Slate, the pioneering web magazine that once had an interesting balance of commentary, jumped the woke shark long ago; I almost never bother with it any more. It carries an especially annoying Social Justice Warrior family advice column, “Care and Feeding,” whose writer, Doyin Richards, founder of the Anti-Racism Fight Club, is obsessed with “diversity, equity and inclusion.”
A teacher calling herself “Pronoun Problems” wrote in part,
On my first day, in an attempt to create an inclusive learning environment, I passed out an icebreaker worksheet that asked several questions, including preferred pronouns. This ended up backfiring. I live in a blue state, but in a suburban area with plenty of conservatives. It’s not uncommon to see a house with a Trump sign right next to a house with a Black Lives Matter sign. Consequently, while I had plenty of students who answered the question honestly, I also had lots of students who wrote their pronouns as “nor/mal” or “attack helicopter.” I feel like it started things off on the wrong foot. It gave me a negative first impression about some of the students, which I don’t think is a healthy mindset for a teacher. Worst of all, I’m afraid I ended up only creating a more hostile learning environment for my trans and non-binary students. The students didn’t necessarily see each other’s answers, but I basically gave some students a platform to express their transphobic views. After my contract ended, I got hired by a different school district, this time teaching eighth grade. I’m worried that if I give out the same icebreaker worksheet, even more of the students will write transphobic “joke” answers. At the same time, I’m glad I was able to learn the correct pronouns for my students and avoid misgendering them in class. How should I go about this in the future? Should I scold them or call them out? Or should I just grin and bear it for the sake of the students who take pronouns seriously?
The reply from Doyin is what you would expect (it begins, You absolutely did the right thing by creating the icebreaker activity; your only errors were not setting ground rules and not explaining why this is important…”). If you want to read it, it’s here.
My answer would be the following:
Dear Pronoun Problems,
“That wasn’t an “icebreaker activity.” It was an indoctrination exercise. (I’m afraid to ask what the rest of it was like.) By making the current “pick your pronouns” fad such high priority on your first day, you signaled to students what their teacher was going to demand of them, and it wasn’t hard work, diligence and dedication to learning. Your implicit message signaled that conformity with a particular side of the ideological divide was among your primary missions.
“That is not your job. There is no justification for any political controversies involving sex and gender to be the focus in a public school classroom. The children who mocked the pronoun question were not displaying “transphobic attitudes,” but showing a healthy cynicism for the obsessions of arrogant and doctrinaire adults who are warping education and dividing society. Your reaction to their independence to form a “negative first impression” of them for not matching your own world view. If you can’t set your biases aside and treat all students as individuals with a right to their own ideas, then you should not be teaching. A teacher creates an “inclusive environment” by not using the classroom as virtue-signaling staging grounds for narrow interests and unsettled societal controversies.
As for Doyin’s claim that the teacher’s emphasis was “important,” it is only important if the objective is to teach ideological compliance, which to people like him and “Pronoun Problems,” is a crucial part of remaking America in their image, with the state dictating what thoughts and beliefs are permissible.
____________
Pointer: Steve-O-in NJ
Ethics Alarms 
The city and county in my area have separate school systems. Last year, the city high school principal was going to let students put their preferred pronouns with their photos in the yearbook. They apparently got many “creative “ responses like “attack helicopter” and finally decided to scrap the idea by the time the school board heard about it and was moving to intervene. The principal was reprimanded for her woke stunt and many parents were calling for her dismissal. The rumor is that she agreed to retire at the end of this school year.
Good!
I love it.
Students, especially teenagers, love bucking the status quo. It rather reminds me of the teens in working class German cities, such as Hamburg, that quickly got tired of the regimentation of the Hitler Youth, grew their hair long and listened to verboten music. The Gestapo files on these kids showed how perplexed the adults were at this behavior.
Not to suggest that I was that rebellious, but we had a chemistry teacher in high school, Dr. Brown (she worked for that Ph.D. and we were going to acknowledge it).
She drilled us on our metric measurements and how to convert them and make sure we paid attention to the labeling (millimeters, centimeters, etc.).
We had a test on doing some conversions. To test her, I gave an answer in decimeters. She marked it as wrong. I interrupted the class as we were reviewing the test. I pointed out that I gave the correct answer. She looked at it and said it was wrong. Then, I pointed out that it was in decimeters and she admitted her error.
She then announced the new rule that answers should be given in centimeters, unless another measurement is called for.
