The purpose of a teacher is to teach the student to think and act independently, for him or herself, not to force their ideas on them. Knowledge is a crucial key in allowing a person to do that, to think for yourself. I was born in Russia, so the start to my education was a little different, but even being as young as 9, when I immigrated to the US, I thought the American Education system was subpar. Now they are making it even worse.
social justice is just political indoctrination that sounds similar in many regards to what socialists used to teach kids in Communist countries. a delusional fantasy of the world.
The social justice warriors have got it all wrong. The answer isnt giving more power to the institutions they so despise but giving that power back to the people. Individual liberty is the answer. Not big government liberals.
@@guywebster8018 From my observation giving power to the government just pisses people off more. Of our last 3 presidents (Obama, trump and biden) look at how many people are upset of what each tries to do.
It's good to see the comments mostly providing a logical, critical response to "social justice". When this stuff was getting pushed ~5-10 years ago people were more easily duped, but now we've had a taste and it's foul.
Critical thinking classes need to be taught across all majors, not just STEM subjects. Everyone can benefit from being able to break down a problem and being able to RATIONALLY evaluate and determine the solution
I agree. And it’s some of the woke arguments that has made this need even more urgent. Now some are saying that gender identity does not have to align with pronouns. And what about instead of aiming for people of all races to love and care for one another, the pendulum is just swinging to “white people bad” and “non-white people good” when we know that good and bad people come from all walks of life. We need critical thinking because a lot of people who claim to be for social justice are more interested in social vengeance and making a game out of gender issues, among other things.
To care about critical thinking you have to value objectivity first, and-as we all know by now-that is part of “whiteness” so who cares about such constructs anymore?
Sounds like a form of indoctrination. Social constructs are biased and continue to push narrow minded thinking. If you want to make students better people as you educate them, then show them open mindedness. Show them respect and integrity, not things that only serve to facilitate divisiveness.
That's a very privileged opinion... the sad thing is, ideas like those which you are promoting, they really do cause harm to marginalized people. And that's not okay.
This would be received quite differently from this speaker and with this crowd if the assumption was not that the students would adopt a left-leaning model of "equality" but instead a model of "equity". What if the students are simply taught to rally for "justice", and the student concludes that justice is rectifying actions that seek to take from one to give to another in a gesture of "balance" or "fairness" and instead implementing one of mutual exchange? Would they applaud such actions? Would they champion the student when the student disagrees with them? I doubt it. They champion the student rebelling against "them", "the bad ones" that the institution has deemed to be bad. And her apartheid example has something in common with all other successful social change movements: bloodshed. The reason it reached the world and changed minds is because we saw the government slamming down against a population with tyranny. We took note because of the violence enacted on those people. The march would have never been seen by most otherwise.
People do bring their identities with them into a classroom, but much more than this -- they bring their own individual life experience, which is unique to them. Regardless of their identity. Keep teaching the subject, and tailor to individuals, not identities.
_"Cosmic justice is not simply a higher degree of traditional justice, it is a fundamentally different concept. Traditionally, justice or injustice is characteristic of a _*_process._*_ A defendant in a criminal case would be said to have received justice if the trial were conducted as it should be, under fair rules and with the judge and jury being impartial. After such a trial, it could be said that "justice was done"-regardless of whether the outcome was an acquittal or an execution. Conversely, if the trial were conducted in violation of the rules and with a judge or jury showing prejudice against the defendant, this would be considered an unfair or unjust trial-even if the prosecutor failed in the end to get enough jurors to vote to convict an innocent person. In short, traditional justice is about impartial processes rather than either results or prospects._ _Similar conceptions of justice or fairness extend beyond the legal system. A "fair fight" is one in which both combatants observe the rules, regardless of whether that leads to a draw or to a one-sided beating. Applying the same rules of baseball to all meant that Mark McGwire hit seventy home runs while some other players hit less than ten. The "career open to talents" or "a level playing field" usually means that everyone plays by the same rules and is judged by the same standards. Again, if the process itself meets that standard, then no matter what the outcome, "you had your chance." But this is not what is meant by those people who speak of "social justice." In fact, rules and standards equally applicable to all are often deliberately set aside in pursuit of "social justice." Nor are such exceptions aberrations. The two concepts are mutually incompatible._ _What "social justice" seeks to do is to eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups. ... This is often done in disregard of the costs of this to other individuals or groups-or even to the requirements of society as a whole. When one considers a society such as Sri Lanka, where group preferences initiated in the 1950s led to decades of internal strife, escalating into bitter civil war with many atrocities, it is not purely fanciful to consider that other societies may become more polarized and contentious-to everyone’s ultimate detriment-by similar schemes of preferential treatment for one segment of society."_ - The Quest For Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell
Our society will not be healthy until Thomas Sowell can garner a larger audience than Jesse Jackson.............and it becomes a violation of Federal law to hand a live microphone to Bob Dylan with the knowledge he might attempt to make singing noises into it.
pricture Some rules and standards are flawed. If we can’t give special treatment to certain groups then we should change the rules of the game that only give advantage to certain groups. Rules or laws for example: RED LINING.
I consider myself liberal, I'm in an education course required for my major, I was required to watch this video as homework, and even this is a bit much for me. Seriously.
