Conference teaches K-12 educators how to combat ‘whiteness in schools’

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

At the same time, you cannot have too much over-reliance on technology. I've run into too many people who think they are experts because they have an iPhone and can use Google. They really don't know much of anything. All they know is how to type something into a search engine.

Actual education involved mastering knowledge so you have it for yourself, intrinsic to you.

It's like arguing that kids can add because they know how to use a calculator.

What do they know without the tech is the real question and education should be designed to impart knowledge absent of that. For example, how many today can't read maps because they have GPS? What happens if GPS goes?

originally posted by: pteridine
Why "Combat?" I thought we were to be inclusive, accepting all cultures.

Consider that being 'Eurocentric' is the reason we exist. If we were 'Afrocentric' we would be in smaller tribes, continually in conflict and selling captives into slavery. We would be on a starvation diet, living in huts and burning wood. We would have trouble getting fresh water and be stricken with disease. It would seem that our educators are far down the rabbit hole and are wasting time on SJW trivia. We need to drain the education swamp.
De-emphasize interscholastic sports in High School. Cut the vacations to a total of eight weeks in 2 week segments per quarter. Pay teachers for performance. Dual track students into trades; not everyone is suited for college and we need skilled trades. All non-secretary school positions should include some teaching, except for the Principal. Eliminate assistants to the assistant and as many full time admin jobs as possible.
I expect that at some point, brick and mortar schools will start down the path of brick and mortar stores as primary schooling eventually goes online. Initially, I see more primary in-school computerized learning as children are easily distracted in a home environment and need early social interaction. All should participate in some sort of daily physical activity if only running around a track.
High schools will need more physical presence. Skilled trades will require the appropriate training facilities and after some years of training, students could apply to apprenticeship programs. This could be competitive with only the best getting skilled trade jobs and others getting 'assistant' jobs. College track students in the sciences and engineering will also need appropriate facilities and their interactions will help them realize the breadth and depth of science and engineering. All will learn history and language[s]. Art and music classes would be available at magnet schools. Education moves slower than Government, so I expect that these changes will take decades.

2020 pteridine for prez!!!!

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn
Thats why you need combine slightly higher wages with other things. More teachers to allow more prep time is equally important and why Asian countrys have a better quaility education.

I dont know how it is in the USA but in the UK we have 5 hours paid prep time. The rest of the work day is in front of a class or doing goverment crap. 5 hours to plan 30 hours of leasons.........

In Asian countrys they get 15 hours at least of prep time allowing quaility leasons.

a reply to: ketsuko
I am not suggesting technology as a replacement for teachers, but us can be a useful tool, if they are taught how to use it as such.

I agree that the problem lies in the temptation for it to be used as a money saving device, instead of a tool for furthering learning.

a reply to: InsaneIthorian

The excuse in the US is that it's really only a hardship for new teachers. Once you've done your first year or two, you have a year of lesson plans in your file, either ones you've created or ones you've found from other teachers. So the actual lesson planning from that point on is supposed to be very light because you're just recycling most of what you have done before. Plus, you're simply teaching to the text right?

Of course, my experience was much different.

I was accepted as part of a pilot program that was supposed to lure in professionals who were experts in various subject fields to teach in inner city schools. We were given a 6-week summer boot camp in a city summer school program with an experienced mentor teacher and then assigned a regular classroom. We were concurrently taking a streamlined masters program to get our Masters of Ed to go with our regular degrees.

I spent the first two weeks in my classroom floundering with no books whatsoever. No text books. No dictionaries except the personal one I brought in for myself. No classroom library. All the supplies I had I provided out of my own pocket for the class. Consequently, I was limited in what I could do lesson-wise, even with online lesson plans available because I simply had very limited materials.

Keep in mind this is a district that has a budget of over $12,000/pupil/year.

Finally, one of the other teachers rescued me by digging some old text books out of the basement so I at least had a set of old readers and old grammar books to work from along with some dictionaries.

The official classroom textbooks didn't actually arrive until two months into the school year.

And this was while I was taking night classes at a masters level.

Determined not to be caught flat-footed like that again, I spent my summer trying to lesson plan my entire school year out at least minimally while taking summer school college courses. Then I find out that the district has once again changed official texts, curriculum goals, and that most of my plans would be invalid ... oh and the new texts would once again be late ... again ... At least I had the old set of classroom texts because I had boxed up all my classroom sets and teachers' editions and materials and taken them with me! So I had stuff to work with, but once again ... taking classes and lesson planning all over again ...

