‘Liberated Ethnic Studies’ is newest Trojan Horse for indoctrination
The third grade lesson, “How does Normalization Dehumanize?” presentation includes the slide “Normalization and Power,” which presents a question to students, asking, “Who decided what is normal?”
The answer listed below: “White men, White men, White men.”
Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, the group that produced the lesson plan, has been hired by school districts to train teachers and staff in how to implement their model ethnic studies curriculum.
On January 19, the Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) school board approved an agreement to pay the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium $82,560 for 48 hours of training sessions that “provide professional development, lead collaboration with other local districts, and help design curriculum for CVUSD’s Ethnic Studies program,” according to a copy of the proposal.
The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, which registered with the California Secretary of State on Feb. 5, 2021, is key to the spread of this teachings. On its website, the organization says it embraces the divisive ideology of critical race theory as one of the “lenses” it uses in its curriculum.
“Ethnic studies is a Trojan horse” for indoctrination, says James Lindsey, author of a new book, Race Marxism. It has a “broader aim to create class antagonism across racial and ethnic lines.”
In a Jan. 29 statement to school districts, the consortium said it provides sample lesson plans to “support the development and implementation” of “liberated ethnic studies.”
On March 4, in Castro Valley Unified School District, the consortium’s faculty presented the “Liberated Ethnic Studies” framework, covering the consortium’s seven “guiding principles,” including “critical consciousness,” the critique of concepts such as “white supremacy,” patriarchy and capitalism, and the challenge of “imperialist/ colonial hegemonic beliefs and practices.”' The principles include a goal to “guide the manifestations of a more just, equitable, anti-racist, and transformatively [sic] affirming society through education.”
This summer, consortium leaders are slated to teach ten training sessions in Castro Valley to “introduce teachers to elements of ethnic studies pedagogy.” including a lesson on, “White Teachers and White Students in Ethnic Studies.”
The training will “address how white teachers engage in ethnic studies work and teaching through an understanding and reflection of their privilege, power, and positionality,” according to a course description. Cardona and her staff will present two “model lessons” that address “white supremacy culture,” “decentering whiteness” and an “action plan for professional/personal growth.” The “focus session” will also teach educators “how to address white grief and fragility.”
The lessons will include evaluations of student engagement in “cycles of critical reflection and action directed at alleviating oppression” and lessons on “producing knowledge for liberation of communities of color.”
A Castro Valley Equity Task Force presentation, dated Oct. 5, 2021, included units on “Power, Privilege, and Oppression” and “Resistance, Liberation and Decolonization.”
The proposal said Castro Valley would not be buying a “boxed curriculum,” but a few consortium lessons are cookie-cutter plans available online.
All lesson plans begin with a fill-in-the-blank “Land Acknowledgement;” the consortium also recommends a “pre-colonial lesson focused on the occupied land where a school is situated.”
One lesson for pre-K through second graders, called “What is Normal?” says students will learn that “normalization is a way to take power from people by disrespecting them.”
Teachers are told to ask: “How can we stop normalization and give respect to all people, places, things and ideas?”
The presentation for this lesson includes a slide prompting the students, “Which doctor is normal and which is different? Why?” Images on the slide juxtapose a picture of a Native American healer and a woman in a doctor’s white jacket.
The lesson for seventh grade through twelfth grade, “Questioning Common Sense: Hegemony and Normalization,” lists examples of “normalized/privileged groups” such as “white,” male, “US citizens,” “Christians,” “adults” and “business owners.” The document states that the idea of “normalcy” needs to be questioned to “make school and society more fair.” As part of the unit, which runs from four days to five days, teachers are told to use the video, “Peanut Butter, Jelly and Racism,” to teach students about “normalization” and bias.