MISHAWAKA, Ind. — REAL News Michiana has uncovered a thesis paper written by a Penn High School English teacher, outlining how she has incorporated Critical Race Theory into curriculum and how CRT can continue to be pushed onto students, teachers and administrators.
Danielle Black, who was Penn Harris Madison’s teacher of the year in 2018, is currently the English teacher in the Early College Academy at Penn High School. She submitted her Thesis titled, Raised (Counter) Voices: the Power of Sponsorship and Culturally Relevant Teaching, in May of this year as part of her English M.A. from IUSB.
The abstract of the thesis describes her paper in part as the following: “All of these research goals are implemented through the frameworks of literacy sponsorship, Critical Race Theory, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and Funds of Knowledge scholarship to establish connections between our particular case study and larger conversations about combatting structural racism.”
Black’s paper focuses on the fallout from the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, and an erroneous open letter from a group of democrat, socialist activists to PHM in which “alumni and students” claimed the school district was structurally racist. The letter lies and takes incidents out of context to prove the district was involved in overt and unconscious racist behavior. You can read that open letter here.
Black’s paper is essentially a roadmap of how to indoctrinate more students and teachers in communist Critical Race Theory teachings.
“I felt it was urgent to bring more research to bear, to gather scholarly contexts for understanding and addressing the work of structural racism in our community.” She writes in the beginning of the article.
However, Black also lays out how she has already implemented CRT in her own classroom.
“In the fall after the events of Summer 2020, I entered my public speaking class with some new curriculum ideas pushing for greater racial awareness and justice.” She wrote, while then describing her goal of destroying “a monolithic Whites-only viewpoint.”
She also talks about anti-police lessons she taught in multiple classes.
In Comm 101, she discusses “a lesson modified from Teaching for Black Lives dealing with the topic of police violence toward African-American men.”
She also writes about a “Cafe Conversation using expert and student-created poetry related to police violence.”
In the paper, Black focuses much of her thesis on something she calls “Counternarratives,” which is devoid of factual information, and simply runs off of how someone feels about a particular scenario. She then credits Critical Race Theorists for the idea.
“Critical Race theorist Richard Delgado begins by describing how counternarratives allow us to ‘sharpen our concern, enrich our experience, and provide access to stories beyond the stock tale.'” She wrote. “There is a… growing interest in this methodology of counter storytelling to fight racism and highlight voices of color. In their seminal work on Critical Race Theory, the framework that highlights the tenet of counternarratives, Delgado and Stefancic state, ‘Stories can give (victims of racial discrimination) a voice and reveal that others have similar experiences. Stories can name a type of discrimination (e.g. microaggressions, unconscious discrimination, or structural racism; once named, it can be combated.'”
“By welcoming counternarratives, educators are actually serving to empower their students toward greater understanding and empathy.” Black also wrote. “While critical race theory work sometimes threatens to be discouraging and hopeless, it also offers power to the disenfranchised through, among other opportunities, counternarrative expression.”
“While even the simplest of counternarratives… serve as crucial tools in combating monolithic stories and making sure all voices are heard, it was the seminal work of Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate and expanded by scholars such as Geneva Gay, that moved CRT into the educational landscape fully.” She wrote at one point.
One of Black’s stated goals is to continue to push CRT onto everyone within the district.
“I was concerned that the momentum inspired by the open letter (as mentioned above) might fade and that the attention of the school administration might shift away from the hard work toward racial justice.” She wrote. “There needs to be more system-wide professional development of educators and more accountability so that all students have these same opportunities to learn about and confront racism.”
She also discusses how CRT was put into PHM’s Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum. She describes how some teachers “bought in” to the SEL curriculum, but goes on to say not all have.
“Penn High School administration and leaders conducted professional development prior to the event so teachers were more prepared, but it was not enough. As a result, one student reported, “In my class there was confusion though. It was suggested that we be ‘colorblind.’ — ‘Clearly, more teaching of teachers needs to take place.'” She wrote, while suggesting CRT should be taught to children as young as toddlers. “Even toddlers can have educated teachers who teach equitable lessons that empower children of color and grow all toward a more equitable world; however, it’s going to take a systematic approach.”
The paper seems to ignore any criticism of CRT teachings, which essentially say white people are oppressors and people of color are the oppressed. Instead, she appears to push to divide students by race even further in the concluding pages of her thesis.
“If students of color are asking us to lead in this area, no matter our level of comfort, educators and school systems as a whole owe it to them to do it.” She wrote. “All students will benefit from more education and more action regarding racism.”
You can read her entire 42 page thesis below:
This isn’t the first time RNM has uncovered politically motivated teaching by Black. Last month, RNM published a story in which Black was pushing anti-gun propaganda in her classroom. You can read about that here.
All of this also flies in the face of Superintendent Jerry Thacker telling parents CRT is not being taught at PHM. You can read all about that here.
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[…] 2018 ‘Teacher of the Year’ wrote a whole thesis on how to implement CRT in Michiana schools and how she was already doing it in her classroom in spite of the superintendent saying PHM […]
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