Deb Fillman
About Deb Fillman
NOT “IS,” BUT “HAS BEEN.” Anyone who tells you “Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is corrupting our teachers” hasn’t been paying attention. I was assigned this book at UPENN GradEd in 1989-90, in a class ostensibly about the teaching of History in the (swallow your coffee so you don’t spit it out) ELEMENTARY classroom. Our K12 classrooms can be called “Freirian” at this point.
BARBARIANS INSIDE THE GATES. Oregon Department of Education paying $1.9 million to train teachers against Western values of ‘individualism.’
At what point do we start calling this what it is? Treachery, and paid for with tax dollars.
WHAT WOULD WE EXPECT WITH A CO-AUTHOR NAMED “L’IL MISS HOT-MESS?” The title of the paper in question? “Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood.”
From the paper:
Through this programme, drag artists have channelled their penchant for playfully “‘reading’ each other to filth”1 into different forms of literacy, promoting storytelling as integral to queer and trans communities, as well as positioning queer and trans cultural forms as valuable components of early childhood education. We are guided by the following question: what might Drag Queen Story Hour offer educators as a way of bringing queer ways of knowing and being into the education of young children?
“Queer ways of knowing and being” pretty much sums up the end-game.
“I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE, TO THE FLAG, OF THE (CHECKS NOTES), AFRO-AMERICAN PEOPLE…” So goes the “pledge” in one Wisconsin classroom, conveniently (and proudly) recorded by the teacher compelling the speech, after directing the first-graders to have their “Fists up!” .
Don’t believe me? Watch for yourselves:
TREACHEROUS SUBVERSION OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND LIBERTY (A.K.A., TSEL). The AFT appears to be partnered (or more than a little bit cozy) with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the nation’s largest developer and distributor of Social Emotional Learning curricula and teacher training (what DEI Commissars, er, “consultants” call “productive accountability” when doing so-called “equity audits”).
See for yourself, from CASEL’s own website:
“Transformative SEL” is a process whereby young people and adults build strong, respectful, and lasting, relationships that facilitate co-learning to critically examine root causes of inequity, and to develop collaborative solutions that lead to personal, community, and societal well-being.
This form of SEL is aimed at redistributing power to more fully engage young people and adults in working toward just and equitable schools and communities. It emphasizes the development of identity, agency, belonging, curiosity, and collaborative problem-solving within the CASEL framework.
That’s a whole lot of words to say “TSEL is a process whereby we turn your kids into domestic terrorists, hell-bent on Maoist destruction of ALL the “olds,” which their teachers have conveniently misrepresented and maligned for 16+ years.”
WHY COLLEGES ARE BECOMING LIKE CULTS: Follow the money to “Inadequate to Appalling”: Administrator Training. This is one of a series of videos. Watch them all.
“INNOCENCE IS OVERRATED,” SAID THE GROOMER. There are many things adults can “groom” children to be and do, not all of them related to sex. When K12 teachers and librarians use guilt, shame, and indoctrination to “groom” young activists, they are still abusing those children. I write about it in my first long-form piece in quite a while. How can we protect our kids? #justwalkaway
OBAMA ADVISOR CONNECTED TO A SCHOOL SCAM? THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE…Considering Obama’s administration gave us the current “Equity” mandates for all public schools, the ones making it not only possible, but required that states use federal funding to implement regressive, racial-essentialist, anti-American pedagogy in K12 classrooms, I’d say everything they did related to education was a “scam.” That one ex-advisor got busted perpetrating a scam related to K12 education is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg, but still gratifying.
In spring 2013, Andrew left his role as a superintendent in his schools network to work in the U.S. Department of Education and as a senior adviser in the Office of Educational Technology at the White House. The job lasted until November 2016.
In court papers, authorities said Andrew stole $218,000 from the schools he helped create and then used the money to obtain the best interest rate his bank offered on a mortgage for a $2 million Manhattan apartment he bought with his spouse.
Andrew admitted Friday that he tried to make it appear as though the money he took from the schools came from a civic organization he controls as he moved money from the schools network accounts to his personal accounts and later to the nonprofit’s account from March to October of 2019.
Fun-fact: Democracy Prep is the school at the center of the Clark Lawsuit, filed by Gabrielle and William Clark in Nevada after a Civics teacher there failed mixed-race, but “white-passing” William for refusing to profess his “misogyny” and “white supremacy” as part of a class assignment. Her civil rights case is still pending, and she is still in need of funding. Her case is excellent, and likely to succeed if it can be brought to court, but it will take money to get it there. Read all about it here.
DATA-MINING OUR KIDS: As if 24/7 electronic government surveillance of adults weren’t enough, a private equity firm is gobbling up private companies that collect data about our kids in school, and no one knows why.
