Because white people are evil.
GREEN BAY, Wis. – More than 200 Wisconsin teachers and school administrators traveled to Green Bay last week to attend CREATE Wisconsin’s 2013 state conference.
EAGnews decided to join them, to get a first-hand look at what the program, sponsored by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, is all about.
State officials contend the CREATE program is nothing more than an effort to help teachers better understand and serve minority students. But as EAGnews previously reported, CREATE appears to have a much more broad and progressive agenda than simply working to close the achievement gap between students of color and their white counterparts.
Many of the presentations focused on how public schools supposedly promote “white culture” and “white privilege,” to the detriment to students of color. Presenters called on educators to recognize and acknowledge their white privilege and encourage their students to do the same. Only then, presenters argue, can all students truly receive a multicultural education.
The conference also focused on teaching race-based topics in the classroom and how to respond to student resistance when talking about white privilege. The goal seems to be to crush dissent, convince white kids that they need to feel guilty about themselves and the society they grew up in, and convince minority kids that current American social structures are hopelessly stacked against them.
Teaching ‘white privilege’ to children
In a workshop titled “Establishing Critical Thinking and Multicultural Education in Rural Wisconsin Schools,” Dr. Marguerite Parks discussed the importance of multicultural education and how to create culturally responsive classrooms.
Of course the concept of “white privilege” was near the center of the discussion.
Parks, an associate dean for the College of Education and Human Services at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, said educators are often ignorant of their own “white privilege” or do not know how to broach the subject in class.
“What we often discover is that teachers don’t have the resources or don’t know what books to use,” she said.