Confessions of a Former Critical Race Theory Teacher

I'm done hiding.

It's been over 7 years since I last engaged in my crime. I've tried to put the past behind me, to move on. I even left my profession and moved across the country to try and forget about the hideous things that I'd done. But I couldn't. The guilt was simply too much. Knowing what I had exposed those kids to. My being young was no excuse. I should have known better. I thought what I was doing was right. I thought I was helping them. It turns out, what I was doing was causing permanent damage. Knowing that I caused them pain will stick with me for the rest of my life. If you had asked me at the time what I was doing, I would have responded with what I thought was simply my job. I know now that I was doing something far, far worse.

What I was doing was teaching critical race theory.

Some may say that critical race theory and middle and high school social studies are worlds apart. Some might even say that critical race theory isn't even taught in public schools and is instead a class offered at law schools. But I know better. I now know that I was manipulating young minds into a type of learning and critical thinking that was over the line. I look back and shake my head about the content I was sharing with those poor kids: how I was teaching about topics like the Triangle Trade, Black Codes, Jim Crow, and the KKK. How I was teaching about the New World racial stratifications that kept Europeans and even indentured servants at a higher level than slaves, Native Americans, and any combination of mixed races. I weep at how my units on post-World War II America introduced lessons about the exclusion of Black Americans from the GI Bill, redlining, and housing discrimination found with Levittown and its sister communities throughout the country. And let's not get started on my Columbus Day speech about genocide, greed, and glory all in the name of European Christianity. That lesson alone should have ended my career on the spot. 

What can I say? I was naive. I thought teaching history was about giving students critical thinking skills to try and understand the world of today through the evolution of past events. I thought students needed to know the good, the bad, and the ugly of their country to have a full appreciation not only of how far we'd come but how far we still have to go. I mistakenly believed that students needed to be exposed to primary sources that tell not only the stories of the victors but also the stories of the conquered. I somehow thought that having students discuss topics like power, race, violence, prejudice, and sexism would somehow engage them and make centuries-old events come alive. I even went so far as to believe that a history teacher's role was not simply to teach the content but to use the content to get students to learn skills like synthesizing information, analyzing bias, interactive debates, historical role plays, primary source study, and textual comparisons. Had I stayed in the classroom, there's no telling just how far down the rabbit hole I would have fallen. 

Fortunately, I got out before I caused too much damage to America's youth. I've been greatly relieved to see that my former students didn't all become free-thinking radicals after being forced to take my class. In fact, an overwhelming majority of them have ended up in typical, run-of-the-mill professions. I look over my social media feed to see that my formerly indoctrinated students have become nurses, businessmen, telecommunication workers, musicians, health technicians, office associates, and, to my great relief, military men and women. Despite my misguided lessons on race, it seems that none of my former students chose to take up arms and institute a race war against all White people. I am greatly relieved because I know that this is a valid concern many people have expressed throughout school board meetings today. I guess I'm just lucky that my high school students saw my class as one of seven throughout their days and that they didn't think that was I was teaching them was a call to arms but rather one teacher's way of teaching the subject content the best that he could. It's almost as if the lessons I taught weren't that far out of the ordinary after all. 

But you and I know that's not the case. You and I know that I was out of line. It was inevitable that I left or else I would have been forced out for my radical teaching methods. I was wrong for teaching history the way that I did. For teaching it in a way where I attempted to challenge my students' way of thinking. Asking them to consider other points of view. Using my classroom autonomy to pull readings from non-traditional sources. Discussing what is gained and lost through conquest. Debating the role of religion when it comes to power with power being used both to conquer and oppress at the same time. Looking at present-day statistics on generational wealth, education levels, school graduation rates, the penalties within the criminal justice system, and income between the races. Asking students how and why they group themselves the way that they do in the cafeteria. Using the study of history to question if America is truly the best country in the world as we say we are. 

I shudder at the person I was. The new laws coming forth now from states like North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Texas are written to ensure that people don't teach history the way that I did. That young, idealistic teachers no longer teach in a way that engages their students to think critically about history. It's important to extinguish this fire early on before these teachers get tenure. The CRT crowd won't be around forever so having as many state laws as possible banning CRT is critical. My students were lucky; they saw through my charade. The next ones might not be so lucky. What happens if high school students actually act upon what their history teacher is teaching them? What happens if they question the racial make-up of their school? Their community? Their state? What happens if these poor White students start to ask about their own family histories? What if, heaven forbid, students begin questioning how and why they themselves are seemingly grouped by race disguised as academic achievement levels? That would be complete and utter anarchy!

We can't have that. The point of public education is not to ruffle feathers. It's not to challenge the status quo. It's simply to teach the material that offends as few people as possible. After all, if you teach history exactly as it happened, then the students don't have to think about what didn't happen now, do they? Why should students consider the perspective of the losers or the vanquished? Why should they debate decisions that have already been made? Why should they hear from a community that wasn't even strong enough to fight off its oppressors? History is the study of winners, it always has been and always will be. For it to be taught correctly, there can be no margin for error. There can be no debatable themes or activities. Honest to goodness history must be taught in a way where it is learned but that there are no hard feelings. Nobody should feel guilty about living in the greatest country in the world. If you are making students uncomfortable, then you are teaching them incorrectly and that needs to be remedied immediately. Teachers exist today to teach basic, non-controversial content and nothing more.

And that, for all history teachers today, should be their final, most essential command.