The Epoch Times recently exposed the classroom worksheet, no longer available for download (see editor's note) on the Boston Teachers Union website, where forms of resistance are identified as “Instituional [sic],” “Interpresonal [sic], and “Internalized” on the first page of the worksheet.
Yes, those misspellings are all genuine - and so is an image depicting rifle cross-hairs on President Richard Nixon.
At the Institutional level, one example describes “Trump [building] a wall on the border so it is harder for Latinos to enter the U.S.”
For oppression of the Interpersonal level, an example of that includes a “husband [telling] his wife she must stay home to cook and clean.”
At the Internalized level, an example describes an Asian girl hating her eyes so much she “gets surgery to change them.”
On subsequent pages of the worksheet, students were asked to: Identify the type of resistance associated with various images, fill in the blanks of an explanation, and identify the form of resistance “most effective at ending” the alleged oppression. Those images show an employee strike, rioters throwing rocks, a pair of cartoonish characters fighting, cross-hairs on Nixon, a peaceful sit-in, and more.
The images depicting violence were particularly concerning to attorney Daniel Schmid, senior litigation counsel for Liberty Counsel, because the First Amendment “doesn’t protect speech that incites people to violence or to imminent lawless action.”
American Family News also spoke to Betty Chu, a California native who is perhaps most famous as the first Chinese-American woman to pass the bar admission of the State Bar of California. From a legal standpoint, she said, a criminal charge would be difficult to pursue against the BTU but it deserves an investigation over whether the worksheet could be tied to an act of violence.
“The indoctrination could be a violation of the duties of a school board member and teacher,” she observes, “depending on the school board policies that are in place.”
Regardless of whether a crime has been committed, those classroom worksheets mean a school teacher is failing to help children improve their lives because of left-wing politics.
A classroom of ‘social agents of change’
Others are alarmed by the findings, too, including Jennifer McWilliams, a leading expert on how Social Emotional Learning, known as SEL, is infiltrating schools. She tells AFN that, sadly, this kind of classroom activity is not limited to the Boston area but is happening in schools all across the country.
In addition to the worksheet cited above, McWilliams is concerned about a second worksheet about “oppression vs. privilege.” “Why are some people poor and some people rich?’ the worksheet asks.
“Children are often encouraged to start generating ideas on topics like this,” McWilliams explains. “They are encouraged to talk about their personal experiences, and if the teacher is a culturally responsive teacher, they will use this conversation to push the idea of systemic racism.”
What is really happening in the classroom, McWilliams further explains, is a methodology known as “socio-emotional learning” that includes “cultural responsive teaching.” That phrase was coined by Gloria Ladson-Billings, a former education professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, whose research and articles are filled with the race-based tenets of Critical Race Theory.
“Essentially,” McWilliams summarizes, “children are being manipulated to become activists for dismantling ‘inequitable’ systems, which is all based on Critical Race Theory.”
In that classroom setting, where everything is based on race and inequality, even a basic math question about a family driving to an amusement park for the day is an opportunity to talk about families that don’t have automobiles and can’t afford to attend the park.
What is left behind, and purposely ignored, is academics because the math problem is no longer the goal.
“They are training these children to become activists,” McWilliams warns, “calling them in their own language ‘social agents of change.’”
Editor's Note: A website link maintained by the Boston Teachers Union is no longer available after this story published. AFN has kept the dead link in this story for readers to view.
