by Reagan Reece  August 23, 2022

A back-to-school curriculum focused on social-emotional learning (SEL) lays the foundation for Critical Race Theory (CRT) by dividing children through the creation of identity charts, “getting to know you” questionnaires and classroom contracts, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A curriculum created by Facing History and Ourselves, a group that partners with more than 100,000 teachers to provide education resources to combat “racism, antisemitism and prejudice at pivotal moments in history,” has a five day back-to-school lesson plan that teaches kids about gender, culture and identity. The curriculum is based in SEL, which focuses on teaching students social skills for their emotional well-being but has been criticized for laying the groundwork for CRT in the classroom, as similar lesson plans based in SEL are growing in popularity across the country, experts told the DCNF.

“Separating children by their group identities and having them judge others or self-judge because of their group identity is psychologically abusive, not to mention despicable, in a modern society,” Wai Wah Chin, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told the DCNF. “Promoting SEL in schools puts powerful control and assessment tools into the hands of educators. Educators are failing in their job to educate academics, but want instead to divert from their failures to matters of mind control and manipulation.”

The curriculum suggests students read a passage called “Orientation Day,” a story about Jennifer Wang, a 17-year-old Chinese American girl, who struggles to do a “get to know you” activity. Wang wonders how to tell her classmates, “I am a girl who wandered the aisles of Toys ‘R’ Us for two hours, hunting in vain for a doll with a yellowish skin tone.”

Students are asked to think about their “individual identities” and write down how the way they view themselves differs from the way others see them, the curriculum states. The students must think of what factors have forced them to have these identities as a part of the lesson plan.

Educators are advised to create a “classroom contract” that “empowers” students to “wrestle” with “multiple perspectives,” the curriculum stated. The contracts should include “logical consequences” for those who don’t foster a proper “classroom community.”

“The purpose of this exercise is none other than to program kids to internalize information through an ideological and racial lens rather than to understand the historical context of the facts,” Dr. Elana Fishbein, president of No Left Turn In Education, told the DCNF. “Instead, the teacher should guarantee objectivity, pledge to keep politics out of the classroom, and promise to let all perspectives be heard, without a threat of intimidation or retaliation.”

The curriculum in total is 230 minutes devoted to “establishing classroom norms and an inclusive environment.” By day five, students have inspected their identity and become bound to a contract to keep them accepting and inclusive throughout the school year.

“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,” Nicole Solas, senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, told the DCNF. “But children should not have to talk about their gender or ‘share their stories’ just to learn algebra.”

Educators and schools are implementing curriculums like these for the beginning of the year, which is when parents need to be the most weary of these introduction lessons, Chin told the DCNF.

“The schools starting CRT and SEL indoctrination early set up the controls for the year,” Chin told the DCNF. “Parents need to develop networks to be aware of what is being taught, and to develop options when the local educational offerings are destructive.”

Facing History and Ourselves did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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Reagan Reese is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Students in Class” by CDC.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

https://tennesseestar.com/2022/08/23/psychologically-abusive-some-back-to-school-programs-dividing-students-by-gender-culture-and-identity/?fbclid=IwAR1Eol0nuRiwJGBKa_lBW7aCGuxIq1OQfe2Nn8hDuQlC-6a8uvogjV1rIeA

July 31, 2022

“We did not raise taxes, we closed loopholes,” Sen. Joe Manchin told Fox News’ Brett Baier of his agreement with Sen. Chuck Schumer on the latest “Build Back Better” bill as the West Virginian hit the Sunday shows.

He means the deal wouldn’t raise top tax rates. But it does impose a 15% corporate minimum tax for businesses worth more than $1 billion, overriding normal accounting rules on . . . investment.

And the resulting tax hike of $313 billion thereby targets companies whose business is capital-intensive, meaning they have to invest heavily to function.

So what Manchin calls “an all-American bill” slams US manufacturing, which would suffer half the total tax hike, or $155.6 billion.

President Joe Biden insists the nation’s not in recession; seems like Manchin and Schumer have decided to fix that.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

https://nypost.com/2022/07/31/joe-manchins-anti-made-in-america-bill/

NOTE:  Just in case you don't think we are PROUD!!  Under Frances Arthur's thoughtful guidance, Jaime Christley was one of our EXCELLENT Student Eagles for several years.  She also was my impressive intern at the State Capitol for the 2019 Legislative session!!  YES, we are very proud of all her accomplishments and that she is now at FRC!!

Jaime Christley July 27, 2022

He figured it out — he knew how they kept everyone’s minds controlled. It was such a subtle tactic, it almost went unseen. He explained in his secret diary, “Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic; they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all.”

Victor Klemperer was a German Jew that lived during the Nazi regime. In his book, “The Language of the Third Reich” (1957), he examined how the Germans changed the everyday meaning of words in order to penetrate culture. Klemperer wrote, “Nazism permeated the flesh and blood of the people through single words, idioms and sentence structures which were imposed upon them in a million repetitions and taken on board mechanically and unconsciously.”

The same tactics that the Nazis used to convince Germany that Jews were not human are being employed today. The most recent example can be found in the media with the Associated Press’s new pro-transgender “AP Stylebook, 56th Edition.” The latest edition of the style guide includes a chapter on “inclusive storytelling” — stressing the importance of “accuracy” in news coverage. The guide claims they want to overcome “unconscious biases” and urge journalists to not specify that someone is a “transgender woman.” Instead, AP urges reporters to name the biological male as simply a “woman.”

While “gender-affirming,” this linguistic change is misleading to readers. It forces the audience to unconsciously assume the individual’s true biology. The stylebook also goes as far as advocating to avoid using the word “female” at all because “it can be seen as emphasizing biology and reproductive capacity over gender identity.”

To summarize these changes in the AP Stylebook: feelings and one’s perception of reality are more important than facts. Reporters are being urged to write based on someone’s emotions rather than on reality — further blurring the lines of objective truth. Since when did news become subjected to the whims and emotions of political correctness?

These subtle institutionalized changes should be alarming to Christian conservatives. Language is the trojan horse of progressives. Changing a word’s usage and meaning shapes and alters our reality. The Left has been using this tactic for centuries. For example, before 1973, a baby was a human being. Over time, the pro-abortion lobby insisted an unborn child was a “clump of cells.” By offering subtle yet palatable phrases to society, individuals grew accustomed to thinking of a baby as nothing more than tissue in a woman’s body. Changing an individual’s outlook on reality changed how they operated in society.

It should be alarming how the Left is deconstructing society’s longtime systems and truths. It’s almost as if progressives are singing the Orwellian hymn, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” Do Christians not hear these subtle changes? Are we being marched towards an end from which we cannot return?

We should not be surrendering to the progressives’ playbook. We will only become dull sock puppets, diminishing people and their unique qualities — degrading them into their “labels” with terms such as “birthing people” or “ze” pronouns.

During the Third Reich, the Nazis did not simply come up with new words. Klemperer said through the Germans’ own usage of existing words and continuous propaganda, the Nazis changed the meaning of everyday phrases, and ultimately, altered how individuals perceived the world.

Some might say, “No one is going to accept language like this; it is so extreme — everyone can see plain reality!” Tell that to the pro-abortion lobbyists from 1973 or convince Hitler’s generation that Fascist strategy did not work. I hope these doubtful individuals realize before it’s too late that language is important, and that it is imperative that we take a stand.

Jaime Christley is a development associate at Family Research Council.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES:

https://www.washingtonstand.com/commentary/hidden-arsenic-new-ap-style-guide-standardizes-protransgender-narrative