Who needs High School English when you can have Social Justice instead?

The following is the letter I sent to my local high school community council today. Here I have redacted all the names, and I don’t normally talk about my location online, but I did leave the school’s name because I want the locals to know what’s going on, and they know who everyone involved is. (to prevent confusion there are two Honors English teachers, the long time one who nobody has any complaints about, my older kids had her and loved her, and this newer one)

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My son is in (redacted) Honors English class at Morgan High School (Utah). Recently her teaching methods have caused some controversy. As a professional writer I would like to address her curriculum—which appears to be far more about leftist indoctrination than English skills—and as a parent, the principal’s lackluster response to our voiced concerns.   

I became aware of this issue when I was approached by some other parents. They told me that the school’s response had been to “blow them off” as if they were too ignorant to understand what constituted effective English education. They asked if I would attend the parent’s meeting to add the perspective of someone who makes his living writing.

By way of introduction, I am a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-five novels, and three collections worth of short fiction. I’ve edited three anthologies. I’m published in multiple foreign languages, with several million copies in print, eBook, and audio. I have taught creative writing classes for dozens of events and for Weber State Continuing Education. I have been nominated for several prestigious literary awards and won a few of them.

That brief resume is to establish my credibility on this subject, but basically it boils down to the fact I’ve spent the better part of the last two decades learning how to write effectively, and more importantly, how readers process information. So I can say with absolute certainty that the methods Ms. (redacted) are using on our kids are awful. She isn’t just failing to teach them how to write, she’s teaching the antithesis of effective communication.

After I was approached by these parents, I asked my son about this class. To give you an idea how bad it is, (my son) told me that “it sucks”, he had learned absolutely nothing, but he was getting an A because he’s good at “telling the teacher whatever she wants to hear.” My son wasn’t learning any English skills at all, but rather how to play a political game.

I was appalled to hear that they would be spending the entire trimester on a single book, The Great Gatsby. Three months? I have nothing against The Great Gatsby, but to put this in perspective, it is only 47,000 words. My copy is 210 pages. The audio book is only 4 hours long. By novel standards it is extremely short. My smallest novel is more than double that, and my average is triple. Basically I’ve written longer books in less time than this class is being forced to analyze what’s basically a turgid novella.

It doesn’t matter how good a book is though, because tortuously analyzing any book for three months would make it awful.

You might be wondering, how in the world does an honors English class stretch out a tiny book for that long? Easy. You just talk about a bunch of contemporary political issues—which aren’t actually in the book—day after day, all from a biased leftist perspective.

You might think I am exaggerating for political effect. I’m not. My son was happy to show me some of his homework, and the assignments are simply absurd. Here’s an example.  

This is actually even more nefarious than it looks, because once you delve into each of those links, even the innocuous sounding ones are pushing a hard left perspective. Most of them are about how society is terrible somehow and you should feel bad for benefiting from it. None of these “lense” help the kids get better at writing or communicating. They are designed to squash dissent and force rigid conformity through public shaming.

What do I mean by that? It isn’t my story to tell, but one of the moms at the last parent’s meeting talked about how her daughter comes home in furious tears because she fails to live up to this teacher’s imposed ideal of feminism.

These “literary approaches” do not promote greater understanding of books. On the contrary they try to shoehorn in a bunch of political nonsense which isn’t in the actual work, and they fabricate messages the authors never intended. The kids aren’t learning to write. They are learning to “deconstruct” writing, which is totally backwards.

The number of readers in America is plummeting. People don’t read for fun like they used to, and why should that surprise us? Classes like this teach kids that reading should be a horrible, dreary slog, where you can’t just enjoy a work, you have to deconstruct it and look for all the secret symbolic meanings which are usually just a figment of some professors’ wishful thinking. Sometimes the curtains are just blue.

To demonstrate how nefarious this leftist propaganda masquerading as English education is, one of my son’s friends, (redacted), asked me to take a look at one of his homework assignments that (redacted) gave a zero. He believed his grade was politically motivated. After taking a look, I believe he’s absolutely correct.

The assignment was another of these deconstructionist nonsense things, where the student was expected to force a work into a proper leftist bucket based upon their feelings. They used a short Hemingway story, and (the student) looked at it through feminist lenses to explain why he felt the protagonist was a terrible person.

Professionally speaking, his sentence structure was clunky, and he couldn’t decide if he was going for colloquial voice or not, but it certainly wasn’t a zero. By the directions on the homework assignment, (the student) not only did it correctly, he also used one of the other encouraged lenses as well, by pointing out she was a vapid consumer with a pointless life, he accidentally used a Marxist deconstruction of the bourgeoise class. That’s nonsense, I know, but this whole thing is nonsense. The fact is this particular kid got zinged for not parroting the correct nonsense.

Meanwhile, my son just made up some crap about how the rain represented sadness and got an A. That’s great that he’s learning how to placate leftists, but I’d kind of like him to learn English in an English class.

None of this enables kids to write better. On the contrary, it creates mushy, indoctrinated, check box writing. Where rather than communicate ideas effectively and evocatively, they walk on eggshells, too afraid of violating some leftist shibboleth to actually come out and say what they mean. We see this in the real world every day, where any ideas which go against the prevailing cultural narrative are met with performative outrage.

That’s all I will say about the ineffectual nature of this politicized curriculum. The other parents have plenty of other examples to share, including male students being treated like garbage for being male, or kids getting up and walking out as they grew tired of the teacher’s tiresome use of “bitches”, or homework assignments being assigned late at night and expected to be turned in the next day (I believe the dismissive explanation for that last behavior was the unnecessary stress was supposed to prepare them for college, which is frankly asinine to anybody who has got a degree).

As for the school’s response, I’m unimpressed. I have now been to two meetings, one for parents, one community council, both of which are held at difficult times for anybody who works a normal job to attend, but even then there was a good-sized group at each.  I believe the first one had thirteen parents, and the one at 6:30 AM(!) today I saw many of the same faces.

Both meetings consisted of parents rattling off story after story about this one particular teacher, most of which hit the same consistent themes, and some fun new ones, like how she told the kids not to talk about her lessons with their parents. Gee whiz. I wonder why?

In the first meeting Principal (redacted) listened, and then tried to placate us by talking about the process of picking books and how some books are controversial. Here’s the thing. We don’t care about the intricacies of your bureaucracy or which novel you use. We care that the teacher then spends three months cramming social justice down their throats instead of learning about that novel. The book choice is almost irrelevant in that case. I bet (redacted) could vampire all the fun out of anything I wrote too!

However, that meeting did at least end with him promising to investigate.

Except then the written response to one parent’s officially filed complaint was dismissive and concentrated on the parents’ concerns which were brought up the least. There were a bunch of platitudes and academic speak that basically reads as, we just don’t see the big deal, sorry you parents are so worked up, but you don’t understand our brilliant procedures.

Fantastic. At this point I can see what the moms who first contacted me meant by “blown off”.

Then this morning’s community council meeting was interesting. Once again, parents voiced their concerns about this specific class, but were each allotted only two minutes to speak. Then the Principal spoke, and it was preposterous. He opened by reading us the dictionary definition of “discrimination” and then launched into a whole bunch of platitudes and circular logic, which was basically a thought terminating cliché about how the parents might be the real problem here, because by wanting English taught in our English classes instead of social justice, maybe we are enabling hate and genocide.

Yeah. He actually went there.

One of the moms is emailing me a recording of this so I can relisten to it, because it was so mushy it was hard to follow, but my initial reaction was anger. Nobody complained about “diversity”. There was no bigotry. In fact both meetings I’d been to the parents specifically said they had no issue with other points of view being respected, their issue was the biased, ham fisted, unfairness.

It is infuriating to see people do something horrible, and then hide behind the magic shield of “diversity” that excuses all failings. Even though this is a bunch of white folks in one of the whitest towns in America, lecturing the Azorean by way of North Africa, who grew up in one of the most impoverished and diverse places in the country, that because I want my kid to get educated rather than indoctrinated, I’m enabling genocide? I’ll be sure to tell my grandma the Polish Jew. How many rabbis do I need to get to tell you that excuse doesn’t make a lick of sense?

As far as I could parse, the excuse this morning was that she’s teaching “empathy” and everybody knows empathy is nice. Except that’s a big fat lie. First, it’s an English class, not an Empathy class. Second, why is empathy a one-way street, where only leftist approved views are the ones requiring all this understanding? And third, and most importantly, this nonsense doesn’t create empathy. It creates division and enmity. This stuff portrays a simplistic cartoon version of other human realities, filtered through the lens of liberal angst. Nobody appointed you guys Speaker For (insert minority group here).

This whole empathy schtick is tiresome. Oh no. The same political philosophy which runs most of publishing, Hollywood, the news media, academia, Big Tech, social media, the White House, and Congress, isn’t pervasive enough. Heaven forbid we don’t teach that exact same message our kids are force fed everywhere else in society in English class too.

He repeatedly brought up how teachers must be able to respond when students ask these hard questions about difficult topics. Great. Except I’ve yet to see any evidence the kids are the ones bringing this stuff up. Instead we are hearing our kids complain that she brings this stuff up constantly and beats them over the head with it. It certainly isn’t the kid’s questions that are writing up those homework assignments.

The really particularly galling part about all this is that in the name of “empathy” and “diversity” in order to stop genocide, they need to teach Marxist deconstruction… Marxism? The all-time reigning world champion of genocide? I know this is Social Justice English rather than Social Justice History but give me a break. In order to prevent genocide and truly understand The Great Gatsby it needs to be studied through the lens of the philosophy that gave us the Holodomor and the Killing Fields? Gulags and gas chambers?

Sure, as a writer I look through that sort of lens… When I’m writing the villains.

This kind of nefarious woke corruption of our academic institutions is nothing new. Most of us saw it when we went to college, but it has crept downstream since. What was 300-400 level university English deconstruction nonsense now gets crammed down their throats in high school. Which is why many kids going into college now no longer possess the basic composition skills we used to take for granted, because their high school classes were too busy searching for genderqueer Marxism instead. They can’t write coherently, but by golly they know Sam and Frodo were secret gay communists.

The best thing to come out of the last couple of years is that parents nationwide got to see just how horrid their schools had gotten. It was a wakeup call. Disgust at Critical Race Theory flipped the government of Virginia. The school board got recalled in San Francisco—the bluest big city in America—over this kind of thing. I keep seeing people thinking Utah is fine. Surely we don’t have that here. All is well in Zion!

It’s time for people to quit beating around the bush and be honest. Utah is “nice” in that as a culture we try to avoid contention, but in doing so we abdicate our responsibilities. Our tendency toward conflict avoidance might make us feel good about ourselves, but it is our kids who lose because of it. So I will spread the word about this to every MHS parent I can. If we need to escalate this through official channels and up the chain, great.

Because if we are forced to choose between our kids and your job security, the kids are going to win.

Sincerely,

Larry Correia

Coming soon - Monster Hunter International: The Miniatures Game
Approaching Peak Woke

349 thoughts on “Who needs High School English when you can have Social Justice instead?”

  1. Any adult that doesn’t want kids telling their parents what they talk about should not be allowed any where near a school. A statement like that should be automatic dismissal.

    1. In children’s safety classes, we call that being a “tricky person.” That’s the title we teach kids to use for adults who make them scared or uncomfortable (because predators are rarely strangers). Telling a kid not to speak to their parents about what you’re doing and saying? That’s what we call grooming behavior.

      1. ………..
        someone, somewhere, is actually designing an entire curriculum for something called “Children’s Safety Classes” ? And spending non-trivial amounts of time teaching it?

        1. It’s Panorama Education, owned by Merrick Garland’s son-in-law. Merrick is the one who wants to label dissenting parents as terrorists. The enemy is well organized.

        2. Are you mocking that? Sounds like you’re oblivious to things going on in our society. I’m surprised you’ve managed to end up on this page.

          1. I’m a little surprised, and flashing back to 7th grade “health” class, which was mostly a semester-long act of uselessness, bias, and check-boxing.

            As long as it’s only one day long or so, that’s not so bad.

        3. Yes. Replacing the (quite frankly ridiculous and useless) “Stranger Danger” lessons from the 80s and 90s.
          Instead of telling kids to be scared of strangers (since most strangers they meet are going to be decent people, and more than 98% of kidnappings, and almost 100% of abusers are people the kids know – most often family members, but also neighbors, teachers, etc.) we teach them to recognize suspicious behaviors, trust their instincts, and seek help from a trusted adult.
          We also teach adults to listen to kids’ concerns. Kids often lack the linguistic skills to explain why someone makes them uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean the feeling should be ignored.
          Kids who know they can tell an adult “So-and-so is being tricky” and they’ll be believed, are both safer and more confident in life than those without that ability.
          These classes are taught by cops, firefighters, EMTs, etc. Or, you can look up “Tricky People” online, and read about it yourself.

          1. Reminds me of the youth protection training that the Boy Scouts require of all adults (parents, leaders, camp counselors, etc) nowadays. Want to have a private conversation with a scout on a hike? Walk so-many paces away and speak quietly, but stay where at least one other adult who knows what’s going on can maintain constant visual contact. No secrets, no hazing, no adult left alone with a child (except for an actual parent of that child), all activities open to parental observation…

            Telling kids not to tell their parents what was said or done at a scout activity? Oh hell no. Very suspicious.

            Note that BSA learned this stuff the hard way, with lawyers and judges and vast sums of money being involved. And they made enemies along the way, folks who openly say they want to destroy the scouts organization in every place at every level down to the smallest details. Do schools want enemies like that? No? Then learn from others’ mistakes. No more “don’t tell your parents…”

            There’s also a youth component to the training. How to identify grooming, inappropriate touches, trust that gut “uh oh” feeling, speak up and/or find a trustred adult if things get weird, etc. The pamphlet that’s required reading for cub scouts especially reminds me of the tricky people concept.

      2. Some people push this too far. A few years ago I watched a child wreck their bike. He had a deep cut on his leg that was bleeding heavily. His Brother was there and I told him to go get one of his parents. He wouldn’t leave because I was a “stranger”. I was putting a pressure bandage on him when one of the other kids got his Mother. Thankfully the other kids told the Mother what happened because she was calling the Police on me.

        1. That’s exactly the sort of situation the “Tricky Person” lessons are designed to prevent. Kids who are too scared of strangers to function or make rational decisions, and often grow up into adults with anxiety issues (especially when they are required to interact with strangers).

        2. Holy crap! Something like that happened three years ago in front of my house. I came flying out, a teenaged boy stopped his car to help, and three or four other people came to check on the bleeding kid. That’s what being NICE and NEIGHBORLY is all about.

    2. This is 100% correct. Any adult that’s asking a child to keep a secret from their parents isn’t doing so for benevolent reasons. Just like that stranger who’s offering your kids candy is not a nice guy. It’s scary that this needs to be said out loud., but that’s where society is right now.

      1. RIGHT!

        Back when my kids were much younger (youngest is 31) we taught them that keeping secrets isn’t okay. And that if an adult asked them to keep a secret, then they MUST tell.

        When I was in school (and when the kids were in school) we had to have parents sign graded papers. And report cards. And the class syllabus.

        So when I first heard of teachers telling their students to keep secrets, it ticked me off.

        My grandkids are dealing with this garbage.

        GGGAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

    3. My oldest is only 5 but it’s a sad fact that I’ve already started to impress upon him that if anyone ever tells him, especially an adult, not to tell me or his mom something, that means he really needs to tell us for sure.

    4. “Don’t tell your parents.”
      Isn’t it interesting that pedophiles say the exact same thing?
      IMNSHO, what needs to happen to this teacher (and the principal), is the same thing that happened to Epstein, and Maxwell – at a minimum, a not-so-nice long stay in the crowbar hotel.

    5. … because you’re one of those leftist. Parents want our kids educated NOT endocrinayed. There is a difference….you might want to look those definitions up. Maybe this is why more parents are homeschooling….

    6. … because you’re one of those leftist. Parents want our kids educated NOT endocrinayed. There is a difference….you might want to look those definitions up. Maybe this is why more parents are homeschooling….

    7. That was my thought as well.

      Throw out the CRT , the marxist garbage, the classroom bullying, and the indoctrination.

      THAT. That ALONE should be a firing offense. UNBELIEVABLE.

      And the school is EXCUSING this? What is WRONG with these people??

  2. Oh no! You’re disagreeing with school administrators, and saying Mean Things to them. You must be a terrorist! </sarc>

    But you’re the wrong kind of terrorist. You’re a Right-Wing White Supremacist Terrorist engaging in Wrongthink and Badspeak! O the horror!
    ———————————
    Does the Left drive those idiots barking mad, or were they drawn to the Left because they were already batshit crazy?

    1. “Does the Left drive those idiots barking mad, or were they drawn to the Left because they were already batshit crazy?”

      Yes

    2. Complaining about it is level one.
      Getting on the school board and trying to shovel out the swamp is level two.
      Setting up your own school system is probably level three (does that include home schooling?)

      1. It’s a meme. The book says “The curtains were blue.” The English teacher says the blue curtains represent depression. The author says the curtains were f*&king blue.

        1. Blue represents depression?
          Pffft. You are reading WAY too much into that.
          It just means the curtains were blue like the author said.

          FWIW, I like light blue curtains because they remind me of a clear sky, and freedom. If I want darkness, I’ll pull the damn shade down.

          1. You never had to do literary criticism when you were in High School, Mike. 🙂 There really are people who want to find symbolism in every. Little. Thing. Novels are bad enough, but poetry . . . *shudder of horror*

        2. Well, they were Red curtains, until an angry parent kicked the posterior of the SocJus literary critic, and they aproached said curtains at .85 lightspeed. . . ????

      2. It’s from a three-part meme that may be more than a few years old now.

        The first panel has the author of a work describing the curtains in a room as being blue.

