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Why I Stopped Teaching
For fifteen years, Kali Fontanilla taught middle and high school students in California public schools. Then she abruptly left it behind. Why would a teacher who loves teaching quit her job? Her answer should alarm us all.
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To view the FACTS & SOURCES and Transcript, visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/why-i-stopped-teaching
Script:
Question: Why would a teacher who loves teaching quit her job?
Answer: When her job is no longer about teaching.
For fifteen years, I taught ESL (English as a Second Language) to middle and high school students. The last five years were at public schools in Salinas, California.
Salinas has suffered for a long time with a gang problem. Students are just as likely to fall victim to the temptations of gang life as they are to graduate from high school.
If that sounds like a challenge, it was exactly the challenge I was looking for.
It’s why I became an educator: to help put kids, especially teenagers, on a good path in life.
And that’s what I tried to do.
I taught my students that if they worked hard and accepted responsibility for their actions, they would succeed.
That their race didn’t define them.
That they should respect the police.
That there are only two sexes.
That communism leads to misery.
But in the last few years, they were hearing something different in their other classes.
That their race was their destiny.
That the police were out to get them.
That their sexual identity is a personal choice.
That socialism is compassionate, communism isn’t so bad, and capitalism is cruel.
Many of my students, especially the ones who had recently come to America, rejected these depressing lessons. They knew what they had fled. They wanted to embrace their new country and its values.
But other students completely bought into it.
I needed to know why.
So, I dove into the school’s “ethnic studies” curriculum, the source of so many toxic ideas.
I found classroom activities such as a “privilege quiz” where students would compare and contrast their gender, race, class, and sexual orientation with those of their classmates.
I found another exercise which involved conducting a mock trial to “charge various persons implicated inโฆgenocide against Native Californians,” in order to “create a social justiceโฆcounter-narrative.”
None of this should be surprising because the “guiding principle” of the curriculum was to “critiqueโฆwhite supremacy, racism, anti-blacknessโฆpatriarchyโฆcapitalismโฆand other forms of power and oppressionโฆ”
And in case you think this is just one school, passing an ethnic studies class will soon be mandatory for high school graduation throughout the state of California.
And it doesn’t stop at students.
Teachers who reject these radical ideasโespecially teachers with the “wrong” skin colorโrisk being labeled racist or white supremacist, putting their jobs and careers on the line.
In June 2020, I addressed the Salinas school board. I told them that “allowingโฆ[Critical Race Theory] and [Black Lives Matter] indoctrination in the classroom is unbalanced, too political, and will only doโฆharmโฆ”
In response, the board president, a professor of ethnic studies at a local college, called me “anti-people of color.”
I am “people of color.” I’m half Jamaican.
In fact, before the board meeting, the district had sent me a gift just for being black: a mask bearing the message, “Black Educators Matter,” an “I Love Being Black” sticker, and an African greeting that “acknowledged the god in me.”
An obsession with race and gender has taken root in our educational system. It’s the weed that’s rapidly overtaking the garden.
What can we do to get rid of it?
First, advocate for academic transparency.
Demand that your school district’s lessons and materials be made accessible online, so you can see what your child is being taught. That may not protect you from an individual woke teacher, principal, or school board, but it will make them all think twice before adding radical material into the curriculum.
Second, be vocal. Express your concerns.
Pay attention. If you come across lessons you don’t like, make your dissatisfaction known. Let the teacher know, let the principal know, and if necessary, let the school board know. Speaking of school boards, consider getting on one yourself. This is the time for action.
Third, take an active role in your child’s education.
For the complete script, visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/why-i-stopped-teaching
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Top 10 things that never happened๐ช
Brave ๐
TEACHERS NEED TO STAND TOGETHER. EMBRACE CAPITALISM AND OUR CONSTITUTION. FORM YOUR GROUP. REPORT TO TED CRUZ AND MATT GAETZ. ESTABLISH AND SOUND OFF.
๐ libtards
Something doesnโt add up here: if youโre teaching ESL, what are you doing discussing other topics? Do they relate to the course material? Iโm from upstate New York, not California, so maybe the curriculum is different, but I canโt imagine any English class before college discussing anything overtly political. My teachers never did that, and I graduated high school in 2015. I simply donโt buy the notion that an English teacher would say โOkay class, we were going to discuss โRomeo and Julietโ today, but instead, letโs talk about police brutalityโโ or that an ESL teacher would say โOkay everyone, instead of talking about basic English grammar today, weโre going to discuss socialism.โ As an American I never had to take an ESL class, but I doubt itโs structured that differently from a standard English class. In college, there can be classes that have a certain political bent to them, but if you donโt like the class, donโt take it! Itโs that simple. Iโm just not buying this crap. Somebodyโs lying here, and I know itโs not me, so who does that leave?
