FOR HELPING
Senior Professorial Lecturer in the School of Education at American University
FOR HURTING
Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Founder of Vertex Partnership Academies
MODERATOR
Host and Moderator-in-Chief
This week:
- New episode: Do topics around race and gender have a place in classrooms?
- A new tool for learning how to have productive disagreements
- A closer look at Americans’ views on public schools
- Your Sunday reading list
Looking For Ways to Have More Constructive Arguments?
If you like the work we do at Open To Debate, you might also like this free and research-based tool called “Productive Disagreement,” created by ClearerThinking.org. It will not only equip you with techniques to have constructive arguments that are beneficial for your relationships, but it also lets you practice this new knowledge by discussing a controversial topic with an A.I. language model.
The concept of wokeness, critical race theory, and LGBTQ+ issues have been part of our collective consciousness in recent years. As a back-to-school special, we look at its effects in public schools. Following Black Lives Matter and other social movements, some schools now include lessons about race, systematic inequality, sexuality, and gender identity in their curriculum. It is hard to deny that these sensitive topics are important for young people to have some knowledge about, but are K-12 schools the right place for students to learn about these subjects?
Both of our debaters this week are educators who have worked with America’s students in varying capacities. American University lecturer Altheria Caldera, who argues that learning woke subjects helps students, has two decades of experience working as a middle school teacher and in secondary education. She also helps consult schools on how to advance racial equity. Ian Rowe, who argues wokeness initiatives hurt students, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a series of schools located in the Bronx designed around learning the virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom.
The Numbers Reflecting What’s Happening in Public Schools:
- As of this past spring, twenty states have enacted restrictions on how teachers can discuss so-called “divisive concepts” in classrooms, which affects roughly 1.3 million teachers and twenty million students, according to the Brookings Institution.
- A recent study by the RAND Corporation said two-thirds of public school teachers choose on their own, when not subject to state restrictions, to limit what they teach.
- According to a February report by the Pew Research Center, one-third of Black teens feel uncomfortable when racism or inequality is raised in class, compared with 19% of white and 17% of Hispanic students.
- 48% of teens say they shouldn’t learn about gender identity in school, while 54% of Americans think parents should be able to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Does learning about race and gender in school help or hurt students? Are public schools moving in the right direction? All of this will be addressed in this episode, which can be listened to now on your favorite podcast platform, YouTube and our website. As always, let us know what you think.
DEBATING THE DATA
What Should Public Education Be Focusing On Most?
POINT/COUNTERPOINT
Wokeness in Public Schools: Helping or Hurting Students?
FOR HELPING: Altheria Caldera
“To be woke means to be socio-politically aware. It means being conscious of societal injustices and committed to social justice. To believe in the need to be woke, one must first recognize that our society has fallen short of living up to his aspiration of liberty and justice for all… We work to make it more just, and the failure to acknowledge that is the center of the conflict. In public schools, wokeness looks like teachers who integrate examinations of social and political issues that impact the lives of their students… Woke teachers promote inquiry, exploration, analytical thinking, and listening to different perspectives.”
FOR HURTING: Ian Rowe
“Racism and discrimination of many types certainly still exist in our society, and we all need to fight it. But do you know what also exists in our society? Opportunity. America, like each of our young people, has the tools of self-betterment and self-renewal and self-determination within them. Wokeness ignores the tens of millions who thrive in this country every day… because they rejected victimhood and learned that there are pathways to prosperity in the very same systems that woke advocates claim are rigged against them. Thankfully, I have seen what happens when empowering is practiced, when students are treated as individuals with inherent dignity and agency, children who have the capacity to overcome… and young people who ultimately have the ability to lead self-determined lives of meaning and purpose.”
WEEKLY POINTS OF VIEW
Workers Deserve Real Power. Unions Aren’t the Best Way to Get It.
Oren Cass | August 30, 2024
The New York Times
California’s governor has the chance to make AI history
Sigal Samuel, Kelsey Piper, and Dylan Matthews | August 31, 2024
Vox
Watch Sigal’s debate on whether we should erase bad memories
You Better Believe Kamala Harris Is a “Real” American
Dmitri Mehlhorn | September 1, 2024
The New Republic
Watch Dmitri’s debate on whether Biden should step aside
The death of free speech in Britain
Ayaan Hirsi Ali | August 30, 2024
The Spectator
Watch Ayaan’s debate on whether Islam is a religion of peace
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