Yeah, never rule out the possibility that some of these kids were just trying to jerk the teacher’s chain.
-Jut
One of the streamers I listen to (who is Dutch, by the way), has a nice sense of humor. He delights in sprinkling in references to things such as kilomiles, or centi-inches. Very droll.
On the other hand, I recall a science fiction author from the 70s and 80s who insisted, throughout his novels, on giving us such phrases as 500 feet (about 154.3 meters). Once you read the first hundred or two references like that, it just becomes annoying.
A.M. Golden,
A movie I recommend seeing was made about those rebellious kids titled—-> Swing Kids.
Those young teens were positively risking their lives resisting the Nazis.
Sound familiar?
if you are teaching English language skills the only acceptable pronouns are I, you, he or she (dependent on the sex) if you are speaking in the singular, For situations where there is more than one individual, the pronouns are WE, They, Them. Keeping it simple is always the best approach. Adding complicating factors ends in chaos.
Grace got angry with me for responding recently to a request for my pronouns with the beginning of George Harrison’s Beatles song: “I, My Me Mine, my me mine my me mine my me mine.”
I can’t promise her that I won’t do the same again.
I read the Slate writers response. The response was filled with rules that must be followed or else.
I have had teachers who would never entertain a different perspective and that is the only thing I remember about them. The only thing we remember about totalitarians is that they were oppressors. Teachers are no different. Those who instill curiosity and expression are remembered far more for their influence on you than their authoritarian counterparts
Good teachers are worth a fortune. The trouble is there are just way too few of them.
“I live in a blue state, but in a suburban area with plenty of conservatives. It’s not uncommon to see a house with a Trump sign right next to a house with a Black Lives Matter sign.”
This is our first clue that this teacher may have bias. It’s as if she’s disappointed people with different political viewpoints live amongst each other. While I personally abhor all ideological yard signs, it seems thought diversity is a plus in a community, not something to lament.
“Consequently, while I had plenty of students who answered the question honestly…”
She doesn’t mean honestly, she means (insert pearls to clutch here) correctly.
“I also had lots of students who wrote their pronouns as “nor/mal” or “attack helicopter.””
Considering that the apparent pronouns of they/them, zir, ze, hir, etc. only sound not made up to to ideologues, it’s understandable some kids (and even adults) may wish to make up their own pronouns too. One has to ask why “zir” is perfectly normal while “attack helicopter” is invalid. Who gets to write the rules of choosing the correct made up pronoun? Perhaps if the teacher herself could answer that, her students would have taken the question more seriously.
“It gave me a negative first impression about some of the students”
In other words, because some students don’t think just like her, she judged them as bad or incorrect. Teachers who are more interested in helping their students become academically curious, try to keep their judgments about students to the side.
“Worst of all, I’m afraid I ended up only creating a more hostile learning environment for my trans and non-binary students.”
One thing a lot of so-called trans allies do is attempt to make trans folks constantly declare themselves to others. Not every trans person is ready to make public declarations about their gender journey. Some are still figuring it out and don’t appreciate being put on the spot so some ready-to-affirm teacher can cheer them on. This dynamic is similar to the race baited who ask people of color about their roots as a show of being anti-racist. At the end of the day, it’s not about the minority, it’s about self edification and displays of social “evolving.”
“Should I scold them or call them out?”
This teacher needs to look within and scold herself. Why did she feel a need pass out this particular icebreaker? Was it really to get students to open up, or was it to indoctrinate them to a particular viewpoint? Did the exercise help her find out more about her students so she could help each student succeed in their academic work and life, or was this about sorting the good from the bad? It appears, based on the limited information
we have, that she was using this icebreaker
as a means to determine
the gender ideology sinners from the saints.
Most kids rebel against indoctrination at their religious schools at some point. Her students were no different.
Students can always spot a phony teacher and can be merciless if the teacher does not have compensating redeeming qualities.
Phony people in general are a drag and phony teachers even more so.
Students instinctively do not trust them nor respect them which greatly compromises the entire teaching/learning experience.
“it is only important if the objective is to teach ideological compliance”
Well, it’s a public school in America in 2022, so…yeah, that is the objective.
I like that she automatically assumes that all the kids who made a travesty of her Very Important Exercise by mocking it must be “conservative”. It never crossed her mind, apparently, that it might be possible that someone with a liberal leaning might also find this pronoun nonsense to be tiring and annoying.