        The second has an English Lit prof talking about how what blue curtains *mean* in terms of whatever pop-psychology nonsense the prof happens to be into at the time, and can’t you see how this deeper subtle level is what the author REALLY meant by describing curtains as blue.

        The final part has the author coming back saying “It means the curtains were f***ing blue.”

        1. I think it was Papa Hemingway that the “blue curtains” story started with. Back when Ernest was still this side of the soil, a student wrote to him asking whether his teacher was right about the meaning behind blue curtains in a particular scene. And his reply (to student’s delight and teacher’s horror) was as Jake quoted. Except spelling the asterisks as “uck.”

          1. I think you are conflating the Blue Curtains Meme with Hemingway’s response to a student asking about the symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea”

            “There isn’t any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit

  3. But why is your son in government school? Even in the middle of absolute nowhere internet based correspondence schools exist (it did 10 years ago when I was in high school). Way better than that “remote learning” they push today, which is just taking classroom instruction (well established as the worst possible way to learn).

    1. Because living so remotely makes it difficult to socialize at all without school, and remote towns have few – if any – private or charter schools. And even if there is a different schooling option, they’re unlikely to have much in the way of extracurricular activities.
      There’s a lot more to school than the 3 Rs.

      1. If you had a choice between sports/toxicity and academics/morals, which would you choose? There is no question what I would choose. And as far as “socialization” – that’s a misnomer. YOU need to make that happen and find other like minded parents and organize “socializing”. It’s out there. Now get to it!

        1. My son chose football.
          And since he’s clearly smart enough to recognize a grift when he sees it, and he can read whatever he wants to educate himself, he’ll be fine.
          However this one turning out okay doesn’t mean this this insidious crap should have to stand for everybody else.

          1. Well, I filtered this letter up MY chain to the CEO of the Kansas Policy Institute.

            I don’t know, but I’m fairly certain he’ll send it on to who ever is in charge of the Utah member of the State Policy Network and hopefully get some action …

        2. Even in our small town, there is the SEtexas home schooling group (forgot their initials), which does activities, sports, etc. As for socializing, being around people of various ages benefits, vs being only around children of their own age.

          1. You know, if you area is getting big enough, you might have enough families that you could support your own football, basketball, baseball programs.

            Maybe give the local public and private high school football teams a run for their money when they have to play the Deepinnaharta Scholars.

            I say that as someone that is setting up a Homeschool Support Program within my Scout Troop. We have enough homeschoolers that I thought it might be worthwhile to share with them how they can use parts of the Scouting program as elements of their education plan (in accordance with state law). It worked for my Eagle Scout daughter.

      2. Plenty of people find extracurricular activities for their kids when they are home or private schooled, even in small towns and rural areas.
        There may be other reasons Larry wants his kids to go to public school, but I’m sure socialization isn’t one of them.

      3. A lot of public schools actually allow home school or independent study kids to still participate in sports or band or choir. But as long as you live near other home schoolers, you can get those kids together.

        1. Here in Florida that’s possible thanks to Tim Tebow’s mother, who fought to get her home-schooled son on the public high school football team.

          And while this would be an option for my cyber-schooled Dragonette, she sucks at football, and the stuff she is interested in – jazz band, theater, choir – are classes during the day, so we’d have to try to work them in and around her actual classes and my work schedule.

          So it’s not the grand solution everyone thinks it is.

          1. If you still have to pay taxes to support public schools, then your home or private schooled kids should get to take advantage of the public school extracurricular activities your taxes help pay for.

        1. I’m LDS, too. I was homeschooled one year, due to a horrible school in Missouri. Church wasn’t terribly much socializing. I had a county track team I could join, despite sucking at running, so I had other kids to spend time with. But I wasn’t living on a mountain outside a small town.

      4. My daughter is very slightly autistic and has delayed language development. We found a specialized school in Seattle (https://www.hamlinrobinson.org/), which was absolutely the right school for her, but it only goes up to eighth grade. In preparing for high school, we had to go through the Seattle Public School system to get an IEP, which involved an interview with a child psychologist. This is the exact guidance we were given:

        “You can’t send her to a public school. You can’t even send her to a private school. The mean girls will eat her alive.”

        So, when you say “socialize”, that’s what I’m hearing. High school is an emotional meat grinder for the neuro-atypical, more in common with gen pop at a prison.

        On the plus side, this diagnosis was a 100% get-out-of-jail-free card that let us go on a homeschooling program without any of the usual paperwork with the local school board.

        Our plan was to use a local for-profit tutoring company (which could do a full ‘high school’ program, but we told them that they were contractors), and when Scouting went coed, we used that for ‘socialization’. Here’s the result of that plan:

        My daughter went to school year round, because we knew she would have a long time to catch on to a topic before she would take off like an F-15C doing an unlimited climb.

        She finished the whole ‘high school’ program in 3.5 years With graded courses from the tutoring-contractors, she got a A- average.

        She studied calculus, statistics, physics, chemistry biology and ASL, and got A or A in all of them.

        She generally got Bs in English and History, which was not unexpected due to her language and social deficits.

        She earned her Eagle Scout badge.

        As we were going through the local community college’s catalogue to pick courses for the Spring semester, I warned her that in some of those courses, they might talk about 57 or more genders, and she said, “What? But there are only two! Well, you might count neuter…”

        It cost every year like sending her to a mid-tier college. Obviously, we were in a special circumstance. But when I see stories like this, which indicate the local schools have a negative educational value, “free” public schooling looks way too expensive.

      5. “There’s a lot more to school than the 3 Rs.”

        And just what do you consider scouts, 4H, sports, local barn dances, parties, or church functions?

        This whole, “School is necessary for proper socialization” is only correct when you define socialization as Marxist indoctrination.

      6. I have never seen one instance of how socializing children is done by schools in a superior manner than having involved parents. The government is not the solution, it’s the problem.

    2. *s just taking classroom instruction (well established as the worst possible way to learn) and making it even worse

    3. My wife and I tried the internet based correspondence schools for our two oldest. Complete disaster, my oldest finally settled for a GED so he could get on with college classes. My second oldest has been set back two years and hopefully will catch back up and get an actual diploma.

      It has been easier with my three youngest to keep up with what the government schools are passing off as education and supplementing it and contradicting the outright falsehoods pushed on them.

      Internet based curriculum works for some, not all.

  4. I will be interested to see where this ends?

    My concern, sort of, is that kids have a chance to learn to love reading, which quite frankly is completely opposite to what happens during English lessons that are not about reading, but rather teaching ‘academic’ gobbledygook dressed up as analysis.

    Don’t get me started on literary criticism that purports to claim the reviewer knows more about the story than the author. Just don’t!

      1. High school English class made me dismiss 19th and 20th century “liter-turd” being taught at the time. Thankfully I scored out of repeating the process in university and found plenty of good works to consume elsewhere.

  5. “English [class] is the only place where Freudian psychology is still legitimate.” is still my favorite quote from you.

    1. And speaking as a psychology professor, he is spot-on. I only teach Freud as a historical figure in the field (and because it’s fun; dude was ten gallons of crazy in a five-gallon bag).

      1. > dude was ten gallons of crazy in a five-gallon bag

        Reading Freud doesn’t teach you much about psychology in general, but it sure teaches you a lot about the psychology of Sigmund Freud. 🙂

      2. Freud is the father of modern psychology largely due to the effort put into disproving and replacing his crackpot theories.

  6. As a former English teacher, I applaud this post, Larry. I wish I could teach your son English.

    You know what “lens” I asked kids to use? None…other than historical, I suppose. We learned about the literary movement (in Gatsby’s case, “the Lost Generation” post WWI writers) and what was going on in the world at the time that influenced them to write that work. Then, I got their impressions of the book as we read, and we had quizzes, essentially, so I could make sure they were reading. Then they wrote a paper on the book, where they shared THEIR opinions on the book and defended them. I gave suggested topics, but they all had to do about the book itself and its characters.

    In other words, I wanted them to have their own opinions of a literary work. Fancy that.

    That’s how you teach literature, folks. I want to slap these people.

    And you know, Larry – that one book you hate, The Scarlet Letter? Yes, I know the pacing is old-fashioned, but I like it for a variety of reasons I won’t get into. One of my kids actually had the most brilliant observation on that book because I allowed them to form their own impressions. She said, “It’s almost like Hawthorne is painting a watercolor, and we’re watching him paint. There’s a drop of color, and it spreads out, then there’s another drop…and it spreads out, forming a painting.”

    Now would you get that sort of observation from the students of your Marxist witch? I think not.

    May I come out to Utah and buffet her about the head with a copy of the book? It would make me feel so much better.

    1. I have a BA in English from 40some years ago, and you have described exactly the way I was taught. Even though I didn’t want to teach and have been in nursing for over 30 years, I know that my education benefitted me greatly. When we were assigned papers to write, agreeing with the professor wasn’t important; being able to support what you were saying, and being able to express it clearly, was important.

      Then 20 or so years ago I had a relative in college. English wasn’t her strong suit. She had been assigned a paper to write about a particular Hemingway short story and didn’t know where to start. I found that story and read it. Then I made an outline for her and sent it. She answered back that no, my ideas woudn’t work, that wasn’t what her professor wanted. Then she sent me her class notes.

      Her professor wanted a paper about feminism. In Hemingway. Of all the words I could use to describe Hemingway, “feminist” is not one of them.

      I took her notes and came up with another outline. I told my relative that she needed to understand that this was complete, utter nonsense but it was what her professor wanted. I told her that my original notes reflected the way I had been taught literature.

      “We” made an “A” on the paper. My professors would have told me I needed my head examined, had I turned in that drivel.

      Finding feminism in Hemingway still boggles my mind

      1. My daughter dropped an online English course and decided to quit college when she got told to analyze Shakespeare through the lens of feminism.

      2. I recall the panic attack I had when I was told there was a writing requirement for the college entrance exams. Thank goodness that all I was required to do was to read the question, make a decision about it, put some structure into my reply, and then provide logical reasons for the decision, while keeping the sentences short and simple. (unlike this one.)

    2. I’m in agreement with Larry. The Scarlet Letter is awful. Painting in watercolor? Yes, I’ll agree reading it is like watching paint dry.

    3. Huh. That’s pretty much how we went at The Scarlet Letter, which consumed a whole quarter of my 7th grade English class (back in 1966). We dissected the book in initially-tiresome detail (O the symbolism!) but as things went on, a book I’d never have enjoyed on my own became… interesting, then fascinating.

      That was also the year we learned diagramming. In the prologue I discovered a sentence that was 3 pages long, and… diagrammed it. (For all its mass, it was still grammatically correct.) Because diagramming was fun!

      I think that was also when we learned to work through boredom (cuz not all study is entertaining).

      The next year we worked through The Scarlet Pimpernel (do you sense a theme?) as a window into its historical events.

      But not once was indoctrination thrust into the class.

      Perhaps this is why I remember fondly my long-ago English teachers.

      1. In the prologue [of The Scarlet Letter] I discovered a sentence that was 3 pages long, and… diagrammed it. (For all its mass, it was still grammatically correct.)

        It’s been a couple decades since I read much Hawthorne, but somehow, I am not surprised.

        1. A few years later, for no apparent reason, I read The Marble Faun. I have no recollection what it was about and I’m not sure I knew while I was reading it, either. And then I was done with Hawthorne.

      2. @Reziac

        “[D]iagramming was fun!”

        I learned to diagram a sentence in 8th grade and hated, hated, HATED! every second of it. I have had tooth implant surgery that I enjoyed more. Different strokes.

        1. I liked it so much I would even reverse-construct sentences, from diagram to text. Algebra for words!

          Then again, I also loved Latin. 😀

      3. In my sophomore h.s year, the school was trying out new ways of structuring classes. So, we had a two-hour English and Social Studies (as history was then called) jointly taught class. The English teacher had us reading and discussing Moby Dick, and the History teacher taught us about our town’s — and the world’s — history of whaling and boatbuilding.

        It wasn’t till after I got out of college and was reading in prep before joining the Navy, that I learned a “U-boat” was NOT some kind of destroyer! {shrug} MUCH more interesting classes, and I doubt I missed much of importance by missing “regular” history classes.

    4. I had to read The Great Gatsby in high school and my English teacher taught it just you did. With learning about post WW1 and The Lost Generation. I enjoy reading that book. In collage I wrote a mystery play inspire by The Great Gatsby.

    5. I think production lens is valid, but that might be a subset of historical.
      “The author was wrote the book to sell to members of a gun forum, that’s why so much detail is spent on the firearms.”
      Very applicable to movies.
      “Boris Karloff’s scenes were filmed before anything else because he finished his work on another film ahead of time and still under contract. Everything else was a desperate attempt to make use of those scenes under multiple crews. That’s why everything is so disjointed.”
      “This movie stars a half-Chinese girl in Vancouver in the early 2000s. The woman that created this movie is half-Chinese from Vancouver and grew up in the early 2000s…”

  7. “Teachers vs Parents” delenda est.

    Sounds like this is cowardice and butt covering from administration. Therefore, being more vocal, persistence, and getting more parents involved is the order of the day.

    1. I love how the media’s response to “Teachers vs. Parents” is to scream at Parents, “who are you going to believe us or your lying children?!?!?!?”

      They are doubling down so fucking hard, and its going to bite them in the election like a rabid piranha (yes I know piranha’s can’t actually get rabies).

      1. And that “domestic terrorism” tag attached to anyone who objects or disagrees with the school board.

        The democraps lost Virginia over that one.

  8. It seems to me that, not only does that teacher need to be replaced, but maybe the principal as well.
    BTW. 06:30 meeting time? I never had that happen in 25 years with corporate.

    1. They were probably trying to accommodate parents who couldn’t make it after work. That was the least offensive part of the whole thing to me.

  9. In the late 90s we had to analyze non-existent symbolism in novels, but we did only spend 3 weeks (not months) on any novel.

    What really irked me is when the teacher claimed Mark Twain’s “The Fly” was an allegory and everyone in an AP English class got an F on a quiz (the valedictorian included) because we all saw it wasn’t. The thesis of Twain’s is simple: “If man created the fly which spreads diseases we would say he was evil, but since God did it we don’t say that.” Teacher claimed its an allegory and the fly represents man. I argued with her all class long when our quizes came back that if its an allegory then God would have to represent something else, and she was too retarded to see it! And my fellow students were whispering to me to stop lest she drop our grades lower than an F. But I kept going until she was in tears over her own stupidity. Good times.

    1. Hah! That was one of my first thoughts as well. I know Larry is eloquent and well-spoken, but his anger and vitriol just doesn’t seep through without a well-placed f-bomb.

        1. He’s a guy who has plenty of words in his toolbox and he uses them as needed for the job at hand. Inventive invective would not help when trying to speak to a bunch of Mormon mothers, so he chooses his words accordingly. I talked to him yesterday, and let me tell you, furious doesn’t cover it.

          1. Yes, but I was thinking of it from the writer’s perspective. When you have a character known for being loud and having crusty language choices…suddenly is calm and polite, this is when most readers would realize that he has passed beyond “angry” and into “OH JOHN RINGO NO!” furious, on the same scale as using an antimatter weapon to annihilate an enemy army and paint the ground of his football rivals in his team colors (and the half-life is sufficient to keep the ground in the same color for a few decades…)

            So, reading this, I could tell that the only thing that the Author was waiting on before unloading the entire armory downrange was to make sure he was at minimum safe distance.

            And to make the popcorn to watch the end results, very important.

        2. Pretty much.
          I talked to Jack on the phone later about this and he got about ten straight minutes of Portuguese Dairy Farmer level cursing.

          1. This is what you get when you hire “teachers” who have literally done nothing but attend school.

            ILoH, perhaps you will be impressed with my father’s actions many years ago, as I admire your restraint:
            It seems my older brother’s high-school English teacher insisted that children need never address their parents as “Sir” or “Ma’am”. Upon hearing this, Pop raised an eyebrow, hopped into the Packard and visited the man at school.
            He objected, so Pop reasoned with him further, causing some noises, which carried, and a substitute to appear in that class for the rest of the year.
            There remains the question of whether an ambulance was required.
            Having seen the spectacle, the Principal agreed with the outcome, if not the means of implementation, as order was restored.
            Police were not involved, and the use of “Sir” and “Ma’am” was continued with one’s elders.

            So it turns out that at one time, corporal punishment was not reserved for the students. Maybe It Should Be So.

  10. Well said, and sadly becoming more the rule than the exception. My grandkids are in 1st and 3rd grades in Commiefornia and are already getting the indoctrination. Hopefully, y’all can do something about this teacher AND the principal that is fomenting this crap.

  11. ” I bet (redacted) could vampire all the fun out of anything I wrote too!”

    That sounds tough, though perhaps hunters’ opposition to monsters breaking in from other dimensions is really a manifestation of the author’s hostility towards immigrants. And there *is* the privileged leadership of MHI imposing their whiteness on poor Trip.

      1. Leftist: Why are you so cruel to all those Vampire refugees??!!
        Normal: Because they’re going to suck our blood and kill us!!!!
        Leftist: Raaaccciiisssttttt!!!!!

  12. So Comrade teacher points out that there are many literary approaches (true) yet then turns around and claims that they are only focusing on “eight of the most basic?”
    And they’re learning about literary theory IN HIGH SCHOOL?
    I have an MA in Comparative Literature, and that’s really where one should learn about literary theory, not in high school.
    And those eight approaches are NOT the “basic” ones, unless your worldview is founded on Marxist/leftist thoughts.
    This person is incompetent at her job, and needs to not only be fired, but not allowed to come near children again.

  13. “He repeatedly brought up how teachers must be able to respond when students ask these hard questions about difficult topics.”

    Except that’s not a teacher’s job. That’s a job for family, clergy, friends, neighbors, etc. This guy has smoked way too much John Dewey.

