I live in a school district that began doing a version of this two decades ago. We brought in Glenn Singleton of the Pacific Educational Group to do equity training in our schools. All teachers, administrators, and parent leaders were required to do it. It became the foundation of how we approached education. Many students had to do the Privilege Walk (https://www.eiu.edu/eiu1111/Privilege%20Walk%20Exercise-%20Transfer%20Leadership%20Institute-%20Week%204.pdf). This is in a school district that had marked disparities between the test scores between our Black and Hispanic students compared to our White and Asian/South Asian.
It didn't budge the scores. In 2020, our district had the second largest achievement gap in the county.
This approach to eradicating racism in our schools and our nation simply doesn't work and it energizes conservatives. Until the US takes education reform as a whole seriously and make this nation a vastly easier place for poor and middle class families to raise healthy, safe children, efforts like this will undercut the very goals they have.
Yes, there is white privilege. There is gender privilege. There is economic privilege. There is neurotypical privilege. There is nationality privilege. There is the privilege of being born into a loving family. There is the privilege of being born without mental illness or into a family without mental illness. There is the privilege of being free of drug/ alcohol addiction or being born into a family free of drug/ alcohol addiction. In my community, just this week, several young children were removed from a home due to severe abuse and neglect. I'm not sure if it's fitting to lecture these kids on their white privilege, even though they do have it. I'm not sure if it's helpful to lecture a closeted LGBTQ youth (who portrays themselves as cis or straight) on their sex/ gender privilege when they are struggling with identity issues on a very private and personal level.
Privilege is NOT linear. Identities are complex. It makes sense to teach our children the real American History, which includes Indian boarding schools, Black Wall Street, Harvey Milk, etc. It does not make sense to put the focus on our kids, coming up with a numerical score for how much privilege they have or how much they oppress.
What continues to perplex me is what exactly was the malfunction that led someone to think that one homework assignment I had to complete as a 3rd year doctoral student in clinical psychology should be applied to elementary school children at large continuously over the year in a variety of courses. I’m talking about the exercise described in the article of writing an essay about how one is privileged. It was controversial among 3rd year doctoral students and some had objections. I didn’t and liked the assignment. However, I was not 8 years old without having any actual life experiences of privilege to draw upon or conceptualize in any sort of abstract way because again, I was not 8. Again, doctoral students struggles with this assignment. It was a good struggle and eye opening assignment but the absurdity of applying this to elementary school or even high school students seems so idiotic and beyond the pale to me.
Democrats have been racists since Calhoun and Jackson founded the party, since Jim Crow, since Wilson's eugenics and resegregation, since Little Rock, since Obama spawned BLM grift with Trayvon and Michael brown lies. The government unions and education inc are tied at the hip with the Democrats. Why would people think they would be anything but racists ?
I think this sounds more like a fundraising appeal from FIRE, which exists to bring these types of suits, than anything else. FIRE may do good legal work but a litany of representative legal cases to an audience already skeptical of CRT type curriculums doesn't add much to the discussion.
Bonnie, I loved your article for a few reasons but this bit was my favorite "Remember, it’s an imperfect world and we are all imperfect people: practice forgiveness and give others the benefit of the doubt whenever possible". I started with that intentionally because in my view as an American it is the most important and something I need to be constantly reminded of as a very imperfect person. Your piece also gives me a chance to rant on something that has been nagging at me and I have been feeling more poignantly over the last year. You see I am a successful white male (I know please forgive me) and I live in a very liberal community with two white children (please forgive them it wasn't their choice) and I have been feeling more and more as if to voice my opinion openly would be to open my family up to ridicule.
Now please don't go too far with your thinking at this point into conveniently being able to dismiss everything I write moving forward, because of a convenient label you would like to slap on me. Let me give some context to distill folks from using the white rightwing racist card-My favorite writer at present David Brooks, my favorite comedian at present Bill Maher, my favorite musician at present Bill Withers, I have always and will always love Tupac but the same is true for me in regard to Allice in Chains. I was raised largely around second-generation Mexican Americans (my friends label me Mexican now, which I am proud of) and two of my best friends growing up were African American, the best man at my wedding African American, and the best teacher ever on the planet was my teacher (my, haha) Mrs. Upchurch-she helped me so much. I also spent 11 years of my life in the state pen and was living on the streets at age 14 so no silver spoon here. Moderate Independent, no degree, but working on getting one slowly.
I have been feeling more and more like I can't speak my mind and being more and more reminded I am a white male. It had been 20 years since thinking of myself as white up until a couple years ago. Not playing the victim card just saying. I resent the fact that I am being judged in my community, that my opinion shouldn't be voiced-can't be voiced. Yes I am not colored, but no blueblood here, no slave owners in my family tree, immigrants from Ireland and Germany, so please don't put me in the white privileged basket, but I am a proud Irish/German American. And if you do push me into the basket shame on you and watch out for the repercussions. What do I mean repercussions? Well I have been thinking if I can't speak my mind openly with the larger population who do you think I will to start speaking my mind with? Yes you see! Extremism is propagated in exclusive cells of thought most efficiently I would think. If I can only speak my mind with other white males, well that would be an unfortunate business. Metaphoricaly speaking as I make a determined effort to get information from multiple sources.
Off topic I know, but not totally and it gave me a venue to vent.
I loved your piece Bonnie, thank you so much for your work!!!
"In Alabama, a geometry teacher actually taught a math lesson by asking students to evaluate the best angles to assassinate Obama." If you want to know which extreme is worse, that's a good clue.
