Utter Nonsense

OK, I have to get this off my chest.  (And apologies in advance for being all over the place, but this is more of a wound-lancing than a scholarly exploration.)

One can't listen to the news or scroll through a news feed without hearing someone clutching their pearls about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and won't someone please think of the children. 

All of the nonsense swirling around about CRT and using it to indoctrinate young children.  

I would guess that 90% of the people pontificating about the dangers of CRT don't actually understand it.  

In full disclosure, I am not an expert but have studied and used it in my doctoral work.  And that's the thing.  It is something that resides in academia.  

High schools are not using CRT.  

Elementaries certainly aren't.  

But even if they were, that isn't a problem, and here is why.

People talk about banning CRT.  Punishing those who teach it. 

But CRT isn't a thing. It isn't a topic so much as it is a lens. A filter.

We have all seen those commercials where they talk about unseen skin damage done by the sun.  

Picture 1 looks normal.  

Then, picture 2 has a filter added that shows cellular damage and, sure enough! Unseen skin damage. Use sunblock! Lesson learned, thanks to an added filter/lens.

The damage was there in picture 1, you just could not see it. 

Not until you looked through the filter.  

That filter didn't change reality. It just revealed parts that were already there.  And a different filter would reveal different things. 

So, in history or literature or the arts, we examine things through filters, not for the eye but for the mind. 

They are theoretical filters.

Step 1: Read this article.  

Step 2: Understand it with what you know. 

Step 3: Then think about it using some different ideas or ways of understanding and new pieces are revealed.  

Step 4: New knowledge! A Victory!

The theory is the filter for the brain. 

For me, the easiest example is Frankenstein.   

Frankenstein is a horror story.  Smart crazy scientists steals a dead body, brings it back to life, can't control it, then tries to destroy it.  Right?

But, what is it about?

It is about a crazy scientist who reanimates a body then realizes that was a bad idea. 

It is also about all the decisions that go into that. Who would think doing such a thing is a good idea? 

Well, that brings up issues of medical ethics. So you could pretty easily say that Frankenstein, without any stretch at all, has to do with whether it is a good idea to reanimate the dead.  Should humans have that power?  And who is checking the power of scientists?

Right?  That is pretty obviously a point. 

Now, every good teacher talks about the author and some background. 

Frankenstein was written by a woman. Not just any woman, Mary Shelley. Wife to a famous poet (Percy Bysshe Shelley) who was part of a group of poets and thinkers including George Gordon, Lord Byron. 

The story that is at the center of Frankenstein was famously the product of a bet. A challenge. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and others were at a cabin and decided upon a contest to come up with the best story. That night, Mary saw a pile of old clothes that in the shadows looked like a person. A creepy night combined with her creative mind came up with a scary tale.  That tale was her contribution to the story-telling challenge and eventually grew into Frankenstein.  

A smart, creative person in the presence of other smart, creative people trying to win a challenge, inspired by a racing mind on a spooky night.  We have all come up with bizarre, weird possible justifications for unusual noises at night, and that makes the entire origin story of Frankenstein that much more real, accessible, believable. 

So, that's Frankenstein. Right?

Yes, but what if there is more?

Let's look not just with our normal mind but add a lens. 

We are going to add the lens of Feminism. 

At the time of Frankenstein, Feminism as a philosophy was in its infancy. At its most basic, it focused on issues of equality, women's right to education, justice for women. Things like the ability to vote, own property, not be considered the property of a man (father then eventually husband). That sort of thing.  

We start with the background.  Why? Because part of using a theoretical lens means that background is important. It might give clues to who the writer was or what they were thinking or trying to say. 

Mary Shelley was a woman. But not just any woman. A smart woman. And a smart woman at a time when women were not educated (many people didn't even believe they could be educated). 

But she was also the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. 

William Godwin was a thinker. A writer. A philosopher. He wrote about issues of justice, politics, and personal life.  He got into trouble for being critical of the institution of marriage.  In fact, he and Mary W. were married, but they didn't live together. They lived next door to each other and maintained their independence. 

While Godwin is interesting, holy cow! Mary Wollstonecraft is a force to reckon with. She is one of the first published feminist writers. Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a masterpiece. It was very clear about the need for women's rights and was critical of legal impediments to women's freedom. It criticized the way women were infantilized and forced into servitude by a system that refused to educate them. Her writing is a seminal work that has influenced feminist thinkers for hundreds of years. 

Those two people, Godwin and Wollstonecraft, were Mary Shelley's parents.  

