USED HEAVILY BY ROCKWOOD; THIS TEACHER RESOURCE PUSHES ANTI-POLICE, GENDER IDENTITY TOPICS AND GRATUITOUS PROFANITY. ACCUSED OF INDOCTRINATION; EMPHASIS ON RACISM IS ALL OVER ITS WEBSITE.
The Teachers College Reading Rockwood relies on this resource so much that administrator Dr. Shelley Willott called it a "basic text."
Records show Rockwood paid roughly $900.00 for 20 teacher lesson guidebooks from this resource, for language arts teachers to use in their daily lessons. They used it in the 8th grade "Critical Literacy" unit.
This is that guidebook.
In its 165 pages, it tells teachers over and over to use movie clips from "The Hate U Give," which is based on the book by the same name.
Here are the movie clips Rockwood teachers used in class:
"Powerlessness: Survival lesson with police."
Language Arts vocabulary words = oppression, micro-aggressions, power, etc.
Here's the book that movie is based on:
Here's the emphasis on gender from the teacher lesson guidebook:
How people resist their gender/gender is oppressive.
Teachers throughout the district use TCRWP for professional development, and middle schools have devised whole lesson plans from TCRWP materials.
The article above, Units of Indoctrination, states that TCRWP ignores academic fundamentals in favor of radical pedagogy.
Items that support that assertion can be found on TCRWP's own website:
TCRWP encourages teachers to fight “systemic oppression”
and to recruit students to do the same.
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| Above images seen here. |
It essentially calls our country's schools racist.
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| See more here. |
Social issues are emphasized in its mission statement:
“We aim to create and support teaching that is anti-racist and anti-oppressive…”
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| Mission statement |
TCRWP’s site includes links to a site that teaches and promotes Critical Race Theory:
Learning for Justice (new name; formerly known as Teaching Tolerance).
Both are part of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a teacher resource that will be banned from Missouri's schools if a bill this session passes.
Because Rockwood uses TCWRP:
*students have been told to question gender norms
*students have been taught to look for racism in everyday interactions
*students have learned they are oppressed if they are black or female
*students have been told black people are powerless with police
*students were exposed to poor phonics teaching
*teachers were exposed to negativity about schools and our country (above)
Additionally, this controversial book was bought for, and removed from, a Rockwood classroom.
*Area teachers say TCRWP encouraged them to use it. This happened during a professional development session.
*AND, parent complaints about TCRWP-devised lessons led to the infamous email that told teachers to hide the controversial lesson content.
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| Excerpt from Fallert's email. |
Rockwood made national news about the deception and the disagreement over these lessons.
_________
ACTION:
Parents submitted a formal challenge of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in August of 2021 (beginning of this school year).
DECISION:
Retained without restriction (they will keep using it).
FULL STORY
Rockwood has not answered whether it will keep using TCRWP's supplement kits for phonics and writing, but, it is still using the Critical Literacy lesson guidebook that teachers used in the lessons that drew parent complaints.
Rockwood has not provided specifics on what lessons they say they're removing or rewriting.