    1. The problem is that sometimes students make that the teacher’s job, if they don’t have other trustworthy people around them.

      That having been said, the principle is pretty obviously using that to try and cover up the fact that this curriculum is awful and the teacher is lousy. I will guarantee you that the students aren’t wondering if Daisy Buchanan being so useless is a result of “the patriarchy.”

    2. As a teacher, I need to respond to hard questions about difficult topics with questions of my own to guide the student to clarify their own values, not impose my own values, or undermine their parents’ authority. This principal is a [word I don’t allow my students to use in my classroom].

  14. I’ve been having a similar discussion with an English professor on Quora. I actually quoted Larry’s “Classics” blog (with attribution). I’m furious. The folks pushing this “meaning” crap and uber-left ideology are making my head hurt.

    It happened when I was in school, and it’s still happening. The difference is I went to school in the south and they didn’t add the ideology. It still made me furious. I often asked how they could know what the author intending since they were long dead and had never said one way or another. Another difference being the teachers mostly appreciated a well articulated argument and never penalized me for it.

    But today? Forget it.

  15. I mentor Engineering Students at work. Their Core classes are OK. It’s the other ones that are an issue. The number of times I’ve heard them compare notes on certain Instructors about what works to get a decent grade is nuts for the exact reasons you give. On the other hand it does wonders for their Teamwork and Collaboration skills.

    1. Even back in 2004 getting A grades in my “elective” courses was parroting back the buzzwords of the last week.
      Somehow, after a career of gving briefings, writing reports, teaching classes, and managing crews and teams I couldn’t pull anything higher than a B in public speaking
      Thankfully Money and Banking and various Accounting classes didn’t require anything but clear logic and accurate results.

      1. Ironically I know a lot more working professional writers who got accounting degrees than I know working professional writers who got English degrees.

        1. I know a lot more working teachers with degrees in the fields they teach than those with teaching degrees working as professionals in the any other field.

        2. Larry, I suspect that is due to the fact that most people with English degrees are convinced that they know exactly how to write. And wonder why they can’t make a living with writing.

          1. Oh, people with English degrees know precisely why they can’t make a living with writing. It’s Society’s fault for not being Woke enough to appreciate their wonderful special genius!

            Come the Revolution, there will be free grants for everyone with an M.A. in a useless field!

          1. I have an English degree and a Master of Library Science.

            The former has been mostly irrelevant for my novels, and the later has been irrelevant to most everything. (Because I’d already been working in a library for a decade plus before starting the masters. Almost everything was stuff I’d learned on the job.)

            What *has* been useful for my novels is the ~2/3 a degree in Biology I got through before switching to English.

  16. lense (lens?)
    empathy

    The “lense” idea which I first heard from an English graduate student at UNM in Albuquerque (she was nice and just chatting) seems very clearly to be anti-thought. Rather than see the whole elephant the notion is to very deliberately only look at the tail, or tusk, or toenail while ignoring the elephant altogether.

    Suppose one decided to look at the Great Gatsby through a White Grievance lense? Would that seem particularly smart?

    On the idea of empathy. When the Truth is determined by who FEEEEELS the most, it becomes necessary to deny that other people have any legitimate feelings at all. Since feeling is Truth empathy means the other guy might be right about something. So empathy is right out the door.

    You’ll notice how anyone showing emotion (Canadian Truck Drivers for example) is said to be “acting”. Tears are always fake, it’s always an award winning performance. No one else’s pain is real, their trauma is manufactured, their hardship worth only being laughed at.

    NO ONE on the CRT or SJW side of issues is teaching empathy. They can’t.

    1. Remember how the media screamed crocodile tears when Rittenhouse was crying while testifying about shooting his attackers? What basically good person would NOT cry because he was forced to kill someone to save his own life? (at least the first time.)

      1. “What basically good person would NOT cry because he was forced to kill someone to save his own life? ”
        Rafał Gan-Ganowicz

        1. Perhaps I should have added the adjective “normal”. On the other hand, his environment obviously did a whole lot to de-humanize his enemies. Ergo, he wasn’t killing ‘people.’

  17. Additionally, this school appears to be in violation of Utah’s constitution. At least, anyone protecting a teacher who is saying not to discuss lessons with parents. Utah’s constitution recognizes the principal responsibility of education falls on parents, with the school / state acting as secondary.
    Weird that this is flourishing in Morgan school district (Davis / SLC I could understand). Although, looking at the last election (2020), two school board seats ran unopposed, so who knows what kind of crap is happening there despite how heavily Morgan County runs red. Definitely a reminder that the schools are cesspits to be watched carefully.

    1. Oooo. Does that mean Larry has legal option to take against them? Seems like our current version of the law is like a sword with a blade at both ends. It cuts the wielder as much as it cuts the target whenever you try to use it.

      1. Probably not, although I think the schools / school board can use it in decisions to get rid of the teacher. I know I used it in the letter I wrote to the board about the crazy teacher in my school district who ranted about how she’d destroy anyone who went against her lgbtq friends and how parents are dumb and vaccines would end Covid immediately. Granted, the recording helped show how crazy she was, but she was on indefinite leave within a couple of days and fired within the week. I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents are responsible for education was originally a mixture of bureaucrat CYA and parent’s right.

  18. I haven’t seen the English Lit AP exam, but I’m betting there are questions on there that match those perspectives.

    You can find previous AP exams online at the ETS site to see what they ask. Also, if you think this teacher is deviating from the AP curriculum, ETS likes to know that. They can sanction the teacher and the school.

  19. Reminds me of a class I signed up for in college. Greek Mythology. I was so excited. I loved learning about all the gods and monsters how they interacted with humanity.

    I have a hard time remembering much about the teacher because the class was so boring. I fell asleep in every lecture. How do you make Greek Mythology so boring that someone falls asleep while you talk about it? The class was at 11:00, so it wasn’t the time. Every lecture was about some relation of the mythology to modern themes and trite crap. I actually had flashbacks reading Larry’s letter.

    I already had over the maximum number of credits on my course load, so I dropped the class and saved myself the headache. Still pisses me off that someone could ruin such a fun, interesting topic.

    1. At my small town high school we had an English teacher who taught Shakespeare thus: Student reads so-many lines from the play, regardless of character. Next student reads so-many lines. Repeat for all students in classroom, as many times as necessary to get through the whole play. Enthusiasm and clear articulation neither encouraged nor required.

      For at least one play she took it a step further and started assigning parts at random. Occasionally reassigning the parts (surprise!) so everyone would get a chance to speak. Still sitting at our desks, still mostly mumbling the lines, usually with the wrong tone and timing.

      Result: most of the class learned to dismiss Shakespeare’s work as boring and no longer relevant. (That’s the nice way to say it.) I could see some glimmers of genius in the lines, but couldn’t make myself get excited about it. The teacher loved Shakespeare, and always seemed so surprised when her students weren’t as thrilled as she was.

      Then a few years later, some college friends took me to see Shakespeare performed on stage as community theatre. Repeatedly. Loved it.

      At a more rigorous high school, the English teacher made us read “As I Lay Dying”. I thought the title was an accurate summary of the reader’s experience on an emotional level. We also had to read the English translation of “100 Years of Solitude”, which I decided really meant 100 years of solid reading. Ugh. They give Nobel prizes for garbage like this..?

      Since then I’ve come to realize that simply compelling students to read a difficult, challenging book with no context or background is a great way to make students lose interest. A heavy tome about a Central American town full of inbred morons mostly cut off from the world? Why?!? For a few students “100 years” was a masterpiece. For the rest of us, it was motivation to either hate reading, or to devour stacks of classic SF paperbacks between classes.

      Now, you want to handle controversial topics in English Lit class? Grow a spine, take that bull by the horns, make them read “Native Son”. Oh yeah. We read that one too. I didn’t really like it, but I don’t think it was intended to be liked.

      1. We had a couple teachers who did that – Romeo and Juliet in 10th grade, I want to say – my Senior English teacher showed us the plays in movie form first, explaining that Shakespeare needs to be seen to be understood. As someone who grew up hearing KJV bible, I could understand the weird English, but it was a massive improvement for the other people in the class to see the actions and understand. He also broke down some of the old time insults from Hamlet – get the to a nunnery takes on a different connotation when you know why someone would be sent to a nunnery.

        He also showed us the clip from Renaissance Man of the “DD” soldier quoting Shakespeare, “we happy few, we band of brothers”

        Amazing how one of the keys to understanding plays is to see the actual play being performed instead of just reading the script.

  20. Forgive my ignorance. What is a “local high school community council”? Not sure where that exists in relation to the school board.

    1. It is below school board, and is made up of local parents and some of the administration.
      School board knows about this now though. It sounds like earlier the administration was downplaying the issue to the board, like it was only one disgruntled mom.

      1. So, is the school board going to do something about it?

        Like firing the principal for starters.

        Can you replace a majority of the school board in this year’s elections?

        Can you do a “recall” against the school board?

  21. My kids schools are doing the same, to the point where my 17 year old son just sends me their assignments so I can decipher precisely what bull crap they’re expecting and provide equally insane answers. I’m also sure he’s going to get a kick that I’m talking about this to you, because he likes your books almost as much as I do.

  22. Public “servants” have long since abandoned the “servant” part of the job. They now honestly believe they hold their positions because they are better than anyone else. This enables them to do whatever they please with tax dollars, public responsibilities, other people’s children, rights, liberties, whatever. They feel free to “redefine” their job by “not doing the job” and complain when they’re called to task claiming that they’ve been horribly singled out despite their gross incompetence and negligence and generally poor behavior.

    Our job is to reassert the rights of the people at every single local, state and federal election. School board elections have been quietly ignored for decades. Time to change that. Local elections generally have ridiculously low turn-out which means something like 10% of the actual population determine the fate of the other 90%. Hint: it isn’t the people working hard to support their families who are voting. They must find the time and energy to do it. Otherwise the sly creatures who think they are the new overlords of all creation will continue to do whatever they please.

    Wake. Up. Time to act.

    1. I am dealing with that in my community in SW Colorado. As an example, last night was our school board meeting. The major agenda item was the idea of switching to a 4 day school week. Most of the three hours of meeting I sat through was spent debating the pros and cons of the schedule, FOR THE TEACHERS and other employees. The board made sure that the janitors, bus drivers and cooks would not be negatively impacted by this schedule. Only one of the seven board members even brought up how this would impact the students.

      Anecdotally the majority of non school employed people I spoke with supported a traditional five day schedule, but the overwhelming number of respondents to the surveys regarding the schedule supported the four day schedule with the fewest number of days in the classroom. Too many people will not even take five minutes to fill out a simple survey and will just get herded into whatever the vocal minority will support.

    2. I’m running for select board this year.
      Simple blurb on my palm bill.

      I’m a fiscal conservative. My position is to get the most value for our money, spend as little as necessary, and in doing so, keep our municipal taxes as low as possible. Your taxes are your money spent to provide the services you choose to have.
      Less Government = More Freedom.

      Easy to keep my word when I don’t promise a bunch of BS. Wish more politicians understood the KISS principle.

  23. Argh. As an English teacher, I feel I can say with certainty that the actions on display by your son’s “teacher” are incredibly unprofessional, even disturbing, and the school’s response has thus far been disgusting.

    I’m sorry your family is having to wade through this garbage, Larry. Praying that the administration at your son’s school wakes up quickly.

  24. My deep suspicion is that bad teachers are lazy teachers.

    As a lazy teacher, (redacted) is just cribbing those various Profound Insights from someone else’s work, published in easily digestible form for bad and lazy teachers.

    And as we know from pop culture, a veneer of Wokeness covers a multitude of sins- bad writing, bad story, poor acting, and so on.

    Which is what (redacted) and her enablers are trying to do.

  25. Amongst all of the bullshit, for some reason this stood out to me:

    homework assignments being assigned late at night and expected to be turned in the next day (I believe the dismissive explanation for that last behavior was the unnecessary stress was supposed to prepare them for college, which is frankly asinine to anybody who has got a degree).

    Of all the times I have been to college for all of my various degrees, this has NEVER happened to me. In fact, there are usually university policies in place to make sure it doesn’t happen.

    This teacher, and the admin, are trying to run cover for a bad employee. I suspect, like every other profession right now, there is a shortage of teachers and the school district is trying to keep the ones they have. Regardless of the quality of instruction.

    1. Exactly. My thought was that the teacher forgot to assign something on her lesson plan and was practicing CYA

  26. I take one of her English college classes and I would almost recon it gets worse… I am a straight A student and don’t usually struggle with teachers, but I know exactly who you are talking about and I am honestly willing to tell you more!

  27. We had a very similar English teacher way back in the ‘70s when I was a boarding student at an Episcopalian High School. A good friend of mine (who still is to this day some 50 years later) bet his parents he could raise his English comp score by making some angsty/weepy multi media crap and handing that in instead of, you know an actual paper with SURPRISE a thesis, an argument, and a conclusion. He won the bet! He and his parents went to the Headmaster, who really was an English teacher professional.
    It did not go well for mister pasty face dipcheese.
    Same asshat tried to get me disciplined for following the exact letter of the rules but that’s …another story.

  28. I moved to South Jordan, Utah 3 1/2 yrs ago from Texas when my husband retired. We have lived in several states during our marriage, mostly in the Midwest but also including the east coast. We chose Utah because we are Mormon and have two of our four children living here. We were happy with Salt Lake county until covid hit. The craziness was unbelievable, especially compared to Utah county, and St George (that we visit monthly). Just really had no idea that Salt Lake county would go full dictatorship.

    I can’t imagine the people of Morgan letting this teacher try to indoctrinate the kids there; doesn’t sound like they will allow it for long. Infuriating! The lefties are trying their hardest to turn the culture from good, true, and beautiful to evil. It’s now a constant struggle to overcome. My youngest graduated HS in Indiana in 2007, I was an involved parent and knew of nothing like this.

    It’s only going to get worse. We’re probably going to move out of Salt Lake county.

    1. Utah ended up in this mess because too many people take “avoid contention” to mean be a total squish. They roll over as soon as somebody presses them on an issue because standing up for themselves would be rude.
      Terrible people weaponize this “nice” aspect of our culture and use it against us.
      They aren’t nice, they’re cowardly.
      Those of us who aren’t cowards and say what we mean get labeled as rude, uncouth, mean, vulgar, etc.
      These same “nice” Utahans would tell Samuel to get off that wall. All that yelling is upsetting them. Tsk tsk.

      1. Utah obviously needs more Klingons. Klingons tell you exactly how they feel. Well, except for the Duras family.

      2. Get elected to the school board. Sounds like they could really use some “Not Nice.” As well as someone with a clue or two.

  29. Your son’s teacher needs to go for a helicopter ride. One way. Over a deep body of water. Only way to put an end to this poison.

    No quarter.

    1. Delete that. Don’t give these people any excuse to change the subject away from their behavior. “Those evil White Male reactionary right-wingers are threatening to throw us off helicopters!”

      1. Any weapon, any tactic, any strategy that my enemy uses against me and mine is meet and fit for me to use against him and his.

        The laws of war are enforced by the combatants.

    2. @Heath J

      Sign me up! Sign me up! Be happy to be the loadmaster on that chopper. One change. No deep body of water.

      1. Depth is irrelevant. Anywhere about 200 miles off shore seems adequate. How far is it from Florida to Cuba again?

      2. There will be a sudden run on chicken wire and good sized lengths of chain when this happens.

        (This is one of the issues that I have with this idea-the bodies are going to float at a certain point and be noticeable on the local beaches. Chicken wire prevents this because by the time the wire rusts or the body parts are small enough to escape, they’re not recognizable.)

  30. This is rolling into my idea that our opposition is merely a bunch of stealthy book burners. The books are still there, untouched by flames. But, if nobody cares to read them, out of fear or having the urge to read or any other factor that makes them enjoy reading for fun beaten out of them (especially if they have to get a college degree to have a chance at a job that is better than average)…you don’t need to ban them at all. The kids will do that for you!

    Pathetic sniveling mini-tyrants that don’t have the fortitude to at least be honest about what they want.

  31. Ya know… I loved prompts like that in college. I enjoyed using the teacher’s expectations to tear apart everything they were trying to teach and use the arguments they expected us to use to argue for a traditional family structure.

    It made them SO MAD.

    And took a lot of skill that most high schoolers don’t have. Because they haven’t learned it yet. Which is why they’re doing it at this level and not after the kids have learned to think for themselves.

    As it is? Tar and feathers for the teacher and the principal. And yes, I do know what happens when you cover someone with hot tar. Honestly, it would be merciful compared to what I’d do if I caught any of the teachers pulling that kind of crap with my kids.

    1. I did that years ago – was applying for a scholarship and had to answer a question about working in the international environment. They obviously wanted me to talk about Diversity (TM), but at my internship, we had just been visited by a group of Russians and had all been warned to assume there was at least one KGB agent in the group (this was a while back) and to keep our computers locked down, watch what we said around the water coolers, etc. (we were handling info that today would be classified as ITAR). So I wrote about the challenges of maintaining national security in the international business world.

      I did not get the scholarship XD

  32. Larry, I have both dealt with and observed biased teachers. I recommend not complaining about “Leftist Indoctrination”. That presses the button in the principle’s head marked “Reactionary Conservative: subclass Conspiracy Theorist, Ignore”. I’ve found it more pro-active to take a generic stance against all specific political and religious agendas on the part of the teacher.

    I agree with the earlier reply to your post by ‘Ann Margret Lewis”, talking about how criticism is generally taught. You might want to use that sort of example when talking to the principle or school board. I recommend finding out how other teachers in your district handle the same type of things. If other teachers instructions on criticism are methods of which you approve, use those as examples of good instruction.

    I am suggesting what I have seen work. These are my own experiences. Your own mileage may vary. I hope you can find a solution that works best for the students.

