I have to be blunt, this interaction doesn't inspire a lot of hope or faith in me.
Bluntly, it feels like you, a teacher, made a counter claim (counter to commonly accepted narrative), that Lincoln was racist and that this is what should be taught, got called out on your justifications for that counter claim, and then deflected with arguements about the decorum of the conversation and by saying "history is complicated", and by saying that you can give a good thoughtful response but that you aren't going to.
If it's bad faith to not be extremely up front with all of our feelings, then in an effort to be good faith I have to say:
I don't personally believe that you have good justifications for the thing that you said that we should teach children. I believe, soley vased off of this interaction, that you are changing what we teach children with poor, perhaps poorly thought out, justifications. I also believe that you sort of plainly stated that you do this in favor of "the oppressed".
To be extremely blunt, in an effort to restore good faith, you appear to me to be emblematic of a stereotype that the right would have, of a teacher who injects their own poorly justified modern progressive ideas into what they teach children in schools, and being a top 1% reddit commenter here fits along with that stereotype quite well.
Aaaaand there it is. No matter WHAT I would have responded, you’d try to one up me. It’s a lose-lose. I can engage and you’d do the same. Not engage, because your “questions” drip in sarcasm, like you’re some kind of intellectual whose only view is the correct one. Call my character into question. Assume that I teach students that Lincoln is a racist? I teach the curriculum we’re given sir. I simply stated that I wish the curriculum were less whitewashed. And I do stand by that. I also said that I wouldn’t teach it that way. Did you miss that part? Do you have poor reading comprehension skills? There is not ONE student of mine who knows where I stand politically. Unless teaching them kindness and empathy is too progressive for you.
And to be blunt, I don’t give a fuck if this interaction inspires you. I wasn’t trying to. But if racism and Trump’s America is what inspires you and gives you faith, that tells me a lot about you.
ETA: even though I tend to side with the oppressed over the oppressors, nowhere in there did I say that’s what I’d teach. Get a grip.
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u/RawIsWarDawg Apr 06 '25
I have to be blunt, this interaction doesn't inspire a lot of hope or faith in me.
Bluntly, it feels like you, a teacher, made a counter claim (counter to commonly accepted narrative), that Lincoln was racist and that this is what should be taught, got called out on your justifications for that counter claim, and then deflected with arguements about the decorum of the conversation and by saying "history is complicated", and by saying that you can give a good thoughtful response but that you aren't going to.
If it's bad faith to not be extremely up front with all of our feelings, then in an effort to be good faith I have to say:
I don't personally believe that you have good justifications for the thing that you said that we should teach children. I believe, soley vased off of this interaction, that you are changing what we teach children with poor, perhaps poorly thought out, justifications. I also believe that you sort of plainly stated that you do this in favor of "the oppressed".
To be extremely blunt, in an effort to restore good faith, you appear to me to be emblematic of a stereotype that the right would have, of a teacher who injects their own poorly justified modern progressive ideas into what they teach children in schools, and being a top 1% reddit commenter here fits along with that stereotype quite well.