Senate "Race" Relations (was "U.S. Society and Black Men")

As an educator, I am so demoralized and disgusted by this latest attack on history, reality, and decent human values. Every time I hear his saying that "Florida Is Where Woke Goes To Die" it's so disheartening because it's basically saying is "Florida Is Where Racism Goes To Thrive."

I and most other higher ed colleagues here in Florida I know are trying to counter all these acts as much as we can in our own individual fields/classes, but it feels like such an uphill battle right now.

 

I’ve stated before that I’m not entirely comfortable with the addition of what I consider to be college courses in public schools. I’m not saying it’s automatically a bad thing, but I don’t trust the teachers (due to a lack of expertise and resources) or the public school system to do it properly.

Which has the unfortunate side effect of giving the appearance that I disagree with the subject matter.

If you remembered I echoed the same sentiments when we were discussing CRT. I… unfortunately do not have a lot of trust in the public school system.

 

Does anyone have any further comment on the racial dynamics of a state government's decision to ban the teaching of African American history?

 

So, do you just oppose AP classes in general because you're not comfortable with material that could be considered college level in schools? Physics or calculus, for example?

 

Thank you for speaking up. I can't imagine how hard this is. I know when VA elected a republican Gov in '21 I wanted nothing more than to move (and still do). Being in a blue county in a red state still mean my tax dollars are being spent on policies I strongly oppose.
Also keep up the good fight. Hoping you see better policies someday.

 

I don’t oppose them assuming the expertise and resources are sufficient to teach the class appropriately. High school physics and calculus classes don’t require a lot of resources aside from the textbooks.

I don’t think the social sciences are as simple.

 

edit: oops, wrong thread

 

It is far from clear, then, how you'd like to define 'college courses'.

For example, you don't clarify what resources are needed for the classes in question that set them apart from physics and calculus (and you're also now appending 'high school' as a modifier to them... why not just apply the modifier to the other classes you consider 'college courses'? Why is it not just "high school African-American studies" the same way you seem unbothered by making it "high school physics" even though that physics class can translate to college credit?)

We already teach social sciences in schools. In the more required classes at my high school, there's college level "American government" and "Human Geography", and "US history", "European history", and "World History" would all arguably be social sciences as well. Economics is a social science, and is a commonly offered AP elective, as is psychology. Many of these topics are introduced well before high school, too.
And again, these are considered sufficiently at a college level that they're often designed to culminate in exams that result in direct college credit, so it's not like these are some oversimplified things distinctly different from a college class in material.

And of course, the other class mentioned, the LGBTQ literature course, sounds like it'd be in the humanities, in principle the same way that there's British literature and even Shakespeare-specific classes. So teaching the humanities isn't exactly a new frontier for public schools, either.

 

Interesting… I didn’t think it was that serious of a comment and I don’t spend much time thinking about this to care to go in depth. So I’ll be direct and say: there are some topics I don’t trust the public school system to teach. *shrugs*

Even some of the classes you mentioned I don’t feel that it’s necessary or worthwhile to teach high school students. As I said at the beginning though, if people want to learn about it and the school has the resources, I wouldn’t be opposed.

There’s my personal opinions and then there’s how other people want to do things. Just because I disagree, doesn’t mean I have to oppose them. However, if you want to do a deep dive into how I feel about public school education, private schools, liberal arts, vocational classes, and anything else, we can find another thread and engage.

 

To me, saying that you "don't trust" public education (what kind of educators do you trust?) because they're "not qualified" (college degrees and credentials aren't enough?) and "don't have the resources" (maybe they should get more funding) is just a roundabout way of saying you, like the governor of Florida, don't want these things to be taught to people at all.

 

As I usually say during our interactions (because I know you’re going to anyway), take away whatever you want from what I said. I said it plainly and if you choose to misunderstand, that’s more of a “you” thing.

 

This is just a full on discussion of education now so whatever.

I understand the prospect that not all agents are equally trustworthy as educators for children. Or rather, that not all potential educators are equally likely to support my children's growth trajectory in the way that I think it should happen.* That point seems very cogent to me. Where I lose the thread is when people propose public funding for private education instead. By necessity, that's not going to help me much either. In fact, it will end up directing a lot of resources towards things that I would specifically disagree with. How is that a superior approach?

