Opinion: Our public schools need to teach kids how to think, not what they should think

Critical race theory is the hottest topic on the planet, even if most of us aren’t exactly sure what it means.

What’s important to understand about CRT is that politicians of all stripes are determined to indoctrinate public school students so they might grow up to vote like them.

What’s most important to understand is that if your child’s school is teaching the kids what to think instead of how to think, you need to get them out of that school.

As for the CRT definition, we can mostly agree it explores how racism is embedded into our social fabric.

Of course all that some will want to know is that many Republicans don’t want CRT taught in public schools and many Democrats think it’s essential to the foundation of education. (Who needs to understand an issue; slip into your red or blue uniform and just win, baby.)

Those of us who want a lot less government in our lives and the lives of future generations don’t care what the politicians think. We side with the educators who may be divided on the merits of CRT, but almost unanimously agree government needs to stay out of the educating business.

That said, debating CRT doesn’t concede that white people are inherently evil or that African-Americans can never recover from the days of slavery.

Neal McCluskey is director at the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute.

He had good words to consider in some recent essays.

“(A)nyone who tries to make public schools teach or not teach something, is supporting government-forced indoctrination,” he wrote.

“We see the poisonous fruit of this in multiple states, including Idaho, New Hampshire, Texas, and Tennessee, which have passed or are debating bills prohibiting the teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ in public schools. The acts are aimed at keeping tenets of critical race theory, such as that white people are inclined, even subconsciously, to perceive themselves as the norm and others as marginal, from being considered in schools.”

McCluskey goes on to say that he is neither an ardent supporter nor opponent of CRT and there are “decent reasons to favor or dislike CRT.”

New Mexico is preparing to implement some kind of “update” to its social studies standards before the next school year. Many fear that will include some form of the critical race theory as defined by Democrats who control the Legislature and governor’s office.

What’s most important to remember here is this, in the words of the poet Robert Frost:

“It must be solemnly laid on everybody in this world to make his own observations and remarks. … A teacher says to a pupil ‘Watch me notice a few things; let’s see you notice a few things too.’”

In other words, let’s teach kids to think — not what to think - about critical race theory and everything else.

— David Stevens

Publisher