Critical Consciousness

A question on the Eanes DEI FAQ webpage reads, “How do you define Equity as it pertains to education?”

The District’s answer:

Equity in education is a goal supported by a critical consciousness that is closely connected to actions implemented to provide fair access to the curriculum, create a welcoming climate and a safe space to grow for all children. Equity in education means looking at our systems to see whether we are truly providing equal opportunities and access for all children.  [Emphasis added.]

Wow.  That answer is stunning.

(1) Garbage sentence.  First, come on, School Board! That first sentence is a pile of garbage.  Was a bonus given for maximum use of education-ese?  Hopefully the School Board’s $140,000 to the DEI consultant didn’t pay for this masterpiece of obfuscation and jargon. 

(2)  Marxist ideology.  It’s stunning that the members of the School Board are admitting that their goal is critical consciousness.  Raising critical consciousness means programming kids to see the world through a critical lens—that is, seeing everything as a battle of power differences, oppressor vs. oppressed, whiteness as an oppressor ideology—and then becoming activists attempting to burn down the American system.  How do we know it’s about teaching kids to destroy and not reform the system?  Because it’s grounded in Marxist theory—and that’s what Marxists do.  Marxists, BY DEFINITION, want America to burn.

A four-alarm warning should be going off in your head when you see the Eanes School Board so casually endorsing Marxist ideology.

(3) Inappropriate indoctrination.  Plus, it’s wildly inappropriate for a public school to be teaching kids to see the world through a critical lens.  The term critical here means applying Critical Theory. (Not critical in the sense of critical thinking.) We all know that a public school has no business teaching kids to apply a Christian lens or a Jewish lens or an Islamic lens or a Buddhist lens or a Hindu lens.  Or more aptly, a public school has no business teaching kids to apply a crackpot Scientology lens. (Always remember that Critical Theory is no more valid or scientific than Scientology.) Likewise, a public school has no business teaching kids to apply a critical lens—especially as if it’s the only lens for viewing the world.

(4) Hostile work environment.  Don’t be surprised if the School Board or the DEI consultant attempts a shady motte-and-bailey maneuver to minimize the use of critical consciousness. They might say, “No, no, we just mean we want our employees to examine their racial autobiographies and their racial identities and have a consciousness about their own relationship with race.”  Even if they try to minimize the meaning of critical consciousness, their new definition should be rejected as well.  Neither the motte nor the bailey is acceptable. If I’m an Eanes employee, I DO NOT come to work to talk about my childhood in some half-baked pseudo counseling session dressed up as teacher training and taught by some half-baked trainer who isn’t even a trained counselor. 

And, School Board members, before you accuse me of being uncomfortable when talking about race, let me be clear:  I am perfectly comfortable talking about race.  It’s just NOT the District’s job to force me into a position to talk about my politics or my religion or my childhood experiences with racial identity.  It is NOT the District’s job to create a hostile work environment.  And it is NOT the District’s job to try to raise my critical consciousness and make me (or any students) view the world through a Marxist lens. Get lost.

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Three quick references:

• James Lindsay. Here’s a link to James Lindsay’s Social Justice Encyclopedia entry for Critical Consciousness. The top half of the entry cites to uses of the phrase in the social-justice literature. The bottom half of the entry is Lindsay’s commentary.  Lindsay is one of the most knowledgeable and prodigious sources of information about Critical Theory.  Every video and podcast with Lindsay is worth your time. 
• John McWhorter.  Here’s a discussion between Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.  To hear McWhorter’s thoughts about critical consciousness jump to the 39:40 minute mark or so.  I recommend listening to all their conversations on The Glenn Show on Bloggingheads.tv. These two men are having some of the most interesting and nuanced discussions about race found anywhere on the internet.
• James Miller.  This is the article that led me to McWhorter’s remarks.  In it, Miller succinctly explains how critical thinking and Critical Theory are not just different, but rather in opposition:

The term critical thinking was coined by philosopher John Dewey to capture the intellectual process used by Enlightenment intellectuals to understand the world. He extensively quoted Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill in his description of this scientific approach to learning.

Critical theories reject the concept of “Enlightenment rationalism,” and substitute the power of story-telling.

Miller’s entire article is interesting.