Remember “Woke Kindergarten”, a lesson plan for teachers to use in instructing propagandizing students in Hayward, California (see posts here and here)? The program was designed by an extreme “progressive” named Akiea “Ki” Gross, who was given $250,000 in taxpayer money by the school. And, lo and behold, performance in English and math actually dropped after the wokeness was sprayed on the students. (To see how completely bonkers this program is, go here or to the program’s website here.) All power to the little people! Sadly, the program appears to be designed for black students and the students are 80% Hispanic.
After an article was published in the San Francisco Chronicle describing the program, there was a huge backlash from people who, properly, thought it was bonkers. So what did the school district do? Did they drop the program? There’s no indication of that. Instead, they did what defies common sense: they put one of the teachers who criticized the program in the article on leave (with pay) for unknown violations. They are actually defending Woke Kindergarten when they should be defunding it. I suspect, however, that we’ll see no more of the program. It’s simply too stupid, woke, and embarrassing.
At any rate, the Chronicle has a new article (click headline below, or find it archived here), discussing the firing and giving the school’s defense.
First, though, this is how the teacher critic was quoted in the first Chronicle article:
Tiger Craven-Neeley said he supports discussing racism in the classroom, but found the Woke Kindergarten training confusing and rigid. He said he was told a primary objective was to “disrupt whiteness” in the school — and that the sessions were “not a place to express white guilt.” He said he questioned a trainer who used the phrasing “so-called United States,” as well as lessons available on the organization’s web site offering “Lil’ Comrade Convos,” or positing a world without police, money or landlords.
Craven-Neeley, who is white and a self-described “gay moderate,” said he wasn’t trying to be difficult when he asked for clarification about disrupting whiteness. “What does that mean?” he said, adding that such questions got him at least temporarily banned from future training sessions. “I just want to know, what does that mean for a third-grade classroom?”
And from the new piece, his punishment for such heresy:
The East Bay teacher who publicly questioned spending $250,000 on an anti-racist teaching training program was placed on administrative leave Thursday, days after he shared his concerns over Woke Kindergarten in the Chronicle.
Hayward Unified School District teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said district officials summoned him to a video conference Thursday afternoon and instructed him to turn in his keys and laptop and not return to his classroom at Glassbrook Elementary until further notice.
They did not give any specifics as to why he was placed on paid leave, other than to say it was over “allegations of unprofessional conduct,” Craven-Neeley said.
District officials declined to comment on his status or any allegations, saying it was a personnel matter.
A defense of Woke Kindergarten from the original article:
District officials defended the program this past week, saying that Woke Kindergarten did what it was hired to do. The district pointed to improvements in attendance and suspension rates, and that the school was no longer on the state watch list, only to learn from the Chronicle that the school was not only still on the list but also had dropped to a lower level.
Defenses in the second article. Yep, they refuse to say that adopting it was a bad move:
District officials declined to comment on their social media posts, given Gross was paid using taxpayer-funded federal dollars.
“We cannot comment on her personal political or social views,” Bazeley said.Some teachers have defended the Woke Kindergarten program, saying that after years of low test scores and academic intervention, they believed in a fresh approach. The training was selected by the school community, with parents and teachers involved in the decision.
“We need to try something else,” said Christina Aguilera, a bilingual kindergarten teacher. “If we just focus on academics, it’s not working. There is no one magic pill that will raise test scores.
“I’m really proud of Glassbrook to have the guts to say this is what our students need,” Aguilera said. “We didn’t just do what everybody expected us to do, and I’m really proud of that.”
Sixth-grade teacher Michele Mason said the Woke Kindergarten training sessions “have been a positive experience” for most of the staff, humanizing the students’ experiences and giving them a voice in their own education.
These are clearly teachers who want to keep their jobs. Finally, a bit about how Craven-Neeley was treated by his colleagues:
The Wednesday staff meeting, however, was tense, Craven-Neeley said, as he tried to explain that before going to the Chronicle, he approached school and district staff as well as the school board to raise questions about the program and the expense, with no response.