It is not hard at all to imagine that she was influenced by their ideas. 

So it is reasonable to say that it is fair (and even necessary) to look at Frankenstein through a feminist lens. 

Let's do that. 

Is it possible Mary Shelley was influenced by the philosophical ideas of her mother?  

Remember that bit about whether Victor Frankenstein (or anyone, for that matter) should have the kind of power necessary to bring back the dead?  Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in Vindication, "It is impossible for any man, when the most favorable circumstances concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrolled power".

Then there is the monster. 

The monster doesn't ask to be created, but he is.  He isn't even given a name. He has no property and is considered the property of Victor. He is dependent on Victor and kept that way. When he starts to have ideas or not obey, it is seen, not as growth, but a problem. 

Wollstonecraft writes, "Women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue....Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, OUTWARD obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for at least twenty years of their lives."

The Monster is thought to be too stupid to learn things, but that proves incorrect. He continues to learn, and as his intellect grows, Victor is afraid of him. The monster is kept isolated. His needs are not met. He is treated as, well, a monster. 

Wollstonecraft writes, "Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless she know why she ought to be virtuous?...If children are to be educated to understand...the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations."

The monster flees, but Victor chases him down to destroy him. We can't have the monster being independent, can we? 

Again, Wollstonecraft wites, "Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner, when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood."

The monster eventually becomes violent when Victor ignores him and refuses to meet his needs. He asks for a companion. Someone to love. Victor disregards the monster's need for love and fulfillment. The monster wants to learn and grow and love. But Victor chooses to reject him, keeping him alone and ignorant until forced to do otherwise. 

From Vindication, "Many are the causes that, in the present corrupt state of society, contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings and sharpening their senses...To do every thing in an orderly manner, is a most important precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness that men."

Looking at the words of Mary Wollstonecraft,  the mother of Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein, it doesn't take much of a leap to see connections. And those connections are sharpened with a Feminist lens, seeing these as issues of justice for women, a need for education, a need for basic rights, not because someone else (a man) allows it but because everyone should just have those same rights. 

Young Mary was influenced by the ideas of her feminist mother. 

Is the treatment of the Monster a symbol for the way women were treated in the early 1800s? 

Wollstonecraft wrote, "Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out."  

Is it possible these very ideas influenced Mary?  Yes. 

Is it possible they made their way, either consciously or unconsciously into Frankenstein?  It is certainly possible. 

And there it is.

That's how you use a theoretical lens.  

Unless we have writings from Mary saying that yes, that is exactly what she meant, we can't know for certain.  But we can use a lens to try to guess, make educated guesses. Not to make foolish assumptions, but to be wise and use what is verifiable (Mary's mother's ideas and influence) to determine what might be (that The Monster is symbolic of women, his treatment a stand-in for theirs.) 

We use a theoretical lens to sharpen our understanding of what we already know so that we see causes, connections, and significances.  We don't want to miss things just because we were not looking properly.

Why then in the world would anyone want anyone to not use a lens? 

All of this, all of it, shows the utter nonsense of banning the use of Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools. (Banning its use in college is entirely different and an absolute attack on intellectual freedom)

CRT has five basic ideas:

1. Racism is ordinary and not aberrational (It is the rule, not the exception)
2. Interest convergence (People in power (usually white) only change things when it benefits them, not to alleviate the harm to others)
3. Social construction of race (Race is social. Not genetic. Society decides what race is, not DNA)
4. Storytelling and counter-storytelling (People need to tell their stories. And when false stories have been told, they need to be opposed. The stories of those who experience racism and have suffered because of it need to be elevated because they have, for so long, been silenced.)
5. Whites have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation (For how long were only whites allowed to vote? Own property? Have a bank account? Go to college?  All of the laws that supported these whites-only policies were "civil rights legislation" for white people).  

OK, so, first, which one of those is wrong?  Which is untrue?  Which is there no evidence to support? 

(insert awkward silence)

Now, to be clear, CRT is a lens.

Just this past week was Loving Day.  Celebration of the Loving SCotUS decision that legalized interracial marriage. June 12, 1967. (Just 7 years before I was born) 

Which is fascinating, from a historical point of view. 

And it is interesting from a legal perspective. 

And in a class on politics, government, or sociology, it has different elements of focus and interest.  

What about looking at it through a CRT lens?

