we applaud outgoing Education Commissioner and newly appointed Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona for his pandemic handling or do we challenge the educational effectiveness of his policy pursuits?

The Idaho senate recently passed a bill preventing Critical Race Theory from the curriculum because of its principles of racial discrimination.  They found that these theories discriminated almost entirely based on race and go on to classify groups as superior, inferior or guilty by nothing more than their racial association and identity.

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona now has serious concerns that many states throughout our country might resist his political advocate agenda, the same curriculum that he has successfully implemented throughout Connecticut.

Mr. Cardona’s concerns are legitimate as are those states that are pushing back. Woke teaching is preaching and critical race theory is a divisive ideological notion that is oppressive to rational thought and fails every test of logic and reason. Equality of opportunity is no longer sufficient and it must be replaced with the entitlement of equitable outcomes.  Blood must be extracted for the sins of our pigmentation. This is sad because independent thinking skills remains the single greatest advantage to success and in overcoming all injustices and all adversities.

Please ask yourself if it is the purpose of education to manufacture a militia of ideologically driven advocates or to equip rationally informed and engaged citizens? Teaching is the development of independent critical rational thought from all ideas and problems.

Forcing a misguided political ideology on anyone begets outcomes that reasonable people would expect, narrowed thinking naturally constrains academic performance outcomes. Instead of teaching from an open and diverse thought spectrum of unlimited ideas and independent problem-solving skills, we are now less focused on the advancement of independent thinking development and more focused on ideological preaching and political indoctrination.

The critical race theory doctrine outlined by the Secretary of Education in 86 FR 20348 of the Federal Register targets “information literacy”. This is neither substantively defined nor quantified by any examples, by keeping it vague it can essentially be anything that the teachers and now agenda advocates determine to contain inherent ideological bias or oppressive student self-bias associated within their racial classification. This brings to mind the lyrics of an old Pink Floyd tune about thought controls and censorship. As a society, do we even care anymore about censorship and ideological thought controls when the topic is too sensitive and thus requires the actual truth to be protected? The doctrine by failing to define both the targeted information and the measure of a student’s inherent racial class self-bias provides a powerful tool to dismiss otherwise reasonable and rationale arguments through this artificial guardrail on thought. Self-bias as it is being used, is a means to prevent necessary and rationale discussions. It can arguably be used to shame and thereby shut down a reasonable counter-argument. The policies use formal historical research terms like primary and secondary sources, providing the appearance of civic legitimacy, but the policies in their entirety, suggest a mere ruse for the limitations on the power, ideas, influence and freedoms available through social media.  One of the biggest problems in this doctrine is that they never quantify or describe what learner bias looks like or the sort of social media misinformation that they are aiming to eradicate.  Also, how exactly is this wrong info and ideas being used to manipulate our students into a continued role as racial oppressors?

 Let me be clear critical race theory and the woke curriculum has absolutely nothing to do with educating our children and advancing their ability to think critically, think infinitely using reason or to independently evaluate and solve problems rationally. These educational principles are no longer the priority and test scores are obviously plummeting because of testing bias and horrendously hateful and racist quadratic equations.

Education succeeds when inclusion and diversity become centered on thoughts and ideas. The best defense against discrimination is full throated facts, ideas and critical reason.

Our children’s thinking is being forcefully limited and restricted by professional adults that purport to have their best interest in mind and assure us that they know what’s best for them.

Bob Chester,
Somers, CT