*I don't mean that parents should pick what a child should do or what their ideological alignments should be. I do mean that there are certain sensitivities you have as an parent that the school may not be able or willing to replicate. For instance, to bring things full circle, there is absolutely no way I would send a Black child to be educated in Florida while Ron DeSantis is in office.

**Although more fundamentally flagging the dumbness of this whole thing, the problem really isn't just the schools. A community that would be gung-ho about that kind of policy probably isn't one I would want a Black child immersed in to begin with. It's not the public school I need to change so much as the whole social context (ie move somewhere else).

 

As far as the topic of this thread goes, the thing is this: African-American Studies is identical to "CRT" - but conservative social warriors are treating it as such. This isn't a mistake, or a misunderstanding - they know they aren't the same. This is a standard tactic they use in which they try to sell to the general public on some horrible,awful, radical leftist agenda (in this case, their completely made-up definition of CRT and pretending that it is being taught in places like elementary school) to get them on board with what they really want gone. And in this case, it's any sort of studies program on minorities, at any level of school - including universities. FAMU, which has been ranking the top HBCU in the country, oddly received much less funding than other state universities here in Florida. It's one of those enduring mysteries that just will likely never be solved. (The good news for them, however, was that sometimes other forms of pettiness and awfulness can be in their favor - when Orlando's University of Central Florida was trying to get a law school a couple decades ago and the top-tier Florida universities didn't want UCF to get one, they deliberately gave FAMU -based on the east coast of Florida - license to build a law school in Orlando, and then told UCF "there's already a law school in Orlando, so you can't have one". I guess there's a little bit of awfulness towards FAMU there in that they felt that law school at a HBCU wasn't a threat to theirs)

And there's a massive teacher shortage - public and private - in Florida. Could it be because of the awful and horrible policies of the Florida state government?

Spoiler

Narrator: It was.

 

Except you've distinctly framed this as different from something like calculus, which isn't necessary or worthwhile to teach most high school students (certainly not worthwhile enough to offset the mathematical opportunity cost) and yet is treated as at least an implicitly required course and not just an elective.
(And of course, clearly high schools shouldn't be teaching vocational classes then? Since those almost always require more than the textbook. would you feel that there's no place for vocational classes in public school systems because you don't trust public schools to teach that?)

And most colleges are also still the public school system (just the next tier up) so it seems like it's not trusting them to be college classes either.


There is also that there's a lot of odd focus about public schools, which imply that it would be different for private schools even though private schools have much lower requirements on things like expertise.

So the whole thing is couching all this as though the concern is about it just being college-level material being an issue, but then that seems to fall apart really quickly when it gets into any actual defining criteria. This stuff is not being said plainly or directly, because when what was said is applied consistently, it leads to a whole lot of strange conclusions.
For example, are you actually saying that you personally believe that schools should be receiving funding to teach things you don't trust them to teach? I'll contrast this with that I don't believe that schools should be teaching creationism in science classes, really in any circumstance. I would never say that's a "I just don't get it but they can do that if they want" sort of thing, I think it's fundamentally wrong and I don't think it should be supported. You're framing this as you have a conviction against schools teaching these things, so that leads to either 1. you think that public schools *should* be teaching things you think they can't be trusted to teach (which I think has its own serious flaws) or 2. you think that public schools *shouldn't* actually be teaching these things, which would go against the claim that they can teach it if they want. Those sorts of confusing stances wouldn't be the next conclusions if this was a plainly stated and direct claim, and not being worded as indistinctly or fragmented as it has been.


And to bring this back full circle, this is all incredibly different from something like a questioning of having, say, African-American studies broken out as its own course on the argument that African-American studies should be taught within the context of broader American studies (like, for example, within American history classes). Which obviously isn't going to happen the way that conservatives in states like Florida and Texas have tried to sideline that as well, so that's not a relevant point as far as anything coming from DeSantis is concerned. That'd be an example of a much broader philosophical point that would be more academic than practical in this context. But at least that would be a plainly-stated and direct argument.