This is why I am no longer a teacher.

a reply to: ketsuko

O god that sounds like my experiance.

Yeah they use that excuse here too! Problem is every class is so diffrent that a lesson plan cant just be used interchangeably.

And yeah its the same with text books and equipment. I am a science teacher and the problems are made worse by practical equipment. Not only are we stuck with not enough text books that 5 classes have to share 30 books but those text books can be out of dated and full of science that has been updated. We have broken pratical equipment and out of date chemical that do not work because we can not replace them.

And yeah people say "why dont you plan your lessons during the holidays" but you cant. Things change so fast and plans can be rendered useless, half the time by the goverment changing the curriculum or introducing some new fad idea.

Then there is the refugee problem........ Last school the local council dumped a Afghan refugee on the school. Poor kid could not speak a word of English but the council refused to give any support or teaching assitants or even extra funding.
How do you teach a kid that cant speak English?

a reply to: ketsuko
I feel you.

I have two friends that are excellent teachers. They were too loving and compassionate, and got eaten up by a system that didn't care as much as they did. Both have left teaching because it cannibalized them, and they taught in upper to middle class, predominately White schools.

I have another friend that is still fighting the good fight, though she drives over an hour just to get to a school that is in one of the most undeserved areas in Florida. Almost all of her supplies and tools come out of her own pocket. We help when we can, and she is revered by the community, because they know that she actually cares.

Teachers have a multitude of obstacles. Every year brings a different group of children, each that come with their own set of abilities and experiences. Some of the children live with such hardships, that school is either placed on the back burner or an escape. Teachers are expected to be social workers, psychiatrists, mothers, fathers, mind readers and saints. We once held the parent responsible for the care, growth and well-being of their children.

We can't make teachers mercenaries. Look what that did to the institution of heath care.

a reply to: Lucidparadox

No, I think it is you that is sorely mistaken amigo.

A workshop titled

“Deconstructing Racial Microaggressions”

is not going to boost any score, on any test, anywhere.

a reply to: InsaneIthorian

I was in an inner city school that represented 40 or 50 different languages at one point. How do you plan for that?

I'm not sure all the funding in the world can do it. The best I could say is drop all those kids in an intensive, immersive English boot camp year, but we can't do that because it's not PC.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

After the teaching debacle, I went to work for a private Lindamood-Bell clinic for a few years. It was wonderful! The work was one-on-one and even when the kids were difficult because they had issues like autism or were struggling with avoidance behaviors, I could still visibly see the progress being made.

It was such a change from the hopelessness of the public education mill.

originally posted by: InsaneIthorian
a reply to: EvillerBob

Performance pay works in Asia and alongside more teachers.

The west is not Asia. On very broad terms, Asia has a different view of education than many parts of the west.

If I recall some studies from a few years ago (no links, unfortunately, going from memory) Asian families were significantly more likely to have strictly adhered-to homework times and tutors for the kids, with the parents having much clearer and stronger expectations of success.

This fits in neatly with my original comment. Education involves a lot of things that are outside of the control of the teacher. The level of support - in fact, the level of value given - for education by the family is one of those things.

Performance-related pay would not work across the board in the west. In fact, the places where teachers would be penalised the most would be the places where great teachers are needed the most. At best, if not actively driving teachers out of the profession, you would find that all the best teachers would refuse to work for schools that are not already demonstrating high performance. The only people picking up the inner city jobs would be the teachers who couldn't get work anywhere else.

Our children have already been dumped fully immersed into a techno world which, to me, shows that there is no problem with the ability to learn among the races. It is amazing what and how fast children learn when it comes to the internet. It is what they are learning while unsupervised, and with no structure, that seems to be the problem.

I found this video very interesting because I have a nephew that has Down's Syndrome, and a friend that has an autistic child. Both are geniuses when it comes to the computer and the internet, yet both can barely hold an intelligible conversation with someone face to face. They can't understand some the most juvenile of concepts, but they can do whatever they want, and can communicate very well on the computer.

You may only want to listen to the first part of the video because he starts to discuss religion in the later part, and I am not discussing religion here, though it may be of benefit to some.


