Adventures in a "Social Justice" Education School
And why I won't be promoting social justice in the classroom.
I am currently teaching. I won’t give details except to say that I’m teaching grade school science. I like teaching. I like interacting with my students and it’s especially rewarding to see a student’s face light up when they finally grasp a new concept. The population I’m working with is known to be difficult. Test scores at my school are far below the state average in a state that is far below the national average. Even so, I find that most students come to class ready to participate and learn. In becoming a teacher, I have to take classes at a local community college to get my permanent teaching license.
The program I am enrolled in has a "social justice” emphasis, meaning that I will be ostensibly learning how to promote social justice in the classroom. Out of the two classes I’m currently taking, only one has a heavy emphasis on social justice. That course is called “Foundations of Education”, and the readings for the course largely consists of social justice propaganda. Required readings and videos include:
Cognitive Dissonance: A Critical Tool in Social Justice Education (Gorski, 2009)
The “Banking” Concept of Education (this is an essay by Marxist educator Paulo Freire in which he encourages “revolutionary” education).
The message I’ve gotten from our readings is that our primary focus as educators ought to be “anti-racism”. In this context, anti-racism doesn’t refer to simply not being racist. It refers to actively promoting a vision of the world in which our education system is currently oppressing Black & Hispanic students, which calls for “revolutionary” action on the part of teachers and administrators. The evidence given for this oppression is that Black & Hispanic students don’t do as well on standardized tests, don’t graduate as often, and are disciplined at higher rates than white and Asian students.
Paulo Freire was the first scholar we were introduced to in our readings. Freire was a Brazilian Marxist who spoke kindly of the mass murderer Mao Zedong. He calls for educators to be “revolutionary” and to promote “critical consciousness” in their students. Even if he doesn’t put it so bluntly, Freire’s message is that we should be attempting to turn our students into little Marxist revolutionaries. Freire is the most cited scholar in education.
Our summative assessment for the course is a three-part project in which we will reflect on how a social justice lens is going to affect our life as an educator. I’ve decided to publish what I write for this project here. Part 1 asks us to define social justice. Below is the response I submitted for this assignment. When I say “you” or “yours”, I’m referring to the professor, since she is the only one who would normally be reading this.
What is Social Justice?
In completing assignments like this I have to ask myself whether it’s best to answer the questions as I’m expected to answer them or to answer them honestly. My perspective on these issues is different from yours and different from most people in this class. I’ll try to be as tactful as I can while answering honestly and getting my point across.
The prompt for this assignment is “What is social justice?” Before answering this question, it will be useful to explain why I am not an advocate of the kind of social justice being pursued in this class. In the “module 6” section for this course, you wrote that:
These are the starting points for conversations: the understanding that 1) racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ageism, and countless other forms of oppression exist in our society, 2) white privilege, misogyny, heteronormativity are real and such privileges manifest in educational institutions, and 3) teaching takes place in a historical and political context whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.
All of these statements are obviously true. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression do exist in our society. There are privileges associated with certain identities. Teaching does take place in a historical context. It would be silly to deny any of these claims. However, as with all ideologies, these statements only tell half of the story. Because they are incomplete, they are also misleading.
The proper response to statements like this is to ask the question: “Compared to what?” Without asking this question, we will fail to provide the historical context within which we can understand exactly how “oppressive” our society is.
Racism, sexism, and homophobia exist within our society. All of that is true in an absolute sense, but misleading without a historical comparison. Is our society racist, sexist, and homophobic compared to the Aztecs, Incas, or Mayans? What about the Mongols? What about the Persian empire, the Romans, or the Ottomans? What about the Spanish or British empires? What about the Nubian empires or any of the Bantu groups in Africa? What about the Soviet Union or a South American banana republic? What about modern day Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, India, or China?
Would you rather be a racial/ethnic minority or homosexual in modern day USA or any of these other times or places? What about a religious minority or political dissident? If you have any historical perspective at all, the answer to these questions is obvious. Modern Western society (roughly Western Europe, North America, and much of Oceania) is the least racist, least sexist, least homophobic, most tolerant society in recorded history. Presumably, when social justice advocates condemn our society for its racism, sexism, and homophobia, they are comparing our society to nothing at all or to the ideal society that exists only in their imagination.