1. At one point, everywhere in America, Blacks and whites could not marry each other. That is a verifiable fact.    
2. Those laws changed when it began to benefit white people. The Loving case was brought to the attention of Attorney General Robert Kennedy (who had designs on the presidency and cultivated an image as someone who supported civil rights).
3. Why couldn't the Lovings marry?  Because one was Black? Who is white? Who is Black?  Who is Black enough to not be able to marry a white person? Those decisions are decided not by a blood test or DNA but by society.  
4. Common stories said whites should not marry Blacks because Blacks were lesser, not human, going to pollute the gene pool, on and on with offensive tales.  For hundreds of years, that was the story. So now, we need to elevate the truth and reject that false narrative. 
5. Laws protected white-with-white marriages in order to consolidate power for whites to pass o to their children. White people, whether they knenw it or not, whether they tried to or not absolutely benefited from these laws. 

OK, so an extremely basic CRT look provides a more well-rounded understanding of why the Loving decision was even needed.  And why it was so important. 

It helps us better understand a thing we already knew. 

That is a lens. 

That is a way of sharpening our understanding of truth. 

Why, I ask, would anyone oppose such a thing or make it sound dangerous or irresponsible?

I mean, is there any possible reason other than a fear of truth? 

There are truths, ugly truths that might make people look bad, and what possible reason can there be other than keeping those hidden? 

How can anyone justify hiding the truth? 

 

 

The Lie of Learning Loss

I know that the news and policy-makers continually talk about "learning loss" as being the concept that seems to be dominating the 20-21 school year (and the second half of the 19-20 year).

And I really wish they would stop.  

Not just because it is condescending and hypercritical, but because it is wrong. Entirely wrong. Yet nobody who has air time seems to care about that. 

Education in America has a tremendous problem with deficit framing. The focus falls on what students lack or how they are behind or what they are missing rather than what they have or skills they use.  

A great example is ELLs (English language learners).  

Rather than focusing on their ability to move within multiple languages (something the average English-as-a-first-language American does not have), talk centers on how their English skills are behind or what they can't do or understand.  

This deficit-centered thought works against helping students build that sense of confidence and self-efficacy that encourages growth and success. It also minimizes, especially for marginalized students, those aspects of their lives that are skills, knowledge, and habits but are outside what the academic world has traditionally valued.  

We see this a lot in the world of Young Adult literature. The people who are writing the best, most well-received, most desired books for young people right now are those who, when they were in school, were told that their lived experiences and background knowledge were not important or relevant. So those books about very real issues (struggles at home or living in a multicultural family or being someone who must babysit siblings) come from writers who know those experiences as their own, value them, and write about them. And students, in turn, relate to them. Because those out-of-school literacies are valuable and relevant, even if they are not strictly academic.   

Then we get to this bananas idea of "learning loss".  

And I specifically want to push back against that concept and suggest we frame it instead as "learning impact."  

Our students haven't experienced learning loss.  

That would mean they know less now than they did when the pandemic began, and even for the most disengaged student, that is just not true. 

What has occurred is a change in learning.  

A change in what is learned and a change in the timeline.  

Yes, we are not as far along as we typically would be. But that isn't a loss. That is not being as far along. 

And what have the kids learned? Holy cow! The amazing things they have learned about technology and communication. 

In my district, virtually every student in grades 1-12 can edit a PDF.  Most adults can barely open a PDF much less annotate one. 

But my kids can. 

And will the IAR or SAT or ACT or MAP assess that? 

No, it won't. 

Those kids have learned about sending, checking, and receiving emails (something many adults still haven't mastered), how to adjust to fluctuating schedules.  

They have learned to track important events on the news (positivity rates, timelines for reopening, why there can't be spectators at sports.) 

They have learned how to find information on important issues and how to talk about big ideas.  

At times they have learned how not to fall prey to disinformation and how to respond when someone else has.  

And all of this is on top of content area material. 

And during a pandemic when the students are also dealing with and coping with their own trauma. 

Far from a loss!  

I am not saying this year has been ideal, not by any measure.  But I do push back against framing that learning, all of that diverse new knowledge as a loss.  

A specific step that anyone who cares about this can take, one I am challenging myself to take, is to reject the deficit mindset and terminology ("learning loss") and pivot to a competency-based mindset--including using the term "learning impact"-- and focusing on the truth that learning has happened.  

At a different pace, and in a different way, certainly. But it has happened. 

So the real questions are how can we continue the learning and continue the timeline, preparing for the next steps of learning that students will take, building on the competencies they have and the new ones they have gained.