Evidence of CRT, Political Bias & Explicit Material

The Marxist Literary Lens is now referred to as the "Social Power Lens" by our English Language Arts department.  The decision to change the name occurred after I asked why my child learned how to apply a communist perspective in a literature class (instead of government, history or sociology) AND without any education on Karl Marx or the devastating effects of communism.  Here is another example of how students are taught to apply the Marxist perspective.  

Postcolonial theory shares very similar theoretical frameworks with Critical Race theory (CRT), and both are often taught together.  Whereas CRT labels all white people as current "oppressors" of black and brown people,  postcolonial theory labels the Western "colonizers" of history as oppressors of a different culture, versus race.  Here is the curricular material on the Postcolonial Literary Lens.  Again, this is part of a literature class, not government, history or sociology.

The Netflix film, which can be viewed here,  is crafted to argue that the 13th amendment actually reinvented slavery rather than abolish it. The author asserts that African Americans are targeted for prison (and, subsequently, enslavement) by the U.S. justice system and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  Here are the writing prompts students were assigned after viewing the film.  I pulled these prompts from my child's course syllabus.   

Here students study the claim that feminists should not advocate for the censorhip of pornography.  The essay begins on the seventh page of the document.  The assignment exposed students to the titles of two pornographic films and two pornographic magazine titles!  The author discusses the differences between types of erotica, ranging from examples of artistic beauty to that which equates sex with death and violence.  

Most abhorrent, however, is the author's claim that child pornography   

is wrong--NOT because it is a violent sexual assault of a child, but rather because it is a form of child labor, which in her summation, constitutes child abuse.  The author actually compares the production of child pornography to farm work.  Refer to my Curriculum Challenge TWO for a summary.

This is a monologue describing the sexual assault of a six-year-old girl by a predatory camp counselor.  Click here to view a four-minute peformance of the piece.  Click here to see it on the Protected Titles List for 11-12th grade English classes.

The Laramie Project is available for purchase on Amazon, or email me and I'll loan you my copy.  Click here to view a list of the explicit and foul language quotes with page numbers.

This Netflix film is available to view here on YouTube.  Note the 'Viewer Discretion Advised' warning.  While the film's main theme is to promote the application of the Critical Race Theory perspective on all of U.S. history and current society, the explicit material consists of a rape scene at 33:44 and footage of the fatal shooting deaths of nine people beginning at 1:30:30.  Again, no permission forms required.  

This dystopian story is set in a future America where women have no civil rights and exist as the reproductive sex slaves of a far-right, religious, patriarchal society.  It contains strong  language, physical violence, and graphic sex  scenes.  This title is on a list of four novels from which students may choose, so it is not required.  No permission form is required should your child select this book.  Click here to see it listed on the Protected Titles List for 11-12th grade English classes.

The entire reading assignment can be found here.  The excerpt in question is on the third page of the document and compares the right to an abortion to being locked in a tiny room with a person whose uncontrollable growth is slowly crushing the reader to death.  In a shocking justification for the hypothetical murder of an innocent person, Thomson states: “of course it would be morally permissible to kill the other person in order to save your own life.”  

This essay and discussion questions were assigned to students as part of a unit on expository writing.  Expository writing is supposed to be factual and objective, not persuasive and anecdotal.  See Curriculum Challenge ONE for my summary of the curricular value of this piece in this application.  

The Gender-Feminist Literary Lens teaches students to examine whether, to what extent, and how female and homosexual characters are portrayed in a work in order to make inferences on what the author is trying to convey about them as a group.  Though our senior literature students are never shown how Disney's The Lion King mirrors Shakespeare's Hamlet,  click here to see how they are taught to apply the gender-feminist lens in order to understand how female lions are discriminated against. 

This play mimics a documentary format, and was presented to students as part of the expository writing unit.  One theme of The Laramie Project  is to highlight the dangers of ‘homophobia,’ particularly in certain areas of the United States (Midwest flyover territory) and among certain religious communities.  Kaufman argues that ‘tolerance’ is not ‘acceptance,’ and only acceptance is good enough to prevent ‘homophobia’ (p. 60-61 & 86).  

View from 1:20:13 to 1:22:13 to witness a perfect example of political propoganda, where the film includes video clips of police brutality & other abuses of African Americans during the civil rights movement.  In the background & between clips are statements from a former president, taken completely out of context and artfully crafted to mirror the events happening in the black & white footage.  The district later claimed it is shown as an example of media bias.  See assignment writing prompts.

Curriculum Challenge ONE 

Curriculum Challenge TWO

USD 469 Policy IKB: Controversial Issues

In February this year I shared my experience with this material with the Kansas House Education Committee.   I encouraged legislators to enact statewide legislation aimed at protecting parents’ rights.  Click here to view the YouTube recording of the meeting; my six-minute testimony goes from 4:20 to 10:45, and I answer a few follow up questions thereafter.  If you prefer to read my testimony, click here.