Recently, issues with California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum have come to light with alarming content. While this is grotesquely troubling, the greater danger lies in the consistent subliminal messaging hiding behind best teaching practices that messes with the minds of teachers, even those who are conservative. This is another example of the iceberg – the written content is easy to spot as inappropriate and may be refused through creative ways, but the larger themes and instructional guidance (in terms of pedagogy) may lead teachers into using lesson plans that reflect the ultimate goal of curricula like this which is to develop each participant’s (teachers and students) character in a way that is reflective of the radical left’s multiple identities. When confronting disturbing curricula, it is important not to be distracted by the red herring of suggested resources, but to focus on the underlying themes and the teaching methods that could lead a lesson on an unintentional path.
When a teacher develops a lesson plan, the content is usually the easier part, but the teaching method, which makes up most of a teacher’s evaluation, is where they often turn to current exceptional practices and select the materials that will best help them achieve “highly effective” in the numerous categories of their evaluation. This distraction weakens the guard against political motivations inherent in these curricula. When a teacher is struggling with questioning techniques, possibly falling into the “ineffective” category, she will take the advice from resources of authority to improve her evaluation, possibly leaving a minor, but still dangerous, bias unnoticed. This is a clear and present danger, and just one of the reasons why teachers need support from other experienced and practicing teachers.
Getting through evaluations while trying to get around a radical leftist curriculum is difficult because teachers cannot sacrifice their evaluation at the expense of refusing to do what is expected of them. This is where creativity and cleverness are necessary to be successful as a conservative/moderate teacher. Still, even the strongest mind has a weak point. The radical left stops at nothing to find it and the more funding they get, the more minds they add to their team, the easier it will be to find and reach your weak spot. However, a strong support system with experienced teachers can help us ensure our minds stay sane and alert to any threat from the radical left, especially those they are trying to distract us from with obvious troubling material.
The danger to teachers is one part; the danger to students is another, and the danger to our country is yet another.
What one thinks is fundamentally more dangerous than what one says, though the latter of course is still a serious matter. When a child repeats one of these chants from this Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, they won’t remember the words years later. What they will remember is how fun it was to say it in class and what it symbolized. They will remember what they felt and the big picture, and that is what will stay with them as they continue their pathway to becoming an agent of the radical left. Many of the more concerning resources can be found in the “lesson resources” section of this curriculum, distinct from the suggested lesson plans, and how they incorrectly define or misrepresent words such as genocide. Still, the more troubling part of the curriculum is the themes teachers must represent throughout their units because the teacher is not simply picking and choosing what is brought into their classroom. In this case, “the four primary themes of the model curriculum: Identity, History and Movement, Systems of Power, Social Movements and Equity,” are represented in specific ways that can place teachers on a path to the radical left. Themes must be present in a unit, and getting around some of these can be more difficult than it sounds when the suggested resources are seriously disturbing, but it is possible.
In most cases, teachers will use what they please at their own discretion and are not necessarily forced to teach every single aspect of a curriculum, though there are rare instances in which an administration may micromanage to the extent that a teacher has more difficulty getting around the problematic features. There are only so many school days a year, and many parts of a curriculum are often squeezed in as a vocabulary word or homework assignment, simply because there is not enough time to get to everything. Focusing on the specific texts and assignments in a curriculum is only a distraction, since what is brought into the classroom, or at the very least, how it is perceived, is often at the teacher’s discretion. (The many misconceptions about curriculum can be found in our article at https://lockesociety.org/common-misconceptions-about-curriculum-and-the-power-of-the-teacher/.)
While the curriculum of the radical left continues to pour into our schools, threaten the minds of our teachers and students, and undermine American values, we must be aware that the content we read is only the tip of the iceberg; what lies beneath, unnoticed is what ultimately leads to destruction. There are many red herrings in the radical left’s curricula, maybe that’s why they publish so many outrageous lesson plans, to serve as a distraction from their overall messaging that slowly creeps into the back of a teacher’s mind. As they keep throwing more balls at us to juggle, eventually we will drop them all, and as we scatter around to pick them all up, the door opens for them to do the most damage. We can’t let this happen. Stay alert to new developments, but stay focused on your own mission and goals.
