10 Comments
Jun 18, 2021Liked by Seth Jordan

Interesting article, thanks for writing it.

I would like to comment on the possible arguments that would arise if teachers are allowed to be in charge of their own curriculum.

Teachers are also political. Putting aside the questions of whether a teacher has the moral integrity to separate their own partiality from their content (or whether, in fact, they would deem in necessary to do so), it's a thoroughly rolled trope that teachers as a whole tend toward the left of the political spectrum. Can you imagine the uproar if each teacher was responsible for curating their own curriculum? Whether they were "communist" or not, such a move would certainly stir up controversy.

I guess one could argue that if parents were not satisfied with the content, they could enroll their students in another school, and the partisan teachers could potentially be "out-competed", but that just kicks the football to the economic realm in a sense.

Perhaps this supports your earlier question about the role of the state in schooling in general? However, if the state was not responsible for providing schooling for all children we would risk massive inequality as a society.

Unfortunately, the questions you raise do not exist in a vacuum. To create a brand new educational paradigm from scratch would probably be easier than the transition from the current one to whatever seems more appropriate.

Expand full comment
author

For anyone further interested, I thought this new Banished podcast on CRT raised some good points (I also just think that Amna Khalid chooses some really interesting subjects to discuss). Unfortunately, she doesn't see the need for the teacher's freedom, but nonetheless, her framing of the whole discussion can't help but bring such questions up (at least to me :)

https://www.booksmartstudios.org/p/the-critical-race-theory-hysteria

(I also added a comment in her comment section - it's maybe an interesting place to discuss these things further.)

Expand full comment

Universal School vouchers / free school-choice would solve this problem, Politics and Government have no place in education, we need a separation of school and state!

Expand full comment