Mr. Webb: 0:00

Is critical race theory really being taught in our schools? How does the push for anti-racism training impact both teachers' freedom and students' education? What are the real consequences for educators who dare to question the prevailing educational narratives? Welcome to The Conservative Classroom, where we're teaching the truth and preserving our values. I'm your host, Mr. Webb, and I'm glad you're here.

Mr. Webb: 0:30

This podcast is a haven for conservative educators, parents and patriots like you, who believe in the importance of free speech, traditional values and education without indoctrination. Each week, we dive into issues that are plaguing our education system and keeping you up at night. In each episode, we offer common sense ideas to improve education in our classrooms and communities. You may feel like you're the last conservative educator or parent, but I want you to know that you are not alone. By the way, if you like what you hear today, please share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. Together, we can teach the truth and preserve our values.

Mr. Webb: 1:19

In today's episode, we have a conversation with a New York teacher who stood up against critical race theory and anti-racism training in his school. We'll learn the consequences of that decision and how he turned that into a positive to help many more teachers, parents and students. Now let's get started. Today I'm excited to welcome a special guest to The Conservative Classroom, Mr. Paul Rossi, Chief Operating Officer for Terra Firma Teaching Alliance. Paul is a former math teacher who stood up for his students and against the woke policies at his school. He's here to tell us his story and to share with us what he's doing now to fight for education in America. Paul, thank you for joining us.

Paul Rossi: 2:05

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it and I'm happy to talk with you and excited to share what news about we're doing.

Mr. Webb: 2:16

I'm glad we finally got together. One of my early interviews was with Tiffany Justice, with Moms for Liberty, and after that interview she shared with me your name and suggested that we get together. And then I met you face to face at the Teacher Freedom.

Paul Rossi: 2:36

That's Right.

Mr. Webb: 2:37

So this episode has been a long time in the work, so I'm really glad things worked out. We finally got to talk about things. So to start with, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, what led you to get into teaching in the first place and the events that took you out of the classroom?

Paul Rossi: 2:58

Well, I'm a career changer. I guess you would call it Back when people had one career and they had to have a name for it. But I was a web developer I had actually worked for, had several different jobs in my 20s and 30s, and then I decided I wanted to get into teaching because I needed some direction and I was really bored of the business world, so I needed something more meaningful in my life. So I got a educational psychology degree in 2010 and taught at some pretty rough places in New York before I landed a job at a fairly decent I say decent, I mean in elite terms this is what they think in these terms where it was a second tier elite school in Manhattan called Grace Church School, and it was a great place and I loved it and I taught there for since 2012,. Up until 2021,. I decided to pull the ripcord and actually speak out against what was going on there, what had been going on there for several years prior.

Mr. Webb: 4:11

So what events happened at Grace that kind of took you out of the classroom?

Paul Rossi: 4:18

Sure, I taught math, so people don't think of math as being very political, but it can be. It has become politicized and Grace Church was always a very progressive place. I put these that word in quotes. But they always saw themselves as liberal and as really trying to change the world in that social way, socialist way, and so we had to do trainings from the very beginning on quote unquote undoing racism. They were very, very conscious of the minority students at the school and really made extremely self-conscious about their own skin color, the people who ran the place, who were mostly white, but so that was seen as a real obstacle for those kids, and those kids were told that the whiteness of their teachers was an obstacle. So when you set it up like that, you're going to have problems.

Paul Rossi: 5:24

And over time, with the election of Trump and George Floyd, things just got progressively more and more insane.

Paul Rossi: 5:31

The kids were being indoctrinated to a point where I had been liberal throughout.

Paul Rossi: 5:39

All of this mostly, but I began to see the effects on the students was really negative, and I realized that the students didn't realize that not all the teachers were on board, because the teachers, some of whom had spoken to me privately, had doubts but they could never publicly make them known within the school community, and certainly not make them known to the students.

Paul Rossi: 6:07

So I felt that the students were being underserved because they didn't realize the hypocrisy of the whole enterprise. And I would see colleagues that would preach the gospel of anti-racism to the school community and these large community meetings and then behind the scenes they would say, well, yeah, well, that was just a bunch of crap, and I just couldn't believe that these were educators who were taking that were really mis-serving their whole purpose, which was they're essentially like sophists. So I wanted the students to somehow know that not all the teachers were on board. So at one of our meetings in 2021, in February, we had a racially segregated Zoom meeting where the white students and faculty were put in one Zoom room and what they're called BIPOC students black and indigenous people of color and were put in another Zoom room.

Mr. Webb: 7:09

Wow, and how do they not see that as racist?

