A Disaster Groundhog Day

A few decades ago I watched a video in a class about a Black female musician answering the question how to stop all the racism and sexism in songs at a time when Eminem was using the "N" word liberally. 

She said she doesn't waste her efforts on stopping others: "I just make sure to put something else out there in the airwaves." That quote is from memory and likely pretty accurate. I can't find that specific interview, but I was able to coax out the details from my brain with google's help: the band is Sweet Honey in the Rock, and the woman in the video was Bernice Johnson Reagon. I was looking for the "Messages of Hate" portion of Bill Moyer's interview with her, but it costs $100 to access on a page titled "The Songs are Free"! Oh, the irony!

The course was with Dr. Carol Duncan, in her first year teaching there, and it's one of those courses that has stayed with me forever. It was also where I learned about The History of Mary Prince, and tried to use it as a reading in my history class but was dissuaded from talking about the Black experience as a white woman. So it went untaught by anybody.

As I was leaving her classroom after watching that powerful video, another professor in the program stopped to chat with me. He motioned to Dr. Duncan, a Black woman, and said, "Too bad she wasn't in a wheelchair or we'd get a three for one!"

Unbelievable. 

Recent to this time, in 1995, the Employment Equity Act had just been amended and strengthened. That type of comment was the pushback. 

The racist and sexist messaging is everywhere. And we can't chase it all down. We have to just keep putting something else out there. It's pretty much what Tolstoy was on about. 

I can't fight all the messaging that says climate change is going to benefit us or that Covid is mild or just a cold. There is no end to that nonsense. It would use up all my energy to try to combat it, and it would also have very little effect. So instead, I just keep trying to put something else out there. And I find and highlight the good stuff that other people are putting out there too, like these: 

For all the Fierce Raindrops: Lessons that Should Have Been Learned

Changing minds on big issues takes a long time and the work never ends. 

Anti-drinking and driving groups appeared in the early 1980s, like MADD, typically made up of survivors or relatives of victims who saw first hand that something must be done to prevent so many disabilities and deaths. I was a teenager at the time, and my circle didn't think twice about driving hammered. I remember people saying things like these boring old ladies should get a life and stop telling us when we can and can't drive! We were all pretty sure we could drive just fine after a few. Who are they to tell us otherwise? Breathalizer legislation was on the books in the 60s, and RIDE programs were legal in the 70s, but it wasn't until MADD came about that we got flooded with school visits and PSAs and then really strict penalties were enacted for drunk driving including jail time! And they we all sobered up about it, realizing our inconvenience in staying the night or going back to get the car in the morning doesn't really warrant potentially taking a life. 

Wheelchair ramps weren't an architectural requirement in public buildings until the 90s, but only after people with disabilities and allies fought for their rights to fully participate in society over decades, starting with Judy Heumann's winning lawsuit in 1970 against the NY Board of Ed that was preventing her equal access to the workplace because she uses a wheelchair. That was following by blocking traffic that got a weak bill passed, and then sit-ins that eventually forced politicians to listen and act. Check out Crip Camp, where activist Denise Jacobson said, "You can pass a law, but until you change society's attitude, that law won't mean much." And now we generally agree that everyone should have access to participate fully in society despite any form of disability. Right???

Early AIDS activists watched friends and loved ones die for years before they could get enough of an audience to have an effect on policy. "Sickness and death from HIV/AIDS was brought to a virtual standstill in the USA . . . by a vigorous public health campaign designed not around treating those who became infected, but by preventing infection in the first place." But it took years of activism, from 1979 to 1986, and many celebrities dying and children dying before public health started to issue PSAs, to actually teach the nation how to prevent the spread.

It takes a really long time to convince governments to impose safety measures that, in some way, affect people's freedom to do their own thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing on its own. to be careful about legislation, but it's very frustrating to be living during the activism phase watching so many children get sick. We've got children dying of Covid already. And lots of celebrities. But there's a huge coverup or spin or denial that has people claiming that, for instance, a fatal heart-attack at 13, 17, 27, and 44, all within a day of each other, is totally normal now. When my healthy friend succumbed to a heart attack in his early 60s, people were so fast to say that people die of heart attacks in their 60s all the time!! Instead of, you know, sorry for your loss. It's all ABC: Anything but Covid.

