Back when I was a teacher myself, coming on 10 years ago, I had a positive experience teaching and learning the very same sorts of diversity curricula that we’d now attribute to the dreaded contagion. And my memories have a way of disarming the anti-wokesters’ best bogeymen. For instance, I recall that when faculty met up after separating into voluntary – but encouraged – racial affinity groups, we found that both sharing circles had ended up using the group therapy format to talk more openly about how unbearable the upcoming annual gala auction was going to be than we would have ordinarily, at lunch or over coffee. (Solidarity didn’t break along black-and-white racial lines that day, in other words. But then I’m not fully convinced it ever truly does...) It also helped that the Calhoun School – no relation to the slavery-loving senator – was a few years ahead of the curve. There was none of last year’s rush to respond to a trending topic before getting left in every I say it was positive – although “productive” or “educational” would be more politic descriptors (note: no one’s holding a gun to my head as I write this) – because, in the case of the New York City private school where I happened to be, the Calhoun School on the Upper West Side, the program was thoughtfully executed in concert with parents and teachers alike. It seemed, to me, a natural extension of the life of the school.
hierarchy of human value for people based on race.” She does agree that we need to talk about racial diversity in schools, but feels that there are better ways to do so – especially considering how diverse “diversity” actually is in America. Nomani recommends Irshad Manji, author of Don’t Label Me: How to do Diversity Without Inflaming the Culture Wars . I’ve noticed that the most credible critics of contemporary anti-racist curricula always offer an alternative. Manji, Nomani’s choice, writes about rising above tribalism – that not being offensive is no use until we’ve taught our children, and learned ourselves, how not to be offended. Others will cite Chloé Valdary, an Ibram Kendi skeptic, who authored an anti-racist philosophy and teaching method called the Theory of Enchantment. Her program picks up where her rival theorists leave off and go sadly quiet. Its first principle is that “we are human beings, not political abstractions.” Work like hers – which makes its mission the transcendence of divisive categories – almost makes me want to be a teacher again... WOKE LIKE ME The people who complained to me about private-school wokeism at the banker’s birthday party are probably fair game. But I feel like a little bit of a double agent talking to some of K-12 anti-racism’s more focused opponents. Because back when I was a teacher myself, coming on 10 years ago, I had a positive experience teaching and learning the very same sorts of diversity curricula that we’d now attribute to the dreaded contagion.
American Consequences
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