# Would you want to send your kid to a "Public School Social Justice Factory"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 1, 2018, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982 "2018-02-01T20:54:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/121 "2018-02-04T22:08:57Z")
If you dig into the author of that hatchet job on the Edina Schools, it’s written by a rather ultra-conservative woman named Katherine Kersten. She also is against gay marriage. She was a founding member of _The Center of the American Experiment_, a conservative think tank in Minnesota. She writes opinion pieces, not news articles. She cherry picked statistics for the article which originally was written for and appeared as an article for the Center for American Experiment. > [@](#): > > Katherine Kersten is the often-mocked conservative columnist at the Minneapolis StarTribune. Often mocked because her columns regularly sound like she’s Michele Bachmann’s a-little-bit-less-stupid big sister. Mainly, she touts reactionary talking points and far-fetched anecdotes as her arguments. From a 2010 Minnesota writer. I could quote many more opinions of her deficiencies, but conservatives wouldn’t care. They just continue to drink the Cool Aid. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/122 "2018-02-04T22:09:20Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Didn’t read the quote, then. Pity - you might have had something useful besides “Is not!” > > Regards, > Shodan You mean the OP in which the teacher says that she intends to teach students how to apply “marxist, feminist, post-colonial, psychoanalytic, reader response, and aesthetic lenses to literature”? Or is there another quote I missed in which a teacher wants students to be marxist? Because I stand right beside you against any public school teachers who want to teach kids to be marxists. That sounds really bad. Teaching various perspectives on how to analyze literature seems just fine to me, though. Learning different perspectives is essential to critical thinking, even when those perspectives are as radical as “psychoanalytic, reader response, and aesthetic”. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/123 "2018-02-04T22:30:01Z")
Am I taking crazy pills? **Shodan** you are arguing against a definition of Marxist literary criticism that is simply wrong. This isn’t a matter of opinion or debate. Your definition of the phrase is incorrect. It’s certainly valid to have issues with Marxist criticism - a lot of the attempts I’ve seen at it seem like serious reaching - but not to redefine it to make it easier to argue against. ---
**Author:** ![chaika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chaika/32/405_2.png) [@chaika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaika)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/124 "2018-02-04T22:41:20Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > They can acquiesce to the indoctrination, I suppose.Actually, yes it does. Which is my point - a teacher who said she was going to teach from a conservative, Trump-supporting POV would not get the same reaction, because then the political indoctrination would become apparent and the SDMB would react with horror. Keeping politics out of the classroom cuts both ways, or at least it should. > > This approach is also stupid. Teaching lily-white Edina students to be Marxists isn’t going to close the black-white gap in Minnesota test scores. But it appears the teachers have pretty much given up on that, and have decided to pursue political indoctrination instead. Well, no. There is no established “Trump-supporting” school of literary criticism (yet) so it would be nonsensical for any teacher to include such an approach. But more importantly, there is absolutely no indication that the teacher is trying to indoctrinate students into any sort of ideology. It is entirely possible (indeed, essential to any decent education) to understand and apply a variety of perspectives to literary and historical texts. These interpretations may contradict each other. Or they may complement each other. But the approaches listed in this syllabus are entirely valid ways to view literature. I don’t see anything even remotely controversial about that. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/125 "2018-02-05T00:40:45Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Marxist and rad-fem and so aren’t distinct perspectives. The teacher is going to employ a range of perspectives ranging from far-left to extreme far-left. > > So the claim is true, and the ignorance is yours. First, Marxist and feminism (not rad-fem–that’s just some misleading snark you engaged in, altering the description for reasons you doubtless consider ethical and honorable) aren’t the same thing. But sure, they’ve got some similarities, and to someone who doesn’t know much about them, they’re the same, like house music and industrial music are the same, or baseball and cricket are the same. But your claim is that it was a single perspective. Let’s be clear: are you seriously, no-bullshit claiming that the psychoanalytic lens is the same as the Marxist lens? that the fucking _aesthetic_ lens is a Marxist perspective? Because you might think that baseball and cricket are the same, not knowing much about sports; but this is like claiming that baseball and waltzing are the same. Sometimes, **Shodan** , you need to take a deep breath, reread what you wrote, and sheepishly admit you fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/126 "2018-02-05T00:52:03Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > First, Marxist and feminism (not rad-fem–that’s just some misleading snark you engaged in, altering the description for reasons you doubtless consider ethical and honorable) aren’t the same thing. But sure, they’ve got some similarities, and to someone who doesn’t know much about them, they’re the same, like house music and industrial music are the same, or baseball and cricket are the same. > > But your claim is that it was a single perspective. Let’s be clear: are you seriously, no-bullshit claiming that the psychoanalytic lens is the same as the