Teaching is a ‘political act’: University of North Texas education class

A University of North Texas course trains future K-12 educators to use classrooms as spaces for liberal race and sexual activism through materials on racial justice and LGBT identity – and calls teaching a “political act.”

The course, “Teaching as Advocacy for Equity,” focuses on “structures of social and educational inequality, as they relate to race, class, and gender” and how teaching can be “a form of intervention” to change society through “cultural reproduction,” according to a spring 2023 syllabus. The course counts as core credit for UNT students seeking teacher certification. It employs materials from the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center and “anti-racism” advocates such as Professor Ibram Kendi.

The College Fix asked the university’s media team via email how long it has taught the course, whether it is possible for someone to obtain teacher certification without the course, why it is necessary to train future educators to be social justice activists and how the university viewed parental authority over a child’s education regarding topics such as race, gender, and sexuality.