In Edutopia, We Don't Overthink

I almost certainly would not have noticed this tweet:

… were it not for approximately three dozen conservative commenters, all asking more or less "Yeah, so where's the diversity in that picture?"

A cheap shot, of course. (On Twitter, given the character limit, it's a very rare shot that isn't cheap.)

But I clicked over to the Edutopia article anyway. It's by Jinnie Spiegler, credited as "Director of Curriculum, Anti-Defamation League". The article is loaded with earnest smugness and self-congratulation, all designed to make right-wing troglodytes (like me) roll their eyes and bemoan the indoctrination of kids with progressive claptrap.

Paragraph One sets the tone, with an example so hoary I remember a gag about it on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 70's:

When my daughter was three years old, I taught her the word "stereotype." She was just beginning to string words together into sentences, had determined that pink was definitely not her favorite color, and asked (demanded, actually) why all the "girl stuff" was pink and the "boy stuff" was blue. Because there's no three-year-old version for a word describing why colors are gendered in our society, I figured that planting the seed might yield fruit soon enough. And somewhat surprisingly, I was correct.

She was correct! And she claims to have been surprised by that, but I bet she wasn't.

Nevertheless, stereotyping is thoughtcrime in the Spiegler curriculum. Got that?

So I kept reading… all the way to Paragraph Three:

However, young children have a keen awareness of and passion for fairness. They demand right over wrong, just over unjust. And they notice differences without apology or discomfort.

You may notice that Mother Spiegler isn't really consistent on that whole stereotyping thing. Heck, even her three-year-old daughter might notice.


Last Modified 2019-01-07 12:41 PM EDT