“Over the past six years, a little-known private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, has built an educational software empire that wields unseen influence over the educational journeys of tens of millions of children. Along the way, The Markup found, the companies the firm controls have scooped up a massive amount of very personal data on kids, which they use to fuel a suite of predictive analytics products that push the boundaries of technology’s role in education and, in some cases, raise discrimination concerns…
PowerSchool alone claims to hold data on more than 45 million children, including 75 percent of North American K-12 students. Ellucian, a recent Vista acquisition, says it serves 26 million students. And EAB’s products are used by thousands of colleges and universities. But parents of those students say they’ve largely been left in the dark about what data the companies collect and how they use it.”
Read the whole thing. If everything else wrong with K12 in America hasn’t inspired you yet, maybe this will persuade you to #justwalkaway.
UNSEASONABLY HOT FOR NC DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION SECRETARY CATHERINE TRUITT, AND IT’S A BEAUTIFUL THING: Last week, I posted about how NC Secretary of Public Instruction, Catherine Truitt was about to renew a contract with a vendor supplying Critical Race Theory-based curriculum to UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. The bad news is, she signed it, and now preschool special ed teachers at UNC/FPG will be taught to “decenter whiteness” in their classrooms, in themselves, and in the students they teach.
BUT, the very good news is, she is feeling some serious heat for doing so. Here are all the outlets holding her accountable, so far: Louder With Crowder, DailyWire, Daily Caller, and Breitbart.
Be sure to scroll down the page on Breitbart, that’s me on the right with Sloan, covering the topic in our livestream last week!
I have also written a letter to the NC Education Oversight Committee, asking then to hold Catherine Truitt Accountable.
Please join me in putting pressure on them to do so. CRT is bad enough without it being taught to TODDLERS with special needs!
“UNPRECEDENTED?” THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND COMES TO MIND: The American Federation of Teachers is helpfully sharing lesson plans with its members so they know what to think, er, teach about the events of 1/6, 2001. Not only is this an excellent example of how critical pedagogy makes “feelings” more valuable than facts, it’s a lie of omission (well, several, but let’s stick to this one): this is not “unprecedented,” as any student of American history would know. Even the FBI itself know this.
GOOD LUCK CHUCK: Don’t get me wrong; I’m thrilled, and grateful to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland on the Senate Floor recall his memo asking the FBI to investigate parents who speak out at school board meetings, I just don’t think it’s going to work. Back in December, after Grassley and other Republicans wrote a letter asking the Justice Department to withdraw the memo, they responded making clear they had no intention of doing so.
Still, this was nice to hear:
So, the Feds may be keeping track of school board meetings—even if it creates a horrible chilling effect. And, of course the FBI looking over your shoulder would have a chilling effect,” Grassley stated. “Next week the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on domestic terrorism. I hope we’re going to be focusing on the serious threats facing our country—and I hope no one thinks the focus is on our nation’s parents.
THE UNBEARABLE “WHITENESS” OF BEING….A PRESCHOOLER? Apparently the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction thinks preschools are too “white,” and they, their teachers, and their students, need to “center children of color,” which necessarily means “decentering” the white ones using that figment of our allegedly “right-wing-extremist” imaginations, critical race theory, or CRT.
Here are some of the racist anti-concepts, and disciplinary approaches, pre-K and special needs teachers will be taking into classrooms as part of the Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) Equity and Cultural Responsiveness teacher training:
Ever notice how it’s not there, until it is, and then it’s a good thing we should all champion, using our tax dollars (in this case a federal special needs grant)?
Visit EdFirstNC for the goods on the worst CRT lessons we’ve seen to date, because these are aimed at THREE YEAR-OLDS.
YOU DON’T SAY? It’s been fascinating and infuriating watching outlets like the New York Times begin what I’m sure they hope will be a long, gradual, imperceptible dodge away from accountability for the harm caused by policies they supported this whole time. Here’s a case in point:
American children are starting 2022 in crisis.
I have long been aware that the pandemic was upending children’s lives. But until I spent time pulling together data and reading reports, I did not understand just how alarming the situation had become.
Read that a second time: he’s “long been aware” but is only just NOW looking at the data? Not only did parents, doctors, and many other concerned citizens raise this alarm proactively, two years ago, that alarm has grown louder with each passing month, reaching GITMO noise-torture levels at this past summer as unions debated whether to return to in-person teaching in the fall.
I’m glad to see the so-called “Paper of Record” finally admit this is “No way to grow up,” and
For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults.
but I can’t help but notice how well this serves them as they strive to pretend they didn’t “build that.”
GASLIGHTING PARENTS IN ILLINOIS: Governor Pritzker is demonstrating “Gaslighting” in real time. Either that, or the left has redefined the words “best” and what it takes to “raise young children.”
