Progressive ideas are so popular that they always feel mandatory for some reason.
University of Maryland requires ‘anti-racist’ course for future English teachers
A University of Maryland (UMD) master’s program dedicated to training future English teachers requires three “Embracing Diversity” courses, one of which prompts candidates to consider what it means to be an “anti-racist, social justice-oriented educator.”
The three courses, “Critical Foundations of Schooling and Education,” “Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners in the Secondary Classrooms,” and “Teaching Students with Disabilities and Gifted Learners in Secondary,” account for nine credits of the 36-credit program.
The courses all have the banner of “Embracing Diversity” and appear among the requirements for the university’s Master of Education in Secondary English Education.
“Teacher candidates interrogate what it means to be an anti-racist, social justice-oriented educator in a pluralistic classroom,” a description for “Critical Foundations” explains. The course “[i]ntroduces teacher candidates to critical, sociocultural foundations of U.S. schooling, education, and society.”
“Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners” is “designed to help teacher candidates increase their awareness of language differences and to enhance their effectiveness when teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse secondary classrooms,” according to its description.
“Anti-racist” course requirements extend beyond future English teachers at UMD. The university’s secondary mathematics, sciences, and social studies education master’s programs also list “Critical Foundations” as a required course.
The three-credit course also appears in requirements for PreK–12 art, health education, and world languages. Of those programs, health education requires all three of the “Embracing Diversity” courses, art education requires two, and world languages requires only “Critical Foundations.”
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