 

I numbered the points so I can respond. You said a lot and while some of it is more...you attempting to take my statements and apply them in a broad sense (where more factors come into play, have to be considered, and alter how I feel about them). I think that is a mistake, but an understandable one.

1) You asked me about AP classes. I said the same thing I've said before: if people want to learn and the expertise and resources are available, then I'm not opposed. You didn't ask me "What curriculum would you implement for high school students and can you provide a list of classes that you feel are necessary for education and also can you tell me your thoughts on vocational education?" I'm not an expert on designing curriculums for k-12 students and I haven't proclaimed to be. I can have an opinion on what I think should or should not be taught, as can anyone else, but I don't feel strongly enough about this topic to provide the critical breakdown that you're searching for.

2) Do I feel that schools should be receiving funding to teach things I don't trust them to teach? Yes. I am not the decider on what other people should or should not be taught. I can have opinions, but again, this is not my field of expertise or interest. Beyond that, if a school district in a city in a state that I don't live in decides they want to teach their kids something, that's their prerogative and I have no motivation to interfere. Would I care more if its the school district my son attends? Yes, you're damn right. You may find that contradictory or hypocritical, but *shrugs* it is what it is, my friend.

I don't think completely agree with an LGBT literature class and have reservations, however my reservations shouldn't prevent a child from having the opportunity to take the class. I don't understand why that's so incredibly confusing to you, I have to be honest.

3) Not really sure how to respond to this. Doesn't seem like a question for me is posed here. More of a statement. Which I sort of agree with. Conservatives in the South have been actively trying to whitewash and rewrite American history and I disagree with most of it. The most egregious of these changes has been the removal of widely taught aspects and sections of African-American history (which IS American history) in order to portray a more favorable view of the history of their respective states.

 

What do you mean that you don't "agree with an LGBT literature class?" As in you don't agree that LGBT literature is a thing? You don't believe students should be learning literature written by LGBT people or have LGBT themes?

 

Wow, there’s a lot of leaps in thought in this line in questioning.

What do I mean I “don’t agree with an LGBT literature class?”
I don’t know if it should be taught in a high school. @Pensivia educated me on some of the possible benefits of it and I believe they have some merit. That being said, while acknowledging that the benefits have merit, I do still have some reservations on whether high schools are the best place to facilitate this learning.
In a general context, I am wary of initiatives or policies that focus specifically on where we are different and then seek to treat those differences as “special”. Whether it be race, sexual orientation, sexual identity, and what-have-you.
To be clear, I’ve never said “hell no, they shouldn’t do it.” I’ve just expressed reservations… which… I find it actually funny that it’s been treated as if I came out as aggressively against the teaching of the proposed class. I even said if they want it and the teachers are able to facilitate it that I’m not opposed.

Is LGBT literature a thing?
Clearly it is…

Do I believe that students should be reading literature by LGBT people or that have LGBT themes?
Yes. I did in high school. I don’t have a problem with that. Never said I did. @anakinfansince1983 and @Darth Guy seem to believe I do, with no evidence of me saying that I do, and you’re free to disregard everything in my posts, as they did, and say I do too.

 

Your entire posting style is being vague about stuff and then pearl clutching when we try to figure out what you mean. It's old hat.

 

*shrugs*

Dude the same way you asked me those questions that I directly answered above, you could’ve asked that when I first made my comments that you thought were “vague”. I would’ve gave you the same answers. Instead you made some liberal arts joke and @anakinfansince1983 went on a tangent about how conservative I am and how I hate the LGBT community.

I don’t think of myself as complicated or intentionally vague. There’s no point to it and I can’t engage in good faith discussions if I do that. If i post something that’s vague, it’s by accident. If you ask me a question, I’ll answer it. If you ask me to clarify, I will. It’s not that deep.

 

Man, all this for something that was so obvious and simple.

It's pretty clear that Pumas simply scoffed at the idea of LGBT Literature, seeing it as an extremely niche course with little value. The "liberal arts college" comment only further clarified his derision. It's clear the rest has gone much further than he intended, as he already clarified in post 21609, where he again mentioned that he doesn't find certain subjects worthwhile.

I think we can note his derision and move on.