No one ever accused the Fairbanks School District of giving students a true classical liberal arts education. The proficiency scores from the PEAKS tests show students skimming along just above the pitiful state average.
But all those classics that you may consider literature, and all that Socratic pedagogy used to get kids to think could be thrown in the burn pile, if “decolonization” efforts by the district’s Diversity Committee are taken seriously.
[Read: The value of a classical liberal arts education]
The Fairbanks School District’s Diversity Committee met June 10, and while the topics covered the expected — inclusion and diversity — several members expressed a new sense of urgency for more training on what it means to be woke.
Schools across Alaska have been out of session for months due to COVID-19, and the way the diversity committee sees it, now is the time for more intensive training.
Members argued that training should be mandatory on topics such as inclusion, micro-aggression, white supremacy, decolonization, and gender expression.
Listen, as at-large committee member Alyssa Quintyn describes her vision of what that training should be and how it should include indoctrination on white supremacy and decolonization. (Audio only at the click:)
WHAT IS DECOLONIZATION TRAINING?
What does “decolonization” training actually mean? In academia, it means the banishing certain works of literature or art.
The “decolonize your bookshelf” movement is now removing American and Western classics from schools, when the authors of the literature were white men or women, and who may through today’s lens appear racist, sexist, xenophobic, or merely heterosexual.
“In essence, it is about actively resisting and casting aside the colonialist ideas of narrative, storytelling, and literature that have pervaded the American psyche for so long,” explains Juan Dival, writing for NPR.
“If you are white, take a moment to examine your bookshelf. What do you see? What books and authors have you allowed to influence your worldview, and how you process the issues of racism and prejudice toward the disenfranchised? Have you considered that, if you identify as white and read only the work of white authors, you are in some ways listening to an extension of your own voice on repeat?” he wrote.
One could reasonably come to the conclusion that decolonization training for Fairbanks teachers would include having them evaluate their reading lists under the watchful eye of a Maoist cultural moderator.
Removing books from required reading lists is something that the MatSu Borough School Board tried recently when it sought to remove a handful books that described child rape and human degradation. The school board found itself under siege by a national and local group of liberals that were horrified that literature be removed from reading lists, even though the books were still on the shelves in the school library.
The entire committee meeting can be listened to at this link.