Teaching the Conflict

If I were explaining it all to a class of 15-18 year olds - and I would because they need to know, here's what I would say: my imperfect lesson with my own stance front and centre but wide open for debate and disagreement, and in a way that would just take up just one class because kids need help to understand the issues and a place to openly discuss it and ask questions, but without it overriding the curriculum significantly.

Remember being told "two wrongs don't make a right"? It was a probably a long time ago. I haven't heard the saying in eons. But I think we need to bring it back. Consider what you think. 

First, some backstory. This is the clearest brief video I could find, but be aware it's seven years old. 

Love Wins Over Hate

On social media, my Covid posts have suddenly lost all their troll-drawing capacity. The angry mob has moved on to bombard people's 2SLGBTQIA+ posts. Just a few months ago, just mentioning the word "mask" was considered divisive and harmful to the very fabric of society. Some people wanted to get me for it. Now it's divisive to condemn hate. 

This comes as no surprise. The messaging around parental rights has way more tractions as a means to divide groups, you know, like if anyone had some warped desire to form a militia of some kind. Jus' sayin'. All parents have an innate drive to protect their children from perceived harms, so that parental rights messaging really works in their favour to find more of a rabid following than masks restrict freedom ever possibly could. In this regard, the mantra of "parental rights" is pure genius!! 

On Parental Rights

It's not a thing.

Well, legally it's not. There are no "parental rights" section of the charter to defend. It's a thing as in it's a dogwhistle to see how many are on board with discrimination and preventing kids from growing up to be who they are, in a method just shy of conversion camps. Parents don't actually have the right to override their child's choice of pronouns or name, as is well explained by Cyril Cinder:

@cyrilcinder

uuuugggghhhhh... Really? the day after Capital Pride?

♬ original sound - Cyril Cinder

So far Lecce has just stated his belief that parents should be involved in any change of name or pronoun. I believe that's ideal as well. But it's not a parents right. Parents can't demand to override the rights of their children, which include the rights to privacy. 

Parents can, however, kick their kids out of the house, emotionally abuse them, hit them if they're under 18 (still no anti-spanking laws on the books), and otherwise make their lives miserable if somehow the parents have come to value the views of the new conservative cult over their own child's happiness and well-being. 

So if teachers start outing trans kids to their parents, that's what the result could be. 

Extremist Group Criteria

A mom delegated at a school board meeting in the states about the group, Moms for Liberty. Here's the Tiktok video (but also at the link in case - I wish TikTok embedded more reliably):

@nowthispolitics A mother in Wilson County, TN, read out some of the homophobic and demeaning messages her 6th grade daughter had received at school, simply for identifying as lesbian. The woman, Lindsey Patrick-Wright, was speaking out against a push, led by the far-right group Moms For Liberty, to ban several books in the school district. She also spoke out against a board member who had equated being LGBTQIA+ to mental illness and who had proposed a policy forcing teachers to notify parents if a student came out to them as transgender. #tennessee #LGBTQIA+ #school #news #momsforliberty ♬ [News] Music for news programs 10 mystery solving(1417504) - Takashi

Truth Matters commented:

"What kind of despicable animals take their political wars to the classrooms of public schools? Moms for Liberty my ass; they should be called Moms for Tyranny. Schools should be sanctuaries for learning, but the MAGA Cartel has turned classrooms into killing fields with their inaction on gun control. Not satisfied with that, they want to turn them into Christian Nationalist indoctrination centers, where hate, homophobia and racism is injected into the curriculum."

Earlier this month, The Hill explained how Moms for Liberty is an extremist organization started in Florida in 2021:

Initially focused on mask mandates and other Covid-19 restrictions in schools, the organization is now dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by . . . empowering parents to defend their parental rights. . . . More than half of the 500 candidates endorsed by the organization were elected to school boards . . . a major player in the war against so-called 'woke' instruction related to gender identity, sexuality, race and racism. . . .

ASD Assessments

Assessments for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are sometimes a piece of work. I'll look at two of them here.  As a reminder, everyone with ASD is really different from one another. If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism. The diagnostic categories are general and symptoms can be incredibly broad. 

The ASSQ is about 25 years old but still used today. It's to be completed by people who live or work with the person in question. It mainly just asks, "Is this person weird?" Check out the use of language: Do they behave in a way that's eccentric, idiosyncratic, with a deviant style of communication, fussy, old-fashioned, robot-like, with a deviant gaze, unusual facial expressions, ungainly, awkward, bullied by others yet surprisingly good at some things, and, of course, lacking empathy.