    1. I saw no way to respond to someone being overtly political while remaining apolitical.
      Parents remaining “nice” and grey oatmeal mush had gotten them exactly nowhere.
      I’d prefer to be honest and be the guy who says what everybody else is thinking but is afraid to say.
      And if the Principal is reflexive rather than thoughtful, that’s going to be his problem.

      1. Larry, you prefer a ‘wrecking ball’ approach to the problem. There’s not reason that shouldn’t work. I do have a suggestion that might be useful.

        If you are arguing for a clear exposition of facts, stick to arguments for which you have clear evidence. Are you willing to present evidence and argue that there is such thing as a “leftist indoctrination” here. I’d suggest it is a lot less work to just go after the teacher for having a personal bias.

        You have evidence of bias, that’s a given. How large an argument do you want to make this? What is the fastest way to reach the goals you have set with the evidence you have?

        I apologize for my unsolicited opinion. My experience is that sticking to the facts in evidence works best. Again, I hope you can help the students get better instruction.

        1. Dude, there’s like fifteen people left in America who aren’t familiar with the concept of leftist indoctrination in schools at this point. And they live the forest with no internet.

  33. Be careful, Larry! You’ll end up getting shanghaied onto the school board by a bunch of concerned parents doing a write in campaign!

    1. Larry presiding over the school board should be the cover of his next short story collection.

      1. Owen has a kid.
        Kids grow up.
        Kids go to school.
        Owen takes on the school board.
        What supernatural evils infest the schools of rural Alabama?
        What do you think? Couple more novels before we get to that story?

        1. IIRC The Alabama Legislature passed a law about what is not acceptable to teach in Alabama schools.

          Now the Shamblers on some the School Boards…. well… it’s a family matter. We’ll take care of it. 😀

        1. “Hither came Larry the Libertarian, bald-headed, clear-eyed, tetsubo in hand. An account, a shooter, a writer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths, to tread the social justice hordes beneath his sandaled feet . . .”

      2. Larry presiding over the school board should be the cover of his next short story collection.

        With his Tetsubo! 😀
        ———————————
        Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

  34. For an old fart who hasn’t been around high school English classes since before the Flood, this was very enlightening. Since I began doing volunteer proofreading for beginning indie writers who can’t afford to hire editorial services, at least once a day I raise my clenched fists to the heavens and cry out, “Doesn’t anybody teach English composition any more?”

    Apparently the answer is “No.”

    1. I used to, as a adjunct for 20 years, but then I saw the writing on the whiteboards, and realized that what I was doing was never going to get me the full-time jobs I kept applying for.
      I realized, finally, that they were never really going to let me into the club.

    2. A close friend of mine taught an “Intro to Rhetoric and Composition” entry level English course for a number of years. She was at a mid-sized Catholic university. Catholic schools are supposed to provide a superior alternative to public schools in many parts of the country. My friend found that almost none of her students, whether from Catholic or public schools, could write a well composed paragraph. Many of her students had difficulty composing proper sentences. So yes, I agree it does not seem that English comp has much support these days.

    3. @Margaret Ball

      Please join Baen’s Bar (baensbar.net). It is free to join. Near the end of the list of threads is Baen’s Universe Grantville Annex Slush and Baen’s Universe Grantville Annex Slush Comments.

      We need and want you there.

      1. Alternatively, more magical math craziness!

        You have no *idea* how happy I was to see you had resumed publishing.

  35. Another quick thought:

    All this “through the lens” nonsense reminds me of the “Game it through” exercise in Norman Spinrad’s “The Mind Game.”

    1. True story. The New York Times OpEd page tried to buy one of my blog posts before.
      I told them no.
      They were shocked. It paid good and had big exposure. Writers are normally honored to be on their OpEd page.
      I said that I had zero faith in the integrity of their organization, from their reporting to their best seller lists.
      Never heard from them again. 🙂

      I still use NYT bestselling in my bio though, just because regular people think that’s a big deal. Not that I’ll make their list ever again, regardless of how my books sell.

      1. Only way I’d agree would be that they were prohibited from editing my piece. With massive +7 figure fines if they ever did.

  36. I remember the Weber course. I wanted to get a sense of you as a person so I drove there from Boise.

    One lady looked from side to side to check out who was around her and she said:

    “Well, I think it’s important to be respectful of other cultures. I want people to know I care about them. I want everyone to feel welcome to read my stories.”

    Then everyone around her was like, “yeah, of course.” Several of them were not white.

    Or what the SFWA crowd would refer to as a Klan rally.

    1. Yeah, the people who quick to hide behind the shield of diversity are usually the least diverse people in the world.
      The mandatory diversity panels at most events are usually rooms full of old white liberals.

      1. Yeah, I remember you getting up and saying such hateful comments as “it’s important to be respectful of other peoples cultures,” followed by practical advice like getting someone actually from that culture that’s in your target audience to read your story, instead of some weird hall monitor twenty four year old who thinks they’re an expert in everything because they dress up like a dog sometimes and get offended by things on Twitter.

        Having a kid has made this so much more real to me. This stuff is cancer and it’s hyper adapted to infest every type of institution. We’ve got to do something structurally to end this.

  37. This is a bit of a tonic to the previous post.

    And as I said there, it’s going to take the Right and what few sane people are left on the Left to keep up the pressure and never stop. It was the Right’s indifference toward academia that got us here.

    We’re at the stage where it’s time to drive our enemies before us and hear the lamentation of some teachers.

    1. “Right’s indifference toward academia”

      This is false.

      Academia would have /some/ tendency towards broken, even if the left had not concentrated use of the Leninist organizational weapon on academia. Because it would /not/ be uncommon for a field to borrow a freshman level incorrect idea from another field, and keep it around forever treating it as an unimpeachable authority.

      Large bureaucracies running debating societies for theory always have issues with some of the ideas that they push. This is basically normal.

      The Marxists have cooperating for decades in some of the academic in fighting, in pushing out conservative faculty from certain fields. They’ve mostly since broken the theoretical foundation of those fields. To get tolerated as an instructor, you have to accept as reasonable the notion that certain fields aren’t mostly hot garbage. No, seriously try telling a class of engineering students that most of the humanities faculty are actively destructive idiots, and would do better ‘scholarship’ inside of a mass grave. Long term, you will have the administrators complaining, and trying to make you change your speech. And other faculty will hold it against you, because you aren’t a ‘trained expert’, and ‘not qualified’ to say what is obvious to everyone that is not actually invested in a given set of fields.

      The few remaining good fields, maybe you can make a defensible case for teaching those fields. You won’t be allowed to really think, or teach, in the fields that really need all the help that they can get.

      Academia and the formal literature are /not/ the places to redo the theory of those fields, to turn them into something usable, instead of sewage that makes everything you add them to worse.

      The path forward is a) disrupting the whole university by implementing alternatives to tertiary education b) splitting apart the universities into major specific schools, getting rid of ‘cross-disciplinary’ collaboration, and keeping both administrators and faculty of other fields from screwing over the faculty in the school’s only fields.

      We also need to shut down all of the Education schools, and prevent people with Education degrees from being employed as teachers or administrators in organized primary and secondary schools.

      There’s some argument that the medical and legal professional schools require similar treatment, but the case is not as compelling.

      Accounting and engineering professional schools are not, to my knowledge, quite as in need of strong medicine.

      1. The most I will concede here is adding “relative” to indifference. Other than that, we will have to agree to disagree.

        With more interest in academia from the inside and the outside, there’s no way conservatives would have been “pushed out”. Why are so many parents only now finding out about what’s been taught and what’s been happening for twenty years? As another commenter points out below – the politicians responsible for oversight of the state education requirements are oblivious to what’s in curricula.

        And that’s not isolated to Utah.

        If you think STEM, or accounting, or law is not infested with this rot to a compelling degree, you’re woefully out of the loop. Other than the numerous examples that get linked around our increasingly small share of the internet, I’ve either personally witnessed, or have friends on the insides of many of those programs in geographically diverse places that confirmed this rot years ago.

        It certainly hasn’t improved since then.

        Thinking that the situation is not as dire in medicine or law is only one facet of the indifference I’m talking about. You think the race-based distribution of vaccines in places like New York wasn’t an idea that germinated in Academia? Every academic department is eaten up with this nonsense.

        As for your prescription, most of it is nice… in spirit. No one is going to walk into a modern university tomorrow and disabuse them of interdisciplinary claptrap. Splitting apart universities? Shutting down education schools? It’s fun to fantasize about, but this is cart-before-the-horse stuff.

        To do most of that, you need political clout that simply does not exist right now. Thankfully the Right is working on building that, but there’s a long way to go. We’re up against massive institutions, well-funded and entrenched interests, massive unions, and federal bureaucracies – some of which are ready to label you as a terrorist and treat you accordingly. You can have Republican governors issue plain language orders and get laughed at by these people, and you think you can just walk in and raze the edifice?

        No. It starts at the local level, and until that changes, nothing else will. You can blame it on the Marxists until you’re blue in the face, but who was pushing back? Are the Marxists just that good? No. They rely on indifference.

        1. Lest you think I’m making things up about how deep the rot is in every academic department, check out criticalrace.org and despair.

      2. @BobTheRegisterRedFool

        “We also need to shut down all of the Education schools, and prevent people with Education degrees from being employed as teachers or administrators in organized primary and secondary schools.”

        True story.

        I attended university at a place that started as a normal school — a tertiary school to turn out primary school teachers — and grew into a university. I majored in computer science, mathematics, and history and minored in physics. I finished in two-and-a-half years. The university suggested load for a student was 12 hours a semester. My course load my last semester was 21 hours.

        And I worked as a computer operator for the university mainframe. I volunteered for the wake-up shift. Quiet. Turn on the lights and disk drives, boot the computer, and run any production jobs laid out on the counter.

        The president of the faculty senate — Dr Rudoff — wondered why the school did not have the reputation he thought it deserved. The faculty senate looked high (external polls), looked low (internal polls), and finally looked at undergraduate grades.

        Each department reported its grades for several semesters. Twelve semesters, I think. The data were collated and delivered to the computer center to be tabulated and reported.

        By luck, it fell to me to run the job. I knew what the job was when I saw it. I ran it before I switched on all the machines to give me time read it. When the job finished, I checked on the computer science, math, history, and physics departments.

        Computer science and history reported similar grade curves: 10% A, 20% B, 60% C, and 10% D&F&X (X=incomplete).

        Math was tough: 6% A, 15% B, 70% C, and 9% D&F&X.

        Physics was tougher: 4% A, 10% B, 70% C, and 16% D&F&X.

        Then I turned to the department of education. “Uh-oh,” I said to myself, said I. “The shit is going to hit the fan.”

        Education grades were 80% A, 20% B, and nothing lower than a B. Not even an incomplete.

        Rudoff hit the ceiling. In the faculty senate he put forth a motion to separate the Department of Education from the rest of the university. Admission to the Department of Education would not give a student admission to the university. That would have to be applied for separately. And the education faculty could not sit on the faculty senate. Much screaming and shouting and gnashing of teeth.

        In the end, nothing came of it but hard feelings and bitter recriminations. But to this day, I hold a degree in education in contempt.

  38. That’s awful, Larry. I’m not a parent myself but my nieces and nephews live in Morgan, Utah so this hits close to home for me.

  39. You knocked this out of the park, sir. Rock solid. I steer readers toward your books all the time, and I steer more politically-minded people here for posts much like this one. I hope yourbsuccess continues, and that your voice reaches a larger slice of the populace of this country. Thank you.

  40. Amen! I was zoomed into this mornings community council meeting and you’ve expressed my sentiments exactly! I was appalled with the response from you know who regarding the definition of ‘discrimination’, even more so as the context used was applied to the concerned parents in the room- at 6:30 am! The lack of response has been loud enough – especially over the last year as I have attended school board meetings. The disconnect between community and administration is far greater than I had ever anticipated. I’m grateful for the tone set and the attention you drew with your response this morning. Maybe it needs to come from a louder voice than us ‘little mothers’ seem to have. It’s unfortunate so many are unaware of what is truly going on and I pray this will be an eye opener. Again, thank you!

    1. Yeah, I listened to the audio again of his definition of discrimination bit, and then the rambling part afterwards about genocide.
      I was right to be as angry as I was. 🙂 My voice is not normally that high pitched!

    1. Anyone who has to discuss The Great Gatsby for three months straight is certainly a victim, manufactured or not.

      1. I read “classic” literature as a self improvement exercise. About 1 out of every dozen books I read. The problem with the Great Gatsby is that I was so uninterested in it that it took nearly 3 months for me to slog my way through it. Was tempted to wall it several times, or even toss it in the fireplace. Except what was started in the living room ended up on the back of the toilet for once a day reads.

    2. Yep. Anybody who doesn’t want asinine bullshit crammed down their throat instead of getting educated is clearly a big stupid whine baby.
      The real victims are the school administrators who have to listen to all those stupid parents cry about their dumb kids. Lame.

  41. FWIW the Morgan School District website reports ‘This site can’t be reached’. Not just the high school. The whole school district. Most definitely including the high school faculty directory.

    Looks like they went C3PO on the website.
    “Shut down all the garbage mashers [websites] on the detention [high school] level!”
    “No! Shut them all down! Hurry!”

    1. @h lynn keith:
      That, or whoever designed the English curriculum is applying the same level of competence to running the website.

  42. This reminds me of something… where was it…? Ah, here we go.

    “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.”

    Tyranny never changes.

    Back in college I had the old cranky, merciless grader English professors. It was great. They *loved* it when you surprised them with a new perspective… as long as you could back it up. I still remember the day when I torpedoed deconstructionist literary criticism within about ten minutes… “Well, if this is a valid method, it doesn’t matter WHAT you write, I can interpret it however I want! I can say you’re all kinds of nasty things and no one can say otherwise!” … kinda soured everyone’s mood on it.

  43. This is why my wife and I plan to do ALL that we can to homeschool our children. This is coming from someone who actually works for two school districts. School administrators just want to keep their cushy jobs and cover their behinds. Very few care about your kids.

  44. My Dragonette is in FLVS. Technically it’s just another of the Florida public schools, but it is virtual (and has been for years, so it isn’t craptastic like when the local schools went virtual). We discuss everything she does in class (except Pre-Calc because that is over my head).

    And when I asked her what she would do if someone said “don’t tell your parents about this”, her response was “Oh, I’m definitely telling my parents. I tell you all the gossip anyway.”

  45. As a small time author myself – with absolutely nothing like this author’s chops – I can absolutely confirm that sometimes the curtains are simply blue. Because they have to be some color!

    It reminds me of a story I heard of one of the big names of Sci Fi, Asimov or Heinlein, attending a college lecture where the professor was deconstructing one of his works, asserting, “and here the author meant to say XYZ.” Sitting in the back, a hand went up. “No,” the older man said, “That’s not what the author meant at all.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because I wrote it.”

    I always wish I could have been in that room to see the fallout. It must have been spectacular.

    Sometimes the curtains are just blue. In fact, I believe that’s true most of the time. If you analyze every word and nuance as you write, you’ll never tell the story.

    1. I remember an English Lit teacher when I was in high school (feels like a million years ago) telling us stories about Tolkien refuting people when they talked about the allegories in the Hobbit and LOTR series. Same teacher then went on to teach us about all the allegories in the Hobbit and LOTR.

  46. Personally, I think it is plausible that all of these leftist agenda teachers, in otherwise conservative communities, are recruited by the NEA and the UEA and are pushed for hire at various schools, normal public and charter, to bring this kind of one-sided, non-academic indoctrination. It’s plausible that the principal and the council have their necks on the line, whether it be because of receiving payouts/kickbacks/bribes (call it what you want) or because of some other allegiance that would kill careers if exposed. What other reasons would they have to allow this nonsense and push this narrative? The narrative is so obviously absurd.

  47. I too have children in the Morgan school district. This one sided political drive put forward by the district has always been a concern. From Christian prayers at school functions, to a [left leaning] lopsided criteria. However, another concern, as you also stated, has been the receptiveness of the teachers regarding parental concerns in the classroom.
    After weeks of fighting with our kids at dinner time about how to do their homework, frustration took me over and I told our child that we will no longer be doing homework. Along with another incident, our daughter explained to the teacher what I had said before I could actually email him. His response to her was “your parents aren’t my boss…you’ll do the work I tell you to do”. I’ve left it at that as not to create any hostilities on the school front, however, after reading this, I feel it’s time to step up and let these teachers know that the parents are their boss. Thank you for this, great read.

  48. Larry, thank you very much for posting and sending this letter. I have taught in Utah schools for 30+ years. I am not surprised that this type of garbage is being taught.
    The Utah legislature can rail all they want and say that CRT is not being taught in Utah, but this is not entirely true. Even though it is not called CRT, it has slowly been creeping its way into every curriculum in our state. I noticed it coming in about 2015 with slight changes in what was being focused on and changes in core objectives.
    Last year, Utah teachers were informed that Utah schools would be moving over to an “Equity Education” model, which has its foundation and roots in CRT. Many of the older teachers in our state fought against this, but we were told that we were on the wrong side of education and that this new model would solve every problem in our schools. As we began to attend in-services to train us how to use the “Equity Education” model, we began to see that this was nothing more than a thin ruse for completely changing our schools into socialist indoctrination centers. Many of us stood up during these in-services and told the state office of education instructors that this was wrong and would only dumb our students down to be nothing more than drones who would follow orders.
    In the middle of one in-service, when we complained, we were literally asked to leave the conference and go to a separate room. Every teacher that left was over the age of 45. We were then told we would get on board with this new education model or we could find a new job. This made many of us very angry and we complained to our local school boards and district offices about what had happened at this conference. We were told not to worry about it; this would not affect us that much. Then, after we complained our local districts made us go to additional training on this new education model. So for speaking up, we were taken in for more reeducation.
    At the end of last school year, our faculty was taken in to meet with our district office and representatives from the state office of education. They informed us that we would be instituting this new model into our curriculums and our classes. We were told that we would be monitored on a weekly basis by our administrators to make sure we were teaching and complying with what the state was forcing us to teach. We were told we could no longer be able to use our own lesson plans or presentations for our classes. We would follow their model and if we did not, we would lose our tenure and possibly our jobs. Myself along with eight other veteran teachers, stood up and told our administration and the state office representatives that we would not do this. We were told to sit down and to shut up! After the meeting was over, each of the eight teachers were called in by our district office. We were told that we had three options. The first was to comply and teach our curriculum using the new “Equity Education” model. The second was to retire immediately and bow out gracefully. The third option was to quit and find a new job. All eight of us chose the last two options. I retired along with 5 of the eight. The others quit and moved out of state.
    So this is what is happening in schools in Utah. It will only get worse as time goes on. Local boards do not believe it is a problem until parents start going in and raising cain, threatening school boards and district office jobs. Our legislature is more than happy to let the state office of education do what ever they want. I am now a very strong proponent of Charter/Private/Home schooling and I have convinced many others in our area to leave public education.
    Keep fighting the good fight Larry!!!

