As a College STEM Professor (who teaches plenty of GE STEM courses to non-STEM students), I wonder if these Ethnic Studies programs are going to be any more effective than Math & Science education. Our Math & Science education does not 'stick' despite STEM educators striving tirelessly to make STEM fun, engaging and uplifting.
Although my state requires all students to pass an Algebra class to graduate from High School, a shockingly low number of college students understand the concept of a variable. An even more shocking low number of my non-STEM colleagues understand that concept! Many faculty _boast_ of their ignorance of Math (can you imagine a STEM professor bragging that she cannot read a newspaper?)
Further, studies show that adult science literacy is mostly due to informal science education (ie. Zoos, Museums, Planetariums, Aquariums, etc).
Word from the trenches is students are rebelling against this negative indoctrination - especially immigrant students who were raised by families who admire America and long dreamed of moving here. (How ironic that the same Liberals who love Immigrants try to persuade them to hate the land that they worked so hard to achieve!)
Still, Ethic studies provides jobs for people who majored in unmarketable fields.
Solid distinction between constructive vs liberated approaches here. The victim-oppressor binary really does shut down teh kind of nuanced thinking that makes history class actually useful. I dunno if the solution is as clean as swapping curricula tho, since teachers personal leanings will shape delivery no matter what materials they use.
Teaching the skills of critical thinking -- not to be confused with critical theory -- would defuse a lot of the polarization. The problem with teaching students to think critically is that we're essentially enabling kids to think for themselves. Deciding for oneself, rather than a parent or party's plank, is a huge problem for many Americans. The polarization of Americans means that each side believes it is obvious that their side is right and the other side is wrong.
The politics of curriculum is a hot potato: the Left has accused the Right of backwards parents who want their kids to be mind-numbing, patriotic followers; while the Right has accused the Left of using schools to radically indoctrinate kids into being unpatriotic. Around and around with the hot potato we go.
Teaching critical thinking during history class is totally possible. I've written those lesson plans.
The author writes “They are then instructed to categorize their own immutable characteristics—race, ethnicity, body size, sexuality, and economic status—and identify themselves as either “powerful” or “marginalized,” with no alternative categories. (SFUSD, …)
The greatness of America is that you can become a hyphenation of your ethnicity (the melding of American citizenship with your ancestors ethnicity if origin(s)) - that’s the great mutability of the United States. Economic status has been quite mutable in the US. It’s one reason why families and individuals want to emigrate from where they are to the US. I thought sexuality and body size are now very mutable - at least that’s what medicine, pharma, and surgeons tell us. And of course we are all a part of the human race - but it’s not okay to say this, right?
Why haven’t you included examples of other politicized curriculum: the 1776 history curriculum offered by the Right? Yes, the Left has the 1620 curriculum (that paints America as the perpetual colonizing oppressor), but the one from the Right censors out anything negative (especially racism) about America.
Political points of view, including identity politics and Christian Nationalism, don’t belong in any class except one on political science or sociology. A pox on both their houses!!
Yes, a pox on both their houses. The answer to your first question, though, is simple. Cohen focuses on “liberated” ethnic studies because it is the model that currently is ascendant, if not dominant, across K-12 as well as higher education—especially here in California. I’m very happy to see FAIR and ACES pushing back against this “long march through the institutions,” especially because it is happening at the direct expense of History and Geography, the subjects being pushed aside in curricula to make way for LES.
I dug into this because I noticed trends about who supported Ethnic Studies. In full disclosure -- I support Ethnic Studies being offered as a lens to see the world in different ways. I don't support it as the ONLY lens -- the "right" history. Anyways, the history of how we got to the point of curriculum based on the 1619 Project is a tale about winners and losers.
The camp who harp on critiquing the failings of the US want a kind of revolution that they lost in '68. The long march of professors critiquing US institutions as imperialistic emerged during the mid-20th century. There were previous critiques but William A Williams at UWM was picked up by the New Left. The generation that graduated from college in the late 60s to 70s radically shifted the teaching of history and the humanities. In the context of the failed Vietnam War, their perspective makes sense. Their lived experienced was to be compelled (at least the men) into a war based on foreign diplomacy that served an elite group who envisioned a different world. Globalization picked up and unions were on a slow decline. Radicals revolted. '68 was a huge year for their generation to push against all that they saw as wrong: global economies, far-away wars, etc. I am empathetic.
But the New Left basically lost. Americans rejected alot of the 60s-70s: counterculture, communes, pacifism, hippies, free love, etc. That generation's radicalism was rejected. Reagan was an unacceptable defeat to them in 1980. That generation still cannot stop talking about how evil Reagan was -- despite his continued positive ratings to this day. So ... they rejected American society by critiquing it to death.
The students of the 60s-70s are still with us, and they're still playing the fiddle about the failed US nation. The 1619 Project and CRT, and revisions like Howard Zinn's history, are supposed to teach the "truth" about how the US has failed. That the nation is based on racism, imperialism, sexism, etc. Because the Silent Majority of Americans rejected these radical students decades ago, but they didn't get over it.