Lacks empathy is a highly contentious item on ASD assessments. Many people with ASD have no problems experiencing profound empathy, and many are even empaths or highly-sensitive individuals (HSIs). The belief that there's no empathy in place is sometimes from misunderstood social cues, but sometimes it's from an expressionless reaction (flat affect) to a person despite a whole host of empathetic feelings going on internally. Communication differences for people with ASD can be in receiving or sending unspoken information.

The Charter's not a Buffet

Trudeau spoke to parents concerned with their right to decide what their children are taught in schools. The group of Muslim parents were very worried about the "gender ideology" being forced on their children. The reporter called his answer evasive. Listen for yourself; here's what he said in full,

"I've heard this concern many, many times, and I know that it is a very real issue. First of all, there is an awful lot of misinformation and disinformation out there are people on social media, particularly fueled by the American right-wing, who are spreading a lot of untruths about what's actually in the provincial curriculums. The federal government doesn't control what's taught in the schools. That's the provincial government that controls what's taught in schools. That's not something that is directly on the federal government. But at the same time, the federal government is unequivocal about standing for everybody's rights and freedoms. And the highest expression of parental rights is, of course, the safety and well-being of the child. Your concern with the community is, broadly, safety, the well-being and strengthening the protection for your children. I entirely understand that. 

The one thing that is really, really important in Canada, is, we're a place that stands up for everybody's rights, and certainly when it comes to the Muslim community. We were the government that pushed back against the conservatives that, you know, made a political campaign against the niqab, that brought in a snitch line against Muslims. You know, the Islamophobia pushed by the previous conservative government, in a whole bunch of different ways, was something that we all have stood against. Now, this government has and will always be the strongest ally to all minority communities, including particularly Muslims who have faced terrible violence. And when you look at the black Muslim women in Edmonton who were attacked, that is the Islamophobia that we absolutely have to stand against. 

The issue though, is that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protects your religion gives you the freedom of religion, allows you to fully participate in the society that gives you all the protections, protects all minorities as well. And it's not a buffet. You can't get the protections you want out of the charter and leave aside others. Standing up for people's rights means standing up for everybody's rights. 

Plus C'est la Même Chose

It's the 80s all over again. We've got a killer virus that people are largely ignoring despite a small group of people continuing to fight for protections and medications. We've got a big conflict with Russia that could affect us in a nuclear sort of way. And now we've got a lone man walking into a university Philosophy of Gender class with intent to do some damage. He stabbed the professor and two students before being caught by police. 

I was writing an essay for class while this happened on Wednesday, and I was sitting in a large auditorium class in my undergrad during the Montréal Massacre. 

Here's one student's account of the events:

It took no time at all before we started hearing the lone wolf rhetoric. And people talk about mental illness and if this attacker is the cause of this type of violence. 

He's just a player or a pawn, depending on his connections and motives.

Trans Rights are Human Rights

The trans community isn't safe in Canada, that's why Pride month is necessary. And there's no straight month because nobody has ever been discriminated against for being straight! Last week I said, "a glance towards Florida should be enough for the rest of us to recognize this anti-pride position as absolutely terrifying!" But I should have looked closer to home.

A pastor in my city recently told his congregation, "If you're going to live a lie to the point where you're willing to mutilate your own body, it's going to send you into dark despair." 

He was referring to the death by suicide of a Redeemer University student, Bekett Noble, back in November 2022. Noble had fought with the school about the climate of intolerance there. Shortly after their death, over forty students came forward with complaints about Redeemer, calling their time there "the darkest period of my life" and calling the culture there, which included policies "forbidding same-sex intimacy," "agony" and terrifying for 2SLGBTQIA+ students. The students at the school believe the school's climate of intolerance is what led to the suicide, not their trans identity. 

Here's what I've seen in my many encounters with people who are transgender and from working with students in general. Being trans can be part of a happy, fulfilling life. Being ostracized, humiliated, and discriminated against on an ongoing basis can lead to depression and self-loathing. Try to meet up with and listen to at least ten trans men, trans women, and/or non-binary people before committing to condemning them or preventing them from having access to care. 

This is going to be a long one.

Conformity Experiments

 

This image comes from a century ago, of course. It's still very hard to be different, but sometimes it's vital.