The United States and Britain were among the first countries to voluntarily end slavery after fighting internal wars over the issue. These countries, among others, then went on to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of young men in a war to stop the racial ideology of the Nazis. They were among the first places to afford women legal and civic equality. I am grateful for the sacrifices made by my forebears to fight slavery, racism, and other forms of oppression. Does [this program] take these achievements as “the starting point for conversations”? I doubt it. Nevertheless, I will not condemn our civilization for precisely those qualities that have made it great.
There is a balance that must be struck between resentment and gratitude. People within every society have been treated unfairly, including ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals. The natural response to unfair treatment is the expression of resentment. This resentment can be channeled into political or social action that leads to positive change. However, given the historically unique progress that our culture has made in these areas, that resentment can and should be balanced against a sense of gratitude for everything our society has accomplished. Cultivating that gratitude through a proper understanding of our culture’s accomplishments is just as important as cultivating resentment by constantly ruminating on its shortcomings. The journalist Douglas Murray wrote about these trends in his recent book The War on the West. He describes how social justice advocates characterize our culture:
The culture that gave the world lifesaving advances in science, medicine, and a free market that has raised billions of people around the world out of poverty and offered the greatest flowering of thought anywhere in the world is interrogated through a lens of the deepest hostility and simplicity. The culture that produced Michelangelo, Leonardo, Bernini, and Bach is portrayed as if it has nothing relevant to say. New generations are taught this ignorant view of history. They are offered a story of the West’s failings without spending anything like a corresponding time on its glories. (p. 10)
Based on my experience (along with readings from this class and elsewhere), social justice advocates offer resentment without gratitude, a dangerously unbalanced approach to life, culture, and politics.
Modern day Western Europe and North America are among the least racist, least sexist, and least homophobic societies that have ever existed. Accusations of “systemic racism” or other forms of oppression should be understood in this context, and should always be accompanied by the question… compared to what? If we compare our society to an ideal utopia that only exists in our imagination, we can always justify revolutionary changes to our moral and legal norms. This is exactly what many social justice advocates want to do.
This revolutionary stance is part of the reason Freire, with his concept of the “revolutionary educator”, is such a popular scholar within education. However, if we take a historical perspective, we will understand that these moral and legal institutions have been an important part of the process by which we have made such great strides in combating racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression. To put it bluntly, fomenting “revolution” in the wealthiest, most peaceful, most tolerant society in recorded history is an incredibly stupid and dangerous course of action (see, e.g., Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now for data supporting these claims).
What is social justice? Based on my experience and reading, social justice is a historically ignorant ideology that seeks to condemn our civilization for precisely those qualities that make it great and unique. Social justice advocates condemn our society for its racism despite the fact that we live in one of the most racially diverse and harmonious societies to ever exist. They condemn our society for sexism despite the fact that our society has uniquely afforded women legal and social equality. They condemn our society for homophobia despite the fact that we are one of the only civilizations in which homosexuals can express their preferences freely and openly. Social justice advocates write and speak as if Western society exists in a historical vacuum, refusing to acknowledge that our society, while not perfect, is far better than every society in recorded history on precisely those issues they are most critical about.
The utter lack of gratitude for these facts, and the insistence on criticizing the moral and legal foundations that led to these great accomplishments (e.g., Freire and other critical theorists), is one reason that I am not an advocate of “social justice”. I am, of course, an advocate of actual justice. Actual justice involves treating people according to their individual characteristics rather than as representatives of an identity category. I’ll do that, and will avoid worrying too much about the color of people’s skin, what’s between their legs, or who they sleep with, since these things don’t matter very much to me.
That’s the end of my response. It will be interesting to see how the professor responds, and if the school as a whole pushes back against my opposition to their emphasis on social justice. I doubt that I will get much pushback, but it is obviously alarming that teachers are being “educated” in this way. I’m sure that the school I’m taking classes with is not exceptional in its emphasis on social justice.
Most tax payers don’t want to pay for their children and grandchildren to be indoctrinated by social justice ideologues, so I’m not sure how long public education can survive in its current state. As long as educators are being taught in this way, the school choice movement will continue to grow. If tax payers really understood what was going on in education schools, I suspect there would be a push to defund public education tomorrow.
It's shocking to see just how explicitly this stuff is being taught, and to teachers who will be staffing and leading public schools for decades to come. This isn't going away any time soon.
Good luck. I'm interested to see what kind of response you get.
Makes me so angry honestly. Part of it is pain over how much I looked to public school and university to find my way up and how clearly large chunks of what I considered "objective knowledge" and "the best humanity has to offer" was a lie or evil that preyed on my intention to do the right things.