As a retired high school teacher, this really resonates. When I started teaching in the '90s, marks and accomplishments still meant something. There were still somewhat objective standards. Gradually over the years, self esteem started to take precedence over standards. One principal actually said to one of my colleagues, "Your job is not to prepare these students for university, it's to prevent them from quitting school." This was in Canada in the mid 2000s. By the time I retired a couple of years ago, I felt that objective standards were almost completely gone. I was ordered to use specific phrases on students who were having behaviour problems and not to discipline them. I was ordered to pass students who did almost no work. I was forced to justify teaching the curriculum at an academic level to students who absolutely refused to attend class or submit assignments (I was told by an administrator, "People are saying that there is simply no way to pass your class"). Meanwhile, gifted and hardworking students in that very same class were pulling marks of 90 or even 100. Students who were struggling were given one-on-one attention until their essays improved (this was a public, not a private school). I told all of the students in the class that I would spend every lunch hour helping them with their writing if they wanted it. Only a few students took me up on it. They all got at least 90% in the course. My "reward" for all of this hard work? The course was cancelled for the following year because so many students dropped it because it was clear that they actually had to do work in order to pass. Unfortunately, that is simply not cool in today's educational climate.
This was wonderful. Brilliantly written and so insightful.
I'm a conservative but look forward to reading more of your perspective. All of my Substack subscriptions are with left-leaning journalists, because I recognize the danger of only listening to people who agree with me about everything. I think that's a big part of what's wrong with this country. We're all stuck in our own echo chambers.
Tara, I did not know who you were until my son forwarded the piece about your resignation from CBC. I've appreciated getting the "Lean Out" releases since then and I'm hopeful that you will truly be an Island of Reason in this Sea of Insanity into which our society is degenerating. If I see more of pieces of this quality I will start forwarding them to my circle and I will seriously consider a paid subscription.
I would be more able to accept and rationalize a situation where aliens from Plant-X swarmed the nation and staged a REAL insurrection taking over government, schools and the media to program the population into their alien cult beliefs. This woke stuff is beyond weird. It is the most absurd fake scholarship that history has ever bestowed upon us. It reminds me of a sort of mythic pagan orthodoxy brewed up by witches.... but in this case the non-believers are soon to be burned at the stake.
The origins of this stuff... 1970s French and German collectivists upset about communism's failures but incapable of admitting they were just wrong about everything... got desperately creative to deflect and excuse the collapse of their utopian dreams... to make up this thing called Critical Theory. It was so absurd then that nobody would worry about it then. And nobody would worry about it later either. Until now we should be alarmed and terrified about it.
To hell with COVID. The actual virus risking the crash of humanity is this woke bug. It needs to be exterminated from the vocabulary and those stuck in the cult will need some committed sanitation to get them clean once again.
All this talk about doing away with any standards of excellence(or Any standards at all for that matter?)can be traced to postmodernist thought. It is literally "deconstructing" all culture and replacing it with Identity politics. It's terrible?!
"The documentary is about a Los Angeles public school trying to force Steele to check a racial box for his multiracial son Jack."
You mean the GOVERNMENT is forcing people to assign themselves to a "race"?? Why, that would mean that our GOVERNMENT is imposing racism and racial politics....
I appreciate you taking the courageous stand you did. I hope others will follow your lead.
I am glad to know about you now and I look forward to following you here on Substack.
Thank you for this great interview. Eli Steele and his father, Shelby Steele, are both courageous as well.
If you have the bandwidth, it would be great to see an interview with Pastor Brooks, who is a hero, role model and inspiration. I hope that others around the country will step up and replicate in their own communities what he’s doing in his.
I ready Shelby Steele yea these many years ago. And his brother Claude. Most of my early work was aimed at increasing the number of Black and Hispanic students graduating with distinction in STEM majors at the collegiate level. It was wildly successful. It could not happen today. I am white (sound of buzzer) and the faculty I worked with would all be at an anti-racism workshop.
We should also take note of other destructive, past forms of *white* identity politics: the post-Civil War South and its romance with the Lost Cause, for example. (See: D. W. Griffiths' Birth of a Nation. There's also Gone with the Wind, although it's toned down in the 1939 movie, after many complaints.) It's just destructive all around. It took from the 1880s to the 1950s for most white southerners to start figuring this out, although some had already.
There's nothing irrational about identity: it just is what it is. Identity politics is inherently irrational.
“Where will they work? “ good question Tara. Here is an insight as to what the future will look like for many people who have been victims of inadequate public Education systems.
For your info, my wife, her mother and father, and my mother and father were all teachers in the Ontario public Education system. I in the Information Technology sector as a Professional Recruiter for 35 years and have interviewed over 10,000 IT professionals. My life lens on the topic is better than most.
If you want to talk about this, call me at 647 309-7817.
I want to be a Citizen. I do not want to be a "Consumer of Services". As a citizen, I would like to engage with my fellow citizens and decide together how we are going to live our shared lives. To do so is to work hard, and take a lot of risks, as I will have discover about my fellow citizens and by so doing create a shared destiny in the fabric of our lives.