When I taught a course called the Challenge of Change, I offered up a number of challenges along the way. Students who were uncomfortable participating in any of them were allowed the alternative option of writing a brief paragraph explaining their reluctance. Some took that option, but most participated. 

The first challenge came with our discussion of the differences between Functionalism and Conflict Theory perspectives, one leaning towards maintaining the status quo to avoid anomie which can lead to an increase in suicides; the other critiquing that theory as a way to perpetuate a system that benefits those at the top of the status hierarchy. We brainstorm current norms that are beneficial, neutral, or harmful. That list always included some still-too-rigid gender binary norms including, "Guys have to pay for dinner." Then I ask them to break a norm that doesn't benefit anyone in any way, maybe one that actually harms us or holds us back from being our most authentic selves! 

The why: Often it's perfectly fine to blindly follow social norms, but sometimes, every once in a while, it can permit atrocities to happen: from cruel conspiracies against that one person in your friend group that's a little different to genocidal actions to nuclear war! So it's absolutely vital to be able to think about the norms we follow and, from time to time, to break the less useful ones just to make sure we still can. We need to practice non-conformity to make sure we can do it if we need to, and it's always wise to take a minute to think, "Do I really agree with this?" before acting.

I've been basically practicing for this my whole life in an army jacket and hippie dresses. So is anyone punk or with purple hair, etc. Although the challenge is to do something out of the ordinary for you, which might mean the goth kids shows up with very mainstream hair for a day.

On Keeping Kids "Safe" From Pride

Student Trustee Kenzy Soror wrote an excellent, brief thread on the problem with parents keeping their children home because it's pride day or month:

"I take great concern with the decision of some families to 'keep' WRDSB students at home on June 1st. I hope that those who made this decision realize that LGBTQ+ students will still exist in schools on June 2nd and going forward. We should all realize how unfair it is for students to be left with the task of justifying their own families' choices to their peers - some of which who are inevitably feeling targeted by said choice. Students are not pawns to be kept or released in an effort to make a point."

It was followed by a bunch of comments that more or less say: 

"Your concern is valid, but their choice and right to keep kids home during prime month is also valid. Respect parents' right to say 'no' to minor children."

And one good comment reacting to the haters:

"Seriously? And what if their children actually turned out to be LGBTQ? Might actually be hiding that from their parents? This has become so wrong. So much progress undone by bigots."

Absolutely! Suggesting that it's reasonable to keep children away during pride month when being gay/bi/trans.. is celebrated is akin to suggesting it's reasonable to keep kids away during Black history month, when Black people throughout history are celebrated. It reeks of unfettered prejudices that some see as acceptable. A glance towards Florida should be enough for the rest of us to recognize this anti-pride position as absolutely terrifying! 

Transphobia is the New Homophobia

Natalie Wynn, one of my favourite YouTubers, came out with a 2-hour long video, basically a feature-length film, her first in 10 months. This one is on J.K. Rowling, whom she discussed two years ago (and I wrote about here if you need to catch up on the controversy). 

This time she goes further into the connections between the homophobic and transphobic movements, comparing Anita Bryant in the 70s to Rowling now, to show that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I remember Bryant's commercials for orange juice from my childhood and my parents' reaction to her religious campaign to save children from the gays: Religion shouldn't be used to perpetuate hatred against a group of people; that misses the whole point! Bryant's argument is that gay people get special privileges if they are given extra rights (like, to live free from discrimination) that go against the rights of "normal Americans," and since they can't procreate, they "reproduce through recruitment." They hold hands in public to get your children to try to join them!! 

But then Bryant was blacklisted for "defending children from being recruited by homosexuals" and lost her job as spokesperson with Florida Orange Juice. Wynn questions, Was she cancelled?? Or was she just reaping the consequences of being a bigoted person in a progressive society?

Wynn looks more deeply at Bryant's effect on society, quoting Lillian Fadermen, from The Gay Revolution:

"A mass movement can get along fine without a god, but it won't get along at all without a devil. For gay people all over the country, Anita Bryant became that devil."

Leading by Example or What's Good for the Goose...