Because it isn't "liberal". Progressives are not liberal, though they tend to use the same language as liberals. Notice the backlash in the comments. Alot of people are calling this woman many things "marxist" "progressive" " "leftist", but not liberal. Liberalism is focused on equal rules and standards for all, but acknowledges that outcomes will always be unequal (i.e. not the same) between individuals. This is not injustice because no 2 people are the same. Liberalism is rooted in individualism, i.e. that individuals have value and that race, gender, and nationality do not define a person's destiny. Progressive ideology views collective identities as paramount. Race, gender, and nationality is what a person primarily draws value from. They also redefine equality to mean "sameness". Therefore, if two groups of people have different outcomes, it must mean there is injustice. There is no other explanation in their worldview to account for group differences. It cannot be that the 2 cultures on average may make different choices. This is why the progressive movement has become authoritarian, it demands different rules for different groups of people in order to "equalize" outcomes. The only way to make people the same is to remove their individual freedom. A metaphor of my own family can apply here: My brother and I grew up in the same home with the same parents, under the same rules. My brother got grounded 10x more than myself. He complained that my parents treated him unfairly because he got grounded more than me. The fact that he got grounded more than me is insufficient evidence to prove unfair treatment. In his case, he simply broke the rules more often, meriting punishment. To the liberal, libertarian, and conservative, the question is: Are the brothers held to the same standards? To the progressive, the question is: how can we make equal the rate at which these brothers are grounded? (Because the unequal rates of grounding MUST be unfair and cannot be because he is an individual that makes different decisions) Very subtle difference, but vastly different consequences in terms of policy and outlook. I found that this is what made me reject the progressive ideology taught on most colleges under the guise of "liberal" Sorry for the long essay. Feel free to write it off. Just a college grad reflecting on his experience.
Me too! I knew something was off about the class when I did the first assignment. I was like, I'm a math teacher and I'm going to teach students how to do math in the real world. Period. I'm not teaching this mess. This is the job of parents.
@@jeremythompson5151 Your family story is a really good metaphor. People like this speaker, seem to think all humans are congenitally neutral -- "blank slates" just waiting to be socialized into whom we will become. But we're not. It's not all Nurture and not all Nature, but the combination of both. Just like you and your brother were different, I have a family member who's incredibly brilliant and can understand STEM concepts I absolutely can't. But I'm better at caring for animals and intuiting what they need based on their behavior. Yet we have the same family. Humans are all born different so even if we were raised exactly the same, we wouldn't grow up to be the same. And we shouldn't be expected to. 🤷🏾♀️
It sounds like she used exterior (to America) problems and projected them onto America. At least that's the impression she gave the students. That's why they didn't need to ask "why" protest.
You lost your creditably starting with your first open statement. Your colleague is 100% accurate. You, as a teacher, and you should not project your personal beliefs onto your students. Provide them with a good education based on the subject matter you are getting paid to teach. That is it. We all have different perspectives. Allow your students to come to their own conclusions, do not manipulate them with what you see to be true. We are a democratic country. Treat your classroom the same way.
@@fredrickrodriguez2175 I think she's saying that teachers are responsible for presenting the issues to students, and allow them to come to their own conclusions about why it is an issue, and what we can do about it. I think recognizing where injustice lies is an important and rare skill. For evidence of it's rarity just scroll down the comments.
I've listened to many Ted talks and have come to realize that the ones that stress positivity, togetherness, equality, justice, and fairness in any way are the ones some people, like the majority I see here, object to.
social justice is not really about equality, it's more about fighting oppression and ensuring that no group is oppressed. there should be no oppressed groups whether it's a race group, gender group or religious group..etc. There is nothing wrong to try to encourage you students to act politically and be heard as long as your don't brainwash them your political views, let them choose for themselves what they want to fight against.
@DIY Everything Wrong! "social justice is not really about equality, it's more about fighting oppression and ensuring that no group is oppressed." Wrong! if social justice is about fighting oppression why are White people being oppressed with social justice? its about dumbing people down. It's about censoring our words. It's also about white genocide.
The bottom line... Social Justice is anti-Christian. It's to wipe out Christianity, and to attack Christians for what the Bible teaches about sin, being against sin.
I think the idea for teachers to understand that our profession has the capacity to be a political act and influence how we teach our students to explore their be citizenship is powerful. There have been times when I am teaching content and/or teaching students, and the lessons of each are necessary for my highschoolers to become productive and creative citizens with integrity.
Thank you Tedx for showing us, even years later, how truly messed up our country is. Before any student can be a free thinker, they have to have knowledge. Sydney was trying to give them that. We need more like her.
“Of course, this is not an opportunity for a teacher to impose his or her beliefs on the students. It is important to choose topics about which you feel you can be pedagogically neutral as you support students' own journey of learning how to be critical thinkers and forming their own opinions.”
@@nathanrayle it's the enforcement part - communism is all about enforcement by force, unlike capitalism which is all about voluntary transactions; no one is being forced to buy an iPhone - they do so (or not) voluntarily - once you establish a system where force or coercion is socially acceptable, things will go downhill pretty quickly (speaking as a former resident of a socialist country)
The reason "social justice" is controversial is the same reason that the end of "1984" is terrifying: It's a form of mind control through a combination of distorted language and systematic abuse. When you tell someone that you believe in fair, equitable treatment for all people, this sounds like you would be in favor of treating everyone fairly, but in practice this is not the case because the meaning of "fair" is distorted to refer not to rules but to outcomes regardless of individual choices. So, e.g. person A might be penalized and person B might be rewarded despite making identical choices because person B belongs to a "marginalized group", which in "social justice" parlance is equivalent to a group which will receive undue advantages. Ironically the "social justice" system looks just like the most oppressive, draconian systems that it claims to oppose, just with different groups chosen to be artificially selected for success or failure. Ultimately "social justice" is a perverse caricature of real justice, which is usually just called "justice".
Thank you for having the courage to speak up and push past the political pressures from education decisionmakers in order to be a voice for the underserved and victimized minority student.
Really?!? Would that be the same educational decision makers who allowed the students to go protest in the first place? Not exactly brave to support their party line... What would have been brave would be to insist that the students each individually apologize to the officer when the truth came out...
And how is walking out of class to protest going to help their situation? And how are they oppressed? Teaching kids to be victims and to whine and scream their way to change is not helpful.
What hahaha? This is the approved opinion of the education decision makers . This is quite literally the safest opinion you could have, that’s pushed by all major institutions , majority of the msm, academia , Hollywood, big tech, social media .
The speaker is sounding like what the Soviets would call a zampoliti, or political education officer. They teach the correct ideology to the students instead of teaching them the subjects they are supposed to be learning. Social justice is an ideology that divides and destroys instead of unites.
Yeesh, these comments really show how many people just turn their brains off and get angry when they hear the word "social justice". She honestly didn't say anything that outlandish but the comments are acting like she's Stalin.
