By Kristin
Should curriculum be narrowed down until it is comfortable for each student? Seattle Public Schools recently required Race
and Justice curriculum taught in a senior class at the Center School to be suspended after a student felt “intimidated.” The teacher, Jon
Greenberg, was transferred to Hamilton Middle School after Center School students protested the course restrictions. While this has been discussed in my district as an issue of academic freedom, I see it as something even more important – as a parent, I see it as other parents deciding what my daughters can and cannot learn about in school, and that deeply concerns me.
The district should reverse
its decision and return both Mr. Greenberg and the Race and Justice curriculum
to the Center School.
The best thing a public education offers students is exposure to new ideas, and to people who see and experience the world differently than they do. The greatest learning happens when students are challenged to grapple
with intellectual and social discomfort. After ten years of
teaching this course to a student body that was predominantly white, only one
child complained that examining white privilege created an intimidating classroom environment. To me this provides more evidence of one
child’s comfort zone than the appropriateness of the material or instructional strategies.
My husband and I choose to teach in
public schools and send our daughters to public school in Seattle because we
believe challenging experiences prepare children to be socially and
intellectually agile adults, able to successfully navigate what are certain to
be uncomfortable or intimidating adult experiences.
The situation at the Center School was not a
complaint about a teacher’s methods of discipline, his mastery of the content
or his interactions with a student in the classroom – it was a complaint by one
child about the material he was teaching and how the way he taught it made her feel. Mr. Greenberg's efforts to provide an alternative learning experience were rejected. Now the material has been eliminated, as has
the way in which it was taught, and after being silenced the teacher was removed
from the scene. I have a problem with
this.
No family should be able to impose its comfort level on all the other
children in the school. In fact, those
of us who seek an urban public education for our children do so in large part
because we respect open, informed discourse of sensitive but important
issues. Topics like evolution, race,
reproduction, religion, and political issues may be forbidden topics in some
public schools, but a senior class in Seattle Public Schools is exactly the
sort of environment I would expect open and informed discussions to take place.
If high school seniors can’t be trusted to deal with issues like white
privilege, how prepared are they to be the leaders we expect them to be once
they graduate?
When parents insist curriculum be
changed to align with their own values they infringe upon the right of everyone
else’s children to have access to open academic discourse of important ideas and issues.
Seattle Public Schools should
reverse its stance on the Center School Curriculum situation and put Jon
Greenberg back where he belongs, challenging high school seniors to grapple
with intense, sometimes uncomfortable issues.
Anything less is denying Seattle students and their families access to
public education’s real worth.
A senior class! That “child” isn’t a child any more and is going to be exposed to a whole lot of life that has the potential to make him/her uncomfortable. To me, the classroom (and the home, but it doesn’t always happen there) is the perfect place to work through that discomfort, to probe it and understand it, so that when it happens in the “real” world, it can be better handled. Looks like we know who will be handling this child’s future discomfort.
I think it is totally appropriate for parents to have an avenue for curriculum to be reviewed and questioned. We have a standard protocol about potentially “sensitive” content, which includes offering alternative standards-based assessments/projects for families who want to opt out of a given work of literature. I do not think it is appropriate for a single family to be able to wield this kind of influence over the entire course, especially at that grade level, and with a curriculum that has been in place for so long.
Removing the curriculum and eventually the teacher because one student out of all the kids who have taken this course for years was uncomfortable was a boneheaded decision. Center School is an option school; there are plenty of other schools to choose from within the SPSD to which the family could have placed their student. There was no reason to punish every current and future student because of one student having issues with the curriculum.
Frankly, we should be uncomfortable. It’s discomfort that changes the status quo.
Sooz, you’re so right. Discussing race will never be a comfortable thing, but there are few endeavors more essential to creating an educated, just society.
Maren, as a science teacher I’m sure you’ve had to make some critical decisions in the classroom too. Like social studies, science is a land mine of uncomfortable issues.
Thank you for this post. With this course of action, the district is sending a message to teachers that discussing race openly in the classroom is perhaps not worth the risk to their position, reputation, even career. The fact that one family can disrupt anti-racist teaching even when it is overwhelmingly supported by the rest of the school community is indeed upsetting; on the other hand, the actions of parents and students who have rallied around this teacher are inspiring. Hopefully this unfortunate situation will benefit all of us by sparking much-needed conversations about how these issues affect our lives, both within and outside of the classroom.
Thanks James. You’re right, Tucson’s decision negatively impacted students, as Seattle’s will.
Seattle is a city with major race denial. The reason the course at the Center School used a structure called “courageous conversations” is because this is a city where you need to have tremendous courage to say “this is a racist city. Public education is a racist institution.”
It is upsetting to me that one child felt targeted by the idea being white means you’re privileged in some ways, and so the curriculum was castrated to make it less intimidating.
Great post, Kristin. These opened, informed discussions about sometimes uncomfortable, yet important topics are exactly what we need in schools in order for our students to become strong critical thinkers and productive citizens. Teachers who are capable of facilitating these discussions need to be supported.
This is really disheartening. The less academic freedom teachers and schools have, the less able they are to truly make learning come alive for students. It reminds me of the Tucson School District’s decision to get rid of the Latino ethnic studies program even though it had significantly improved graduation rates.
Seattle schools should ABSOLUTELY reverse their decision.