Popular Seattle Teacher Forced Out for Teaching Kids About Racism
takepart.comThe battle at Seattle’s Center School raises the question—how should schools teach students about tolerance and discrimination?
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wooowww. so how come a teacher leading an anti-racist discussion should have to warn parents beforehand that white children may find the conversation “distressing,” yet teachers talking about slavery, christopher columbus, andrew jackson, the mexican-american war, etc, in the usual apologetic or glorified manner, don’t have to warn parents beforehand that children of color may find the conversation very distressing???
There is a strange mythology surrounding marks in educational institutions.
Listen.
A low mark is not a punishment. A high mark is not a reward.
A mark is a description of the relationship between a predetermined set of criteria and a piece of work.
That’s it. That’s all a mark is.
The criteria measure the capacity of the work - not you, the work - to demonstrate a set of skills you are learning. Not skills you have learnt - skills you are learning.
A mark is not an indicator of your intelligence.
A mark is not an indicator of your ultimate success or failure as a student.
A mark is not an indicator of your worth as a person.
Do not mistake a mark for what it is not. Do not attribute to a mark more than it deserves. It’s just a mark.
You are not your mark.
Yay for school and how it damages us.
Why is it
That our self worth
Has become defined
By simple letters
And numbers
We spend our
Entire childhood
Learning
But only what we are
Allowed to know
We are told our
Entire future
Depends on these
Letters we get for
Memorizing words
The sad part is
It does
Just maybe not
In the way they
Intended
Students die because
Of cold buildings
Telling them they will
Never be enough
To do anything great
When in reality
All these students need
Is a push to
Help them remember
Their own self worth
