EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION
Academics with a background in “queer pedagogies” or “intersectional” approaches are especially wanted to teach English classes at the State University of New York in Geneseo.
The public university’s “Adolescence English Education” job opening has several desired characteristics.
“We seek someone with a strong commitment to teaching in a liberal arts setting who is prepared to teach both introductory courses and advanced courses in their area/s of expertise,” the university says. “A commitment to, and experience in, working effectively with students from diverse backgrounds is essential.”
That is all well and good. The university also, to their credit, seeks a professor with at least three years of experience actually teaching at the junior high or high school level.
But professors should also have backgrounds in at least one of the following: “social justice education,” “critical pedagogies,” “indigenous education,” “disability studies” “neurodiversity,” “intersectional,” “feminist,” and/or queer pedagogies.
The department of education’s focus on identity politics should come as no surprise, since it “commits to an anti-racist frame in all the work we do.”
After quoting Ibram Kendi, the Eli Cline Shear School of Education praises itself for ‘repudiati[ng]…recent actions (e.g., the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many more) as well as our awareness of 400 years of U.S. racism and oppression.” The language suggests the school wrote this in 2020.
The educational school stated further:
We celebrate diversity of all identities and make it our goal to nurture equity and inclusion within and beyond the classroom. But while we work to create an environment where everyone feels included, individuals and organizations also have an obligation to identify and actively develop strategies to eliminate systemic racism in their environments and in our nation.
That statement should be concerning to any parent of a student taught by a SUNY Geneseo grad – the goal of a teacher is not to “eliminate systemic racism” in the nation but rather to educate children.