      1. I wish I could give you a simple answer Larry, but there is not simple answer to what has happened in our schools. The majority of teachers that are left are young and have been completely indoctrinated in our liberal higher education system. The only true change that will come is when the legislature decides to require more oversight for the state office of education. In all honesty, they are just to lazy to check what is actually happening in public education. They would rather throw tax money at the problem, in the hopes that it will somehow go away. They keep putting more and more pressure on teachers and administrators to teach the core curriculum that the state provides, yet they do not even know what is contained in that curriculum.
        Both the state office of education and the state school board are filled with left-leaning liberal individuals who take orders from D.C. (Department of Education) and unfortunately, the NEA. Public education is so rampantly unamerican and pro -Socialist ideology it can never be changed with the structure and individuals we have currently running things.
        Vouchers would be the real solution to this problem. Give parents the choice of what schools, teachers and curriculum they want their students to be exposed to and I think things would change very fast. The only real problem is in rural Utah. Parents would have very few choices due to the lack of private and charter schools. Local districts fight like demons to keep school choice out of these areas, because they are not governed by the same rules and regulations as public schools. It all comes down to the issue of control and power. Once a liberal socialist ideology is introduced into any public education system, it is almost impossible to get rid of it without giving parents additional choices on where to educate their students.
        I hope this helps Larry. I truthfully see very little hope for public education in Utah and across the nation.

        1. Your assessment of the problem seems spot on, and thorough. Particularly about young teachers being thoroughly indoctrinated. This shit has been going on for decades. The last ten years in earnest. There’s easily an entire generation of teachers lost to this nonsense.

          The answer was really in Larry’s question. The people who made this happen, and – more importantly – the people who stood by and allowed it to happen (either through indifference or laziness) need to be put on notice. The only thing they truly understand is power. Politics is about power. Anyone who says otherwise either doesn’t understand politics, or is destined to lose.

          Right now, school boards across the country are being put on notice. So are city councils. This is how the Left worked their way up, and it’s how the Right is finally beginning to work its way up. It needs to happen more, and it needs to be loud, brutal, and unceasing.

          Pols too lazy to look into the curriculum requirements at the state level? Make them care, or find someone who does. Make every second of their public lives absolutely miserable and uncomfortable. Asians in California are hopping mad at the school system right now, and are exercising all of their political clout in San Francisco. The are active and motivated. The Right is too.

          And we need more of it. A lot more.

  49. Educators have been/going through the hardest years. They’ve continued teaching your kids through pandemics and constant back lash on what’s right vs what’s wrong. If you can’t handle a teacher teaching things that can be hard for some conservative parents to hear, then move to a different small conservative town. Cry about how your kids can’t stand hearing about lgbtq or feminist topics while those kids are the reason kids other kids are afraid to come to school or be who they are.

    Don’t threaten educators job security when you haven’t done anything other than make teachers and educators life more difficult during this time.

    1. Shitlib scripts are so predictable.
      Lets’ see, skim until offended. Then anybody who diverges from proper lefty groupthink is crying/whining/triggered/thin skinned, etc.
      Meanwhile, leftists are always the real victim, and disagreeing with them is basically a war crime.
      Then appoint yourself Speaker for (insert minority group here) to hide behind, in this case gay kids. Even though there’s a bunch of openly gay kids in this school, and nobody cares.
      Spare us your bullshit. Everybody here is in on your act.

    2. “If you can’t handle a teacher teaching things that can be hard for some conservative parents to hear, then move to a different small conservative town.”

      Wow, how tolerant and inclusive of you. Also, no, we are not going anywhere. Fucking deal.

      “Cry about how your kids can’t stand hearing about lgbtq or feminist topics while those kids are the reason kids other kids are afraid to come to school or be who they are.”

      Cry about how the political flavor du jour currently favors lgbtq kids or kids who want to be feminist because I hate to break it to you, Sparky, but those kids’ views are acceptable. Any white boy is degraded for being white and male, any non-white kid who speaks against the narrative is immediately labeled as not politically acceptable, and anyone who doesn’t support trans kids’ insisted upon pronouns are transphobes.

      Cry me a fucking river, asswipe.

    3. “They’ve continued teaching your kids through pandemics…”
      Actually, no they did not- especially in the districts where Democrats have monopoly rule.
      Part of the ongoing problem was that the teachers and teacher’s unions fought to get away from students as fast as possible, and then long and hard to stay from students as long as possible.

    4. Speak to your educators about how they failed you, particularly in the area of reading comprehension.

      Then, stop lying.

      “Teachers are the real hErOeS!!”

      *vomit*

    5. Kazarle, I’m married to a liberal teacher, and even she says your blurb is bullshit. Seriously, you can’t see the difference between presenting opposing viewpoints and indoctrination? And what does either of those things have to do with actually teaching English (apparently you missed the main point of Larry’s letter)?

    6. Their job security wouldn’t be threatened if they did their job, which is not to indoctrinate in how to hate everyone who’s not sufficiently “woke”. A teacher’s job is to teach the subject to which they’ve been assigned. If these “critical _____ theory” the teacher is using is supposed to be only graduate level theory, then it isn’t supposed to be in high school English. High school English is supposed to teach composition, grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, and ideally a love for literature and reading.

      Those among us recognizing the teachers are failing to do their jobs aren’t threatening job security, we’re recognizing poor job performance. In almost any other job, consistent poor performance means you get fired. Good teachers are too important to simply allow teachers that aren’t doing their job to keep receiving a paycheck to not do their jobs correctly. The only person threatening this teacher’s job security is the teacher who is failing to do her job.

    7. I believe the defendants at the Nuremberg war crimes trials tried that defense. They were just following orders. I gather you are a teacher or school employee. I have some news for you, you, your superiors AND the School Bard work for the parents, not the reverse. If you don’t want to teach lessons acceptable to the parents who pay your salary, go find another job.

  50. I remember one adjunct professor of English who said to write an essay on a short story and say if it is pornographic or not. He promised to evaluate the essays on structure and logic. Then when we got them back, the folks with the wrong answers got an “F”. No exceptions for logic or structure. He said, “They can’t possibly have logic or reasonable arguments because they are wrong.” I was lucky enough to have chosen the right side for an “A”. It was partially because I figured the teacher wouldn’t label himself a purveyor of pornography.

  51. If they want to learn about what it’s like to live under Marxism maybe they should be reading my short story, Pretending to Sleep: A Communism Survivor’s Story. Something I’m sure your school district would get the vapors over for its real-life portrayal of what it was like. For the last 40+ years people have told me that it can’t happen here. Yet here it is. Happening.

  52. Simple reading for that age: 1) All Jack London. 2) All Lloyd Alexander. 3) Marguerite Henry. Then, Pat Buchanan books.

  53. Waaay back in HS, my teacher handed out Lord of the Flies and told us all to go home and read chapter one.

    Next day at the beginning of class I approached him and and said, “Mr. Bradburn, is it okay if I read a little ahead?”

    He knew both of my older brothers and had watched my actions and behavior through the school year to that point, and he wasn’t an idiot, so he looked at me sternly and said, “(last name), how much is ‘at little’?”

    I had closed the book after reading all the way through, including the author’s notes at the back, at about 3 am that morning.

    He was upset, unsurprised, but upset at my answer. He’d wanted to be able to call on me for interesting or at least intelligible insights into the book during class discussions. After that, when he’d ask questions like ‘What do you think is going to be the result of…?’ I’d shoot my hand into the air and wave it with little, Oh! Oh! noises and he’d yell at me to put my hand back down.

    Even back then he was a refreshing break from other teachers. I’d learned fairly early to write to my audience. My freshman teacher hadn’t liked my writing style, and had consistently graded me poorly until I dumbed it down to a level she thought was appropriate for our ‘age’. Mr. Bradburn liked it when we disagreed with him. Loved it when we proved him wrong. Was thoroughly pleased that someone in his class had an opinion of their own and was willing to stand up for it.

    My nephews, on the other hand, had to deal with teachers openly berating them in class for having conservative opinions. One got handed a ‘personal’ assignment from the teacher that deliberately forced him to endorse and promote a behavior that he found morally wrong.

    That is not teaching. That is punishing wrong think and trying to force conformity. Thankfully my Brother and SIL weren’t having any of that and went first to the teacher, then to the principal and got the kid moved to a class where he wasn’t being actively bullied by the teacher, even if they couldn’t get the hag herself removed from the school.

  54. This is why we home school. Well, that and our kids academically perform better than all their peers in the public school.

    That said, this is the one area where I think leftists have screwed up. They long dominated schools, but got their talons in through implicit things such as one way framing of history, negative associations with capitalism, etc. This kind of material, though, is explicit, and one guaranteed to wake the slumbering beast of an ENTIRE COMMUNITY OF PARENTS. Oh, and unlike Washington, or even the state capital, we all live right next door to you, the school and the school board.

    I don’t think it will end the long march, but I do think it’s going to set it back quite a bit.

  55. Yeah, people say “Oh, I am in a conservative state, I still have a voice in what the bureaucracy does, I have recourse if authoritarians abuse their authority to push left wing nutjob theory.” Or “I’m moving to a conservative state.”

    These people are borrowing thinking and policy from each other. There is no bureaucratic support for refusing federal funds, or for refusing to hire people with Education degrees, which is a ‘research field’ that has over decades /diverged/ from being effective at teaching.

    Education was a bad degree in the 1960s and 1970s. Theory of measurement in engineering and physics has not been ruined as badly as other fields have been ruined, and any decent polymath can reverse engineer that to understand why Education is foundationally unsound. The ‘scholars’ who have been ‘improving’ Education theory since are mostly not intelligent, thoughtful, or curious. Now a) the Education faculty are screwing over the real faculty at the tertiary level b) the courses that Education majors take outside the major are so bad that primary and secondary teachers no longer have /any/ real education to fill in for what they didn’t get in Education courses. Public primary and secondary had a lot of weak material and weak instructors even twenty years ago, and the good improving courses in other majors are upper division, or even graduate, and locked behind at least lower division courses.

    You are employing people whose level of mental ability and inquisitive drive ranges between “It is bullshit, but I am getting the degree because it is steady work, and I literally don’t have /anything/ else I would rather do” and “I legitimately think doing these courses are really work, and take the field seriously on an intellectual level.” The first group, as young adults, did not have the independence of mind to even say ‘enlisting in the military means my living expenses are paid for, so I could spend my /whole/ income on drink, instead of borrowing a bunch of money and spending most of college drunk.’ The people with actual good plans for an enlisted career, or trade school, or even effin’ college are by far the intellectual superiors of the education majors.

    They take their ‘training seriously’, think they are better than you because of ‘college trained white collar’, spend most of their their time lording that over children, and think ‘latest scholarship’ is worth the paper it is printed on. They don’t get that highschool graduates, college drop outs, and people with advanced degrees, who kept studying and thinking after the end of their formal schooling, are by far better scholars when it comes to assessing formal theory than some slob who never had a thought that wasn’t given to them by an instructor, and can’t even get a new thought from a book that was never part of any curriculum.

    Many literally can not accept instruction from you, because blind idiot credentialism. They never have new thoughts of their own, and cannot negotiate with people who are thinking new thoughts in response to their previous efforts to impose ‘my way or the highway’ agreements.

    The bureaucracies will not negotiate in good faith with you.

    I hesitate to outright tell you to start with the worse ones, and quietly murder them until folks are willing to completely rearrange the bureaucracy into something that /can/ negotiate in good faith, and deliver on parent request an environment that is not child abuse.

    I personally think you are wrong to let your children choose, as mostly adults, to attend a public secondary school.

    I think the minimum that you should be expecting the schools to deliver is at-student-will switch to homeschooling alternatives for any or even all classes. So that students can literally skip class, give themselves an A, and obligate the highschools to recognize that on the transcript, and count it towards the degree. That might be a legal formal remedy sufficient to address the current level of entrenched corruption in the bureaucracy.

    That, break the teacher’s unions, break the credential mafia, cut ordinary pay to teachers, and give them a bonus based on actual voluntary attendence by students, with students filing the paperwork to sign off on attendence numbers, without any way for the bureaucracy to interfere or know or coerce.

    Being in a conservative state is /not/ enough. You have to actually use that political influence for something. Mostly, folks are coasting in these policy areas, ‘not my problem’, even when the Teachers in a state are outright waging war on the GOP.

    1. Sadly, the teachers here aren’t waging war on the GOP – they’re straight up buying them off. Our “conservative” governor just vetoed a bill that would set up education savings accounts to let parents pay for homeschool supplies, some towards private schools, etc. claiming schools are underfunded. Of course, it’s not the schools that are underfunded, he’s saying teachers aren’t getting paid enough. Although, given that he received 75,000 from The NEA Fund for Children and Public Education during his Primary campaign, it makes you wonder how a Republican got any money from such an organization.

  56. My nephew was in a college English class. The assigned “project” was he had to interview a given number of women, using assigned questions, and then write a report about modern feminism. He immediately contacted me, and I suggested he confine his interviews to women veterans, starting with me.

    He got a B on the report, because the “teacher” so hated our feedback, but nephew had followed the assignment exactly as directed.

    Nephew found numerous ways to poke a stick in leftist “teacher” eyes, yet never once violated the assignment directions. He’s have made a great Army counterintelligence special agent, except for his hatred of paperwork. He’s a WO1 helicopter pilot these days. All the family veterans are super proud of him.

  57. Larry, You should throw a real Molotov Cocktail into the mix and run for school board. You would be a shoe in. My sister did that once when she went to her son’s school about an assignment and the school staff would not discuss it with her. Now it is “Yes Mrs (redacted), or No, Mrs (redacted). Be careful though, it can become a real time sucking black hole.

    1. “Be careful though, it can become a real time sucking black hole.”

      It would be amusing to have Larry wielding the Tetsubo of Truth amongst those kind of folks but that takes away from his real job.

  58. There is only one defense from this, short term. Home. Schooling.

    I am told by parents in the Toronto/Oakville area that the home schooling scene has utterly exploded in the last two years, thanks to masks and constant lockdowns. People are banding together in their neighborhoods or work-related groups, hiring a tutor for a bunch of kids and never looking back. Just one of the many unintended consequences of Corona that Lefties didn’t see coming.

    As to creatively misbehaving and pissing off the teachers, as a grown-ass man in a masters physical therapy program, we were told to write a report on teaching a physical skill. I said “okay then!” and the skill I chose was field-strip and re-assemble an assault rifle.

    Never let an opportunity to misbehave go by.

  59. English hasn’t really been taught in English classes for generations. Grammar and composition occupied only a fraction of my English classes in high school; the rest was spent sucking the joy out of literature (there were some glimmers during senior year, because I enjoy British literature more than the stuff they taught from American authors). I learned more English grammar from my German class than I ever did from English.

    When my mom was in high school (Skyline High in Salt Lake, class of ’67) she had a teacher who drove the class nuts trying to decipher the meaning of a mouse in a story. The author was still alive, so some of her classmates wrote to her for an answer. The author’s answer was that the mouse meant nothing, it was just part of the story.

    It’s a great time for a couple of choice quotes from LDS scholar Hugh Nibley:

    “Mud like manure has great possibilities, but of itself is simply loathesome. The same holds true of our educational system—a vast sluggish sea of uniform primordial ooze out of which we fondly expect marvellous trees of knowledge to emerge, even though we have already waited 50 years for a single butter-cup to appear.” (said in 1943, after he already had his PhD)

    “Scholarship is as usual the clown of the professions—its practitioners are either dealing in things so abstruse as to place them beyond criticism (in which case they are almost bound to be phonies) or else they are chewing old familiar cuds—in which case they are wasting their time.”

  60. David Knight home-schooled his kid and said the G.A. Henty books gave him a better grasp of history than any teachers could provide.

    Reading through the amazing comments here, I do not understand why a well to do parent would not just outsource it to either a straight A student or former Valedictorian. Just hire them at 20 bucks an hour to read with a high-schooler.

    Last thing, but I heard that to be considered well read, you really only have to read about 25 pages a day? If that is the case, I’d just have 30minutes set aside at the top of a certain hour where the young person is reading.

    Finally, streaming has become a thing. One of the best experiences a person can have is just consistency. If a parent cared about their kid, you would think it would be mandatory just to read aloud for 30 minutes a day and have it recorded, so that you know it’s done. As time goes by, it becomes a habit.

  61. idk man, as a student of her i agree she’s definitely not a great teacher, but my experience has had next to none political agenda from her. Also the great gatsby and marxism is covered in every english 11 honors class.