“There was so much anger toward me,” he said. “I was explaining my point of view. They were talking over me.”
. . . . Craven-Neeley said the meeting grew tense about an hour in, when another teacher stood up, pointed a finger in his face and said, “ ‘You are a danger to the school or the community,’ and then she walked out of the room.”
Not long after, a district administrator asked him to leave the meeting.
“I was shocked. This is my school. I didn’t do anything inappropriate,” he said. “I left. I was very shaky.”
Another Glassbrook teacher, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions at the school, confirmed that a staff member put a hand in Craven-Neeley’s face and called him a disgrace and a threat to the school.
Craven-Neeley then had a video meeting with school officials and was told he’d be placed on paid leave pending an “investigation”. The university also “denied the district’s actions were related to Craven-Neeley’s participation in the story or his complaints about the program. The district spokesperson added, ‘We would not put any employee on leave as any sort of retaliation or squelch anyone’s free speech rights,” [Michael Bazeley] said’.”
Well that sounds like a flat-out lie to me. What Craven-Neeley said to the Chronicle was indeed free speech, and there’s no other indication of anything else for which he’d be punished. All I can say is that it looks as if Woke Kindergarten affected the teachers (if not the students). They’re all censorious and defensive!
Remember the “woke wonderings” that were part of the program? Here’s one:
The answer, of course, is “not much!”
Well, obviously he is an apostate! How dare he question the orthodoxy? He’s a threat!
Yes, always the sign of a solid position: When questioned, immediately go full ad hominem. /sarcasm
Pants on fire!
Sigh…
“… after years of [problem], they believed in a fresh approach.”
Ah yes, the temptation. How about a bit of plain old simple exercise besides “gym”? Some oxygen, blood flow, move around a bit – no?
I note the aversion to academics, and anticipate critical grading, or a variant of.
Having taught in schools where academic results were low and worsening, I and my colleagues were always on the lookout for the magic bullet which would kill poor performance.
Unfortunately, desperation makes it all too easy to jump from there must be a better way to that is the better way without looking too closely at the evidence and its limitations.
Seems like the teacher needs FIRE.
They suspended the critic and not the programme?! It’s a mad world…l
Time to watch Stand and Deliver again as a necessary corrective.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094027/
The answer to what we could do to keep people safe without the police is clearly bully them since that’s what the teachers did to the heretic teacher. And of course those with the biggest bullies win.
And of course buy more guns.
Yea because that helps with being the bigger bully.
The only thing that stops a bully with a gun is another bully with a gun!
The perfect song for that:
Nine Inch Nails: Big Man With A Gun
Back when there were no professional police, miscreants were still apprehended by a hue and cry and brought before the King’s magistrate who figured out whether and how to punish them. There was a social order with laws and conventions enforced by other than mere bullying. That’s the earliest function of a state, to monopolize violence in return for protecting the citizens. I fear that most people who want to abolish the police also want to abolish the law. Then it will be bullies with guns.
A novel way to define merit is as being black. The Peel Board (below) call it lived experience and will hire white teachers only if they have taught on Indian Reserves or otherwise atoned for being white. It is all part of a captured anti-racist curriculum intended to teach black boys that the reason many of them fail is because of their racist white teachers and other authority figures in their lives. I had a nagging suspicion that Woke Kindergarten was a hoax until I read today that someone got suspended for criticizing it. That proves it’s real. So is this:
https://wokewatchcanada.substack.com/p/the-peel-district-school-board-claims
It shouldn’t need repeating that the ancestors of black people in Canada were never slaves here. Most are, or are descended from, voluntary immigrants from free sovereign West Indian countries beginning in the 1960s and more recently from modern-day African countries such as Somalia. Canadians don’t particularly like having a lot of “others” around—mass immigration was never put to a vote—but will try to get along with them as long as they pull their weight and stay out of trouble.
