Term Definitions
Referenced from Parents Know Best's Vocabulary Guide
Action Civics: A manner of teaching civics that downplays America's founding principles, governmental structure, etc, and pushes students to become political activists. Approved lessons may include actively lobbying for or against legislation, participating in political demonstrations, etc. As a practical matter, all projects are directed toward leftist activism. Synonyms: New Civics or Pojrect-based Civics.
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Anti-Racism: The practice of dismantling a system marked by white supremacy and anti-Black racism through deliberate action.
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Culturally Responsive Teaching: A pedagogy that emphases including students' cultural references in all curricula. For example, works by William Shakespear and Jane Austin may be replaced by those of Maya Angelou and Sandra Cisneros. Related to Action Civics and Critical Race Theory.
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Critical Race Theory (CRT): Makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze all aspects of American life, categorizing individuals into groups of oppressors and victims. Learn more here. The ideas behind CRT were formed in the 1990s and are from a Marxist background that sought to divide individuals on class. In today's culture, they have replaced class with race. The result is that any disparate outcomes among race are now labeled as systemic racism and/or white oppression. Assumes that non-white individuals are only capable of achieving success if white individuals are discriminated against.
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: A set of buzzwords that promote the same tenants' as Critical Race Theory. Focus is to teach equating disparities with oppression.
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English Language Arts (ELA): Under common core, a way to bring social and cultural issues, including social justice, climate activism and other biased curriculum into English class.
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Equity: Treating students differently based on their membership in historically "privileged" or "oppressed" groups. Students in "oppressed" groups are to be given special treatment because of their race, with the ultimate goal of ensuring equal outcome regardless of effort or merit.
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Social Emotional Learning (SEL): The opposite of learning academic content (history, math, reading, science). Pseudo-therapy that conditions children to exhibit the "correct" values, attitudes, mindsets and behaviors. Openly focused on indoctrinating with biased political and cultural attitudes. Synonym: Whole Child Education.