I think we rightfully should be allergic to any notion of "social justice", as it requires perceiving some widespread injustice in an overall system. Yet systems can't be held responsible, only people. And if we found the exact perpetrators and seek justice from them, then that would not be "social justice", but simply "justice". The only alternative I see is to hold entire groups of people accountable, rendering all members of that particular group guilty by association, and that's basically "social justice"... and it quickly works its way towards injustice.
Anony Mous maybe we can’t hold systems “responsible”, but to create lasting justice, unjust systems must be changed. You could oust every powerful individual who commits injustices, but unless the systems that allowed them to come by that power are addressed and changed, there’s nothing to stop another unjust individual from rising to power the same way.
@@nhgfr1 For sure, but all attempts to seek justice of a sort against a system that is already absent discriminatory rules/laws will tend to find a way to impose costs on a lot more people than those who are actually guilty of the perceived injustice. If the rules/laws themselves are discriminatory, then that naturally warrants a change but I would not call it "justice" unless we are to charge precisely those responsible for designing the system. There's an "academic injustice" right now which is rather widespread where talented athletes have their grades curbed substantially by certain teachers who pass them even though they failed to learn enough to legitimately pass the class. Yet if we take a "social justice" approach to that, we'd tend to find some way to hold all teachers or entire academic institutions guilty in general. If we take a true "justice" approach to that, we'd find specific people guilty, hold them responsible, and the practice should gradually diminish. From my standpoint, the best possible thing we can do to help against the hottest issues of widespread "social" injustice among minorities right now is to end the war on drugs. This war has made police in the US overly militaristic, suspicious (since it turns a drug user into both criminal and victim at the same time with endless suspects), and it has a tendency to target minorities in low-income neighborhoods since those are the ones that tend to have the most amount of gang activity (which profits predominantly from drug trafficking) as well as people uncooperative with the police out of fear of gang retribution. Few people talking about these subjects seem to want to talk about the fact that we have ~1.5 million gang members in circulation right now and most of African-American or Hispanic descent; apparently, this type of data is politically incorrect to point out. We'd deal a major blow to their underground economy as well as reduce police brutality and corruption if we ended this senseless war on drugs. Wars tend to always claim the lives of innocent victims.
Anony Mous I agree with you that ending the war on drugs is important! Though, by most definitions, trying to end the war on drugs is, itself, a form of social justice.
@@nhgfr1 One way I'm thinking about this subject is that "injustice" is a heated word. It tends to ignite passions in many of us. I'm certainly not immune to such passions. Yet being angry at a system or the entire world can risk us lashing out at innocent people. It doesn't give us a clear target. It makes sense to me to direct such passions at individuals clearly guilty of something, but not entire systems. So I tend to prefer a dispassionate view of systems that is more in the mindset of "improvement" than "fighting injustice". I often think this type of psychological outlook produces a superior mindset and outcome. Steven Pinker gave an example of a case where a medical doctor made a mistake confusing one patient with the other and prescribing the wrong treatment. A passionate mindset might seek to maximize liabilities for human error among doctors, making them pay the maximum cost for their negligence and probably resulting in paranoid doctors who might not actually make fewer mistakes while their liabilities further escalate the costs of medical treatment. Yet a dispassionate engineering type of view might just seek to make it so patient IV valves are designed in a way such that they cannot receive the wrong type of medication to minimize the possibility of human error. I actually think this second type of mindset, when applicable, tends to produce superior results as well as mitigating the risk of finding more and more people guilty of injustice.
Yes! Defund the colleges because soon there will be no one qualified to attend. Better to keep all students sleepy, vapid and ready for work in a low paying, entry level job for life. No thinking allowed here.
School kids should not be taught that it's okay to break the rules for their personal belief. If you don't like the rules, work to CHANGE them, not break them.
LOL, she is not going back in time to fix your childhood, she is bringing the fight to the present, where kids are not oppressed and won't have to deal with YOUR baggage. THIS is NOT about YOU!
JROTC boarding schools give students opportunity to lead and experience exercising authority on a 24 hour a day 7 day a week basis all living together in a dormatory on a school campus with many more like organized students. A good experience learning how to manage your immediate peers to achieve group goals which include academics and good conduct.
Public schools need to teach the basics (i.e. math, spelling, science, art, music, English, American history), and stop indoctrinating our children with S. J. B.S..
OMG, that would make a really good movie. A mini series even. Good luck getting hollywood to produce it though. Maybe a book. Base it on Evergreen College.
Focus on fixing educational shortcomings in both math and reading at the elementary level. *That* is the best way to set the stage for students to grow into critical and independent thinkers.
Why not teach children that "all men are created equal?" Do children have to be activists? Instead of teaching them to reject the beliefs of their peers and skip school to protest, simply teach them the truth that our nation was built on. This is what my parents have carefully taught me, and I have never looked at any person of color and thought they were beneath me. If schools taught the rich history of our nation, there would not be violence over equality today.
What is the "rich" history of our nation? When here, in America, have all men been treated equal? Did you forget about slavery, 3/5ths of a man.... I have read all of the comments and one common thread here is fear. Fear that this country will one day live up to its hype and acknowledge its hideous past instead of trying to erase it. No one fears a just world unless they benefit from injustice.
It’s good to be a social justice warrior, we Eliminate all critical thinking so they think a certain way “mind control “ that way we control the minds of the nations and therefor control the population “population control”
Apparently the most of the comments here missed the message. The bottom line is racism is an implicit bias that you would rather pretend doesn't exist. Your lack of compassion for others in the human race is clearly evident here. Perhaps your personal struggles doesn't align with that of the people she has mentioned. Even so you will come to find that issues you might face in one way or another, having others understand your issues or give a dam about you or your issues can contribute to your healing process.
Sooo... the wisest voices in society, the ones that know what true injustice is.... are first world teenagers? We should all just shutup and let the kids tell us what justice is? Friggin brilliant! That's it. I'm voting for Putin.
Both were horrible regimes, the only difference is that apartheid is gone, in America all that's gone of slavery is the name. So many oppressive institutions have sprung up to take its place.