I was an ESL teacher and coordinator for most of my 33 years in public education. I retired in 2012. There is no greater cause in teaching than to give students a voice as we do as ESL teachers. We empower our students by giving them the English language. I resigned as ESL Coordinator in 2000 and returned to the classroom to teach literature and writing. ESL teachers were coming out of the university trained in cultural studies rather than the syntax, phonology, morphology, history, philosophy, or semantics of English. Psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and the theory of language acquisition were gone from teachers' college transcripts. Teachers were being trained on how to create safe spaces for second language learners separate from the best source for language learning…their English speaking peers.
Thank you, Kali.
i,m sorry for all the hate messages you get. its a shame because i think your a great lady
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So sad. Everything the left touches turn into chaos and division, so that they can push their satanic agenda.
You are a brave young lady, and I appreciate you for your courageous stand.
Translation: she realized she's a shitty teacher.
You could make more money as a right wing grifter than a teacher.
๐โค๏ธ๐
Kali's ranting and raving assigns blame for an environment that does not track with the educational standards and sources that all you people want to condemn. CRT as it became known was never about any of the items she highlights in her video.. it actually began with a legal discussion of a 1976 busing decision. That aside we are given a few choices on her assertions. The easiest is HER MISINTERPRETATION of a curriculum either unintentionally or deliberately because she's adopted a political stance. Next could be that EITHER political agenda could have been applied at the state board level. Because of the toxic environment of our society you want to believe one view. Without a whole lot of scrutiny nobody should assume the intent that Miss Kali claims. All her examples are subject to context and interpretation. Given the rage she expresses it's very much easier to assume she's embraced a viewpoint that ignores the facts of the situation. All she has presented is innuendo. What's so incredible is that if these assertions are truly correct you school board and you CHANGE THEM. You don't start a cultural war for something you can change. You don't threaten people's lives based on single interpretation.
GOD bless this woman and all the more for standing up like she is.Without understanding the problems we wont overcome them. GOD bless you and your family and ALL GODs creation โฆ๏ธ๐
Common sense is soothing to my ears, thank you Kali.๐บ๐ธ
You are a wonderful wonderful woman I go through the same thing where I live I am told I am an Uncle Tom and a sellout meanwhile I've had a most successful business for 32 years without blaming somebody on racism or what I didn't get because I was a black American I just trudged through life and I have had so many blessings glad I'm moving to Maine just had my house built you keep on going girl my children were all homeschooled my oldest is a veterinarian my second one is a physician's assistant and my son the Third is in real estate and going to college no handouts just hard work I love everything you say and I will continue to support you be well and be blessed
Those masks ๐คช
NEVER EVER send you children to a government run school.
Nice job .
Been following Kali for a few months now. This lady has been bashed all over the internet, called names, called a sellout, probably had her life threatened. She is a brave, articulate, courageous young lady. Standing up for the values that made American families strong. Watching this now she is going to be a major voice in the coming year. Thanks PragerU for giving her this opportunity to be heard and recognized. Especially with her being of mixed race. This is exactly what the progressive left dont want to see.
See, the problem we are facing as educators is the fact that race, racism, sexual orientation, and identity are inextricable from American history and society. Yes, we like to make proclamations today about how we are an open and accepting meritocracy, or at least that we want to be. But the wounds are still there. The legacy is still there. Discussing facts is not and should not be an indictment of our ideals, but simply ignoring them leaves us prone to repeating the same mistakes.
Yes, of course: teachers who insist upon students adopting certain beliefs and principles are overstepping their bounds. We are responsible for relaying information and allowing students to reach their own conclusions. It's the exact reason that videos like these are a problem. They act as though there is some "cut off point." Like prejudice has ceased to exist, and acknowledging that it can still exist (or that it has even happened) will resuscitate it like some Frankenstein's monster.
That is just as much an imposition on the perspectives of students as any "woke" curriculum. It deprives them of truths about themselves and the world around them.
False!
The nonsense happening in the USA is hilariously sad.
This is leftism and the Democrat Party, folks. Vote all Democrats and RINOs out of office and save this great nation.
The liberal-left is socialism, fascism, and communism. CRT and wokism is Marxism. Our children are being brain-washed.
I have seen this with my own eyes!
Dr. Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave!
That is SUCH a powerful message. Too bad many of your fellow teachers ignored it.
Brain washing at its best.
Hereโs what we found in our kidโs school library. Starts at minute 6. https://youtu.be/yLyDGrWYSHM
So, your literally advocating for cancel culture now? Is this a joke?
I graduated with the idea of becoming a teacher, but with CRT and Intersectionality, I decided against it. In Minnesota whites are laid off first. Forget it.