Virginia kindergarteners and elementary school students in the wealthiest part of the country will be taught about “social justice” alongside their usual curriculum of reading, writing, and basic math starting this upcoming school year.
A copy of the new curriculum, obtained by The Washington Free Beacon, will teach children as young as 5 about institutional racism. The curriculum was developed in part by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Teaching Tolerance. The SPLC has a long history of branding non-bigoted groups as hateful based on ideological differences. The organization is also currently grappling with allegations of racism and sexism, which resulted in two of its top leader leaving the center last year.
“The proposed lesson plan will restructure history and social studies classes to emphasize slavery as fundamental to American society for students from kindergarten to the fifth grade,” the Free Beacon reported.
The new curriculum will be taught in Loudoun County – the wealthiest county in the United States.
“Sugarcoating or ignoring slavery until later grades makes students more upset by or even resistant to true stories about American history,” the curriculum states, according to the Free Beacon. “Long before we teach algebra, we teach its component parts. We should structure history instruction the same way.”
The curriculum also appears designed to turn young children into activists at an early age.
“Students should study examples of role models from the past and present, and ask themselves, ‘how can I make a difference?'” it says. “These conversations [about slavery] should lead into discussions about current injustices—particularly those that continue to disenfranchise and oppress the descendants of enslaved people—and possibilities for activism and reform.”
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Not every Loudoun County educator is on board with the administration’s direction. A longtime elementary school teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said that the school system had always taught students about the reality of slavery—lessons that typically begin in the fourth grade. She said the administrative focus to push racial politics on students who do not yet know how to read is motivated by politics, rather than education.
“I teach lower grades in elementary school.… [Never before] did I have to teach about slavery,” the teacher said. “Our standards were always [to] teach about famous Americans, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., people like that. But, it was all very general and the bigger picture, we highlighted their accomplishments.”
“What they’re really trying to do is divide people as early as they can, starting now with kindergarteners. They’re really going to be inciting hate,” the teacher said of the new social-justice curriculum. “They’re pointing out that there’s ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’ and that’s crazy. We never taught about that in school…. We learn about how to get along with one another and be kind and respect others. But now, with this new curriculum that they’re adding, it’s going to do the total opposite.”
The Virginia Department of Education wouldn’t tell the Free Beacon how the new curriculum was funded or if it was mandatory for all Virginia schools.
“The state Board of Education approves content standards and curriculum frameworks for history and social studies,” a state education department spokesman told the outlet. “Local school boards are responsible for developing or adopting curriculum aligned with the state standards and framework.”