I would be interested to know if these "educators" followed through on their mission to promote justice with their students by making them publicly apologize to the officer in the Mike Brown case. Did they set aside 20 minutes to have every student who protested write a letter personally apologizing for perpetuating a lie about him? For getting him fired? For ostracizing him? That would be a good start towards teaching justice...
Sorry but social justice is not about apologizing or righting any wrongs...and it's certainly not about truth. Its sole purpose is to point fingers at people it deems to have too much power and/or to be oppressive.
I used to be a Democrat (well I was 15, couldn't understand the need for society and thought all humans were inherently good) Now, I'm gonna vote republican. I absolutely cannot stand it when they try to make an already bad education system worse...
Right, then you will have no education system or one that does not teach critical thinking skills because much of the country is afraid of thinking critically. Like tump said, "I love the uneducated".
Africaans litterary means african in dutch and also the reason they did that was because there were many languages in africa and nobody spoke the same language so they used a language to make it central
Teachers have a finite amount of time in the classroom. They should spend that time teaching approved curriculum, not trying to create a just society. History teachers should teach history, not their opinions of history. Math teachers should teach math. You dont need cultural references to learn math.
In these situations where people protest and demand that people in power change things, my kids are the people in power having to evaluate the demands.
9:25 "They learned that events like the Soweto uprising are not Ancient History and they don't have to End In Tragedy" What do you think is the likelihood that she was inspired by two Set It Off songs (both capitalized) in the creation of that sentence? Low, sure. But not impossible...
Kneeling for the flag is not social justice, it’s disrespecting the country you live in and the people who died to protect it, nothing more, nothing less
You are Not teaching a bunch of idiotic identity groups. They are first to be honoured as the individuals they are and should remain, for the good of all of us. And respect can be instilled in students without divisive identity politics. Divided, we fall into tyranny, an experiment of equity foisted on several countries leading to millions of brutal deaths.
Um no. They haven’t. Teachers aren’t supposed to be teaching “social justice” they’re supposed to be just teaching. Maybe every once in a while a teacher inspires you, but they aren’t supposed to be teaching _their_ politics.
I read this in a novel (I think ) For social justice, work, affordable housing, good unespensive Health care. Have invisible brigades block crucial infrastructure (train tracks as an example) to promote claims. Leave funny looking but harmless parcels...
Yeah, social justice did an amazing job in Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Rwanda (almost all Africa continent), Cuba, Venezuela and it's already doing great in Argentina...
@1:54 into this ... this woman is spouting Soviet-style equivalencies that justify Soviet-style conclusions. This is not based on logic, but on post-modern dogma. Disregard any recommendations she makes following this.
The purpose of a teacher is to teach the student to think and act independently, for him or herself, not to force their ideas on them. Knowledge is a crucial key in allowing a person to do that, to think for yourself.
I was born in Russia, so the start to my education was a little different, but even being as young as 9, when I immigrated to the US, I thought the American Education system was subpar. Now they are making it even worse.
social justice is just political indoctrination that sounds similar in many regards to what socialists used to teach kids in Communist countries.
a delusional fantasy of the world.
The social justice warriors have got it all wrong. The answer isnt giving more power to the institutions they so despise but giving that power back to the people. Individual liberty is the answer. Not big government liberals.
@@guywebster8018 From my observation giving power to the government just pisses people off more. Of our last 3 presidents (Obama, trump and biden) look at how many people are upset of what each tries to do.
It's good to see the comments mostly providing a logical, critical response to "social justice". When this stuff was getting pushed ~5-10 years ago people were more easily duped, but now we've had a taste and it's foul.
I bet you do think it is foul. Fear of a just society based on equality must be paralyzing.@@prism223
Critical thinking classes need to be taught across all majors, not just STEM subjects. Everyone can benefit from being able to break down a problem and being able to RATIONALLY evaluate and determine the solution
STEM does foster critical thinking on so many levels.
Like realizing the implicit association test cited here has really bed validity and reliability…
I agree. And it’s some of the woke arguments that has made this need even more urgent. Now some are saying that gender identity does not have to align with pronouns. And what about instead of aiming for people of all races to love and care for one another, the pendulum is just swinging to “white people bad” and “non-white people good” when we know that good and bad people come from all walks of life. We need critical thinking because a lot of people who claim to be for social justice are more interested in social vengeance and making a game out of gender issues, among other things.
Cancer, absolutely Cancer, worst type of cancer too
So exactly where does critical thinking come in?
@@Hopeful1s hi
To care about critical thinking you have to value objectivity first, and-as we all know by now-that is part of “whiteness” so who cares about such constructs anymore?
It can allow US to think about what WE can do to help.
Justice is not social. It applies to individual persons...
How to prove that ?
The Way True and not true.
This ISN'T ALWAYS the case for MOST people, bro.
Sounds like a form of indoctrination. Social constructs are biased and continue to push narrow minded thinking. If you want to make students better people as you educate them, then show them open mindedness. Show them respect and integrity, not things that only serve to facilitate divisiveness.
That's a very privileged opinion... the sad thing is, ideas like those which you are promoting, they really do cause harm to marginalized people. And that's not okay.
@@fusion772 way to prove his point
All students who are at the bottom of the class should start claiming victimhood status and therefore be ranked on par for social justice.
They already have this with no-zero policies.
This would be received quite differently from this speaker and with this crowd if the assumption was not that the students would adopt a left-leaning model of "equality" but instead a model of "equity". What if the students are simply taught to rally for "justice", and the student concludes that justice is rectifying actions that seek to take from one to give to another in a gesture of "balance" or "fairness" and instead implementing one of mutual exchange? Would they applaud such actions? Would they champion the student when the student disagrees with them? I doubt it. They champion the student rebelling against "them", "the bad ones" that the institution has deemed to be bad.
And her apartheid example has something in common with all other successful social change movements: bloodshed. The reason it reached the world and changed minds is because we saw the government slamming down against a population with tyranny. We took note because of the violence enacted on those people. The march would have never been seen by most otherwise.