I know that my fellow citizens see the world in very different ways, but that is what makes being human interesting
As a retired high school teacher, this really resonates. When I started teaching in the '90s, marks and accomplishments still meant something. There were still somewhat objective standards. Gradually over the years, self esteem started to take precedence over standards. One principal actually said to one of my colleagues, "Your job is not to prepare these students for university, it's to prevent them from quitting school." This was in Canada in the mid 2000s. By the time I retired a couple of years ago, I felt that objective standards were almost completely gone. I was ordered to use specific phrases on students who were having behaviour problems and not to discipline them. I was ordered to pass students who did almost no work. I was forced to justify teaching the curriculum at an academic level to students who absolutely refused to attend class or submit assignments (I was told by an administrator, "People are saying that there is simply no way to pass your class"). Meanwhile, gifted and hardworking students in that very same class were pulling marks of 90 or even 100. Students who were struggling were given one-on-one attention until their essays improved (this was a public, not a private school). I told all of the students in the class that I would spend every lunch hour helping them with their writing if they wanted it. Only a few students took me up on it. They all got at least 90% in the course. My "reward" for all of this hard work? The course was cancelled for the following year because so many students dropped it because it was clear that they actually had to do work in order to pass. Unfortunately, that is simply not cool in today's educational climate.
This was wonderful. Brilliantly written and so insightful.
I'm a conservative but look forward to reading more of your perspective. All of my Substack subscriptions are with left-leaning journalists, because I recognize the danger of only listening to people who agree with me about everything. I think that's a big part of what's wrong with this country. We're all stuck in our own echo chambers.
Wishing you great success with this new endeavor.
Readers should know that the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) is now also in Canada, with chapters across the country. Sign up at:
fairforall.org/join-us/
Include your postal code, or (better yet) sign up at fairforall.org/volunteer, if you want to get involved with a chapter.
If you just want to learn more about FAIR, check out:
fairforall.org/about/
Tara, I did not know who you were until my son forwarded the piece about your resignation from CBC. I've appreciated getting the "Lean Out" releases since then and I'm hopeful that you will truly be an Island of Reason in this Sea of Insanity into which our society is degenerating. If I see more of pieces of this quality I will start forwarding them to my circle and I will seriously consider a paid subscription.
I would be more able to accept and rationalize a situation where aliens from Plant-X swarmed the nation and staged a REAL insurrection taking over government, schools and the media to program the population into their alien cult beliefs. This woke stuff is beyond weird. It is the most absurd fake scholarship that history has ever bestowed upon us. It reminds me of a sort of mythic pagan orthodoxy brewed up by witches.... but in this case the non-believers are soon to be burned at the stake.
The origins of this stuff... 1970s French and German collectivists upset about communism's failures but incapable of admitting they were just wrong about everything... got desperately creative to deflect and excuse the collapse of their utopian dreams... to make up this thing called Critical Theory. It was so absurd then that nobody would worry about it then. And nobody would worry about it later either. Until now we should be alarmed and terrified about it.
To hell with COVID. The actual virus risking the crash of humanity is this woke bug. It needs to be exterminated from the vocabulary and those stuck in the cult will need some committed sanitation to get them clean once again.
Thanks - I look forward to checking out Steele's movie
LOVE work by Eli Steel and his dad, Shelby!
All this talk about doing away with any standards of excellence(or Any standards at all for that matter?)can be traced to postmodernist thought. It is literally "deconstructing" all culture and replacing it with Identity politics. It's terrible?!
"The documentary is about a Los Angeles public school trying to force Steele to check a racial box for his multiracial son Jack."
You mean the GOVERNMENT is forcing people to assign themselves to a "race"?? Why, that would mean that our GOVERNMENT is imposing racism and racial politics....
Tara,
I appreciate you taking the courageous stand you did. I hope others will follow your lead.
I am glad to know about you now and I look forward to following you here on Substack.
Thank you for this great interview. Eli Steele and his father, Shelby Steele, are both courageous as well.
If you have the bandwidth, it would be great to see an interview with Pastor Brooks, who is a hero, role model and inspiration. I hope that others around the country will step up and replicate in their own communities what he’s doing in his.
All the best!
I ready Shelby Steele yea these many years ago. And his brother Claude. Most of my early work was aimed at increasing the number of Black and Hispanic students graduating with distinction in STEM majors at the collegiate level. It was wildly successful. It could not happen today. I am white (sound of buzzer) and the faculty I worked with would all be at an anti-racism workshop.
We should also take note of other destructive, past forms of *white* identity politics: the post-Civil War South and its romance with the Lost Cause, for example. (See: D. W. Griffiths' Birth of a Nation. There's also Gone with the Wind, although it's toned down in the 1939 movie, after many complaints.) It's just destructive all around. It took from the 1880s to the 1950s for most white southerners to start figuring this out, although some had already.
There's nothing irrational about identity: it just is what it is. Identity politics is inherently irrational.
“Where will they work? “ good question Tara. Here is an insight as to what the future will look like for many people who have been victims of inadequate public Education systems.
https://horizons.gc.ca/en/2020/02/11/exploring-biodigital-convergence/?fbclid=IwAR1fGgDUDiUBpwMWZEA8gtQQcxlIQ5w_YsI_DvczmVLGT-1r1iNcLSmV22I
For your info, my wife, her mother and father, and my mother and father were all teachers in the Ontario public Education system. I in the Information Technology sector as a Professional Recruiter for 35 years and have interviewed over 10,000 IT professionals. My life lens on the topic is better than most.
If you want to talk about this, call me at 647 309-7817.
Love Shelby Steele's message.
I want to be a Citizen. I do not want to be a "Consumer of Services". As a citizen, I would like to engage with my fellow citizens and decide together how we are going to live our shared lives. To do so is to work hard, and take a lot of risks, as I will have discover about my fellow citizens and by so doing create a shared destiny in the fabric of our lives.
I know that my fellow citizens see the world in very different ways, but that is what makes being human interesting
Looks like just the dvd option in Canada