This is about the Davos World Economic Forum, ending tomorrow. Social media is all atwitter with the incredible precautions they pulled off. Check out their rules here. It's three pages (!!!) of Covid rules and mitigations. Some highlights here:

"To create a safe environment at the Annual Meeting 2023, the Forum is working with the world's leading health experts and virologists. . . . The Forum strongly recommends that participants are vaccinated with the latest available vaccines and take a COVID-19 test before travelling to Davos. Participants are required to get tested in one of the Forum testing centres after arriving . . . with a PCR test. . . . If you fail to conduct a test, your badge will automatically be deactivated. . . . . Masks and disinfectants will be available throughout. . . . State-of-the-art ventilation systems have been installed"

And their masks are FFP2, similar to our N95s. They're not fooling around! On top of the PCR test, "Rapid antigen tests will be available free of charge . . . If you do not feel well, please take a self-tests."

Problems with IHRA

After receiving literally hundreds of emails on this topic, starting before I was even elected, I watched this excellent panel discussion tonight about IHRA presented by Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and Ground UP Waterloo Region, and featuring Fitsum Areguy, Greg Bird, Jasmin Zine, Sheryl Nestel, Mark Ayyash, and Shatha AbuAhmad. 

IHRA is shorthand for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism. Here's some of what I heard and understood from it all so far:

The working definition says,

"Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

The concern with the definition involves contention with some of the illustrative examples of anti-semitism, for instance, "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." or "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis." 

Some of the examples provided (see more here) conflate a typical understanding of prejudice against a Jewish person with disagreement over actions taken by the Israeli government. 

Teachable Moments: Should Schools Teach About Covid?

 I've been talking with parents who are trying desperately to keep their kids safe in the classroom. It sounds like most staff and students are unmasked despite higher Covid numbers in the hospital and higher fatality rates than last year at this time. It doesn't have to be like this.

A big part of the problem is the type of messaging that says something like this: "Please understand and be tolerant of classmates who are still wearing masks." It makes it clear, subversively, that NOT wearing a mask is the normal thing to do. But shouldn't schools be teaching the facts about Covid?? We should expect students to come home educated about what's happening in the world around them as it affects them. When recycling was brought in to our cities, they targeted kids in grades 2-5 to bring the message home to parents, and it worked! In some science classes, people are learning how Corsi-Rosenthal boxes work, but they're still not allowed in our board. But here are some other options for lessons in the classroom to develop an educated populous.

First, kids need to understand a bit about how politics works and why Biden might suggest the pandemic's over despite averaging 500 deaths/day in the U.S. right now, which is more than a 9/11 tragedy every week.

A Really Deep Dive into Anti-CRT Rhetoric

This will be a long one, but I'll break it into headings (after this preamble) for easier bit-at-a-time reading!

There's a division among school board trustees and some parents around the best way to tackle discrimination to ensure the best outcome for students and society. The board currently has been providing anti-racism education to staff, and many teachers discuss discrimination in various ways in their classrooms, but now we're seeing some backlash against these policies. It's happening in other boards as well, and it's starting to feel like an organized movement. Taking the most charitable view possible of the backlash, which is at various times part of the "FAIR" movement, anti-CRT (critical race theory), anti-anti-racism, and/or anti-2SLGBTQ+ books in the library, those opposing anti-racism education might be well-meaning and don't necessarily harbour racist or homophobic/transphobic views at all, but they have a different solution to discrimination than is currently outlined by the board. Remember that's the most charitable perception of this perspective. From what I've seen so far, however, their solution hasn't been overtly described, so I've been left to piece together that they're hoping to end discrimination by no longer discussing it. That summation might be in error, so I'm open to hearing a more comprehensive plan of action. 

If it is an accurate summary of their stance, then here are the two positions we're exploring in our goal to reduce discrimination and dismantle roadblocks for marginalized groups:

1. Anti-Racism Education: Educate teachers on implicit bias to ensure fair treatment of students and assessments in the classroom, and educate students on implicit bias as well as systemic discrimination and intersectionality to help them understand how some people are able to get further in their field with less effort and mitigate those embedded structural components. 
2. FAIR: Stop discussing CRT, privilege, intersectionality or discrimination in order to help all students feel equal. 

As a teacher and parent, instead of telling people what not to do, I've found it's generally more effective to tell them what to do. For instance, instead of "don't stand on the chair," we tell kids: "feet on the floor." It saves a whole host of misunderstandings and corrections. From an amalgamation of sources including board meetings here and elsewhere, I've heard that we shouldn't discuss CRT or offer diversity training or use present day discrimination to make up for past discrimination. It's not entirely clear to me what the concerns are, though, or what we should be doing to foster a fair and inclusive classroom experience for all students beside just not discussing any problems. 