People do bring their identities with them into a classroom, but much more than this -- they bring their own individual life experience, which is unique to them. Regardless of their identity. Keep teaching the subject, and tailor to individuals, not identities.
Well put. Good distinction.
_"Cosmic justice is not simply a higher degree of traditional justice, it is a fundamentally different concept. Traditionally, justice or injustice is characteristic of a _*_process._*_ A defendant in a criminal case would be said to have received justice if the trial were conducted as it should be, under fair rules and with the judge and jury being impartial. After such a trial, it could be said that "justice was done"-regardless of whether the outcome was an acquittal or an execution. Conversely, if the trial were conducted in violation of the rules and with a judge or jury showing prejudice against the defendant, this would be considered an unfair or unjust trial-even if the prosecutor failed in the end to get enough jurors to vote to convict an innocent person. In short, traditional justice is about impartial processes rather than either results or prospects._
_Similar conceptions of justice or fairness extend beyond the legal system. A "fair fight" is one in which both combatants observe the rules, regardless of whether that leads to a draw or to a one-sided beating. Applying the same rules of baseball to all meant that Mark McGwire hit seventy home runs while some other players hit less than ten. The "career open to talents" or "a level playing field" usually means that everyone plays by the same rules and is judged by the same standards. Again, if the process itself meets that standard, then no matter what the outcome, "you had your chance." But this is not what is meant by those people who speak of "social justice." In fact, rules and standards equally applicable to all are often deliberately set aside in pursuit of "social justice." Nor are such exceptions aberrations. The two concepts are mutually incompatible._
_What "social justice" seeks to do is to eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups. ... This is often done in disregard of the costs of this to other individuals or groups-or even to the requirements of society as a whole. When one considers a society such as Sri Lanka, where group preferences initiated in the 1950s led to decades of internal strife, escalating into bitter civil war with many atrocities, it is not purely fanciful to consider that other societies may become more polarized and contentious-to everyone’s ultimate detriment-by similar schemes of preferential treatment for one segment of society."_
- The Quest For Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell
Our society will not be healthy until Thomas Sowell can garner a larger audience than Jesse Jackson.............and it becomes a violation of Federal law to hand a live microphone to Bob Dylan with the knowledge he might attempt to make singing noises into it.
pricture Some rules and standards are flawed. If we can’t give special treatment to certain groups then we should change the rules of the game that only give advantage to certain groups. Rules or laws for example: RED LINING.
@@american236 Who gets to decide the advantage and degree of advantage? Someone like that has great power.
I can't like this comment enough.
Everyone in this comment section thinks that the political spectrum is just 2 points on a number line
I consider myself liberal, I'm in an education course required for my major, I was required to watch this video as homework, and even this is a bit much for me. Seriously.
Because it isn't "liberal". Progressives are not liberal, though they tend to use the same language as liberals. Notice the backlash in the comments. Alot of people are calling this woman many things "marxist" "progressive" " "leftist", but not liberal.
Liberalism is focused on equal rules and standards for all, but acknowledges that outcomes will always be unequal (i.e. not the same) between individuals. This is not injustice because no 2 people are the same. Liberalism is rooted in individualism, i.e. that individuals have value and that race, gender, and nationality do not define a person's destiny.
Progressive ideology views collective identities as paramount. Race, gender, and nationality is what a person primarily draws value from. They also redefine equality to mean "sameness". Therefore, if two groups of people have different outcomes, it must mean there is injustice. There is no other explanation in their worldview to account for group differences. It cannot be that the 2 cultures on average may make different choices. This is why the progressive movement has become authoritarian, it demands different rules for different groups of people in order to "equalize" outcomes. The only way to make people the same is to remove their individual freedom.
A metaphor of my own family can apply here: My brother and I grew up in the same home with the same parents, under the same rules. My brother got grounded 10x more than myself. He complained that my parents treated him unfairly because he got grounded more than me. The fact that he got grounded more than me is insufficient evidence to prove unfair treatment. In his case, he simply broke the rules more often, meriting punishment. To the liberal, libertarian, and conservative, the question is: Are the brothers held to the same standards? To the progressive, the question is: how can we make equal the rate at which these brothers are grounded? (Because the unequal rates of grounding MUST be unfair and cannot be because he is an individual that makes different decisions)
Very subtle difference, but vastly different consequences in terms of policy and outlook.
I found that this is what made me reject the progressive ideology taught on most colleges under the guise of "liberal"
Sorry for the long essay. Feel free to write it off. Just a college grad reflecting on his experience.
Me too! I knew something was off about the class when I did the first assignment. I was like, I'm a math teacher and I'm going to teach students how to do math in the real world. Period. I'm not teaching this mess. This is the job of parents.
Records & Roses Good yo hear your comment!
@@jeremythompson5151 Your family story is a really good metaphor. People like this speaker, seem to think all humans are congenitally neutral -- "blank slates" just waiting to be socialized into whom we will become.
But we're not. It's not all Nurture and not all Nature, but the combination of both. Just like you and your brother were different, I have a family member who's incredibly brilliant and can understand STEM concepts I absolutely can't. But I'm better at caring for animals and intuiting what they need based on their behavior. Yet we have the same family.
Humans are all born different so even if we were raised exactly the same, we wouldn't grow up to be the same. And we shouldn't be expected to. 🤷🏾♀️
@@jeremythompson5151 This was really well said. Thank you.
"The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World"
~ William Ross Wallace ~
It sounds like she used exterior (to America) problems and projected them onto America. At least that's the impression she gave the students. That's why they didn't need to ask "why" protest.
You lost your creditably starting with your first open statement. Your colleague is 100% accurate. You, as a teacher, and you should not project your personal beliefs onto your students. Provide them with a good education based on the subject matter you are getting paid to teach. That is it. We all have different perspectives. Allow your students to come to their own conclusions, do not manipulate them with what you see to be true. We are a democratic country. Treat your classroom the same way.
Did you watch the video? 4:20 "Our aim is to empower students to articulate their own opinions"
Did you? She literally contradicted herself.