I think if used properly, with supervision, and structure, the internet can be a great tool for learning. It also can create its own set of problems if abused, much like everything else in our society.

With parental involvement, face to face social interaction, and restricted use of the internet for children, it may be beneficial for all, and give instructors a powerful tool for teaching and learning.

The ability to learn is more affected by diet, location, communal environment, home environment, and family environment than by the color of the child's skin.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: InsaneIthorian

I was in an inner city school that represented 40 or 50 different languages at one point. How do you plan for that?

I'm not sure all the funding in the world can do it. The best I could say is drop all those kids in an intensive, immersive English boot camp year, but we can't do that because it's not PC.

Yeah it is just impossible. And the kids that cant learn fast sink to bottom and end up disrupting the rest.
TA help but even they can work miracles and in the UK they are as rare as unicorns in class rooms.

I think the better option would to be just not to grant citizenship or resident visas to people that can not speak English.
But again that is not PC.......

a reply to: seasonal

it's funny how they are able to hold these opinions in the modern world today , I mean would they be able to say the same thing
if there wasn't European colonialism ?

Would they even have schools or colleges or universities if it wasnt for the very colonialism they despise ?

Im just throwing that out there

“We will challenge Eurocentric pedagogical approaches that not only under-prepare students for the realities of our increasingly multiethnic, multilingual, globalized society, but are also rooted in colonial and racist ideologies that stifle the voices, identities, and realities of students of color,” a description states.

We wouldn't have the multi-ethnic, multilingual , gloabalised society if it wasnt for colonialism !

I've also noticed there is a large growing community of black americans who like to attribute civilisation and intelligence to black scholars, philosophers etc through a Nubian link based on the evidence proposed by science that homo sapiens emerged from africa and spread out colonising the world and that white people owe everything to them and that white people are lesser

however they accept this science , yet disregard new scientific evidence which pushes the arrival of homo sapiens to the balkans because it simply dismisses their whole origin theory and resets the arrival of homo sapiens out of africa and out of the world of black dominance .

I can only think that this resembles the same movement amongst elite whites who assigned to the belief that they were better than blacks because of their ability to display intelligence, form society and culture etc

everything in cycles

a reply to: Lucidparadox

It isnt calling out "whites" as a problem, its calling out the SYSTEM catering to whites as the problem. 

Id love for schools to be able to cater lesson plans to children with different tested learning styles. That would be ideal. 

However what YOU are saying is segregation based on race. 

We cant create a one size fits all lesson plan.. 

but we can create a system that is unbiased

Oh yeah, the SYSTEM that caters to us... All those racist laws like Affirmative Action, all the extra handouts and crutches they give to... wait, who? Oh yeah... White people.

I guess we need to do more to combat this abstract "SYSTEM" concept...sounds like the title for one of our governments indefinite, unending conflicts. Drugs, Terrorists, Poverty...
and now...
It's the SYSTEM, man, its out there, and its STILL racist... "Huh? What? Where?" Oh, you cant see all the oppression going on here, cause you're white. But just trust me on this, we Must continue combating White- I mean racism, and the System is racist! It has Always been Racist, it Always Will be Racist, Oceania has Always been at war with The SYSTEM, etc etc....

I guess affirmative action didn't solve much, huh? Other than driving a wedge between the races by shattering Reverend Martin Luther King Junior's Legendary Dream:

Check my sig for the Dream, im about to change my sig to it. Its suddenly become very relevant for me and my people...

My people are the human race. But, during this difficult time, we just need to work this out on our own... So, we don't want any of you other races coming near us. Butt out!

Wait... That... Was that...racist? Kinda sounded racist. I wonder where I learned that from? Man, i guess I really need to prioritize my role models a little better... Oh that's right, i learned those beliefs from the Blacks. (wait wait... Was that.. Was that... Racist? The way i just generalized a whole race having taught me something? When it was really like, i dunno less than 5% on tv doin all that craziness?)

Kinda like how the black people didn't want any white people at their protest, and mega beta, er...no not extreme enough... gamma male (Hulk?) Macklemore, who's songs i like a few of had to make an apology song because he dared to show up and throw his entire celebrity power behind their message, of "anti-racism" (pro blackism and screw everyone else ism) and they (some) wouldn't accept him, because he was white. And he apologized for it. He apologized for them being racist towards him...

