Parents fear their children will be told they are oppressors or victims because of the color of their skin.
Banning ideas or ideologies is a bad idea, argue Robert Pondiscio and Tracey Schirra of the American Enterprise Institute. They suggest a “teacher code of conduct” on how to discuss multiple sides of controversial topics.
After all, an essential goal in any classroom is cultivating the ability to analyze, discuss, and debate contentious issues civilly, from multiple perspectives. The teacher’s job is to ensure those perspectives are presented fairly and to observe a dispassionate professionalism, allowing students to decide what they think for themselves, without teachers putting a thumb on the scale.
Some teachers “may insist critical race theory is unassailable truth, not merely one lens among many through which well-educated people can view and discuss American history and culture,” Pondiscio and Schirra write. “But common sense suggests that a diverse and plural nation contains diverse and plural viewpoints.”
Public school teachers shouldn’t be preachers, they write.
Do we trust true believers to understand the difference between their strongly held views and The Truth?