Oh wait…DERP, what am I thinking? We know they have.
WHY JOHNNY CAN’T READ ABOUT AMERICAN HEROES: according to Facebook, it’s because that content is too “disruptive.”
At least that’s the (new) justification they’ve given for banning a small, independent publishing house from maintaining its account on Zuck’s platform. You and I can still see the page, and we can even “sign up,” to receive information, but the company can’t access our information on its own branded page, nor can they delete that page, only FB can do either.
The owners of the page have been permanently banned from using that which they spent lots of seed capital to produce. They’ve lost access to all their data and work product, based on a brand NEW term of service FB seems to have invented for the purpose of banning accounts they just don’t like.
So who’s getting all the names and account info. of those interested in this content? Whomever FB wants to give it to, that’s who. You get three guesses who might be on that list, and the first two don’t count, but here’s a hint: who agreed American parents could be considered “domestic terrorists” for speaking out against current practices in American public education? Meanwhile, here’s a sampling of accounts FB does NOT find “too disruptive: the governments of Iran and China, Louis Farrakhan, BLM and the even more terrifying Movement 4 Black Lives (I won’t link to their website here, but please do go find them at M 4 BL dot org, and start reading the legislation they have in store for us, perhaps using some of the billions (yes, with a “B”) they’ve received from sources like the Ford Foundation).
So next time you’re lamenting the lack of options for kids to read about Americans who actually love(d) this country, please remember Heroes Of Liberty, and consider subscribing or purchasing their books from their website directly.
TODAY’S HOMEWORK (WHITE STUDENTS ONLY): DISMANTLE RACIST SYSTEMS: Placing the responsibility to “dismantle” any ill of adult society on the heads of children, least of all based on their immutable characteristics, is textbook child abuse. But nothing should surprise us anymore. The challenge for parents and policy-makers is to have the guts to call this behavior by its proper name, so we can hold these abusers accountable, and remove them permanently from the institutions they dominate.
Remember, these are the teachers who teach the teachers, so if you were thinking it’s just a matter of removing random rogue teachers, think again; the pipeline was captured long ago. This report itself is from 2020.
From the report (be sure to read the whole thing, just not after eating):
Be sure to read the whole report; the summary soft-pedals it because the peddlers of this poison cynically assume only true-believers will dig deeper. Let’s show them they’re wrong.
MISSOURI SHOWING ME SOME SPINE: A pre-filed Missouri Senate bill seeks to protect children and their families from state surveillance-driven political activism masquerading as curriculum.
From the Summary page:
Under this act, school districts and charter schools shall publish on its website all training materials used for staff and faculty training, all instructional materials, and all curricular materials related to nondiscrimination, diversity, equity, inclusion, race, ethnicity, sex, or bias, including certain information as described in the act related to instructional materials and curricular materials. Such materials shall be displayed within 7 days after the use of such materials in training or instruction and shall remain displayed for at least 2 years.
No school district shall permit teachers or administrators to require coursework to include, or a grade or credit to be awarded, for a student’s participation in certain political or social advocacy efforts described in the act. No school district or charter school shall compel a teacher, administrator, or student to affirm, adopt, or adhere to any belief or concept that racism, sexism, or certain immutable traits are fundamental or blameworthy, as further described in the act.
No school district shall use public funds to contract, hire, or otherwise engage certain persons to speak on or compel support for such concepts or beliefs, except that such person may be engaged to advocate for such concepts or beliefs if the school district makes clear that it does not support such concepts or beliefs and allows students and employees to opt out from participating.
No school district, public school, or charter school may require a student or employee to attend or participate in a certain training, instruction, or therapy that promote such beliefs or concepts.
This act shall not be construed to prohibit constitutionally-protected speech, access to research or study materials, the discussion or assignment of materials for educational purposes if the school district or school makes clear that it does not support the use of beliefs or concepts otherwise prohibited under the act, or the use of curriculum that teaches the topics of sexism, slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, or racial discrimination.
Any employee of a school district that discloses a violation of this provision shall be protected from any manner of retaliation as provided by current law.
Be sure to read the whole thing, then call your state legislator and ask what they’re doing to ensure transparency and respect for civil rights in your government-run schools.
H/T to Rhyen Staley for the link
AND IF YOU DON’T WANT THIS IN YOUR K12 SCHOOLS, YOU’RE THE BAD GUY? Accurate, and succinct. Remember this next time someone tries to argue it is, or would be (if they’re still gaslighting you that it’s not already there) good for K12 students to learn CRT.
SEL IS THE NEW CRT: It seems like only yesterday (literally) we were told “There is no critical race theory (CRT) in America’s K12 classrooms.” But even as I type, a high school English teacher is working hard at Purdue University on a project aimed at disguising it as something less onerous: Social Emotional Learning (SEL).