"We must teach social justice" > "we need to let our students think for themselves". Oh the irony
@@fredrickrodriguez2175 I think she's saying that teachers are responsible for presenting the issues to students, and allow them to come to their own conclusions about why it is an issue, and what we can do about it. I think recognizing where injustice lies is an important and rare skill. For evidence of it's rarity just scroll down the comments.
That’s exactly what she said. 4:15
Nathan Rayle 👍🏽
TED talks... You have fallen so so far.
This is the worst one I've seen so far but it's making me think there must be worse ones.
@@Kevin-qn2kw there are worse ones... And it's so sad.
I've listened to many Ted talks and have come to realize that the ones that stress positivity, togetherness, equality, justice, and fairness in any way are the ones some people, like the majority I see here, object to.
Wow, the number of people purposefully misinterpreting what she is saying.. It's pretty sad.. such contempt for treating children as human beings.
“Respect, honesty, and integrity seem oppressive.” 🤣
@Nathaniel Dowst ENGLISH damn
social justice is not really about equality, it's more about fighting oppression and ensuring that no group is oppressed. there should be no oppressed groups whether it's a race group, gender group or religious group..etc. There is nothing wrong to try to encourage you students to act politically and be heard as long as your don't brainwash them your political views, let them choose for themselves what they want to fight against.
@DIY Everything Wrong! "social justice is not really about equality, it's more about fighting oppression and ensuring that no group is oppressed." Wrong! if social justice is about fighting oppression why are White people being oppressed with social justice? its about dumbing people down. It's about censoring our words. It's also about white genocide.
If I am obese and an alcoholic, can I claim oppression and blame it on society?
The bottom line... Social Justice is anti-Christian. It's to wipe out Christianity, and to attack Christians for what the Bible teaches about sin, being against sin.
I think the idea for teachers to understand that our profession has the capacity to be a political act and influence how we teach our students to explore their be citizenship is powerful.
There have been times when I am teaching content and/or teaching students, and the lessons of each are necessary for my highschoolers to become productive and creative citizens with integrity.
TED Talks have slipped down another notch with this video.
Thank you Tedx for showing us, even years later, how truly messed up our country is. Before any student can be a free thinker, they have to have knowledge. Sydney was trying to give them that. We need more like her.
Another woke teacher living in her fantasy world
Teach me how to think not what to think
Did you watch the video? 4:20 "Our aim is to empower students to articulate their own opinions"
These people reject critical thinking for "feelings"
Neighborhood_Weeb_Slayer Exactly.
Amen
“Of course, this is not an opportunity for a teacher to impose his or her beliefs on the students. It is important to choose topics about which you feel you can be pedagogically neutral as you support students' own journey of learning how to be critical thinkers and forming their own opinions.”
Well, that is exactly the opposite of what is happening. A lot of teachers are most definitely not politically neutral.
This woman is going to go straight for the most leftist ideas to throw on her students.
Social justice sounds like something Stalin or Mao would dream up.
Which part, "social" or "justice"?
@@nathanrayle it's the enforcement part - communism is all about enforcement by force, unlike capitalism which is all about voluntary transactions; no one is being forced to buy an iPhone - they do so (or not) voluntarily - once you establish a system where force or coercion is socially acceptable, things will go downhill pretty quickly (speaking as a former resident of a socialist country)
@@twenty-twentyvision8318 As if we're not being coerced in to buying stuff, come on...
I can’t believe THIS was my humanities teacher back in 9th grade
Humanities? That’s a course?
@@richcast66 Surprisingly enough, yes
This specific woman? Was she this crazy?
The reason "social justice" is controversial is the same reason that the end of "1984" is terrifying: It's a form of mind control through a combination of distorted language and systematic abuse.
When you tell someone that you believe in fair, equitable treatment for all people, this sounds like you would be in favor of treating everyone fairly, but in practice this is not the case because the meaning of "fair" is distorted to refer not to rules but to outcomes regardless of individual choices. So, e.g. person A might be penalized and person B might be rewarded despite making identical choices because person B belongs to a "marginalized group", which in "social justice" parlance is equivalent to a group which will receive undue advantages.
Ironically the "social justice" system looks just like the most oppressive, draconian systems that it claims to oppose, just with different groups chosen to be artificially selected for success or failure.
Ultimately "social justice" is a perverse caricature of real justice, which is usually just called "justice".
Emphatically, I disagree. Your agenda has zero worth in a school setting. Do you see where your "good intentions" have led us?
...and the echo chamber bursts with applause.
ironic considering this comment section is an echochamber of conservatives
@@dissmo706 liberals *. These people in the video are nothing but authoritarians , and if you’re siding with them, so are you.
I appreciate the talk. We need all teachers and professors to understand your points.
An example of SJE's failure is the Gibson's bake shop vs Oberlin college where the former was awarded $44M USD in a libel lawsuit against the latter.
STOP WEAPONIZING CHILDREN.
wow, super. I love every word of it. Thanks for being so articulate about social justice in schools.
She was/is a National Teacher of the Year? Just another reason to take a good hard look homeschooling.
Thank you for having the courage to speak up and push past the political pressures from education decisionmakers in order to be a voice for the underserved and victimized minority student.
Really?!? Would that be the same educational decision makers who allowed the students to go protest in the first place? Not exactly brave to support their party line... What would have been brave would be to insist that the students each individually apologize to the officer when the truth came out...
And how is walking out of class to protest going to help their situation? And how are they oppressed? Teaching kids to be victims and to whine and scream their way to change is not helpful.
What hahaha? This is the approved opinion of the education decision makers . This is quite literally the safest opinion you could have, that’s pushed by all major institutions , majority of the msm, academia , Hollywood, big tech, social media .
This will not age well. This idea sold out the strong, altruistic and capable.
The speaker is sounding like what the Soviets would call a zampoliti, or political education officer. They teach the correct ideology to the students instead of teaching them the subjects they are supposed to be learning. Social justice is an ideology that divides and destroys instead of unites.
I think your downvotes tell you exactly what people think of your social justice.
LOL! Right. If I could have pushed the down vote a hundred times, I know I would have.