If my understanding of their solution is accurate, that we shouldn't discuss racism in the classroom or allow access to books about trans experiences or same sex unions in our schools, then that makes about as much sense to me as hoping to decrease pregnancy rates by not talking to kids about sex -- or, a more current example, as much sense as hoping to end Covid transmission by claiming it's over and removing all protective measures. Some anti-CRT delegates have attempted to show evidence that our current practices don't work, but I've seen no research suggesting that just ignoring it all has a remotely positive effect. To change paths we'd need to see that talking to kids about these issues, also known as educating them, is detrimental, and that staying silent is beneficial. 

My concern is that pretending that racism and homophobia and transphobia and same sex marriages, and trans experiences don't exist, a lack of education on these issues, will increase discrimination over time from creating a fear of the unknown and just plain ignorance. The idea that prejudices are alleviated through knowledge has been with us for decades if not centuries, so this recent challenge to that understanding has provoked eye-rolling and exasperation instead of a thorough exploration. On top of that, CRT on its own is a bit of an American far right dogwhistle, which is what, I believe, led the board to avoid the topic, understandably, instead of doing a deep dive.

But let's actually take a look! (That was just the preamble!)

On Anti-Racist Education Provoking Bullying of White Kids

Addressing a local concern about bullying:

I'm very sorry to hear about any child's bullying experience in school. Bullying of any kind has no place in our schools, but we've seen that it can be so difficult to eradicate. Kids will jump on any little thing in order to try out their power over others, and that has to be nipped in the bud by school staff or, perhaps even better, from other students who recognize the problem. I experienced bullying myself back in the 60s just because my last name was similar to a popular cartoon villain. When I surveyed grade 12 students on their experiences with bullying each year, almost everyone reports having been bullied in grade school in some way. We have to keep working harder at teaching students what playful teasing of a good friend looks like compared to mean teasing, and we need to implement mediation techniques to work through any harassment or worse treatment beyond just "shake hands and make up" strategies that have shown to be ineffective. 

We Need to Discuss Systemic Racism in Schools

In The Record article, "Waterloo Region District School Board Trustee Mike Ramsay speaks up about sanctions against him," Mr. Ramsay writes that he is concerned that education has shifted from a focus on literacy and numeracy to White Privilege and Critical Race Theory (CRT).

As a teacher at WRDSB this year, it is clear that anti-racist education is definitely part of the board's mandate since significant Professional Development time was provided for teachers to learn about how racial prejudice affects our students, but I have yet to see any evidence that the amount of time discussing race in our schools has in any way remotely outpaced or distracted from teaching curriculum. Our PD aimed to impact any implicit bias that teachers might have, information that is vital to student equity in our classrooms. Understanding prejudice means really understanding that we can never extrapolate information about a group to better understand any one individual within that group. We can't know a person until we get to know them. One PD video in particular, The End of Average!? reiterated that message specifically. The ETFO resource Mr. Ramsay berates, "Rethink, Reconnect, Reimagine," encourages teachers to see all students for who they are, for their unique skills and abilities, and to "create schools where all students are seen and remembered for their diverse identities, experiences, and talents." Becoming better teachers doesn't take any time away from the curriculum.

3QD: Tossing the Canon in a Cannon

 I've started contributing to 3 Quarks Daily once each month. Here's my first:

Tossing the Canon in a Cannon - about choosing philosophers to read that aren't posthumously tainted by racist, sexist, or homophobic commons mixed in with more useful arguments.  

Here it is:

I knew it was coming, yet I was still surprised when it hit my classroom. 

“We shouldn’t be looking at this.”

Students have complained about my course before, certain that they should not be expected to read anything so difficult in a high school philosophy course. The effect of this grumbling can be seen in the watering down of some English courses deciphering Hunger Games instead of Hamlet.  I enjoyed that popular trilogy, and I’m no Shakespeare stan, but I do assert that it’s vital to develop more complex reading skills and close reading habits  in our teenagers with works that demand consideration of each word before they walk out of high school. Too many in our society are losing their ability to sustain attention to the end of a magazine article and grasp the nuances of an ambitious claim to the point of believing radical headlines and letting noxious chants sway their voting habits. So I firmly stand my ground, luring them to continue with the potential reward of being able to impress their friends and destroy their enemies with their enhanced reading superpowers.