Future elementary teachers get a lot of training in “equity pedagogy” at the University of Florida, writes Scott Yenor in City Journal. They may not learn much about how to teach.
He is co-author of a Claremont Institute report, Making Kindergarten Teachers into Radicals, on how the University of Florida’s education school changed training for elementary education majors in 2020.
“Core Teaching Strategies,” “Mathematics Content for Elementary Teachers,” “Art Education for Elementary Schools,” and “Music for the Elementary Child,” among others, were replaced with a new four-course sequence “centered on equity pedagogy.” Suffused with critical race theory, equity pedagogy makes raising consciousness and eliminating racial gaps — not subject matter mastery or effective teaching strategies — the moral imperatives of the teaching profession.
“At least ten required courses in the University of Florida’s new elementary education major have critical pedagogy embedded in their course descriptions, readings, and assignments,” writes Yenor. Nearly all course assignments now “focus on self-reflection about a teacher’s own biases.”