Noah Karvelis, an Arizona K-8 schoolteacher, urged his colleagues last week via Twitter to preach political activism to students –– and to discuss gun control, white supremacy, and anti-capitalism with them.
Now a walkout that began last Thursday and continues today is depriving students in that state from the education they deserve.
Keep in mind, these aren’t high school or middle school students he was talking about; these are elementary-schoolers as young as five years old. Parents now more than ever need to be aware of what their kids are being exposed to and just who is influencing these young, impressionable minds.
“Teaching is political and silence is complicity,” he wrote on his Twitter account in December 2017, as reported by Breitbart. “Things more educators should discuss especially if they work with young (white) men in the classroom in 2018: gender, feminism, and #MeToo, race, gun violence.”
Karvelis, who is heading up a teachers’ movement organized under the hashtag #RedForEd, is a self-professed student of “critical pedagogy” and other radical socialistic philosophies that contribute to Marxism, noted Breitbart.
Emphasize gun control.
Emphasize toxic/violent masculinity.
Emphasize whiteness/white supremacy.We have to face uncomfortable topics to stop this. https://t.co/b2Ck6ypqDb
— Noah Karvelis (@Noah__Karvelis) February 16, 2018
A group known as AZ Liberal Watch also noted some deficiencies in this teacher’s qualifications, tweeting in part, “He’s barely been certified to teach and he has deficiencies in Arizona & US Constitution certificates. Do you really want someone like this teaching your children?”
This screenshot of Democrat operative Noah Karvelis' teacher certification explains a lot. He's barely been certified to teach and he has deficiencies in Arizona & US Constitution certificates. Do you really want someone like this teaching your children? pic.twitter.com/pEHx37aSj3
— AZ Liberal Watch (@AZLiberalWatch) April 24, 2018
In March, Karvelis, a member of the Arizona Education Association and a co-founder of Arizona Educators United, gave a more or less amicable interview to the publication SocialistWorker.org, in which he outlined some of the key issues facing teachers in Arizona and nationwide as well. The main issue, he said, was teacher compensation.
“The biggest really is our pay,” he said. “Pay is pretty abysmal, and depending on the metric, we’re always near or at the bottom among the stated.”
At face value, there was no reason to doubt Karvelis’s sincerity — except for the left-wing nature of the publication itself, which predictably called his efforts “nonpartisan.”
To be sure, not everyone is supportive of the Karvelis plan, despite a groundswell of support.
“I’ve come to realize another undeniable truth: Our teachers deserve better advocates than the self-declared ‘bipartisan’ leaders of #RedForEd,” wrote Maria Sym, a public school mom, in an op-ed recently for azcentral.com, the digital home of The Arizona Republic newspaper.
Last year, we studied the intersectionality of Lauryn Hill's life/work. Then, wrote raps centered upon feminist issues. Several of the 8th-grade women then extended the work/consciousness into a petition against the sexism of the school dress code. #HipHopEd
— Noah Karvelis (@Noah__Karvelis) February 28, 2018
“These two [Karvelis and Derek Harris, the other leader of the movement] promise more harm than good by politicizing Arizona education in pursuit of their self-proclaimed agenda — a national socialist revolution.”
She added, “Education funding has been moving in the right direction, and Gov. Doug Ducey now ventures a confident economic forecast in support of 20 percent pay raises and another $100 million in district additional assistance. Yet #RedForEd leaders still demand a strike.”
Related: A Teacher’s Very Biased Middle School Assignment
It’s never enough for some –– some 840,000 of Arizona’s 1.1 million public school students are being affected by closures for the #RedForEd teacher walkout, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.
Sadly but not unexpectedly, walkouts and protests are the Left’s weapon of choice, enacted with little regard for how their actions could impact others.
We’re here. #RedForEd pic.twitter.com/5lRGOSmwmY
— Noah Karvelis (@Noah__Karvelis) April 26, 2018
Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.
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