Educated people are equipped to bring about social justice. You are interfering with that education. You are crippling future generations.
Yeesh, these comments really show how many people just turn their brains off and get angry when they hear the word "social justice". She honestly didn't say anything that outlandish but the comments are acting like she's Stalin.
I think we rightfully should be allergic to any notion of "social justice", as it requires perceiving some widespread injustice in an overall system. Yet systems can't be held responsible, only people. And if we found the exact perpetrators and seek justice from them, then that would not be "social justice", but simply "justice". The only alternative I see is to hold entire groups of people accountable, rendering all members of that particular group guilty by association, and that's basically "social justice"... and it quickly works its way towards injustice.
Anony Mous maybe we can’t hold systems “responsible”, but to create lasting justice, unjust systems must be changed. You could oust every powerful individual who commits injustices, but unless the systems that allowed them to come by that power are addressed and changed, there’s nothing to stop another unjust individual from rising to power the same way.
@@nhgfr1 For sure, but all attempts to seek justice of a sort against a system that is already absent discriminatory rules/laws will tend to find a way to impose costs on a lot more people than those who are actually guilty of the perceived injustice. If the rules/laws themselves are discriminatory, then that naturally warrants a change but I would not call it "justice" unless we are to charge precisely those responsible for designing the system.
There's an "academic injustice" right now which is rather widespread where talented athletes have their grades curbed substantially by certain teachers who pass them even though they failed to learn enough to legitimately pass the class. Yet if we take a "social justice" approach to that, we'd tend to find some way to hold all teachers or entire academic institutions guilty in general. If we take a true "justice" approach to that, we'd find specific people guilty, hold them responsible, and the practice should gradually diminish.
From my standpoint, the best possible thing we can do to help against the hottest issues of widespread "social" injustice among minorities right now is to end the war on drugs. This war has made police in the US overly militaristic, suspicious (since it turns a drug user into both criminal and victim at the same time with endless suspects), and it has a tendency to target minorities in low-income neighborhoods since those are the ones that tend to have the most amount of gang activity (which profits predominantly from drug trafficking) as well as people uncooperative with the police out of fear of gang retribution. Few people talking about these subjects seem to want to talk about the fact that we have ~1.5 million gang members in circulation right now and most of African-American or Hispanic descent; apparently, this type of data is politically incorrect to point out. We'd deal a major blow to their underground economy as well as reduce police brutality and corruption if we ended this senseless war on drugs. Wars tend to always claim the lives of innocent victims.
Anony Mous I agree with you that ending the war on drugs is important! Though, by most definitions, trying to end the war on drugs is, itself, a form of social justice.
@@nhgfr1 One way I'm thinking about this subject is that "injustice" is a heated word. It tends to ignite passions in many of us. I'm certainly not immune to such passions. Yet being angry at a system or the entire world can risk us lashing out at innocent people. It doesn't give us a clear target. It makes sense to me to direct such passions at individuals clearly guilty of something, but not entire systems.
So I tend to prefer a dispassionate view of systems that is more in the mindset of "improvement" than "fighting injustice". I often think this type of psychological outlook produces a superior mindset and outcome. Steven Pinker gave an example of a case where a medical doctor made a mistake confusing one patient with the other and prescribing the wrong treatment. A passionate mindset might seek to maximize liabilities for human error among doctors, making them pay the maximum cost for their negligence and probably resulting in paranoid doctors who might not actually make fewer mistakes while their liabilities further escalate the costs of medical treatment. Yet a dispassionate engineering type of view might just seek to make it so patient IV valves are designed in a way such that they cannot receive the wrong type of medication to minimize the possibility of human error. I actually think this second type of mindset, when applicable, tends to produce superior results as well as mitigating the risk of finding more and more people guilty of injustice.
Wrong, need to defund colleges and check teachers mental health every year
Yes! Defund the colleges because soon there will be no one qualified to attend. Better to keep all students sleepy, vapid and ready for work in a low paying, entry level job for life. No thinking allowed here.
Beware identitarian ideologies.
School kids should not be taught that it's okay to break the rules for their personal belief.
If you don't like the rules, work to CHANGE them, not break them.
Uncle Stalin agrees!
Social justice ⚖ its no Justice its Communist Justice
I am literally holding back tears! Thank you for your voice on addressing Social Justice!
She will be no where near my kids, maybe if you focused on education more than practicing being a victim you would be better off.
LOL, she is not going back in time to fix your childhood, she is bringing the fight to the present, where kids are not oppressed and won't have to deal with YOUR baggage.
THIS is NOT about YOU!
JROTC boarding schools give students opportunity to lead and experience exercising authority on a 24 hour a day 7 day a week basis all living together in a dormatory on a school campus with many more like organized students. A good experience learning how to manage your immediate peers to achieve group goals which include academics and good conduct.
They are meant to manipulate kids at an early age. That's why jrotc in public schools is only in minority dominant and lower class communities.
Public schools need to teach the basics (i.e. math, spelling, science, art, music, English, American history), and stop indoctrinating our children with S. J. B.S..
The elite schools are not just teaching basics. You are cheating your children when you insist that that's all they do.
Its going to create a modern day Lord of the Flies sjw style.
OMG, that would make a really good movie. A mini series even. Good luck getting hollywood to produce it though. Maybe a book. Base it on Evergreen College.
Wow.. so bizarre. Let the kids do what they want. Sounds like a great decision. No learning subjects just a free for all.
Focus on fixing educational shortcomings in both math and reading at the elementary level. *That* is the best way to set the stage for students to grow into critical and independent thinkers.
Why not teach children that "all men are created equal?" Do children have to be activists? Instead of teaching them to reject the beliefs of their peers and skip school to protest, simply teach them the truth that our nation was built on. This is what my parents have carefully taught me, and I have never looked at any person of color and thought they were beneath me. If schools taught the rich history of our nation, there would not be violence over equality today.
What is the "rich" history of our nation? When here, in America, have all men been treated equal? Did you forget about slavery, 3/5ths of a man.... I have read all of the comments and one common thread here is fear. Fear that this country will one day live up to its hype and acknowledge its hideous past instead of trying to erase it. No one fears a just world unless they benefit from injustice.
