Changing Education for Anti-Wokeness

Think of Anti-Wokeness (AW) as an immunization. One that targets a more deadly viral infection than COVID - MUCH more deadly.

To understand just how Wokeness came to be the default in education, here's a link about the history of "Enlightened Education".

When I was in teacher training - in 1988 - Cleveland State University was just in the early days of the "Education Revolution". The most enthusiastic proponents of this initiative were the Elementary Education students. That's not surprising - those are precisely the students who had the fewest classes outside of the Education Dept. cocoon. They also were the students with the LEAST life experience, the most conforming, and the most heavily female.

That last is critical. Women can generally be coaxed - it doesn't have to rise to the level of coercion - to go along with the pronouncements of authority figures. They were the kids in school whose first response, when the class veered towards expressing opposition to the status quo, was to say (in a properly censorious voice), "Teacher SAID --".

No Nazi had a more compliant capo than little Lisa GoodStudent.

So, when the college instructors began to lay down the Newest of Educational Testaments, those were the first to start vigorously nodding assent at the most asinine ideas.

In my year of teacher education (AFTER I'd already graduated with a degree), I had my first experience with masses of Elementary Pre-Teachers. You could quickly sort them into groups:

• The Elementary Ed students were bright-eyed, on the edge of their seats, eagerly taking notes, and always nodding in an unconscious "YES!" of agreement with whatever the authority figures said.
• The Secondary would-be teachers were swigging their coffee, slouching back, with a distinct WTF expression on their pusses.
• Those with some life experience - military, substitute teaching, or other occupation - even if Elementary Ed students - would look around knowingly, shake their head, and quietly bring the rest of us up to speed about the cr@p they'd had to pretend to buy into over the course of their college years. All for the desire to teach the little buggers. Those guys were saints in the making.

I saw it first on my second day in Certification Training.

The first day had been paperwork, introduction of the team that would be in charge of the process, syllabus dispersal, and the like. It was pre-PC, for the most part, which meant that part of the time was devoted to making sure that they had the background info they needed, and we could be ready for our certificate at the end. Some of that was state-mandated.

The second class was the surprise.

As usual, I'd prepared. I'd read the assigned handouts, and sat down, ready for another college-level class.

Was I wrong - wrongity, wrongity, wrong!

First, the person running the show was an Elementary Ed professor. She was perky, soft-spoken, and - well, she treated us like not-very-bright 3rd graders.

"I want you to pick up your pens in your right hand, and prepare to take notes on all of this."

The sing-song intonation was more than a little jarring, but I looked around, and the Elementary Ed students were just nodding along. So, I figured it was just long years of teaching that put that tone in her voice.

Now, mind you, during her short intro, she had aides circulating through the room (it held around 250 students), distributing papers. When I looked at it, they were the very same handouts that I'd received yesterday. I shrugged, figuring that they'd made a mistake somewhere.

Wrong.

She put a copy of the handout on the overhead (yes, I'm THAT old), and proceeded to read it - word for word - aloud.

Was I in the wrong room? Were these other teachers Special Ed - not TEACHING Special Ed (those teachers are generally quite smart) - but ACTUAL Special Ed Students?

Nah.

Just the way that the instructors usually taught - as though their class was composed of Morons (NOT the name of the sub-sub-atomic particles, but a special group of government employee who composed the mass of the educational system).

When the class took a short break, the Secondary students all gathered together to try to process what just happened. Most of us didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

It was the beginning of our Awakening - not Wokeness, but the realization that the institutions we were preparing to enter were gonna be filled with people like that.There were other WTF moments in my future. The split between the STEM staffers in a school, and everyone else (some of the Business Ed teachers fell into our group, too, particularly those with actual experience in the business environment).

The growing realization that almost ALL of the directives from 'downtown' or the state would be incomprehensible cr@p, but that the only way to survive was to put on an earnest face and go along.

As recently as June, 2017, when I retired, the Woke Imperative hadn't fully inserted itself into local schools. Most of it was in the departments of English Language Arts and Social Studies, as well as the Guidance Dept. As I taught the physical sciences, I was largely unaffected.

Homeroom meetings were taken over by determined effort to inculcate the Woke Thinking on students. My kids were generally juniors or seniors, and, other than a few members, couldn't be less interested in the lessons. They mostly slept through the indoctrination. The results seemed to disprove the idea behind 'sleep learning'.

I taught in a school in a largely rural county, A subset of the population lived in the actual city/county seat, and often affected 'hood culture'. In reality, only a few were actually all that 'street'. Most were wannabes, and actually were very sweet kids.

The country kids wore camo, hunted/fished, and had some useful skills. Some were college-bound (I shudder to think of the cultural disconnect they would encounter in their transition). Others were headed to the tech college or the military for some practical education. Others had done well in the career/vocational track, and had jobs waiting for them. 

That vo-ed component was excellent. Our cosmetologists just about always passed the state licensing test on the first try (a VERY difficult test). Our welders were ready for work, as were the construction students, who could enter apprenticeships. The business majors were often working even before graduation.

How has it all changed?

I've heard from others who were not yet ready for retirement - it's not good. The faculty meetings are a veritable Mao-Era meeting to confess ones guilt of non-revolutionary things.

I've kept in touch with the state of schools, through occasional sub teaching. While subs aren't required to attend faculty meetings (one of the perks of the job), the other teachers do talk. And, when they aren't in the presence of Woke spies, what they have to talk about it not good.

They're afraid. They worry about losing their jobs due to insufficient Wokeness. They are concerned that a careless remark, something that in prior times would be ignored, or taken for a mild joke, will cost them their career.

It's un-American. It's enforced compliance. And, it's killing the profession.

Those that have other options are taking them. Early retirement, change of profession, private/charter schools.

Those that can most easily make that shift are just those teachers that schools cannot afford to lose - math, science, business, technology. They will be replaced with others who are less experienced, not successful in work outside of education, or with some instabilities - mental or personal.

It's not the curriculum, it's the determination to impose conformity on teachers/schools that's the real problem. One of the worst decisions most schools make is to bring in the AP-History classes (APUSH - Advanced Placement - US History), and push kids into them. The scope of the course is a mile wide and millimeters deep. It's a mish-mash of Woke History.

Will the kids get credit? Often they will qualify, which will exempt them from further opportunities to have the Woke Cr@p imposed on their fragile, developing minds. But, it comes at a heavy cost - that of learning the REAL history of our country.

There are still a few places where that is possible. One of the universities that has done its best to make sure that teachers have that exposure to an honest treatment of our country's history is Ashbrook Center, a part of Ashland University. They offer coursework in American History for students, teachers, and the general public.Rather than making Teaching a Subversive Activity (as this book suggested), or making it a Revolutionary Stance, as this college professor sternly demanded, perhaps we need to think of changing the culture as a Superversive Action.