By Ruth Moreno.
Every 10 years, the state of Minnesota reviews and revises its academic standards, and the latest updates proposed for its social studies program in K-12 schools has turned heads for its blatantly left-wing political agenda. Although the timing of the update is unrelated to current events, the content is clearly a response to 2020's many protests and uprisings. The new curriculum is set to be steeped in left-wing ideology surrounding subjects like "whiteness," Christianity, and capitalism.
Committee members who assembled last fall to revise Minnesota's curriculum said that all they want to do is promote diversity and inclusion to make sure students have a well-rounded perspective, but the first draft which was released in January shows that the curriculum will be approaching history from a very narrow worldview.
Catrin Wigfall, who is herself a former teacher and current director of Educated Teachers Minnesota, explained on Washington Watch that the first red flag of the proposed revision comes in the first paragraph, which explains that the revised curriculum will bring "a shift in approach to standards of social studies learning." What this means for Minnesotan students is that instead of simply learning history, they will be forced to look at complex and controversial subjects through the lens of divisive "metanarratives" like racial identity politics.
The Star Tribune reported that as part of the proposed curriculum, ninth graders studying the era of Reconstruction will consider how historical disenfranchisement and discrimination are linked to ongoing discrimination and inequity. Fifth graders will look at history from the perspective of the advantaged and disadvantaged, which sounds awfully similar to looking at history from the perspective of the oppressors and the oppressed. But the proposed curriculum will start the indoctrination at a far younger age: even first graders will learn "to recognize stereotypes, biases, and discrimination, and about how people have advocated against those problems through social justice movements."
There is nothing wrong with teaching students about some of the harder parts of history, including American history, but a well-rounded approach to history does not require teaching impressionable children the language and worldview of the radical Left.
Fortunately, this proposed curriculum is just a first draft. It is unclear when a second draft will be released, but until Minnesota's 38-member committee of teachers, administrators, college professors, and others make any final decisions, it is imperative that Minnesotan conservatives fight to keep the radical Left's divisive and destructive worldview out of their state's schools.
This proposed curriculum should also serve as a warning for conservatives in other states as well: although Minnesota is not a "bastion of conservatism," as Tony put it, it is not California or New York, either. Conservatives in all states -- red, blue, and purple -- should know to watch out before the radical Left's agenda creeps into their own schools unnoticed.
Wigfall agreed that it is important to make sure every-day Americans are aware of what is happening in so many public schools today. Since word got out about these proposed revisions to Minnesota's social studies curriculum, thousands have voiced their opposition. Wigfall started a campaign, Raise Our Standards, which has drafted a letter to Minnesota's Department of Education outlining many Minnesotans' concerns about the curriculum.
These concerns have been dismissed as the product of "white supremacy," but they are nothing of the sort. Wigfall, like most Americans opposed to racial identity politics, recognizes the truth that the Left's view on racial justice ultimately ends with defining people by the color of their skin. This directly contradicts Dr. Martin Luther King's ideal, and for this among other reasons, all Americans should oppose the teaching of harmful and divisive racial identity politics in public schools.