    1. I’ve talked to a mess of kids and parents over the last couple of weeks. “not great” is the NICEST thing anybody has said about her so far.
      Also, whoever told you Marxism is covered in every English 11 honors class lied to you. That deconstruction nonsense is garbage and if you actually follow it, it’ll make you worse at reading and writing.
      And like I said, it ain’t about Gatsby. The book is irrelevant if you just ignore it and teach crap all trimester instead.

    2. If Marxism is taught in any English 11 honors class, that’s your first clue that you’re getting robbed of a proper English education. You shouldn’t even encounter Dialectical Materialism as a tool for literary analysis until college, and even then something only for a useless literary criticism paper or two to show that you can turn off your higher order thinking necessary to employ the technique.

      If you’re getting a nonzero amount of political agenda in any freakin’ English course, you’re getting an indoctrination.

    3. If you are a representative example of her students, she’s not doing a very good job teaching you English. Putting aside your affected lack of capitalization (e.e. cummings did it a lot better, by the way), your comment has syntax, punctuation, and possessive errors.
      You’ve likely never had anything you’ve written line edited.
      I’m a professional writer and editor. If you submitted that comment to me for grading in a remedial English course, I’d give it a C-, and that would be generous. If submitted for an honors English course, I’d recommend that you be relegated to a remedial course.

  62. There is zero excuse to send your children into indoctrination centers. You are a failure as a parent and a human being if you do, there is no excuse for it anymore, you know what they’re doing.

    P. S. Can’t wait for the excuses

  63. “Remember, don’t tell your parents!” sounds like something a child molester would say before, well, molesting a child.

  64. Ugh – and it looks like the next term will be spent studying Elie Wiesel’s “Night”. Great book but it would make for a grim and cheerless term even before all the SJW nonsense gets piled on it. I feel for those kids. My HS English teacher was a man-hating liberal, but at least she was a skilled teacher who treasured great literature and taught it effectively.

  65. i guess thinking critically from the point of view of someone who is different than yourself is inherently leftist now? interesting that anyone would ever think to view something from a different perspective than their own

    1. Apparently reading comprehension is inherently right wing now.

      Read the entire post at a slower pace, then give it another go, eh sport?

    2. Well that post was certainly deep, profound, and accurate! 😀

      Spare us your bullshit. Ain’t nobody buying that act anymore, as the least open minded people in America scream at the rest of us for our lack of empathy. There’s a difference between thinking critically from a different POV versus parroting back the leftist approved cartoon version of that different POV, and only that or else.

      Oh yeah, and this isn’t a Critical Thinking class. It’s an English class. Where kids should be learning English skills. Actual critical thinking is our ability to see through the administration’s obfuscation and weak ass shame attempt posts like this.

  66. I have a side-gig working for a proofreading subsidiary of Grammarly. We get alot of essays to proofread – ranging from high school to advanced technical stuff that I can’t even begin to understand past checking basic sentence structure. I’ve definitely seen an uptick in essays that are using this Social Justice lens to interpret literature, economics, history, and current events. It’s disturbing to say the least, especially since most of the people I work with buy into this crap (I once had a colleague go out of her way to avoid misgenderiing a hawk – yes a freaking bird!).

    1. The shocking thing is not this stupid ideology, nor how far it has penetrated everything, but how many on the Right are not aware how deep the rot goes.

  67. So this is really funny too me. I am appalled at the amount of lies I’ve just read. I’m a 4.0 student, NHS member, have been on hope squad for 5 years, etc. I am currently in this said teachers class and all of the things being spread around are lies. I can promise you that none of this is true. She has NEVER forced any of her ideals on her students. It hurts me to see how easy students lie, and hurts even more to see adults so easily persuaded. That assignment list your son showed you, is actually not an assignment. Hmm… nice try, that’s actually a critical approaches to literature college source where we can use any of the listed subjects to analyze text.
    I could go on and on about this, but I know nobody will believe it. I just want you all too know that this article is full of biased lies from a bunch of students who can’t suck it up for one freaking hour a day, and listen to other peoples ideals which aren’t even being forced upon them. Congrats Morgan, you did it, you believed a bunch of kids lies and encouraged them to never listen or accept other peoples opinions.

    1. My web guy says I got three messages in a row, all from the same exact IP, but with three different names which is one of those flags web guys watch for. Looking at the email addys Current Morgan High Student and Anonymous have the same last name as Former Morgan High Student. Well that’s a shocker. But I’ll respond to each point individually anyway.

      Yep. All the other kids are liars. All the other parents I heard from were liars. All the parents who spoke up and told stories in those two meetings were liars, or their kids lied to them and they were just that gullible. On our dishonest “nice try” of showing part of the curriculum the admin confirmed that was in there so they must be liars too. And you can use any of those critical approaches to literature, it just so happens that they’re all overwhelmingly biased in one direction and if you don’t toe that line she’s zing you. Even though I took a look at some of those zeroes myself, and I know orders of magnitude more about written communication than you do, and I found it to be clearly politically biased, I’m probably just lying about that too… Even though we were happy to hand all that stuff over to the administration and school board to review.

      You could go on and on. Yet you don’t. And as of right now you’re outnumbered about 20 to 1 by MHS liars who lied and said they had a terrible experience.

      Drat. I’m so gullible. Thanks for setting me straight.

  68. I am current Weber state student and former Morgan student. Can I just say I have never been more enraged by anything than I am about this propaganda right here. To me it sounds like “I have an intolerance to anything or anyone different to me” “I don’t like to be academically challenged” I have taken two of her classes and yes, they were difficult. But she was also the most amazing teacher I have ever had. And this lie about his son “telling the teacher what she wants to hear to get an A” is a lie. There is no faking an A in that class. It’s difficult enough that you need to grasp the understandings of that class to get an A. Not so difficult that it’s impossible though. I took two of her classes and got an A in both. As a current college student I can say her approaches in preparing them for college are not “asinine,” in fact she was THE ONLY teacher to prepare me for college professors.
    The way that he attacks this teachers approach to teaching and makes her seem like she couldn’t possibly be a good writer/teacher is messed up. Everyone is different. Everyone can have different opinions. I LOVED this teacher.
    I know this is hard for close-minded morgan people to grasp, but it’s ok to learn about LGBTQ (: never once did she say that they had to learn about feminism bc it’s THE ONLY right way. She’s just being real in trying to inform students that there’s so many more perspectives to life than what’s taught in this small town.
    My brother has this teacher right now and admits she’s difficult but everything that has been talked about is a lie. She’s not forcing her “leftist viewpoints” on anyone. She’s simply informing the students that there is in fact a different point of view than the republican conservative view that everyone thinks is right.
    This intolerance to new and different ideas is SICKENING. I will be fighting this BS with the school. If you don’t like your children learning that there is more to this world than their close minded conservative views then homeschool them! I’m so sorry that you are too prejudiced to be tolerant of difference.
    This is so sad that a few parents are butt hurt that their kids had to learn about diversity. Surprise not everyone is like you! I cannot believe you are willing to ruin this teachers life long hard work and career because you are incapable of being open minded.
    For as long as you fight about this I will fight back. I’m sickened to learn that this is the pool of people my brothers will grow up in.

    1. My web guy says I got three messages in a row, all from the same exact IP, but with three different names which is one of those flags web guys watch for. Looking at the email addys Current Morgan High Student and Anonymous have the same last name as Former Morgan High Student. Well that’s a shocker. But I’ll respond to each individually anyway.

      The ironic thing about this response is that Former Morgan High Student wants us to know how brilliant this particular teacher is, and how well she prepares her students for English communication. Said education she so aptly demonstrates here. So I’m gonna break this down as somebody who is actually experienced with persuasive written communication.

      “Can I just say I have never been more enraged by anything than I am about this propaganda right here.”

      This is the most enraged you’ve ever been? Well right off the bat that tells the audience a lot about your experience level in life. Not a real strong opening.

      “To me it sounds like” – insert straw man scare quotes argument here.

      Too bad that’s clearly not what this is about, but this is that kind of hard hitting analysis you get when you replace critical thinking with Critical Theory.

      “And this lie about his son “telling the teacher what she wants to hear to get an A” is a lie. There is no faking an A in that class. It’s difficult enough that you need to grasp the understandings of that class to get an A.”
      Ha!
      That lie don’t fly to anybody who went to college. We all know how the game is played. The problem is “grasp the understandings” is actually really simple in this case, parrot back the drivel of the day. Boom. Done.
      The sad part here is that when you talk about that preparing you for college, that’s probably accurate. But it is more of a statement as to the pathetic level which higher education has sunk than anything.

      “The way that he attacks this teachers approach to teaching and makes her seem like she couldn’t possibly be a good writer/teacher is messed up.”
      – I never said she can’t write. I’ve never seen an example of her writing. She might be great at teaching–except to the kids she doesn’t like.

      “Everyone is different. Everyone can have different opinions.”
      That’s a great platitude. Now how about you apply it yourself and recognize there are kids who have had a very different experience than yours?

      “I LOVED this teacher.”
      Your younger sibling (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here) also loves her. So far you appear to be outnumbered on that take.

      “I know this is hard for close-minded morgan people to grasp, but it’s ok to learn about LGBTQ”
      Oh child. You’ve got no friggin’ idea the kind of people you are trying to lecture. I’ve seen things that would blow your little mind. I actually work with a diverse bunch, and I’m talking real diverse, not the vapid, shallow, skin deep one the left pretends to champion. They’re people. Not your shield.

      However, in your weak shame attempt (this is what’s called a Thought Terminating Cliché) you give away your game plan. You’re working right down the Leftist Internet Arguing checklist. Obviously if somebody has a different take than you, then they must be some kind of bigot. They’re sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. It enables you to ignore the meat of their argument and pile up a bunch of straw to burn instead. This tactic is tired and predictable, but frankly, its the only one the left usually has.

      “She’s just being real in trying to inform students that there’s so many more perspectives to life than what’s taught in this small town.”
      Oh there we go. She’s keeping it real. The rest of us are just the dad from Footloose. Damn those small town bigots who want to (checks notes) have their kids learn English skills in an English class?

      Also, nobody buys that crap anymore either. You don’t live in Saudi Arabia. The people of this backwards hick town speak something like 50 languages and many of us have worked or travelled around the country and world. We’re not a bunch of bumpkins who are going to get shamed by a college kid.

      As for more perspectives to life, sure. That’s awesome. Explore to your heart’s content. It’s not like alternative lifestyles aren’t literally friggin’ everywhere you look, in every form of media, and everybody gets their own month to celebrate where every major corporation changes their logo in solidarity. Oh these poor kids who have never been exposed to alternative lifestyles… It is sad how they don’t have the internet, TV, or ever go outside. Nope. We need to replace English class with this too. It is no longer English class. It’s Empathy class.

      Sadly that means when the kids get out, they write like you, and think they are doing well.

      “My brother has this teacher right now and admits she’s difficult but everything that has been talked about is a lie.”
      I’m assuming that’s Anonymous.

      “She’s not forcing her “leftist viewpoints” on anyone.”
      Uh huh. Anonymous already explained how all the other kids are liars and their parents are gullible dupes for believing our kids instead of you guys.

      “She’s simply informing the students that there is in fact a different point of view than the republican conservative view that everyone thinks is right.”
      Uh huh…
      Wow. I want you to go look up Brandollini Principle. It takes an order of magnitude more effort to break down BS than to create it, which is what this line is going to take.
      First off, how stupid do you think we are?
      Oh, these poor sheltered bumpkin children in this red state had no idea there are differing points of view out there! They need their English teacher to “inform” them that there are competing philosophies, even though the one philosophy she seems to push is the same one which runs Hollywood, Big Tech, most of the news, most major corporations, all their social media, and (currently) their federal government.
      I know the internet here is slow, but it ain’t that slow.
      Now, next part “the republican view that everyone thinks is right”…
      Isn’t that for them to decide for themselves? How dare they think for themselves and decide what’s right. Don’t worry. I’m sure Ms (redacted) will “inform” that right out of them.
      Listen, kid, pro tip. If you’re gonna waltz into an argument with a shame attempt and you’re playing the part of the rational unbiased participant, you don’t give away your biases like that.
      None of that crap is her job. Her job is to teach English.

      “This intolerance to new and different ideas is SICKENING.”
      There you go again.
      You are shockingly bad at this.
      She got hired to teach ENGLISH. English isn’t new and different. It has been around a while.

      Nobody appointed you or the school board the arbiters of what belief systems the kids have to hold. That’s up to them and their families, not the state. Frankly its none of your damned business.
      But if that’s the argument you want to pursue, that it is the state’s job to teach beliefs instead of parents, good luck with that.

      “I will be fighting this BS with the school.”
      As is your right.

      “If you don’t like your children learning that there is more to this world than their close minded conservative views then homeschool them!”
      But apparently not our right.
      For those of us who don’t want to cram modern leftist orthodoxy down our kids throats, we can shut up or GTFO.
      Sorry. If I homeschooled Morgan High football would lose a nose guard. 😀

      “I’m so sorry that you are too prejudiced to be tolerant of difference.”
      Declared the college student sanctimoniously, after writing a post about her prejudice against us stupid backward hick bigots in fly-over country.

      “This is so sad that a few parents are butt hurt that their kids had to learn about diversity”
      Except they didn’t sign up for Diversity class. They signed up for English class.
      Damn us parents for wanting some English in our Diversity class.

      “Surprise not everyone is like you!”
      Really?
      WHOA. MIND BLOWN.
      Kid, I’m a famous writer who works out of an industry that’s based in Manhattan. I do business meetings at events that make Mardi Gras look normal. Before that I bounced around selling machineguns, and was the designated driver for dudes who’ve overthrown countries. I’ve dealt with everything from Imams to Antifa to Furries. Trust me when I tell you there ain’t shit you could tell me about the outside world. 😀

      “I cannot believe you are willing to ruin this teachers life long hard work and career because you are incapable of being open minded.”
      Like I said in the close of my letter, if you force us to choose between their job security and our kids, our kids are going to win every time.

      “For as long as you fight about this I will fight back.”
      Okay.
      In fact, I’ll clean this up later and publicize this response for you to help you get your super compelling message out to the parents.

      “I’m sickened to learn that this is the pool of people my brothers will grow up in.”
      Yep. The nerve of us. Wanting some English in our Diversity class.

      But I would encourage you to keep insulting the community and the parents. That’s a splendid tactic you’ve got there.

      In my letter I talked about how this sort of Critical Theory stuff made kids worse at writing. It is all box checking stereotypes and regurgitating leftist talking points rather than actual persuasive rhetoric. Thank you for providing such a perfect example for the audience.

      1. Not defended at all, by either post, is the practice of issuing homework after school is over and expecting it due the next day.

        That alone makes the teacher an incompetent that needs to be at the least suspended if not fired and replaced.

        1. That was false information. My son has this class and teacher. They have a week to complete each assignment. There are some inaccuracies in Mr. Correia’s rant.

          1. The recent posts from “Mother”, “Former Morgan High Student”, “Current Morgan High Student”, and “Anonymous” are all the same ISP number.
            That’s totally not suspicious at all.
            Okay, so there’s certainly one (alleged) family who vehemently disagrees and thinks the kids in this stupid redneck hick bigots need to get enlightened.

            However, on this particular complaint, that excuse is simply not true there, Snopes. In fact, her odd hour surprise homework assignments were brought up as a problem with the administration last year. The explanation that it was to “prepare them for college” was used last year. AND this was brought up again at the parent meeting, the allegation was not denied by the administration, and they said that it was something they were addressing.

            Whoops! Better luck next time!

          2. Also, skimming through the comment logs now, every single post defending this teacher has the same word in the email address. 😀
            So I’ve either got one dishonest but creative person, or it’s a mom and two of her kids, and that four letter combo is either their last name or an abbreviation.
            But as they pointed out, all the other kids are liars, us parents are bigoted suckers, and you should totally trust people named “anonymous” and “mother” for factual unbiased accounts. 😀

      2. I am saddened by your narcissistic response to these young students. As per your approach:
        Yep, how dare these kids stand up for what they believe and advocate for a teacher they admire and care about and have actually learned ENGLISH from believe it or not.
        Mr. Correia, my kids have interacted with your kids in church and school. We know your family. It might be time to get off your soap box and be more respectful of others opinions of your article. These kids were not writing an English-paper-reponse as they commented here. (Nor am I.) They are feeling sad that this teacher has been put through hell from these said students and parents. They feel compassion. I admire these kids (obviously they are my kids) for taking a stand on this topic. They have their own opinions and as a “famous writer” I would hope you would have more tolerance and compassion towards their comments. Maybe you could take this opportunity to teach rather than degrade and tear apart their comments, as they are students. Rather than complain and whine, these kids have taken this teacher’s assignments and worked hard to learn and get A’s. She taught them English and at the same time different world views, which in one year your son will be thrown to the wolves in the “real world” and not have the same “luxury” to get a professor fired. You think our secondary education system is broken, yet you get a teacher fired that has great passion and knowledge and is willing to teach. You wonder why the education system is broken? It’s partly because parents and students make it so hard for these teachers to teach. They’re afraid to say or do something that will get a bunch of ungrateful and sensitive parents and students offended. Again, maybe home school would be a better option for some. I will say it’s laughable that you brought up if you home schooled your son then the football team would lose a nose guard. ???? Good to see that’s a priority for you.
        No need to clean up a 17 and 18 year old’s casual comment on your feed. Maybe your time would be better placed writing your famous books. I’ve never read your books, but with all your clout which you’ve mentioned about your bigger than mardi gra events and your machine gun carrying, I can tell I must really be missing out on something so great and amazing!
        You have made it clear in your replies to these students that you are in fact not tolerant of others’ opinions. Your attacks to them really come across as respectable. NOT! You have used your vast knowledge of writing by using great big words and swearing in your responses to them. Pathetic. Mr. Correia you have made it clear on here that you will not tolerate counter opinions to your own. You have made it clear that you like the power. Narcissism at its finest.
        Have a great Saturday neighbor!