Marxist lens? that the fucking _aesthetic_ lens is a Marxist perspective? > > Because you might think that baseball and cricket are the same, not knowing much about sports; but this is like claiming that baseball and waltzing are the same. > > Sometimes, **Shodan** , you need to take a deep breath, reread what you wrote, and sheepishly admit you fucked up. I have almost drowned in the waters off South Padre Island, assumed dead by my compatriots, until I washed up miles down the beach. I have survived in the belly of a submarine, merged, metal-to-metal, to a 50,000 ton Turkish freighter, after a collision in the Persian Gulf. I have been accosted in the middle of the night on the streets of Copan, Honduras, by three youths armed with beer bottles and stones, and successfully fought them off, alone and unarmed. I have faced off alone before dawn against a pair of charging, growling rottweilers, and sent them fleeing, by the power of my voice alone. And I have seen **Shodan** [admit he was wrong](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20185889#post20185889). Trust me. Amazing things can happen in this world. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/127 "2018-02-05T00:55:46Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > They can acquiesce to the indoctrination, I suppose.Actually, yes it does. Which is my point - a teacher who said she was going to teach from a conservative, Trump-supporting POV would not get the same reaction, because then the political indoctrination would become apparent and the SDMB would react with horror. If that’s your point, it’s completely undercut by the lack of SDMB threads complaining about JROTC courses across our country, many if not most of which are taught from a highly conservative perspective. [edit: and I’m certain that many of them explicitly praise Trump–but it’s true that they probably don’t say they’re going to teach from “a conservative, Trump-supporting POV,” because they instead just teach that POV as though it’s the only rational one. So take that victory if you need it.] This whining about libruls in education is a not-so-subtle avenue of attack on public education. It’s transparently foolish, but since its service isn’t so much to reduce liberal propaganda as it is to undermine a key government function, the transparency isn’t such a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/128 "2018-02-05T01:04:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > that the fucking _aesthetic_ lens is a Marxist perspective? Oscar Wilde would take extreme exception to that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/129 "2018-02-05T03:02:12Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Oscar Wilde would take extreme exception to that idea. Indeed, as would any of the romantics, as would Karl Marx himself. It’s such a ridiculous idea–“This restaurant that serves pizza and sushi and quinoa and corn dogs only serves one thing”–that I’m having trouble believing someone could say it seriously, unless they’d never heard of any of those foods before. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/130 "2018-02-05T04:00:13Z")
Well, since I’ve limited access to the Tannhauser Gate, you’re not likely to see C-beams glittering near it anymore. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/131 "2018-02-05T07:49:02Z")
Wealthy, conservative suburb attempts to improve the effect of socioeconomic status on achievement while still preparing the vast majority of their students for elite universities and offering top tier athletic and other extracurricular activities. The usual suspects claim this to be a bad thing, because one teacher used a word like “Marxist” in a syllabus, and cry that conservative voices are silenced because they’re conservative. No, those conservative voices are ridiculed because they’re fucking morons, and the morons are the intelligent half of the mating partnership. The people objecting aren’t even affected by the decisions, which have overwhelming support by the residents of the area. And Katherine Kersten is a hack that deserves nothing less than Breitbart-level derision. > [@Fuckstick](#): > > The children trace their hands, color them to reflect their skin tone, and place the cut-outs on a poster reading, “Stop thinking your skin color is better than anyone elses!-[sic] Everyone is special!” That’s a bad thing? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/132 "2018-02-05T08:21:18Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The angry reaction of the SJWs in Edina show that it isn’t the commentator who is afraid of being found out. It’s the SJWs who are horrified to find that they don’t get to push the far-left agenda without being called on it. Or - and I know this is a bit of a stretch, but just hear me out - they’re upset that they’re being attacked in a dishonest manner by someone who exaggerates and misrepresents their work in order to turn people against them. Seriously, this is like wondering why trump voters get so irritated when they read articles calling them nazis and racists - “Gosh, it must be because they don’t want to be found out!” No, it’s because being slandered and libeled _sucks_, and most people do not react kindly to it! This is _absurdly_ uncharitable. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Damn well said! > > Look at [this example of a SJW teacher pushing his crap](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pico-rivera-teacher-20180128-story.html) on students. Basically the story is about a teacher slamming persons in the military. Y’know what I noticed about this story? The professor said something that was out of line, everyone _agrees_ it was out of line, and there was immediate and justified backlash. Oh, and for someone who is allegedly an “SJW”, this guy sure is racist: While presenting his opinion on the quality of the military, Salcido also invoked what appeared to be stereotypes in reference to people in the Middle East and Asia. “We haven’t been able to beat these guys wearing freaking robes and chanclas [flip-flops] for 15 years,” he said. “We couldn’t beat the Vietnamese – they’re a bunch of people this freaking big throwing rice at us.” ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/133 "2018-02-05T19:42:43Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Do you think that repeating this claim will make it any more true? She lists six distinct perspectives she’ll teach students to analyze literature from, including two that are about as diametrically opposite as you can get (the Marxist and the aesthetic). Claiming that she’s wanting a single perspective demonstrates at best a profound ignorance of what you’d learn in an introductory lit crit course. So how does one teach a student to look at something thru the lens of Marxism and Feminism WITHOUT first embracing those ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/134 "2018-02-05T19:48:38Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > UR, didn’t you post that you were once a teacher? Did you only teach issues that may appear on a job application, or were devoid of social justice aspects? I focused on preparing my students for the workplace. If an issue in science also affected social issues we would address those or if some of my students came to me with concerns I would address those. Some examples I can think of were recycling, renewable resources, alternatives to fossil fuels, and pollution. On social issues since I was a white teacher in a mostly black school they felt comfortable asking me questions. For example they once asked me if I would vote for Jesse Jackson for president and I said no, then explained that I would change my answer to yes if he first was elected to another position like say congress and showed his ability in that position. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/135 "2018-02-05T19:51:45Z")
> [@chaika](#): > > Well, no. There is no established “Trump-supporting” school of literary criticism (yet) so it would be nonsensical for any teacher to include such an approach. But more importantly, there is absolutely no indication that the teacher is trying to indoctrinate students into any sort of ideology. It is entirely possible (indeed, essential to any decent education) to understand and apply a variety of perspectives to literary and historical texts. These interpretations may contradict each other. Or they may complement each other. But the approaches listed in this syllabus are entirely valid ways to view literature. I don’t see anything even remotely controversial about that. How can you say this is NOT indoctrination? How can you teach students to look at a piece of literature and analyze it thru the lens of Marxism and feminism if you dont first embrace the values? ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/136 "2018-02-05T19:54:19Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > So how does one teach a student to look at something thru the lens of Marxism and Feminism WITHOUT first embracing those ideas? Compassion is an adaptively evolved trait shared by almost all mammals. As Feminism is primary about equal rights, are you asking that public schools should teach that men and women are not equal? I doubt that is your intended message but that is what this argument translates to. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/137 "2018-02-05T19:55:40Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > Wealthy, conservative suburb attempts to improve the effect of socioeconomic status on achievement while still preparing the vast majority of their students for elite universities and offering top tier athletic and other extracurricular activities. > > The usual suspects claim this to be a bad thing, because one teacher used a word like “Marxist” in a syllabus, and cry that conservative voices are silenced because they’re conservative. No, those conservative voices are ridiculed because they’re fucking morons, and the morons are the intelligent half of the mating partnership. The people objecting aren’t even affected by the decisions, which have overwhelming support by the residents of the area. > > That’s a bad thing? Ever heard of if there is smoke there is fire? Maybe one teacher pushing marxism and feminism would be something to brush off but if you look at what else is going on, like the above mentioned “training” new staff must go thru, I really see something there. Yeah, maybe the writer is a conservative but so what? Ever heard the phrase “even a broken clock is correct twice a day”. So that doesnt mean she hasnt uncovered something here. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/138 "2018-02-05T19:56:16Z")
Easily. You do not need to be a Marxist to examine the conflicts in a work of literature as being class driven. You do not need to be a Feminist to view the conflicts as being driven by gender roles. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/139 "2018-02-05T19:57:52Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > How can you say this is NOT indoctrination? How can you teach students to look at a piece of literature and analyze it thru the lens of Marxism and feminism if you dont first embrace the values? Compared to the Eugenicist, nationalist indoctrination of post Red-Scare America? Why are your preferred ideas more equal for indoctrination? Note I am not calling you either of the previous terms, but that is the lens of the text books I was provided. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982/140 "2018-02-05T19:59:04Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > Compassion is an adaptively evolved trait shared by almost all mammals. > > As Feminism is primary about equal rights, are you asking that public schools should teach that men and women are not equal? I doubt that is your intended message but that is what this argument translates to. I have no problem with equal rights. I have always done my best to treat everyone the same and teach my sons the same. But when they push that the evil white man is to blame for everything thats wrong, yes I have a problem with that. It’s an insult not just to me, but to my sons, my father, and my grandfather. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-want-to-send-your-kid-to-a-public-school-social-justice-factory/807982.md?page=8)