If This Is What ‘Woke’ Looks Like, I’ll Continue My Nap. Thanks.

According to this, the School of Education at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis has decided to separate, officially, from Indiana University in Bloomington because it wants more “woke” folk.

Apparently, that means it wants to “lean into conversations about race and social justice that are exploding across the country.”

Because that’s what we want out of our teachers, right?  Conversations about race and social justice.  Reading, writing, arithmetic – what’s woke about that stuff?  That stuff is tired AF.

In anticipation of this divorce finalizing next summer, IUPUI leaders are already “focusing more intensely on urban education, with the goal of arming future teachers, no matter their backgrounds, with enough ‘cultural competencies’ to be successful in any school.”

This is what teaching is becoming, y’all. Which means that this is what SCHOOLS are becoming – institutions of woke folk telling your kids about social justice and race.

The executive associate dean of IUPUI’s School of Education is a woman by the name of Robin Hughes, and she’s determined to “create social change in schools.”

She proudly claims, “We have one of the wokest schools on campus. We want our teachers to teach folks consciously. There would be no reason for Colin Kaepernick having to kneel if everyone went through the School of Education here. You would have a commissioner of the NFL that would be woke. You would have [NFL] owners who were woke. There would be no disproportionality in terms of students [of color] who are over-suspended, thrown out of school, dropping out of school, being pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline. There is a reason why that is happening.”

For those of you who aren’t hip to the “woke” thing – it means, “to be aware or to be awakened, especially in relation to social justice.”  Maxine Waters uses the term to describe herself, which is how I know that it’s the absolute last thing in the world I want to be.

IUPUI’s curriculum already includes classes such as “Cultural and Community Forces in Schools,” “Organizational Change in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Schools,” and “Critical Race Theory.”  And according to a professor of urban education at the University of Pittsburgh, Rich Milner, a few classes here and there used to be the extent of it.  Now?  Race issues are being “infused” throughout entire education programs.  And he says that like it’s a good thing.

IUPUI’s “move is on par with what institutions across the country should be doing,” Milner said. “The programs that are most transformative or most useful to students are programs where these issues are infused throughout the entire program. It’s thought about in every class, in every method, in student teaching. It becomes a part of the fabric of the entire teacher education program.”

Milner believes it’s of critical importance that teachers talk about race in urban education programs. “If we’re not centralizing race, we’re not really getting at what really matters in urban education,” he said.

It’s weird – I thought what really matters in urban education is an Actual Education, not training people to focus on the color of their skin in every possible circumstance.

Robin Hughes acknowledges that there are complaints from people who say, “we talk about race too much.”  But her response is simply that “the whole world is talking about race a whole lot.”  Ummm…OK.  Since when does the abundance of something mean that something is a good thing?

If my kid makes the highly unlikely decision that he wants to become a teacher someday, I won’t be sending him to IUPUI.  Hopefully, by the time he’s ready for college (if he even goes to university), he’ll be choosing a less “woke” place of study.

Naps are a good thing.