        1. Mr. Correia, your detective work with the IP addresses is impeccable! Every comment from that adddress has been made clear IN the comments that we are a family. Yes, so very suspicious! Again, you are acting extremely condescending and narcissistic.

          1. Also, “anonymous” is to protect these kids. As parents we made clear the importance of that on the internet. You want to see who we are? Pick a time and we’d gladly walk down the street to your house. Not a problem, even though you’re trying to make it one.

          2. Oh good. Because nine times out of ten when I get stuff like this it isn’t real people, it’s one person spamming me with fakes. (and if you think that’s odd that tells me that you’ve never disagreed with someone on the left politically before)
            So now that I know you are an actual person I can respond like it to your bigger post.

          3. Oh, I can’t imagine why I would be condescending, since your family’s opening response was that we are a bunch of sheltered bigots who are scared of gay people.

        2. I’m going to be super honest here- the administration failed parents AND the teacher here. It NEVER had to become the mess that it did if the administration had responded to parents concerns with more than blowing us off. We aren’t a bunch of bigots, as was heavily implied (we have audio). No one said “you can’t talk about LGBQ+ in classes” or “don’t talk about feminism or inequality”. We voiced concerns that agenda was being prioritized over learning. We questioned teaching practices and assignments (no one has yet explained to me how random deadline changes are good or what a TED talk from a woman about her experience with feminism in Africa has to do with The Great Gatsby). I congratulate your children for their hard work in the class to get good grades. I’m truly thankful that they had a good experience and you can believe that or not. Your experience is not that of all the students. My son has an A and literally hasn’t read the book. He types what he thinks the teacher wants to hear and gets a good grade. He has complained on multiple occasions that he feels the class is a waste of his time and education. He’s mentioned that there are students that “the teacher just has some kind of hate on”. Would you be okay with this? Would you be okay with admin not addressing your concerns, but doubling down on the narrative that you, the parent, are the problem? And if you found that other parents were having similar issues, would you advocate for your child or would you sit down and shut up the way they seem to want us to do? I have no idea what the teacher’s treatment has been. I’m genuinely sad if it has driven them from their job, but if they have experienced the same lack of support and communication that we have from people in charge, I don’t blame them.

          1. I completely understand and believe that it could be the administrations neglect on the issues at hand. However, maybe your son wasn’t learning in the class BECAUSE he didn’t read the book and take the assignments seriously. I wouldn’t have learned either if I chose to not read the book and BS my assignment. That could be said for any class or any teacher. It’s all about the effort the students are willing to put forth. If they aren’t willing because “it’s a waste of their time and they’re not learning anything” and parents aren’t willing to teach their kids to make an HONEST effort then we will all find ourselves in these situations over and over again.
            I’m not saying that Ms. (retracted) is perfect nor are my kids. I would never have engaged in commenting on here if Mr. Correia hadn’t been so condescending and disrespectful to the comments that counter his agenda.

          2. Oh, so you completely understand and believe the administration screwed up…
            At the same time you condemn concerned parents for getting involved?

            You think my comments responding to anonymous strangers (who claim to be kids, but this is the internet!) accusing me of being a naïve sheltered bigot on my own personal blog were condescending and disrespectful?
            But when the Principal read a room full of concerned parents the dictionary definition of “discrimination” before rambling for 10 minutes about “Aryans” and genocide that was totally cool, right?

            You don’t seem to grasp that there is no honest (all caps for some reason) effort with Critical Theory. It’s gibberish. It doesn’t teach kids to write better. It doesn’t help them read. It actively makes them stupider.

          3. You are lying again, Mother.
            You were commenting before I responded to your kid.
            All of you commented from the same ISP within 10 minutes each, which was enough to alert my web guy because that’s usually a single troll with multiple personalities. It’s generally bots. This ain’t my first rodeo.
            Then you went all momma bear when I wouldn’t grovel to a 19 year old about how clueless and inexperienced and bigoted everyone here is.

          4. Mother,

            The point is that if you’re not learning, but still getting an “A”, something in that classroom is broken.

            It’s really a shame that you haven’t been able to pick up on this simple little point, despite all the words that have been expended explaining it to you.

          5. Wait- so my kid takes a class to be challenged, quickly figures out that the class isn’t challenging because all he has to do is press the same five buttons or repeat the same five phrases to get an A, is upset because he’s stuck in a class that isn’t as advertised and is bored, and HE’S the problem for working smarter, not harder? And I’m a bad parent because of this? My kid who takes every hard class available to him and has all A’s, gives his best to all of his extracurricular activities and responsibilities has no work ethic? Okay. That makes total sense. And no one stalked you or your kids down and forced you to comment. The ease with which these arguments were dismantled should be proof that your kids didn’t get the education that they should have in class, no matter how uncivil you feel the manner in which it was done. You came unprepared to a fight and are upset that you didn’t like the pushback you got. It’s unfortunate that upsets you.

          6. Heh. The problem with learning Critical Theory is that it makes you dumber. This family comes here to be activists, the college kid opens by calling us bigots (I cited 11 examples) and when I don’t immediately roll over and squish, the mom shows up and yells at me for being mean.

            You people are extremely predictable. I wrote this in 2013 from the infamous Internet Arguing Checklist.
            Liberal 1: Attack, attack. ATTACK!

            Liberal 2: Attack attack, attack attack!

            Conservative: Defend.

            Liberal 1: How rude.

            Liberal 2: Indeed, how rude.

            Liberal 1: You Sound Angry.

            You hit a bunch of other points on there too. You guys are so predictable that we’ve actually made bingo cards. 🙂
            https://monsterhunternation.com/2013/09/20/the-internet-arguing-checklist/

          7. Also, for the record, I’d have to go back and check the time stamps to make sure, but I’m pretty sure Ms. Civility here started commenting before I responded to her college kid (so much for that bit about how she wouldn’t have gotten involved if I hadn’t been so rude while being told that everybody in my community is an ignorant bigot), and her very first comment was to tell another poster my letter was a “rant” and full of lies.(even though IIRC the part she was complaining about there was how the teacher would give assignments at weird hours and expect them done, even though that part was talked about in the meetings, in front of lots of witnesses, and the administration never denied it, and it was the thing that other parents had complained about previously).
            But we are used to it by now. Disagree with the left? You’re whining/crying/ranting/unhinged, and you should probably just abandon every single institution to liberals (it is their birthright, obviously) and sulk away with the other losers. If you disagree about this its pretty much a war crime and they’re the real victims.
            Gotta love the tone police!

        3. Lots of stuff there, so I’m going to break this down in detail.

          “I am saddened by your narcissistic response to these young students. As per your approach:”
          – when you open with hey your kids are liars, and you parents are suckers for believing your kids and these other parents, you are just bigots who hate gay people, and we need state education to expand the minds of kids who are republicans…
          Nope. Reap your whirlwind.

          “Yep, how dare these kids stand up for what they believe and advocate for a teacher they admire and care about and have actually learned ENGLISH from believe it or not.”
          – I actually don’t believe it. Judging by your kid’s rebuttal, he learned some Critical Theory and how to check some boxes. All while confirming that he has no problem with the teacher’s bias, because he shares it.

          “Mr. Correia, my kids have interacted with your kids in church and school. We know your family.”
          – I have no idea who you are. However, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because everything I have said is true. And unlike many Utahns I don’t get shamed into silence because people say I’m not nice. Truth is truth.

          “It might be time to get off your soap box and be more respectful of others opinions of your article.”
          So, basically that shame into silence thing I mentioned earlier then?
          How about no?

          “These kids were not writing an English-paper-reponse as they commented here. (Nor am I.)”
          Then you miss the point entirely of the purpose of persuasive writing.

          “They are feeling sad that this teacher has been put through hell from these said students and parents.”
          I feel bad for her too. The administration failed her. The administration blew off parental concerns. The administration failed that teacher.
          But spare me the “put through hell” and go talk to the mom with the kid who comes home in tears because she’s failing feminism.
          I respect teachers, but teaching is a job, just like any other, and if you are doing a job in a manner that does not satisfy your clients, then you will have an issue with those clients.
          Same as the rest of us.

          “They feel compassion.”
          I feel more compassion for the kids, personally.

          “I admire these kids (obviously they are my kids) for taking a stand on this topic.”
          Yet… your son said all the other kids who “took a stand” are liars.

          “They have their own opinions and as a “famous writer” I would hope you would have more tolerance and compassion towards their comments.”
          No. Actually I don’t. As a writer I judge their ability to make an argument or not. If your argument is a bunch of thought terminating cliches about how everybody who disagrees is some manner of small minded bigot, I’m going to give that argument the tolerance which it deserves.

          So no. Sorry. I’m not going to have compassion for the idea that my kids should get taught Marxist deconstructionism as they torture a very short book for three months instead of learning actual English skills. Sorry. Nor will I shut up simply because somebody declared they had more empathy. If an idea is bad, it is bad, and it should be discussed.

          “Maybe you could take this opportunity to teach rather than degrade and tear apart their comments, as they are students.”
          I’m not the one Morgan High is paying to teach them Social Justice instead of English.
          Plus, that’s assuming that I thought they were actually kids, and not just you. Which again, in these things, is usually not the case. (and don’t try to argue otherwise on that one in front of this audience on this page because they’ve seen it themselves a few hundred times)

          “Rather than complain and whine, these kids have taken this teacher’s assignments and worked hard to learn and get A’s.”
          That’s too bad. My son didn’t even read the book and got the same grade. 😀 He ain’t alone. It’s not an English class, it’s a learn to parrot liberal dogma class.

          “She taught them English and at the same time different world views, which in one year your son will be thrown to the wolves in the “real world” and not have the same “luxury” to get a professor fired.”
          We didn’t hire her to teach different world views. We hired her to teach English.
          And again, the fact that knowing Marxist dialect is valuable in college is more of an indictment of the current state of college than it is a testimony that Marxist deconstruction is actually valuable.
          Plus, he’s going into engineering so he’ll be fine. Those classes don’t care about your feelings. All us STEM majors fake it through the BS general eds.
          In the real world, all that Critical Theory stuff makes you stupider. The only career fields it is useful is democrat politician, grifter, or writing for Salon or HuffPo… and of course, teaching it to other helpless kids.

          “You think our secondary education system is broken,”
          Yep.

          “yet you get a teacher fired that has great passion and knowledge and is willing to teach.”
          You will find that most parents in Morgan don’t think being passionate about teaching Marxist gender theory to be a big plus.

          “You wonder why the education system is broken?”
          No. Actually I don’t wonder at all. I’ve talked about it in great depth. The last three weeks of watching our administration in action has reinforced that.

          “It’s partly because parents and students make it so hard for these teachers to teach.”
          Oh yeah. It’s totally the kids fault. Those little brats, not enjoying their proper leftist indoctrination struggle sessions.
          Also, just like you don’t get to appoint yourself Speaker For (insert minority group here) so you can hide behind them, you also don’t speak for all teachers. You’d be amazed how many MHS teachers thought my letter was awesome, AND how many of them are afraid to come out and say anything because they don’t trust their administrators either.

          “They’re afraid to say or do something that will get a bunch of ungrateful and sensitive parents and students offended.”
          Darn those ungrateful parents for not wanting their kids to learn how to tear apart books through the lens of colonial feminism of gay socialists.

          “Again, maybe home school would be a better option for some.”
          Then maybe you should do that. Instead of math you can teach Critical Race Theory.
          Why is it with you guys, that those of us who are in the majority in this county are supposed to drop out, and abdicate the public schools to you?

          “I will say it’s laughable that you brought up if you home schooled your son then the football team would lose a nose guard. ???? Good to see that’s a priority for you.”
          I was making a joke. He’s only second string. Coach Barlow would get by! 😀

          “No need to clean up a 17 and 18 year old’s casual comment on your feed.”
          I have a few hundred thousand comments on this blog now. I don’t card them at the door. If they want to argue a point, then they’re going to have to argue it. You want to roll in and declare that everybody who doesn’t agree with you is a stupid hick bigot, you’d best bring your A game.

          “Maybe your time would be better placed writing your famous books.”
          And abdicate the schools so people like you can make the kids too stupid to read them? Naw.

          “I’ve never read your books, but with all your clout which you’ve mentioned about your bigger than mardi gra events and your machine gun carrying,”
          If you were actually my neighbor you’d think you would have heard all the gunfire by now.
          The events bit was in direct response to your kid’s silliness about how I must be a sheltered bigot who is scared of gay people. I also helped a transsexual political activist start an organization to teach armed self defense after Pulse, so spare me your bullshit sanctimony about how my kids need to get Marxist deconstructionism shoved down their throats in order for them to know there’s different belief systems in the world.
          And if other parents want to shelter their kids, that’s none of your damned business. Nor is it any of the schools business.

          “I can tell I must really be missing out on something so great and amazing!”
          That’s a pretty brilliant line of attack in the comments of a blog post which went viral because of how many fans I have… in the place where they hang out. 😀 But since your earlier strategy was to tell parents they are stupid bigot hatemongers, can’t say I’m shocked.

          “You have made it clear in your replies to these students that you are in fact not tolerant of others’ opinions.”
          Oh, I tolerate them, but if an opinion is stupid, it’s stupid. And I’ll say so, and explain why in great detail.
          Tolerance and agreement are not synonyms.

          ” Your attacks to them really come across as respectable. NOT!”
          You should really leave sarcasm to the professionals. 😀

          “You have used your vast knowledge of writing by using great big words and swearing in your responses to them.”
          Considering the words I wanted to say when the Principal treated a room full of parents like they were idiot bigots for wanting their kids to learn English instead of Marxism, I was remarkably restrained in that letter.
          Now, way down in the blog comments (which they chose to participate in) there were no-no words? Oh well. They came to me. But on that note, just tell yourself that I was “expanding their horizons” through the “lense” of Portuguese Dairy Farmer Culture. Now you aren’t as small minded and you’ve expanded your horizons beyond our small republican town.

          “Pathetic. Mr. Correia you have made it clear on here that you will not tolerate counter opinions to your own.”
          Actually you’ve got that completely ass backwards. If I didn’t tolerate counter opinions I would never have let any of the comments which disagreed with me out of moderation, and I would’ve just deleted all your family’s posts.
          Instead, I took the time to look at your argument, and then point out the many holes in it. You need to understand a very fundamental difference between the right and the left. The left constantly tries to silence the right. The right likes the left to keep talking because they more they have to explain their ideas the dumber they sound.

          “You have made it clear that you like the power.”
          You got that completely wrong too. Don’t forget your Spiderman quote. Power, responsibility, yada yada. I don’t enjoy this. But I do what I can when I see something needs to get done.
          For months the moms tried to work within the system.
          The Administration blew them off.
          The school board blew them off.
          The superintendent blew them off.
          People like you told them they were stupid bigots who should be thankful their stupid bigot kids get to be exposed to your awesome ideas. Oh, and if they don’t like it they should drop out and home school.
          Then some moms asked me to help.
          I even thought they might be exaggerating.
          Until I watched the administration in action.
          So I wrote one letter (which as much as me being famous seems to upset you, the ability to make stuff go viral is pretty nifty) and flipped the script.
          If the administration had done its job, I never would’ve said a word.
          A bunch of parents looking out for their kids didn’t fail that teacher.
          The administration failed that teacher.

          “Narcissism at its finest.”
          But me telling your 19 year old college student that they aren’t in any position to lecture a bunch of grown ups about how sheltered we are was extremely rude. 😀

          “Have a great Saturday neighbor!”
          Oh believe me, I am.

          1. I find it interesting how much liberals are interested in teaching conservatives kids “other views” though not so much interested in teaching their own kids other views.

        4. You did notice that what your kids learned to do was to reflexively accuse other people of being bigots. That’s the opposite of compassion or empathy.

          They’ll maybe learn better as they get older.

          Young people are as smart as grown ups, but they’ve got less experience. That means that they’re dependent on what they’re taught about the world from those around them. But it doesn’t mean they need to be treated with kid gloves.

      3. “English in our diversity class”

        *snort*

        The callback to the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is…*chef’s kiss*

      4. Kind of an old post – but CRT advocates are apparently blaming Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on white supremacy forcing Will Smith to suck up offenses until he snapped…How on Earth these people can write stuff like that in seriousness who knows, but it’s impossible to parody the CRT idiocy any more.

        1. The only person making Will Smith suck up offenses is his wife. And *her* particular issue may sort of be an upper middle class pseudo-intellectual white feminist issue, though I’m not sure that’s particularly “white” either, just seems to be really popular with those in a class where that particular “enlightened” behavior has some cushion between it and reality.

  69. You’re right, I don’t spend my time on the internet engaging in feeds like this written by narcissists where there will only be one correct POV. I’m too busy teaching my kids about love, kindness and tolerance of people from all walks of life.
    I referred back to my families comments and never could find a quote from any of us that said “you are a bunch of sheltered bigots who are scared of gay people.” “Fact check, Snopes.” ???? It’s my hope that your son (our sons) will have a teacher replacement soon as you have now gotten said Ms. (retracted) fired. Unfortunately finding a new amazing English teacher on such short notice is likely impossible. So for now, I guess they’ll have a substitute with no educational background and will therefore not be getting the preparation they need for the ACT, SAT and college. ????
    This is where our joyful banter ends Mr. Correia. I will no longer engage with you as it is a waste of my energy and time.

    1. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and make a wild guess… you kind of like all this indoctrination stuff because it fits your worldview? So if you’re my neighbor, probably not one of the houses with a Trump sign?

      “You’re right, I don’t spend my time on the internet engaging in feeds like this written by narcissists where there will only be one correct POV.”
      Which would explain why you brought a spatula to a gun fight.
      You don’t seem to grasp that argument is a spectator sport. The audience will decide which PoV they agree with.
      If I wanted to hide your PoV I’d just vanish all your posts.

