Controversy over university's anti-racism seminar for instructors
WASHINGTON (SBG) - The pandemic made parents more aware of what their kids are learning, not just in K-12 but also in college as university instructors face more scrutiny for both their lesson plan and the seminars they take to enhance their teaching.
Watchdog group Campus Reform took a look at a lesson plan for a 5-day seminar at the University of Colorado Boulder. The title for one course was Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Decolonizing the Classroom. Other courses included Failing in Order to Succeed: Fostering Resilience in STEM Classrooms.
The Equitable Teaching Conference “was a voluntary seminar for instructors reviewing existing national scholarship on culturally informed classroom strategies," according to the University of Colorado Boulder.
In our polarizing political climate, the 5-day conference stirred outrage. Campus Reform says they obtained slides from one course that lists "perfectionism," "sense of urgency," "quantity over quality," and "individualism" as “cultural norms of white supremacy.”
“One of the most troubling things we found in these materials is that you're supposed to question the need for mastering a subject. But teachers are there to help students master a subject, to help students learn," said Angela Morabito from Campus Reform.
The University of Colorado told The National Desk that “the center for teaching and learning does not tell educators how to teach, but through workshops, conferences, consultations, and online resources offer educators opportunities to individually consider how they can improve student learning.”
No one from Campus Reform attended any of the conference’s sessions.
