I Do Not Believe It; If True, No Loss

 2/16/22 Daily Caller:

Indiana teachers are expecting a mass exodus from the education profession if the state passes a bill that will restrict Critical Race Theory-aligned curriculum, the Indy Star reported.

“I cannot imagine that we’re going to have anything other than a huge exodus of teachers if this legislation goes through,” said Jim Lang, a journalism teacher at Floyd Central High School, the Indy Star reported. “And I think the problem is going to be, you’re not going to have enough people to fill the positions, or some of the folks you’re going to bring in aren’t going to be qualified.”

“I will have to quit, or I will have to ignore it,” Lang said, the Indy Star reported. “I will not comply. I can’t. It’s that bad.”

So what is in this bill?

House Bill 1134 would prohibit educators from promoting “certain concepts as part of a course of instruction or in a curriculum” or requiring “an employee of the school corporation, qualified school, or state educational institution to engage in training, orientation, or therapy that presents any form of racial or sex stereotyping or blame on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.”

The legislation would establish a complaint process so parents can raise concerns if a teacher or educator violates the restrictions laid out in the bill. Schools would also not be able to require students “to participate in a personal analysis, an evaluation, or a survey that reveals or attempts to affect the student’s attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings without parental consent,” if the bill passes.

“It opens the door for parents to be able to come after you for anything,” another Indiana teacher, Suzanne Holcomb, told the Indy Star. “It’s the last nail in the coffin. I don’t know how we would move forward from this. It would just make teaching impossible.”

And how did teaching happen when I was young?  Was math impossible, or biology, or history?  For those who insist that past abuses are off the table:

The bill states that nothing should be “construed so as to exclude the teaching of historical injustices committed against any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation or ideals or values that conflict with the Constitution of the United States.”

So I can still teach about barbarism of slavery and the attempts to wipe out the Plains Indians and the anti-Chinese laws of the Western States.  

CRT is blaming white people (and Asian people) today for actions taken by other white people decades ago, some of whom have no relationship to whites who immigrated to the North after the 1880s.  

Those who pretend otherwise need to stop using race as the basis for telling people today that they are responsible for institutions and practices rapidly receding in the memory of anyone alive today.  The last slave died in 1948.  Jim Crow has been dead for decades.  De jure racial segregation of schools became unlawful and was actually ended after vigorous intervention by the national government when I was a child.  Any black child getting a bad education today needs to take it up with the local school board (the ones promoting CRT to avoid discussing their failings).

I doubt most Indiana teachers are committed to race shaming; if they are, they are worse than less qualified teachers who regard race shaming as just another form of black supremacy.