I live in a school district that began doing a version of this two decades ago. We brought in Glenn Singleton of the Pacific Educational Group to do equity training in our schools. All teachers, administrators, and parent leaders were required to do it. It became the foundation of how we approached education. Many students had to do the Privilege Walk (https://www.eiu.edu/eiu1111/Privilege%20Walk%20Exercise-%20Transfer%20Leadership%20Institute-%20Week%204.pdf). This is in a school district that had marked disparities between the test scores between our Black and Hispanic students compared to our White and Asian/South Asian.
It didn't budge the scores. In 2020, our district had the second largest achievement gap in the county.
This approach to eradicating racism in our schools and our nation simply doesn't work and it energizes conservatives. Until the US takes education reform as a whole seriously and make this nation a vastly easier place for poor and middle class families to raise healthy, safe children, efforts like this will undercut the very goals they have.
Yes, there is white privilege. There is gender privilege. There is economic privilege. There is neurotypical privilege. There is nationality privilege. There is the privilege of being born into a loving family. There is the privilege of being born without mental illness or into a family without mental illness. There is the privilege of being free of drug/ alcohol addiction or being born into a family free of drug/ alcohol addiction. In my community, just this week, several young children were removed from a home due to severe abuse and neglect. I'm not sure if it's fitting to lecture these kids on their white privilege, even though they do have it. I'm not sure if it's helpful to lecture a closeted LGBTQ youth (who portrays themselves as cis or straight) on their sex/ gender privilege when they are struggling with identity issues on a very private and personal level.
Privilege is NOT linear. Identities are complex. It makes sense to teach our children the real American History, which includes Indian boarding schools, Black Wall Street, Harvey Milk, etc. It does not make sense to put the focus on our kids, coming up with a numerical score for how much privilege they have or how much they oppress.
What continues to perplex me is what exactly was the malfunction that led someone to think that one homework assignment I had to complete as a 3rd year doctoral student in clinical psychology should be applied to elementary school children at large continuously over the year in a variety of courses. I’m talking about the exercise described in the article of writing an essay about how one is privileged. It was controversial among 3rd year doctoral students and some had objections. I didn’t and liked the assignment. However, I was not 8 years old without having any actual life experiences of privilege to draw upon or conceptualize in any sort of abstract way because again, I was not 8. Again, doctoral students struggles with this assignment. It was a good struggle and eye opening assignment but the absurdity of applying this to elementary school or even high school students seems so idiotic and beyond the pale to me.
Democrats have been racists since Calhoun and Jackson founded the party, since Jim Crow, since Wilson's eugenics and resegregation, since Little Rock, since Obama spawned BLM grift with Trayvon and Michael brown lies. The government unions and education inc are tied at the hip with the Democrats. Why would people think they would be anything but racists ?
I think this sounds more like a fundraising appeal from FIRE, which exists to bring these types of suits, than anything else. FIRE may do good legal work but a litany of representative legal cases to an audience already skeptical of CRT type curriculums doesn't add much to the discussion.
Bonnie, I loved your article for a few reasons but this bit was my favorite "Remember, it’s an imperfect world and we are all imperfect people: practice forgiveness and give others the benefit of the doubt whenever possible". I started with that intentionally because in my view as an American it is the most important and something I need to be constantly reminded of as a very imperfect person. Your piece also gives me a chance to rant on something that has been nagging at me and I have been feeling more poignantly over the last year. You see I am a successful white male (I know please forgive me) and I live in a very liberal community with two white children (please forgive them it wasn't their choice) and I have been feeling more and more as if to voice my opinion openly would be to open my family up to ridicule.
Now please don't go too far with your thinking at this point into conveniently being able to dismiss everything I write moving forward, because of a convenient label you would like to slap on me. Let me give some context to distill folks from using the white rightwing racist card-My favorite writer at present David Brooks, my favorite comedian at present Bill Maher, my favorite musician at present Bill Withers, I have always and will always love Tupac but the same is true for me in regard to Allice in Chains. I was raised largely around second-generation Mexican Americans (my friends label me Mexican now, which I am proud of) and two of my best friends growing up were African American, the best man at my wedding African American, and the best teacher ever on the planet was my teacher (my, haha) Mrs. Upchurch-she helped me so much. I also spent 11 years of my life in the state pen and was living on the streets at age 14 so no silver spoon here. Moderate Independent, no degree, but working on getting one slowly.
I have been feeling more and more like I can't speak my mind and being more and more reminded I am a white male. It had been 20 years since thinking of myself as white up until a couple years ago. Not playing the victim card just saying. I resent the fact that I am being judged in my community, that my opinion shouldn't be voiced-can't be voiced. Yes I am not colored, but no blueblood here, no slave owners in my family tree, immigrants from Ireland and Germany, so please don't put me in the white privileged basket, but I am a proud Irish/German American. And if you do push me into the basket shame on you and watch out for the repercussions. What do I mean repercussions? Well I have been thinking if I can't speak my mind openly with the larger population who do you think I will to start speaking my mind with? Yes you see! Extremism is propagated in exclusive cells of thought most efficiently I would think. If I can only speak my mind with other white males, well that would be an unfortunate business. Metaphoricaly speaking as I make a determined effort to get information from multiple sources.
Off topic I know, but not totally and it gave me a venue to vent.
I loved your piece Bonnie, thank you so much for your work!!!
"In Alabama, a geometry teacher actually taught a math lesson by asking students to evaluate the best angles to assassinate Obama." If you want to know which extreme is worse, that's a good clue.
Two Amazon links:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865718547
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201484021
This sounds like a new phase of an old problem.