My Line in the Sand

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GUEST POST – Scott Kennedy

I am not an emotional person. In the last 20 years of life, I believe I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I have wept. Not that I think this is a virtue, it just seems part of my temperament. But twice in the last week, I have been so upset – distraught even – that I have wept.

Vaccine mandates. Our government went back on its word and has issued a vaccine mandate for all teachers. This is my line in the sand. But drawing this line is crushing me for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I have worked as a teacher for a decade in a full-time capacity and many more years than that in part-time roles. I am totally invested in the school that I work for and have given my time, my energy and even my money to help that school thrive and flourish. While I am not perhaps the most inspiring, interesting or creative teacher, I love my students, and I think they know I am committed to them and desirous of their success. My ex-students keep in touch. This is the area of life that God has gifted me in. I can teach. I can’t build. I’m not physically strong. I’m not able to do techy things. I’m pretty ordinary really. But teaching I can do. And the government with one edict from their Lectern of Lies has taken my livelihood away from me.

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Unteach Racism – Module 4 – Harmful Assumptions

Once again, after a break of a few weeks, we are set to continue our ascent of Mt Lunacy, otherwise known as the Unteach Racism app put out by the education-focused Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. For those of you determined to assault your own intelligence and sanity, you can find the website here. But worthy readers, I..ahem…humbly suggest you would be better off perusing my reviews of module 1 introduction, module 2 low self-belief and module 3 low expectations. Additionally, I would recommend checking out Maga-hat teacher Ethan Aloiai’s helpful video on the topic. So on to module 4 and the perils of harmful assumptions.

What are harmful assumptions? Apparently, this module will explore ‘how racial stereotyping impacts learners, their sense of self-worth and their achievement, and what steps can be taken to resist and unteach them.” If this sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because we have been here before. I think this app is a little bit like the minister with one sermon. The titles might be different, but the message is the same. Every week.

We begin the module with a quote from a paper on unconscious bias, and then wade into stereotyping. No, not the stereotyping of teachers and white people as racists. Of course, it’s the racist stereotypes teachers and schools have. It is argued that these can impact our ability to treat others fairly.

We are then presented with a list of statements which we are asked to complete in our heads. Here are a sample:

  • Men are better at..?
  • Girls like to play with..?
  • Attractive people are often..?
  • Overweight people are..?
  • Maori can be..?
  • Asians are..?

Noticeably absent from the list was the sentence “White people are..?” But I guess our stereotypes about them aren’t likely to impact whether we treat them fairly.

Then we had the obligatory poor-me-teenage-angst quotes from Maori and Pacific Island children about how teachers assume they are no good because of their ethnicity. Really? How would they know? Contrary to leftist opinion, we do not know what is inside other people’s heads. We often assume we know, but we have no access to the mind of another person except through their speech and actions. And even these require interpretation.

Let’s take a look at a couple of the quotes.

“I feel like most teachers don’t particularly think that we islanders are good enough really, from the way they convey to teach.”

and

“At other schools we’re judged like ‘typical Māori girl’. We were labelled at other schools. “

See? Nebulous woe-is-me crap. Teachers in general are a group of people excited to see students succeed. We do not think particular ethnicities are dumb. Then we have this young Tuvaluan/Samoan/Rarotongan chap.

I used to have goals but not now because my teachers were [!@*!] and then I got angry and then in trouble at school and with the law. I don’t have goals. They said things like if you want to leave…leave!

Maybe it wasn’t that this young chap’s teachers were !@*!. Perhaps this kid is just a pill. Sounds like he wants to blame someone or something else for his problems with the law, which is typical of human nature and a big issue in the criminal class.

So maybe stereotyping isn’t the big problem it’s made out to be. When I saw the “Men are better at…” statement, I immediately thought soccer! Stereotypes exist because we are able to see trends and patterns. We see that often Asian parents are very focused on the academic success of their children. We do see that Pakeha parents often complain about schools and teachers when their children aren’t happy. We do see these things. But we are not robots. We are able to account for children and individuals who do not fit the norms of these patterns we see. We are able to treat children as individuals. As a teacher, I have taught some lazy and disinterested children. It’s frustrating, and occasionally that frustration is going to be visible to those children. Yet I can assure my dear readers that the frustration is never at ethnicity, but at laziness and disinterest.

