It’s back to school! You bought all the school supplies and new clothes, but what about insulating your children against school indoctrination? Sadly, indoctrination resistance is now part of going back to school so you must stay vigilant and teach your children personal boundaries.
Lesson plans about “social identity,” which may be called Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Critical Race Theory, cultural competency, or other names, obliterate the personal boundaries of children in order to break down kids emotionally and build them back up as social justice activists. The process involves forging emotional bonds to influence children to become political proteges of the teachers and peers that emotionally manipulated them.
Adopting leftists’ mindsets and behaviors becomes an act of loyalty to a collective identity that is prioritized over individual human value. (RELATED: California School District Pressures Teachers To Aid Students’ Gender Transitions)
Classes may commence with “get to know you” questions and exercises about kids’ gender, culture and identity so that kids can “share their stories” to “feel safer” and “build trust” on the very shaky premise that culture, gender and identities inform learning styles. But children should not have to talk about their gender or “share their stories” just to learn algebra.
Can you imagine having to talk about your sex life at work to establish workplace collegiality? Divulging personal information should not be a prerequisite to learning history. School is for academic instruction, not group therapy.
But that’s exactly what SEL facilitates — a navel-gazing, emotional environment that pretends to enhance learning when really it distracts from it. Some approaches to SEL seem to focus on helping children manage their emotions and make important decisions, but children primarily look to their parents for these important life skills, rather than government employees.
SEL and CRT programs claim to make children “feel safe,” but often these pedagogies make children feel vulnerable and disoriented so that the child will cling to whatever the teacher prescribes to extinguish the social anxiety created by SEL in the first place. The result is inappropriate emotional bonds forged in place of healthy professional relationships and academic pursuits.
To combat this, teach your child that his personal information is private and he is not allowed to share it in formal instruction at school. If asked about his identity, instruct your child to give one response, “I feel unsafe talking about that.” Also, any survey with invasive questions given without parental consent is a violation of the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) and you should file a complaint here.
Opt your child out of surveys and submit public records requests for all surveys and CRT/SEL materials. Here is an example request.
Talk to your child about his identity before government employees do. View the SEL program at school to understand the anti-parent rhetoric you must counter at home. These programs are not compatible with religions that believe the most important identity comes from God and is greater than any immutable characteristic. Talk to teachers about your religion to preempt problems in the classroom.
If you feel that your school is attempting to indoctrinate your child about his social identity, you are not alone. And you have options.
You can invoke opt-out laws if they exist in your state, report your concern to the school board, or contact a public interest legal group for free legal advice. Remember that public school is the government which cannot compel speech, invade privacy, violate your religion, or discriminate. Legal action is the only effective way to stop school indoctrination.
You can also unenroll your child from the offending school. Many parents have already made the difficult choice to disenroll from woke public schools and either homeschool, pay for private school, or use an education freedom program to cover education expenses. The takeover of many public schools by left-wing interests demonstrates more than ever the importance of school choice.
If you don’t insulate your child against woke indoctrination, public school will insulate them against your values instead.
Nicole Solas is a senior fellow at IWF’s Education Freedom Center. The stay-at-home mom from Rhode Island became an education advocate after the National Education Association sued her for submitting public records requests about critical race theory and gender theory in school.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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