      “I’m too busy teaching my kids about love, kindness and tolerance of people from all walks of life.”
      Except for small minded republican bigots who listen to their lying children about how their English class sucks, obviously.

      “I referred back to my families comments and never could find a quote from any of us that said “you are a bunch of sheltered bigots who are scared of gay people.””
      Well, it was a paraphrase, but since the post is still there I would invite all the observers to scroll up and read the comment from Former Morgan Student and draw their own conclusions.

      “Fact check, Snopes.” ????
      If you don’t get why that’s funny I can’t help you.

      “It’s my hope that your son (our sons) will have a teacher replacement soon as you have now gotten said Ms. (retracted) fired.”
      Well, hopefully the next one will stick to teaching English in English class and they’ll have a much nicer time.

      “Unfortunately finding a new amazing English teacher on such short notice is likely impossible.”
      Yeah… If only there was some other source of Marxist gibberish in the world to fill their needs.

      “So for now, I guess they’ll have a substitute with no educational background and will therefore not be getting the preparation they need for the ACT, SAT and college. ????”
      Yep. I’m sure the administration will hire the first hobo they find on the street, with no educational background at all. Nobody has ever been able to teach English before or since this educational titan (who spent 3 months on a 200 page book looking for stuff that’s not in it).
      But you actually bring up a fantastic point (albeit unwittingly). How much Critical Theory is on the ACT?
      Whoops.
      Maybe instead of screwing around with this other stuff, she could’ve worked on the comp skills that are on the ACT instead?

      “This is where our joyful banter ends Mr. Correia.”
      Well I was having a good time.

      “I will no longer engage with you as it is a waste of my energy and time.”
      On the contrary, it has been more valuable than you realize. Just not for your side of the debate.

      1. And because I’m helpful like that, since you seem so profoundly baffled why anybody would assume your family has some bias issues that make you unreliable narrators as you say “I referred back to my families comments and never could find a quote from any of us that said “you are a bunch of sheltered bigots who are scared of gay people.””

        Please recall that your family opened with gems like –

        “Can I just say I have never been more enraged by anything than I am about this propaganda right here. To me it sounds like “I have an intolerance to anything or anyone different to me”
        “I don’t like to be academically challenged”
        “I know this is hard for close-minded morgan people to grasp, but it’s ok to learn about LGBTQ”
        “She’s just being real in trying to inform students that there’s so many more perspectives to life than what’s taught in this small town.”
        “She’s not forcing her “leftist viewpoints” on anyone. She’s simply informing the students that there is in fact a different point of view than the republican conservative view that everyone thinks is right.”
        “This intolerance to new and different ideas is SICKENING.”
        “If you don’t like your children learning that there is more to this world than their close minded conservative views then homeschool them!”
        “I’m so sorry that you are too prejudiced to be tolerant of difference.”
        “This is so sad that a few parents are butt hurt that their kids had to learn about diversity.”
        “Surprise not everyone is like you!”
        “I cannot believe you are willing to ruin this teachers life long hard work and career because you are incapable of being open minded.”

        Yes. I can’t possibly imagine how from those sentences I came to the crazy conclusion that your family thinks our county is a bunch of sheltered bigots who are scared of gay people. You are clearly very honest and would totally know political indoctrination and quality English education if you saw it. It was incredibly rude of me to respond to these brilliant and accurate insights with anything but the utmost politeness.

        Naw.

        This lady says she knows me from church, so she’ll know what I mean, but she would have told Samuel to get off the wall. His shouting was upsetting people and he was very rude. Tsk tsk.

        1. And once again we see the the truth- we understand the Progressive arguments. Considering that they’ve been with us for generations, how could we not?
          We understand them forwards and backwards, every jot and tiddle. We know them enough to know how deeply flawed and wrong they are. We know that no matter how much the Progressives try to shame us, that 2 = 2 never equals 5.

          And despite all their self congratulatory talk about how Empathetic and Caring they are, they don’t really grok the thinking of anyone that doesn’t jump to their regimented and approved thinking. Especially minority voices. If a minority doesn’t voice academically approved opinions (ironically based on white European philosophy), they’re shouted down and insulted- very often by white people with the right credentials.

          1. Exactly! If these people were really Empathetic and Caring, they would not be such harpies, in the metaphorical sense of flinging metaphorical feces all around.

            Back in the ‘90’s, I went to college with such people. I became so frustrated at being called out as an “evil Republican” (though what I am is a Conservative and one who was helping this particular Liberatti) that I declared in class that I knew that I would be one of the first to be shot at the wall once her revolution occurred.

    2. Ma’am, you remind me of the woman who, when my high school made Starship Troopers the summer reading book, went on Amazon and left a bad review, claiming that her teenage daughter couldn’t relate to the protagonist and that we should have read something like Twilight instead.

      1. I’ve been wondering where that insufferable, narcissistic reading habit came from about relating to the protagonist. It’s the same sort of self-centered dreck that’s all the rage in movies and TV about “characters who look like me”.

        Say what??

        When I was growing up in Mississippi (of all places), my favorite sitcoms were Sanford and Son, Good Times, Welcome Back Kotter, What’s Happening, and The Jeffersons. The main characters in four out of five of those productions most certainly didn’t look like my lily white ass, and I never once thought a damn thing about that. Somehow I managed to grow up without having a cultural identity crisis.

    3. @Mother

      “I’m too busy teaching my kids about love, kindness and tolerance of people from all walks of life.”

      This is a damned lie.

      You teach your kids to be intolerant of those with different views. You teach them with your acts. You are intolerant of those with different views.

    4. ” So for now, I guess they’ll have a substitute with no educational background and will therefore not be getting the preparation they need for the ACT, SAT and college. ????”

      I’m feeling benevolent so I’m going to help out. I’ll stand somewhere in your town and swing a dead cat. Within a few seconds, I’ll have at least three people with Bachelor’s Degrees in English that want a job.

    5. Coming back to this a year later, and wow, a lot went down right after I read this post. So the teacher DID get fired… Awesome. Repeat this a thousand times, and we can call it a good start.

  70. “This is where our joyful banter ends Mr. Correia. I will no longer engage with you as it is a waste of my energy and time.”
    Larry, someone got paddled and now she’s taking her toys and going home

  71. Honestly most liberals dislike these screeching baboons too.

    Problem is they make themselves so visible and loud that they drag the regular folks down too.

    And then someone angry on one of sides makeit an us vs them so tribal hatred kicks in and nobody wants to be perceived as losing.

      1. Given it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge at this point, I wonder how likely it is that was the teacher coming here to take out her anger on all those horrible bigoted people who got her fired for just trying to make them part of her marxist woke utopia?

        1. Oh, if this shit hits the wrong fan, and the Jabba-Piñata once again takes liberties with host’s name in whore mouth….

          Well, let’s just say that Morgan HS might find itself fishing in an entirely unexpected pool of applicants for “Advanced English Teacher”:

          People who use English in their real day jobs!

          Among other nobyl outcomes, and chernobyl ones.

          1. I thought it was “lying whore mouth” but I’m not going to say his name lest it draw him over here.

        2. Yes indeed, the droopy dromedary was simply -shocked- that the New Rules were successfully applied to a Leftist teacher. That’s Cancel Culture you know, that’s forbidden!

          We warned you boys that the New Rules would suck. We told you that you were not going to like being on the receiving end, but y’all went ahead anyway, and now the flopster is aghast that fake moms and fake high-schoolers are being told off by them meanie sad puppies.

          That’s why there are flying monkeys here today, floppy sent ’em. They can’t let one of the Teacher’s Brotherhood go down without a bit of useless poo-flinging.

          Still, it is refreshing to know that with Canada spiraling into a fascist dictatorship run by a substitute drama teacher, and Europe once again hosting a real, live, honest-to-Bob shootin’ war… the flopping camel can’t find anything of more import than a blog post by the International Lord of Hate.

          1. In fairness to the twerp, the ILOH is probably the only one of those that he might be under the delusion that he can affect.

          2. Of course not, those stories reflect badly on his side!

            And Larry wasn’t the only parent complaining about that teacher. He’s just the most prominent.

  72. ” when the Principal treated a room full of parents like they were idiot bigots for wanting their kids to learn English instead of Marxism, ”

    For the sake of local children, I hope that additional VWMD (Verbal Weapons of Mass De-Election) are being deployed. As I believe in the Christian message of redemption, broadly interpreted, one might have hoped that with a good principal applying course correction the former teacher might have been reformed.I realize that a miracle might have been needed. That’s not, I gather, what happened.

    Congratulations on the game rolling out the door!

  73. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?
    –Plato, The Republic

  74. You know, IMO the students in AP English — or whatever this disaster of a class was — would have been better served by reading Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, and Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
    1. What was the point of each book?
    2. How did the author make that point?
    3. Are the points similar? Different? How?

    Next I would assign Robert Heinlein, Gentlemen Be Seated, and ask for written analyses of the story. For practice. Have the students critique each others work. Then Logic of Empire and written analyses for grades.

    With in-class discussion, that should cover about 6 weeks.

  75. I sincerely hope the Dems stick to their “parents are the enemy” strategy for the midterms, because if they do, it will result in an electoral bloodletting that will be long remembered in song and story.

  76. Point of order on “Homeschooling”, since nobody else is bringing it up:

    Regardless if somebody sends their kids to public school or homeschools them, or even if they don’t have kids in the school system at all, they pay for the school’s upkeep and operation, via their tax dollars. I don’t even -have- kids, to date, and yet every year when the county mails me my annual property tax statement, there’s a line item denoting what perecentage, along with the dollar amount, of how much of my property taxes are getting distributed to the public school district.

    Bear that in mind, because I’ll be coming back to that.

    If I hire a contractor to do work in my house–hell, I just hired one to do some asbestos removal work next Monday–and they do a shit job, I reserve the right to fire that asshole and have another company finish the job.

    If I go to a restaurant and receive bad service, I may or may not be able to get a refund for the meal, but I can go to a different restaurant the next time I want to eat out, and give that outfit my money instead. And there ain’t a damn thing the first restaurant can do about it (except maybe improve their service so that they don’t lose any more customers).

    If I elect Joe Q. Douchebag for public office, and he does a shitty job, I can start a petition to recall him–and if enough other people agree with my assessment of his performance, we can vote to remove him from office and replace him with someone who’ll do a better job.

    And then there’s teachers. Teachers, who have tenure and the backing of the Teacher’s Union providing them with all the job security they need.

    If my future son’s public school teacher does a shitty job of teaching, I can’t fire them and hire another teacher. I can’t start a formal recall effort. I can yell all I want to the local school district administrators, but absent significant political clout backing me up, I’ll get blown off just like the moms who initially complained to Morgan High did.

    So, homeschool.

    But wait! I can quit my day job (well, I -could-, if I weren’t in the service), lose the income and benefits that come with it, pay out of my own pocket for teaching and study materials, and devote my time to giving my kids the education they -should- be receiving at public school…..and yet, for all that, a portion of my taxes still go towards paying for the useless fucks who suck so bad at their jobs that I gave up my career to do the job my tax dollars are meant to pay those assholes to do in the first place.

    I’m not okay with that. -Nobody- should be okay with that.

    If homeschooling is what works best for your kids, great. Have at. But homeschooling shouldn’t be the default alternative when the public schools aren’t doing what they supposed to, when a very hefty chunk of my property taxes go towards supporting that failed school system in the first place.

    1. I really, really like the idea that education funds should go with the student, so that if a student goes to a public school, the public school gets the tax money. Kid is in private school? That’s where the money goes, at least a chunk of it. Some states have talked about that, but the teachers’ and administrators’ unions screamed.

  77. Hi Larry, just a heads up — there are enough data points in your post that make it possible to figure out who you’re talking about with just a few minutes of searching. Feel free to delete this post if you wish, I won’t mind 🙂

  78. Followup — by “delete this post”, I meant “delete my comment”. Oops. Didn’t mean to sound so arrogant.

  79. As a consummate master of the discipline, allow me to offer my sincere and humbly awestruck congratulations on one of the most masterful rants ever expressed in the English language.

    However, if I may be so bold, to obtain the proper effect, it needs also to be nailed to the schoolhouse door.
    And that of school board, the local newspaper, television and radio station, and anywhere else you have time to do so. With a hammer and actual nails.

    And I say that only because nailing it to the offending teacher’s forehead with a pneumatic nailgun, while dulce et decorum, probably violates local laws. (There is nothing else whatsoever save that bare hindrance to speak against that idea. Think of the lives it would save.)

    Personally, I’d have 50,000 copies printed, and leaflet-bomb every high school in the district from light aircraft at lunchtime, as well as local sporting events and shopping malls.

    Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

    Best wishes with the local educational zampolits. Some dragons not only deserve to be slain, they’re actually asking for it.

  80. It seems that the teacher is a capitalist. but she does not use money she uses grades. She is the holder of all the grades and then hands them out not based on merit but on how she feels about something. She also plays students against each other by deciding which ones will get more.
    There is only one answer to a capitalist like this. The students must ORGANIZE, UNIONIZE, then all the class go on strike to demand better grades. I suggest strike as a class, if all the students walk out she can not fail all of them. That would make her look bad to her boss. “Why did your entire class fail?” Even better if all of her classes strike.
    This strike is not about what she is teaching. This is about her failure to treat her students with the equality they deserve.
    This is the MARXIST deconstruction of her teaching.

  81. Thank you as usual for articulating this issue better than most of us ever could.

    An additional thank you for calling out the conflict avoidance culture in Utah. I’ve lived here for over 20 years now after 10 years in the Army. The one thing that I despise is the complete passive agressive avoidance culture. They allow themselves and others to be victimized simply because they fear any confrontation. This is their undoing. All is far from well in Zion.

  82. If nothing else, this post is getting attention. Someone sent it to the Utah State School Superintendent and he, in turn, passed it down to (among others) my daughter. Amusingly, her initial reaction was that it could have been written better. (We did not go into specifics.) For reference the state board does not set curriculum for the schools. As near as I can tell, they are more of a licensing board and backup resource for teachers needing help.

    I did learn a few things.
    1. The most egregious sin, in her eyes, was spending three months on any book.
    2. Apparently, viewing literature through various lenses is fairly standard stuff for an AP English class.
    3a. The legislature removed the state writing assessment from schools and schools essentially stopped teaching writing then. Natural since they are no longer being graded on it by the state.
    3b. Some people think this was not a good idea.
    3c. It is not uncommon for English teachers to have as many as 225 students and giving proper attention to writing is problematic.
    4. She believes this particular teacher’s on-line page where she lays things out for students and parents is unduly harsh.
    5. She doesn’t know enough about the whole situation to say more.

    She did say that writing all comes down to the teacher, not the curriculum. She recalled one English teacher that gave her a C- on a paper that another teacher had graded as an A. It was close to 25 years ago and she remembers that it was written in green ink and she knew then that Mr. B wasn’t going to let her get away with anything.

    1. Tell your daughter I wrote that between getting out of the morning meeting and lunch, and it accomplished its mission and went viral, so I’ll give myself at least a B. 🙂

  83. Honestly, what makes me upset about this whole situation is I think the teacher in question genuinely was trying to do good, but didn’t execute it correctly. When I took their writing 2010 class, I wrote the stupidest papers ever (namely one about how David Copperfield was gay and got 100 on it). But I can appreciate what the class did to help me broaden my horizons a little bit. While I don’t think that marxism should be brought up in a junior english class, especially without any historical context behind it, I can sort of see why the teacher wanted to expand a student’s thinking.
    I think what everyone’s missing with their criticism is that the administration is the true problem. If students and parents don’t agree with what a teacher is doing, and they bring it to administration, something should be done! The principal should have had a genuine meeting with the teacher, and let them know everyone’s grievances were instead of reciting a dictionary definition about discrimination. (like, are you kidding me with that horseshit?)
    I’ve heard that the teacher in question is now gone, which makes me sad, but I’m glad that this is being brought to everyone’s attention. There’s a whole load of teachers at Morgan High with jobs only because they’re coaches. I hope that this will finally make the school district realize that Morgan isn’t going to let shitty teachers sit on their asses anymore.

  84. “I believe the dismissive explanation for that last behavior was the unnecessary stress was supposed to prepare them for college, which is frankly asinine to anybody who has got a degree).”

    My suite mate at UNC was a third year law student. he went to the first day of class in all his classes, got the syllabus, then didn’t show up again except for mid-terms and finals. Graduated in the top quarter of his class. People in comas had more stressful lives than he did.

    Teachers are probably America’s dumbest demographic, especially the last two generations. They’ve never learned anything but regurgitating what they’re told, so how are they ever going to teach a child anything of value?

  85. I personally despise Gatsby as a waste of my time. No one has ever convinced me WHY it’s a classic. My son loved Macbeth and Hamlet. They deserve a few months to look at in detail, comment and discuss.

    Homeschool what you want your kids to know. It’s the only way to be certain they learn something. My youngest was homeschooled Freshman year. His teachers didn’t know how to handle him. He just knew too much. He experienced a few years of University in 1 year. The Holocaust, Rwanda, foreign policy failures, and classical literature but simply as discussion. Programming, discrete math, carpentry as math which is how algebra should be taught IMO.

  86. I have no interest in being fair to this propagandist, and that is what she is. Sometimes teachers don’t realize their actions. I had a professor in college whose exams were utterly predictable. When I had a respectful conversation about that, he was first offended, but then offered to let me prove it. I had him pull an exam from another class that we both agreed I knew nothing about. I took the exam and scored 95% on it. His tests were all multiple guess. I showed him that anytime there was a “none of, or all of the above, that was the answer. Plus in the question two below the first one, the answer was used in the question (question one was answered in question three). He was astonished, he had been teaching twenty plus years, and using similar tests and never noticed the pattern in his tests.

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