This is the start of cancer
The social justice cult
It’s good to be a social justice warrior, we Eliminate all critical thinking so they think a certain way “mind control “ that way we control the minds of the nations and therefor control the population “population control”
Why so much fear of justice, especially in a social context? You don't want that for all? Oh, I see, just you and yours.
After you have said all these, I still don’t get how society lack justice today.
GET RID OF THIS TEACHER IMMEDIATELY, SHE IS 100% WRONG!!!!
Apparently the most of the comments here missed the message. The bottom line is racism is an implicit bias that you would rather pretend doesn't exist. Your lack of compassion for others in the human race is clearly evident here. Perhaps your personal struggles doesn't align with that of the people she has mentioned. Even so you will come to find that issues you might face in one way or another, having others understand your issues or give a dam about you or your issues can contribute to your healing process.
Best response out of the many I have read. Phew! A breath of fresh air.
The message so amazing
Amazingly bad. She's pushing kids to see themselves as victims. It's basically brainwashing these kids.
I would love to debate this woman
social justice is not justice.
Then you should condemn abortion
Sooo... the wisest voices in society, the ones that know what true injustice is.... are first world teenagers? We should all just shutup and let the kids tell us what justice is? Friggin brilliant!
That's it. I'm voting for Putin.
At least she's honest about her beliefs. But she needs to be banned from ANY school that uses taxpayer's dollars.
I'm surprised they kept the comments turned on.
She is what happens when you spoil your kids
then they say they are not indoctrinating kids lmao
You are supposed to be teach, not parent.
Sounds like she's trying to push her students to compare modern America to apartheid in South Africa...extremely reckless.
It is in fact so much worse than south Africa
@@aapp953 🤣 🤣🤣🤣 No. it isn’t.
Both were horrible regimes, the only difference is that apartheid is gone, in America all that's gone of slavery is the name. So many oppressive institutions have sprung up to take its place.
You forgot the BLM riots...
Absolute Insanity.
I would be interested to know if these "educators" followed through on their mission to promote justice with their students by making them publicly apologize to the officer in the Mike Brown case. Did they set aside 20 minutes to have every student who protested write a letter personally apologizing for perpetuating a lie about him? For getting him fired? For ostracizing him? That would be a good start towards teaching justice...
Sorry but social justice is not about apologizing or righting any wrongs...and it's certainly not about truth. Its sole purpose is to point fingers at people it deems to have too much power and/or to be oppressive.
I used to be a Democrat (well I was 15, couldn't understand the need for society and thought all humans were inherently good)
Now, I'm gonna vote republican. I absolutely cannot stand it when they try to make an already bad education system worse...
Right, then you will have no education system or one that does not teach critical thinking skills because much of the country is afraid of thinking critically. Like tump said, "I love the uneducated".
Education should be consistent. A teachers opinion is not consistent. Stick to teaching the approved curriculum.
Stand up and say no to social justice in our schools. Wow, TED, just wow.
Africaans litterary means african in dutch and also the reason they did that was because there were many languages in africa and nobody spoke the same language so they used a language to make it central
Not at all the reason why they did this. It simply placed another obstacle of oppression on the path to education for the African majority.
@@glendatownsend4877 ans ao that they could understand their marginilized groups.
It's sad to see all those videos and concepts have been around for years, but a lot of adults still don't do a thing.
Last one,... lady, in the end they will come after you too.
Another great listen to start out 2020!
Teachers have a finite amount of time in the classroom. They should spend that time teaching approved curriculum, not trying to create a just society.
History teachers should teach history, not their opinions of history.
Math teachers should teach math. You dont need cultural references to learn math.
History has always allied to informed opinions there is nothing extremely objective about that.
So maybe we should just outlaw the phrase, "What do you think?" from the schools. That will teach those indoctrinating teachers a lesson.
In these situations where people protest and demand that people in power change things, my kids are the people in power having to evaluate the demands.
9:25 "They learned that events like the Soweto uprising are not Ancient History and they don't have to End In Tragedy"
What do you think is the likelihood that she was inspired by two Set It Off songs (both capitalized) in the creation of that sentence? Low, sure. But not impossible...
Toxic
Kneeling for the flag is not social justice, it’s disrespecting the country you live in and the people who died to protect it, nothing more, nothing less
You are Not teaching a bunch of idiotic identity groups. They are first to be honoured as the individuals they are and should remain, for the good of all of us. And respect can be instilled in students without divisive identity politics. Divided, we fall into tyranny, an experiment of equity foisted on several countries leading to millions of brutal deaths.
Teachers have always inspired social activism they were just as involved in civil rights movements
Um no. They haven’t. Teachers aren’t supposed to be teaching “social justice” they’re supposed to be just teaching. Maybe every once in a while a teacher inspires you, but they aren’t supposed to be teaching _their_ politics.
Really disappointed in this ted talk.
for what
My guess is she dont have kids.
I really love her message!! I was always a rebel
I pray that one day soon you’ll be able to teach about apartheid Israel as well
I was just told to listen to this for an education class. All she did was ramble...did not see the point she was trying to make.
This is awesome!!!! Thank you for this!
This talk is a waste. Come on Ted.
The worst Ted I have heard.
🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ every sjw is angry
UNDERSTANDING YOU
I read this in a novel (I think ) For social justice, work, affordable housing, good unespensive Health care. Have invisible brigades block crucial infrastructure (train tracks as an example) to promote claims. Leave funny looking but harmless parcels...
go ahead be socialy irresponsible and get rewarded for it kids! wonder how this pans out😮
Social justice is not social irresponsibility. You missed the entire point.
Get IT !!!!!!!🙂🙂🙂
Yeah, social justice did an amazing job in Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Rwanda (almost all Africa continent), Cuba, Venezuela and it's already doing great in Argentina...
It’s already happening
@1:54 into this ... this woman is spouting Soviet-style equivalencies that justify Soviet-style conclusions. This is not based on logic, but on post-modern dogma. Disregard any recommendations she makes following this.