Paul Rossi: 7:15

Well, it's really fascinating the logistical hula hoops they have to go through to convince themselves by their own framework that they're not being racist, but they actually do have an entire justification for all this. It's circuitous and kind of falls apart when you look at it too closely, but it really is. It's really interesting. And at that meeting, when the facilitator was talking about white supremacy, culture and how things like objectivity was white supremacy, I realized that if I didn't say something now I couldn't live it myself. So I had to say something. So I unmuted to a room of 200 colleagues and students. I started to engage the facilitator in a Socratic method type of dialogue where I asked them OK, well, what is whiteness and how is objectivity white? And how can that be true if objectivity emerged in many places which were not white as well as white? And so you know, two plus two equals four is not white. It is undeniably true. And if it were aliens that came from another planet, they would also see this true. Maybe they would say it slightly differently. And so this kind of started, and I was. I was doing it just so that the students knew that not everybody was on board, because every single one of the faculty, one after another were saying all the right things. They were as if reading from a script and the kids reading from a script, and this really bothered me, and the outcome of my my questioning was was terrific. It was a great success because the kids started to ask questions and then the other teachers started to ask questions and it was like a. It was a prison break. The ice was broken and, yeah, the upshot of this was that I was made the scapegoat that this.

Paul Rossi: 9:13

The administration Asked me to apologize. I refused they wanted me to. They tried to convince me that I had caused harm to the students of color by my questioning, that I had caused harm to their families and to their ancestors, that this tip was tantamount to harassment of the students, and so on. And the more I, the more they, the more I Dug in my heels and refused to apologize, the more outlandish their accusations became. So they had the entire, all the teachers at the same time, on 1030 on a Wednesday, recite the script about how the school, despite recent events, recommitted to undoing racism and, and you know that one of their colleagues had said things that were, you know, unacceptable in a zoom meeting. And so I was walking through the halls and I was listening to every single classroom. They're saying they're reading from the script and the kids are looking at me through the, through the windows, because they all, they all, they were, most of them were there and it was surreal.

Mr. Webb: 10:26

And then I had a student come to talk to me.

Paul Rossi: 10:28

You know there they had the other teachers throughout this, these two months that I continued to teach there were using me as a. I heard from some of the students that they were using me as an object lesson and in white fragility, they were telling the students that you know, mr Rossi was racist. I had Students in the hallway, you know, mutter racist under their breath, colleagues wouldn't look at me and so like. But I realized like the more this happened, the more I realized that what I had done was the right thing and I had a lot of good people behind me as well, you know, for support my wife, my friends and and that was really helpful.

Mr. Webb: 11:09

Did anyone at the school students or teachers Publicly say yes, I feel the same way.

Paul Rossi: 11:17

Paul's not alone so During the meeting, during that February zoom meeting, but including the woman who who organized the the session, who was in the. You know she was a Student dean and connected to the DI department, but then she later had to recant her words and apologize for saying that. You know that my questions were actually opening up the dialogue. So I later had to attend several meetings with faculty administrator. Where I was, you know one of them I wasn't allowed to speak. I Read a prepared statement but then, one after another, they went around the room and and talked about how this basically was Traumatic for them to actually even be in the zoom meeting.

Paul Rossi: 12:07

I had one, one teacher Kind of got into it during that zoom meeting. He was a music teacher at the school and I Think he was the most disturbed by my comments. But you know, to the credit of some of the other teachers, they did stand up for me. So there was a, there was a science teacher and one of my fellow math colleagues said Look, you know, if we're gonna be this kind of school where people can't Challenge the orthodoxy, well then we should say that Maybe it's good that were that, but we need to be clear that that's what we are, because the the questioning that that mr Rossi did Is not unusual and it's probably held by most of the country. So we need to be able to address these questions and If we're not going to allow this kind of questioning, then we should be upfront about it. And I appreciated that because I thought that that was, you know, at least some kind of you know it's like, well, let's be honest here. If we're gonna be hypocrites, let's, let's, let's be honest about it. So the outcome of that I did have students and parents, you know, defend me and One student came to see me and was terrified that his history teacher was gonna see me, because his history teacher was extremely left-wing and this is a student who had been held back after class for defending capitalism and he was terrified that he wanted to show support for me, but he didn't want to come in my office to do it because he thought the cameras in the hallways, they were going to be able to see him in the cameras, so, you know, and his history teacher would find out and I, yeah, I just figured this is. This is insanity at a level that needs to be publicized.

