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Can you provide a single case to support your position? You can’t ask someone to prove a negative. But you have told us this this is happening “often”. In fact

Can you provide a single case to support your position? You can’t ask someone to prove a negative. But you have told us this this is happening “often”. In fact it’s so prevalent you can’t even imagine an alternative conversation. You presented a specific conversation. Did you hear that conversation personally? If not, who told you this conversation happened or where did you read about it happening? I’m not doubting you, I just want to get more hard facts into this thread. You said that teacher associations have “often” written this into their “agendas” so it’s not a conspiracy theory. What are these associations and do you have a copy of these agendas into which they have written this? Since it happens often and it’s written down, you should show us and we can have a more substantive discussion about what they actually wrote versus your interpretation of what they wrote.

Jensson 5y ago
> Can you provide a single case to support your position? There is plenty, this article gives a good view, apparently people have been pushing for things I claimed for 50 years according to this article. I have no reason to believe all these "racists" described here aren't just people who push back against these movements. I'm not saying that such movements aren't warranted, however I would not say that people who are against them are racist. There is a huge leap between "I don't want to read a book just because it was written by a black person" and "I refuse to read any book written by a black person no matter what the book is about". > It’s been more than 50 years since literacy experts first stressed the need for more diverse books in the classroom, and yet reading lists look surprisingly the same as they did in 1970. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/19/08/hooked-classics https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/19/08/hooked-classics
- ModernMech 5y ago
  I read the article. I don’t see a basis for the conversation you presented, nor the assertion about teachers associations, nor any information on the specific training teachers and professors are getting. I’m interested specifically in these claims you made in this thread. You are saying the basis for them is this article? Did you hold these beliefs before reading this article, or did it convince you of these beliefs. If the former, then what is the foundation of that belief? Personal experience? Research? TV?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    The article states that there is a movement pushing literature by diverse authors into classrooms. The article also claims that there is a great pushback against that movement. Those two is what I am referring to. People happily label pushback to such movements as "racist parents" and similar. I believe that people pushing back against movements shouldn't get rejected by society, this is the controversial part.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      Okay, but a push for more diverse authors into the classroom is not the same as what you are presenting here. What you’ve linked is not saying “we must read these authors because their skin is black”. It is saying “their black skin has caused them to live a life different from other authors, which has caused them to write something different from other authors, and we want to know about that.” Based on our back and forth here, it seems you have presented a conversation you claim happens “often” that you’ve neither heard personally nor can cite an instance of it. This conversation is a strong caricature of teachers calling parents “racists” for not agreeing with their book choice. Meanwhile the evidence you’ve linked to shows nothing of the kind. TFA doesn’t support it, nor does the article you linked. What the Harvard article says is that the topics contained in literature written by white men who are now dead are not relatable to a diverse classroom. Unsurprisingly, people write what they know, and as is true with all people, straight white male people don’t know a whole lot about the lived experience of people who are not them e.g. gay, black, and women etc. One way to get this perspective is to read books by authors in those demographics. Again, this is not the same as saying “we must read these authors because they are black.” There are many black authors who are not being suggested, and it’s not black authors to the exclusion of everyone else. What they have to say in their books is how the books get chosen. We are talking about content, not color. Does the color of the author change the content? Yes. And that’s the point, but it’s not racist to recognize that and want to learn from it. So again I ask: where is the conversation between parents and students that you’ve heard often happening? I really want to know the answer to this and It’s concerning you are evading that question.
      - 5y ago

Jensson 5y ago

> Can you provide a single case to support your position? There is plenty, this article gives a good view, apparently people have been pushing for things I claimed for 50 years according to this article. I have no reason to believe all these "racists" described here aren't just people who push back against these movements. I'm not saying that such movements aren't warranted, however I would not say that people who are against them are racist. There is a huge leap between "I don't want to read a book just because it was written by a black person" and "I refuse to read any book written by a black person no matter what the book is about". > It’s been more than 50 years since literacy experts first stressed the need for more diverse books in the classroom, and yet reading lists look surprisingly the same as they did in 1970. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/19/08/hooked-classics https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/19/08/hooked-classics

ModernMech 5y ago
I read the article. I don’t see a basis for the conversation you presented, nor the assertion about teachers associations, nor any information on the specific training teachers and professors are getting. I’m interested specifically in these claims you made in this thread. You are saying the basis for them is this article? Did you hold these beliefs before reading this article, or did it convince you of these beliefs. If the former, then what is the foundation of that belief? Personal experience? Research? TV?
- Jensson 5y ago
  The article states that there is a movement pushing literature by diverse authors into classrooms. The article also claims that there is a great pushback against that movement. Those two is what I am referring to. People happily label pushback to such movements as "racist parents" and similar. I believe that people pushing back against movements shouldn't get rejected by society, this is the controversial part.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    Okay, but a push for more diverse authors into the classroom is not the same as what you are presenting here. What you’ve linked is not saying “we must read these authors because their skin is black”. It is saying “their black skin has caused them to live a life different from other authors, which has caused them to write something different from other authors, and we want to know about that.” Based on our back and forth here, it seems you have presented a conversation you claim happens “often” that you’ve neither heard personally nor can cite an instance of it. This conversation is a strong caricature of teachers calling parents “racists” for not agreeing with their book choice. Meanwhile the evidence you’ve linked to shows nothing of the kind. TFA doesn’t support it, nor does the article you linked. What the Harvard article says is that the topics contained in literature written by white men who are now dead are not relatable to a diverse classroom. Unsurprisingly, people write what they know, and as is true with all people, straight white male people don’t know a whole lot about the lived experience of people who are not them e.g. gay, black, and women etc. One way to get this perspective is to read books by authors in those demographics. Again, this is not the same as saying “we must read these authors because they are black.” There are many black authors who are not being suggested, and it’s not black authors to the exclusion of everyone else. What they have to say in their books is how the books get chosen. We are talking about content, not color. Does the color of the author change the content? Yes. And that’s the point, but it’s not racist to recognize that and want to learn from it. So again I ask: where is the conversation between parents and students that you’ve heard often happening? I really want to know the answer to this and It’s concerning you are evading that question.
    - 5y ago