Because apparently, MORE seperation, segregation, prejudice is what will solve this. Not working together, no! That's stupid! We should all segregate... Like in prison! Yes! Perfect model for society! Now i know where BLM gets all their best ideas like blocking freeways so ambulances can't get people to the hospital.

I tell you, they are masters at psychology and PR. They have solved soooo much, and gotten so many people over to their way of thinking over the last few years. Black People Matter, Screw Everyone Else. I think thats a message we can all get behind.

The song is called White Privilege Part 2 or something... I saw it somewhere and had to hear it and read the lyrics just from seeing the title.


Hey, i love all humans. I just love the ones who aren't racist, and the ones who don't hate me a little more. The others? Well, they know not what they do... But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit here and watch the world go to #e. They can know not what they're doing just as good sitting in a grave, facing St Peter and the Book of Life when he asks them why their name isn't recorded. The eyes of the Almighty glaring intently from His throne behind the Heavenly Gates as He strikes their souls with a bolt of lightning from His eyes, sending them to Hell, instantly...

Just kidding about that last part lol xD i just like to throw in some of that dramatic biblical flair once in a while... For the constituents. It makes their ["Richard's"] sooooo hard when they hear that #, Morty!

originally posted by: 3n19m470
a reply to: Lucidparadox

It isnt calling out "whites" as a problem, its calling out the SYSTEM catering to whites as the problem. 

Id love for schools to be able to cater lesson plans to children with different tested learning styles. That would be ideal. 

However what YOU are saying is segregation based on race. 

We cant create a one size fits all lesson plan.. 

but we can create a system that is unbiased

Oh yeah, the SYSTEM that caters to us... All those racist laws like Affirmative Action, all the extra handouts and crutches they give to... wait, who? Oh yeah... White people.

I guess we need to do more to combat this abstract "SYSTEM" concept...sounds like the title for one of our governments indefinite, unending conflicts. Drugs, Terrorists, Poverty...
and now...
It's the SYSTEM, man, its out there, and its STILL racist... "Huh? What? Where?" Oh, you cant see all the oppression going on here, cause you're white. But just trust me on this, we Must continue combating White- I mean racism, and the System is racist! It has Always been Racist, it Always Will be Racist, Oceania has Always been at war with The SYSTEM, etc etc....

It seems we learned nothing from our conditioning, and it was explained to us in a very simple way, like we were children.

Straight from "The Sneetches" and "The Incredibles"; In a world where everyone is special, nobody is.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

That's pretty much true.

Let's examine it from another angle.

Look at how we hold up and glorify the athletically Gifted, but at the same time, we denigrate and subtly try to cut off the intellectually Gifted. I can speak on this because I belong to both groups. It's interesting. There are studies that show each is about 2% of the overall population: intellectually Gifted and those who athletically Gifted enough to compete at a major college.

I have no trouble at all and gets lots of respect when I talk about my college athletic days, show my letter club card, etc., even though I was only in track and field. But if I spent even a fraction of the time talking like that about my mental talents ... people wouldn't want to hear it and would think I was bragging.

Some kinds of things are socially acceptable to be and others aren't. Gifted kids are often not given the support they need in the classroom, and there is a growing movement to deny that intellectual ability is anything special and that all kids are Gifted if given the chance which isn't true. There is a big difference, and it isn't simply about knowledge.

I am sure this fits into this discussion somewhere alongside the idea of race and racism, but it's a similar idea.

*EDIT*

I thought a while before making this post too because when you simply admit you belong to the category of Gifted as even a matter of fact, someone will always come along and bust you down for it as though that is bragging. It's not the same with the athletic thing. I can mention it as a fact of my past far more easily without fear of being busted down for it. Why is that? And is that right?

In that respect, is Gifted a bit like Whiteness?

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: seasonal

Same thing with War On Drugs spending.

It is criminal how the US government imprisons so many people over victimless crimes instead of treating them. History will not look kindly on this time in the US.

a reply to: thepixelpusher
Attended a class today were we discussed how much Opiods are costing the healthcare industry, and how it is a drain on resources.

Problem is no one is talking about how we got here. Doctors never handed out opiods like they were jelly beans before the government mandated that they tell their patients that they had the right to be pain free, and fined them and threatened their licenses if they didn't try make and keep patients pain free.

Nobody talks about how this is a government created epidemic.