The defensive reactions against Craven-Neely by other teachers is the shocker. “…it looks as if Woke Kindergarten affected the teachers (if not the students).” I think you’ve hit on a deep part of the woke program, PCC(e). By simply involving the teachers —many of whom just go along to get along—Wokery expands its reach. In a way, that is what happened on university campuses during the last dozen years or so.
The Right loves to accuse the Left of “grooming” children, mostly to be gay or trans or anything else they don’t like. These accusations have been mostly performative and in bad faith, but now there can be no debate that progressives are trying to instill a divisive, authoritarian ideology intended to brainwash teachers and students of all ages (I am foolishly shocked that it reaches even down to kindergarten) that every white person is a “privileged oppressor” and every non-white person is “oppressed”.
“Anti-racism” as now popular amongst the progressive sect is in actuality an appallingly racist, divisive, hostile doctrine that is damaging any pursuit of a more open, balanced society where equality (a word I use advisedly in preference to equity) is a universal goal.
Progressives will brook no debate, accept no compromise, and tolerate no dissent. Free speech has become a truly elastic concept, encompassing only what will serve the woke “cause” in the moment. As a “classical” liberal, I am mortified to see how the far left has joined the far right in pushing different but similarly toxic doctrines and narratives. Bad times…
Impulsive, emotional, imprecise, subjective….these are the primary attributes of the minds of those who are currently in charge in these domains.
In other times and in other places (see Florida) they may be right wingers, not far left. But they all have these very prominent features of mind that guide their behavior.
I can see now why someone like Steven Pinker recently wrote a book defending the Enlightenment and the values of rationality and objectivity. We are starting to see the stable structures carefully built under Enlightenment principles overtaken by people who do not share these values.
“The Right loves to accuse the Left of “grooming” children, mostly to be gay or trans or anything else they don’t like.”
See my comment, specifically on “Drag Queen Story Hour” :
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/13/fire-gives-awards-for-the-ten-worst-censors-of-2024/#comment-2081891
Or:
[begin Twitter excerpt]:
@lindzamer “Queer Kid Stuff”
“When I talk about queer, trans, & nonbinary kids, I’m not just talking about kids who *currently* identify as such. I’m talking about ALL KIDS. Bc all kids are queer.
Queer as in different, non-normative, & pre-structural. That’s why kids are vital to liberation movements”
2:29 PM • Jun 14, 2022
[end Twitter excerpt]
What is that called? Gee, hmmm.. “ALL KIDS … are queer”…. mmmm…
I wanted to note, I do follow your gist.
Terminology I’d pitch as possible options :
Right -> nondialectical ; “based” (not sure, yet – this has some Jesus mojo…)
Left = Hegelian Left = Dialecticians
Post-edit deadline:
Some Righties are in fact dialecticians as well – sort of the right wing complement to the Left wing of the same flying beast…
It’s hard to believe that the entire community—teachers, parents, and students—actually believes the hateful nonsense that is exposed for all to see on the WokeKindergarten web site. It’ll be interesting to see how long this “curriculum” stays in place.
This is how the cadres of true believers conduct their struggle sessions with wayward colleagues.
It’s quite concerning that the school district is defending this program rather than addressing the valid concerns raised by teachers such as Mr. Craven-Neeley. His question about what “disrupting whiteness” meant in a third-grade classroom context is indeed valuable and should be addressed, not silenced.
The fact that Craven-Neeley was placed on paid leave for expressing his concerns also raises questions about the freedom of speech within the school district. It’s essential for educational institutions to uphold the free exchange of ideas rather than punish those who voice dissent.
The school should be focusing on improving students’ performance in key subjects like English and Math, rather than enforcing a divisive and confusing program. It’s disconcerting to see the district uphold Woke Kindergarten despite evidence of its detrimental impact on student academic performance.
At this point, it certainly seems like a re-evaluation of this program is in order. It’s more befitting for schools to focus on comprehensive education that equips students to be informed, understanding citizens, rather than promoting a specific political ideology. The primary objective of schooling should be to provide students with the necessary tools for their future success, rather than pushing a c