As a College STEM Professor (who teaches plenty of GE STEM courses to non-STEM students), I wonder if these Ethnic Studies programs are going to be any more effective than Math & Science education. Our Math & Science education does not 'stick' despite STEM educators striving tirelessly to make STEM fun, engaging and uplifting.
Although my state requires all students to pass an Algebra class to graduate from High School, a shockingly low number of college students understand the concept of a variable. An even more shocking low number of my non-STEM colleagues understand that concept! Many faculty _boast_ of their ignorance of Math (can you imagine a STEM professor bragging that she cannot read a newspaper?)
Further, studies show that adult science literacy is mostly due to informal science education (ie. Zoos, Museums, Planetariums, Aquariums, etc).
Word from the trenches is students are rebelling against this negative indoctrination - especially immigrant students who were raised by families who admire America and long dreamed of moving here. (How ironic that the same Liberals who love Immigrants try to persuade them to hate the land that they worked so hard to achieve!)
Still, Ethic studies provides jobs for people who majored in unmarketable fields.
Solid distinction between constructive vs liberated approaches here. The victim-oppressor binary really does shut down teh kind of nuanced thinking that makes history class actually useful. I dunno if the solution is as clean as swapping curricula tho, since teachers personal leanings will shape delivery no matter what materials they use.
I agree.
Teaching the skills of critical thinking -- not to be confused with critical theory -- would defuse a lot of the polarization. The problem with teaching students to think critically is that we're essentially enabling kids to think for themselves. Deciding for oneself, rather than a parent or party's plank, is a huge problem for many Americans. The polarization of Americans means that each side believes it is obvious that their side is right and the other side is wrong.
The politics of curriculum is a hot potato: the Left has accused the Right of backwards parents who want their kids to be mind-numbing, patriotic followers; while the Right has accused the Left of using schools to radically indoctrinate kids into being unpatriotic. Around and around with the hot potato we go.
Teaching critical thinking during history class is totally possible. I've written those lesson plans.
The author writes “They are then instructed to categorize their own immutable characteristics—race, ethnicity, body size, sexuality, and economic status—and identify themselves as either “powerful” or “marginalized,” with no alternative categories. (SFUSD, …)
The greatness of America is that you can become a hyphenation of your ethnicity (the melding of American citizenship with your ancestors ethnicity if origin(s)) - that’s the great mutability of the United States. Economic status has been quite mutable in the US. It’s one reason why families and individuals want to emigrate from where they are to the US. I thought sexuality and body size are now very mutable - at least that’s what medicine, pharma, and surgeons tell us. And of course we are all a part of the human race - but it’s not okay to say this, right?
Why haven’t you included examples of other politicized curriculum: the 1776 history curriculum offered by the Right? Yes, the Left has the 1620 curriculum (that paints America as the perpetual colonizing oppressor), but the one from the Right censors out anything negative (especially racism) about America.
Political points of view, including identity politics and Christian Nationalism, don’t belong in any class except one on political science or sociology. A pox on both their houses!!
Yes, a pox on both their houses. The answer to your first question, though, is simple. Cohen focuses on “liberated” ethnic studies because it is the model that currently is ascendant, if not dominant, across K-12 as well as higher education—especially here in California. I’m very happy to see FAIR and ACES pushing back against this “long march through the institutions,” especially because it is happening at the direct expense of History and Geography, the subjects being pushed aside in curricula to make way for LES.
A very long march indeed.
I dug into this because I noticed trends about who supported Ethnic Studies. In full disclosure -- I support Ethnic Studies being offered as a lens to see the world in different ways. I don't support it as the ONLY lens -- the "right" history. Anyways, the history of how we got to the point of curriculum based on the 1619 Project is a tale about winners and losers.
The camp who harp on critiquing the failings of the US want a kind of revolution that they lost in '68. The long march of professors critiquing US institutions as imperialistic emerged during the mid-20th century. There were previous critiques but William A Williams at UWM was picked up by the New Left. The generation that graduated from college in the late 60s to 70s radically shifted the teaching of history and the humanities. In the context of the failed Vietnam War, their perspective makes sense. Their lived experienced was to be compelled (at least the men) into a war based on foreign diplomacy that served an elite group who envisioned a different world. Globalization picked up and unions were on a slow decline. Radicals revolted. '68 was a huge year for their generation to push against all that they saw as wrong: global economies, far-away wars, etc. I am empathetic.
But the New Left basically lost. Americans rejected alot of the 60s-70s: counterculture, communes, pacifism, hippies, free love, etc. That generation's radicalism was rejected. Reagan was an unacceptable defeat to them in 1980. That generation still cannot stop talking about how evil Reagan was -- despite his continued positive ratings to this day. So ... they rejected American society by critiquing it to death.
The students of the 60s-70s are still with us, and they're still playing the fiddle about the failed US nation. The 1619 Project and CRT, and revisions like Howard Zinn's history, are supposed to teach the "truth" about how the US has failed. That the nation is based on racism, imperialism, sexism, etc. Because the Silent Majority of Americans rejected these radical students decades ago, but they didn't get over it.