Thursday, 15 April 2021

'I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated' | Paul Rossi on Bari Weiss' Substack


Rossi: 

Children are afraid to challenge the repressive ideology that rules our school. That’s why I am.

Bari Weiss lends him her popular Substack space for this post. Weiss was a top writer at the New York Times, until some of her Woke-mates turned on her because she didn't hew to all the strictures of Woke orthodoxy.

Rossi's opening paras:

I am a teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan. Ten years ago, I changed careers when I discovered how rewarding it is to help young people explore the truth and beauty of mathematics. I love my work.

As a teacher, my first obligation is to my students. But right now, my school is asking me to embrace “antiracism” training and pedagogy that I believe is deeply harmful to them and to any person who seeks to nurture the virtues of curiosity, empathy and understanding.   

“Antiracist” training sounds righteous, but it is the opposite of truth in advertising. It requires teachers like myself to treat students differently on the basis of race. Furthermore, in order to maintain a united front for our students, teachers at Grace are directed to confine our doubts about this pedagogical framework to conversations with an in-house “Office of Community Engagement” for whom every significant objection leads to a foregone conclusion. Any doubting students are likewise “challenged” to reframe their views to conform to this orthodoxy. Read on...