In the wrap up of this module, we are directed to a resource that will enable us to reflect on the biases, stereotypes and assumptions we and our learners have. One point they make is that “frequently stereotypical representations of self and others foster and maintain racism”. Is this true? Are stereotypes (which by their very nature are some reflection of general realities) something that foster racism? Is it racist to note that many Pakeha parents march up to the school office when their precious teen daughter is upset? Is it racist to note that many Asian parents are very determined for their progeny to succeed academically? No. Racism is treating a person in an unjust manner because of his race. Can a person have his eyes open to the world and the general realities of life and at the same time treat people fairly. Without a doubt.

The main part of the resource encourages teachers to think critically about resources they use and create for classroom learning. Specifically, it challenges teachers to think about how different ethnicities are represented. It’s a pity our educational elites don’t apply some of this thinking to their own representation of Maori and Pacific learners, which as I’ve noted elsewhere, always tends to present them in cultural garb dancing. While there is nothing wrong with thinking about the different ethnic groups you have in your classroom and trying to ensure the resources you use, and posters you have on classroom walls reflect some of that diversity, there is a problem with this kind of thinking. We end up encouraging our children to believe that their core identity is tied to something that is skin deep. It amounts to saying that a white child is not going to be interested in learning about Ancient Egyptian culture because it doesn’t reflect him. Or that a Pacific Island child cannot be interested in classical music or opera, because these reflect other ethnicities. Can an Asian child identify with a positive portrayal of a white child? Can a white child identify with the positive portrayal of a black child? Of course, because they are all children. That commonality is more important than the small difference that skin tone makes.

Four Aspects of Training Parents are Responsible For

A biblical view of education holds parents, and particularly fathers responsible for the training of children. At the end of the day, fathers will stand before God and have to give an account of how their children were trained. So today, we will briefly look at the four aspects of training parents are responsible for.

First of all, we are responsible for what we personally teach our children about God’s world. Christian parents are called by God to train their children to know and love God. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses tells God’s people, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Godly parents do not just love God with all their heart, soul and might, they teach that love to their children. Here in Deuteronomy, this is framed as an all of life thing. This teaching happens everywhere.

So secondly, we should see that as parents we are responsible for what we model to our children. So much of teaching goes beyond the words we say. It is the model we provide. For instance, as parents we might teach that we should obey God rather than men, but if our interactions with others indicate an unhealthy fear of man and we are unable to stand up for truth when it counts, we are providing our children with a mixed message lesson.

Thirdly, as parents we are responsible for the teachers we place over our children through avenues such as school and sport. This matters. When we as parents place our child under the tutelage of another adult, we do not magically hand our responsibility over. It’s not as if God’s understanding of the family shifts in this instant. No, fathers are still the heads of their household, and they are still responsible at this point too. Now, this should have implications for who we decide to place in teaching authority over our children. Jesus himself pointed out, “The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.” Is your child’s atheist teacher at school who you want your child to be like? Is the coach who teaches children to ‘look deep inside themselves for strength’ helpful to your child’s spiritual formation?

Finally, we are responsible for the indirect teaching that happens to our children based on what our children do in their spare time. This is perhaps the area we as parents think least about. The most obvious example of danger here is in our children’s discretionary screen time. Most of us are careful about who we let come around and babysit our children. Most of us want our children’s school teachers to be men and women of integrity. Are we applying this to the digital realm? We wouldn’t let a transgender or LGBT activist into our house to lecture our children about affirming a friend who is ‘coming out’. Nor would we let a woman into our house who had the design of performing a strip-tease show or demonstrating sexual positions. And yet, without proper parental responsibility in the area of screens, we may be actually unintentionally allowing these things.

So there you have it. We are responsible for not only what we teach and model to our children, but also who we place in a teaching position over them, and also the indirect teaching they receive through what we allow them to do in their spare time. This should drive us to greater thoughtfulness in each of these areas.