Episode 111: Curriculum Concerns: Analyzing Project 2025's Proposed Changes

Dr. Almitra Berry analyzes the curriculum changes proposed in Project 2025, a conservative plan to reshape education. She discusses the impact of narrowing the curriculum, whitewashing history, and the problematic approach to science. Dr. Berry addresses concerns about standardized curriculum, the importance of teacher autonomy, and the threat to critical thinking and civic engagement. She calls on listeners to advocate for diverse, inclusive, and comprehensive education.

Check and gain knowledge in our resources:
 
Dr. Berry's book "Effecting Change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners" https://bit.ly/EffectingChange and the Project 2025 proposal https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Music.

Dr Almitra Berry: 0:05

Welcome back equity warriors. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the 3e podcast. I need you to do something for me. We have an assignment remember right now I want you to text the link to this episode to an educator, a school leader, a school board member, an advocate for marginalized learners, a parent, a caregiver. Can you do that? You see, if we each one teach one, each one text one, we can make a tremendous difference in the lives of children. All right, let's get back to our assignment project 2025 just a reminder, that's that conservative policy proposal that aims to, in one part, reshape American education. So today we're going to talk about the curriculum side of it, we're going to talk about how they want to narrow curriculum to fundamental subjects, how they want to revise history and social studies content, and the impact that this has on learners of color as well as our LGBTQ plus Students. We're going to talk about altering science education, standardizing curriculum across states, and the impact of all of these things on critical thinking and civic engagement. Are you ready? All right, so it is crucial that we look at these changes through the lens of equity, through the lens of culturally appropriate instruction. So I'm going to use my cardi framework as the foundation for analysis. That cardi framework can be found in my book affecting change for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners. If you don't have a copy, I'll make sure that there's a link down in the notes so that you can pick one up. So we'll start with curriculum they want to narrow the curriculum. They have an emphasis on what they call fundamental subjects, and that's problematic for a number of reasons. So I always speak of right of podcast on how important it is to have rigorous, comprehensive curriculum that develops critical thinking skills across disciplines. Yes, foundational skills are critical. Every single child should know how to read, write, thinking, think and calculate on grade level, on time every single year, beginning with kindergarten. But if that is the only thing that we emphasize, if we do that at the expense of other subjects, it will lead to a loss of a well rounded education. Yes, children need to learn how to read. That needs to happen in kindergarten, first grade and the first semester of second grade, and after that, they need to transition to using their skills of reading to read to understand various subject matter. If we minimize down to fundamental curriculum, as they call it critical thinking skills don't get developed as they do through exposure and learning and engaging with diverse subjects and diverse perspectives. Think about what will be lost in terms of the arts, music, even physical education programs. These are things that will disproportionately affect our children who have limited access to enrichment activities outside of school. Who are we talking about again? The majority of children that go to public schools are children of color, children whose primary language is something other than school English, our children who are neuro diverse are children who do not come from wealthy homes. So I stress that we need to maintain our focus on culturally responsive content across all subject areas in order to engage diverse learners and to have them experience a strong and rigorous curriculum. Now, one thing about curriculum, if you know me, you've been listening, you know I haven't. I have a special affinity towards the social sciences, having been a US history and American government teacher, and so I have some concerns I've expressed before about this whitewashing of history and the emphasis over emphasis and focus on Western countries as opposed to a world approach. And so I have some significant concerns about Project 2020 five's approach to teaching history and social studies, because. There is no respect or recognition of cultural awareness and education or teaching from multiple perspectives, and that is desperately needed in a diverse society. There's tremendous danger in whitewashing history. And when I say whitewashing, I mean that you're taking out the parts that you don't like. You are taking out the parts that don't fit your narrative of white superiority, white supremacy. Students need to see themselves reflected in the instructional materials that are put in front of them, children need to see that there are many ways to think about an issue or a problem, and so when we teach using multiple perspectives, we are meeting the needs of learners to develop their critical thinking and cultural competence. If we revise history to align with one single ideological viewpoint, we contradict the principles of academic integrity and evidence based instruction, and that is precisely what they would have you do. And it's not just our children of color. When I talk about marginalized learners, you'll know I include in that our LGBTQ plus students, as well as literature and content that's been created by LGBTQ plus peoples on top of that project, 2025 would eliminate the protections of LGBTQ plus people, and that lack of representation for them as well is concerning in our classrooms. We need to have safe, inclusive environments for every single child. When we remove content, we are erasing important perspectives and experiences. When we remove content, we are saying that these people, their thoughts, their ideas, their lived experiences, are not valued, respected or validated, and that leads to bullying, it leads to discrimination and without proper protection. It's not much of a stretch for me to say children will die when we lose diverse perspectives in literature and social studies, when we limit students exposure to different lived experiences, we are engaging in brainwashing. We must affirm every single student's identity and their lived experiences. That is how we create an inclusive classroom, that is how we create safe schools, and that is how we create a nation, or foster a nation that is built on diversity. And they would do more to curriculum their