Instruction about race and racism should be like all other instruction.
It should be accurate. It should be balanced. And it should be age-appropriate.
Education should give the students the skills they need to function as adults (reading and numeracy at a minimum) and the knowledge they need to understand the world they live in.
What they learn in the classroom should not contradict what they see and experience in the world outside.
Teachers should determine the curriculum with the advice, consent and, ideally, support of parents. They should never shut out parents or go behind the backs of parents.
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The problem with talking about critical race theory is that there is no clear definition of what critical race theory is. Very few people with opinions about CRT have read books or articles by academic critical race theorists.
One of my friends says that critical race theory is simply facing up to the reality of the history of race and racism in the United States. Very good! Nobody could object to that. But what exactly is that reality?
The version I was taught in high school in the 1940s and college in the 1950s fell short of that reality. When I. studied the Civil War, I was taught about Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, I was taught about Jefferson David and Robert E. Lee, but I was not taught much of anything about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. It’s good that a more complete version is being taught today.
The New York Times has published a new interpretation of American history, The 1619 Project, which says that slavery and white supremacy, and not ideals of freedom and democracy, are the foundations of American history.
The Times is promoting its 1619 Project articles as the basis of a high school curriculum. But many respected historians question various aspects of the Times interpretation.
When respected authorities on a topic disagree, students should learn both sides of the argument. I think the 1619 Project belongs in high school libraries, along with alternative interpretations.
No student who’s curious about it should be discouraged from learning about it. But it should not be used as a textbook. If it is, it shouldn’t be the only textbook.
Another of my friends says that critical race theory is looking at the world through the lens of race. That is, you should look at everything in terms of how it affects people of different races, both directly and indirectly, and how the way things work in American society is a result of racism, past and present.
I agree that if you look at things that way, you may see things you would otherwise overlook. But why look at things through only one lens. It is like looking at things through a microscope with only one setting of magnification.
You can understand a lot of things in society if you look at them through the lens of money. There is a racial angle on many things, but there is a money angle on almost everything. Or look at things through the lens of historic American ideals of freedom and democracy.