approach to science education, particularly around climate change and evolution is problematic, and whether or not you believe in those things is a different it's a different subject from saying that these things are things that Need to be learned about, talked about, debated and understood. I've talked about religion in public school before. I'm not going to go there now, but evolution is one of those things that you know, if you raise your in your household, if you believe in creationism over evolution that is not dismissed when children get to school. You've created that foundation. But there is biology, and there are biological facts that need to be taught, and when we don't, we are clawing back medical and scientific progress that's been made, and so it's important for children to be to have that content presented to them. And in developing critical thinking skills, let them work through, let them debate, let them make sense of the connections, the nuances between what they are taught at home and what is presented in school to ignore climate change as I sit here in Houston, Texas, and it is I keep getting weather alerts, not weather alerts, but heat warnings. Is on my phone every couple of hours telling me it's dangerous to go outside. It's this one the hottest summers on record. Everywhere that we seem to look if we continue to ignore that, to ignore scientific consensus, we are leaving our students unprepared for the future, we are undermining foundational scientific principles if we challenge or ignore things like evolution in biology curricula. Yes, we need to have rigor. We need to have standards alignment. We also need to talk about things that are sometimes not comfortable, because who is it that is disproportionately impacted when we do not teach these things, when we do not address these things, it is our children of color, our children of linguistic diversity, our Children of low wealth, our LGBTQ plus students. So science and then they say they need to have standards. Sort of these standards would contradict principles of effective, equitable instruction, because it's one thing to have a standard. It's another thing to say this is the only way, and that is what project 2025, advocates we know as educators, as good teachers, as good instructional leaders, that we have to make adaptations. We have to differentiate to meet the needs of every single child. There's no one size fits all approach that has ever worked. It fails to account for children who are culturally and linguistically diverse, who have diverse learning needs, who are neurodiverse, who are behaviorally diverse. Some teacher autonomy in curriculum decisions is crucial to respond to individual student needs. We could take a look right now at what's happened in system after system. When teachers are not allowed to differentiate to meet students' needs, it doesn't work. We need to make decisions in classrooms that are driven by data. We need to make decisions in classrooms that are based on differentiating instruction to support every single learner doing what is in the best interest of every single child. Because, again, who's disadvantaged when we don't do that? Yeah. Our children of diverse culture are children of diverse language. I said that this has all of this has an impact on critical thinking and civic engagement. Think about it. What happens if they can effectively create an education system where our children are taught to believe in only one ideological perspective when it comes to well, pretty much everything when what they're taught aligns with this extreme right wing, Maga Republican. I can't even call it a value system. But what they say is right a value system when you've got your leader who is a 31 time or 34 time felon, a rapist, when when they do not believe that women should have autonomy over their bodies. I'm going to stick to education here, but let's think about what their so called values are and what they purport we need to be teaching media literacy. Our children need to be able to watch messages and have the media literacy skills that are required to dissect those messages independently, to go and do their own research and find out, is this correct? Is it fact based. We kind of need to turn them in a little mini human fact checkers, right? That's that critical analysis that's needed, but they would not have you teach your children that. They would have us limit discussions on current events, just as Texas has already done. Limiting children's ability to go out and get engaged, to be civically engaged, limiting conversation, classroom discussion, learning on controversial topics as they know. Name them, and when we do that, we don't create citizens who are ready to actively engage, to participate in democracy, a participatory government system developing higher order critical thinking skills across all subject areas is critical. It's important work for us to do in the classrooms, and we know that our marginalized learners benefit, particularly benefit from opportunities to analyze, to engage in, to critique societal structures and historical narratives, picking things apart to view it from a different perspective, from a through a current lens that's rooted in equity, and evaluating it based on their own lived experience. Education plays such a crucial role in preparing every single student to become an informed participant in a diverse democracy. But project 2025 what they propose for education is a risk. It's a danger to equitable, high quality instruction. It is a threat. It is a way to limit representation, to alter scientific fact, to reduce teacher flexibility, and they, while they say they have parent involvement, we're going to talk about parent parental rights in another episode, even to limit which parents rights are respected. All of this, all of these changes that they propose would disproportionately harm our marginalized learners by limiting their access to diversity, to diverse perspectives, diverse literature, to rigorous, culturally responsive instruction. We have to equity warriors. We must advocate. We must advocate for diverse, inclusive and comprehensive education that will prepare every single child for success in a very complex, multiracial and multicultural world. So please text the link to this episode to a friend to two friends to five friends to 10. Put it in your group chats. Put it in your family chats, and all you have to say is you have got to listen to this. That's it. That's the message. You have got to listen to this and then join me again next week, next week, I'll start digging into the plan to expand school choice and privatize certain aspects of public education. Now, if you've got a question, a request, text it to me. Look down in the notes for the link I want to hear from you, and remember, don't worry about those things you cannot change. We're going to change the things we cannot accept. You.