Paul Rossi: 13:57

So I wrote an article, I wrote a letter. I published it through the Barry Weiss's sub-stack at the time and it was called common sense and Then it kind of went viral and things kind of became more and more Public. I went on several podcasts and I got the message out there. I was tremendously grateful to the, to Barry Weiss and to you know other people for giving me a platform to tell this story, and it was happening everywhere. I got thousands and thousands of emails from private schools, from public schools All over the country, fed up teachers, people who were scared, students who were scared. I heard from form former students at the school that I had that were grateful for what I did and it was a you know I got.

Paul Rossi: 14:46

I got to meet a lot of people at the beginning of this movement who are doing great work. People like Tiffany People, people like you know, no left turn in education, parents defending education and and so the, the CRT. You know the gender ideology was also part of this indoctrination, but it's also critical race theory. Mainly critical race theory was the focus of my piece, and Something I don't think people realize is that critical race theory even though you don't hear about it that much, it hasn't gone away. It's still going on. Gender ideology has captured you know more of the media. I but and that's terrible, but it is you know, both of these things are happening. We're seeing it at the, at Harvard. We're seeing it, and it's sort of I guess the fish rots from the head. So what happens at the elite institutions goes down into K-12?.

Mr. Webb: 15:38

The left says that critical race theory is not being taught.

Paul Rossi: 15:44

Think of it like this If you don't, it are we teaching the scientific method, even if we don't have the kids read Francis Bacon, right? That's what it's like, right? So there it is. It's a disingenuous point.

Mr. Webb: 15:58

I've talked to so many people that, just like your story I mean that's obviously. It obviously is being taught. They just might not be calling it that. So do you think your story is an isolated incident? Or do you think there are schools and teachers like yourself that are experiencing these things that maybe they're not brave enough to speak up? Maybe they feel like they're alone and if they speak out it's gonna cost them their job. So they feel like they're just gonna put their head down? Definitely, definitely, and a lot of teachers try to get through this thing until return.

Paul Rossi: 16:31

You know what my nonprofit, where I we run a network for teachers called terra firma, teach we, we speak to these teachers all the time, we counsel them, we give them, you know, options a lot of time. You don't have a ton of options. A particular private school you have even fewer Than a public school because of the contract situation. You only get a year to your contract, most, almost all, private schools. There's no union, so you, you don't have any job protection and so the culture, the culture of silence and denunciation, is greater at a private school, and this is one of the issues. To have a school choice, which is generally a good idea, but you know we can get into that. Um, absolutely, students to what kills me as a student's right, because adults, adults, have a hard time dealing with this. What do you think students feel about this? And I know these students and I know that you know hearing from my former students after I went public. It's heartbreaking. You know I have stories that that I can't share about what happened to students that were bullied. You know that were. You know social media called racists For you know these minor infractions that were seen as akin to, you know, owning slaves. And Then in the hysteria, and and also, the black students are not benefited by this because what happens is they get given a tremendous amount of power by the adults who want to let the quote unquote, let the children lead us right. So you have, you know, for a 14 year old is not mature enough to handle that kind of power. So they're, they're encouraged to be political creatures Before they even understand what they're being political about and understand the nuances and understand the complexities. And they, you know, the fist is raised, the poetry is recited, the garb of the activist is donned and they're sent out into the world.

Paul Rossi: 18:39

And I see, I saw ninth grade kids come in, black students, brown students, latina, whatever, and they, you know, they come in happy-go-lucky, cheerful Friends, making friends with people not based on the color of their skin, and they come out, these warped, twisted, resentful carriers of an ideology and it will not serve them well. But the people pushing it don't want to serve these kids. They want to change society. So they want to create, they want to weaponize kids and I know it because we've had those conversations in the faculty lounge Okay, and they want to change the world. That's their agenda Creating high functioning, resilient kids who will raise strong families and be a good part of their communities. That's not part of it. That's second order stuff and it's really scary and it's happening a lot of places in this country now.

Mr. Webb: 19:47

And so, and it's straight up, indoctrination Right and you know what I've got.

Paul Rossi: 19:52

To be honest, I think that in many ways, like I, believe in indoctrination. I'm going to be kind of open about that. You can't really reason with an eight or nine year old about what the great wisdoms of and great traditions of our past right. You teach them rules Right and later, when they have greater reason capacity, they can talk about why those things are right. But you do have to sort of inculcate habits, behaviors and some beliefs and trust that those things work right. And the reason why those things are wisdoms that last the test of time is because they work and a child and even many adults don't know why they work and it can't always be answered why.

Paul Rossi: 20:46

There's not always a way to sort of reason through it if you haven't experienced why it works by having tried other things and have them fail. But what is the cost of failure? That's something that no academic needs to. As Thomas Solis says, no academic has to pay the price for being wrong, but our kids will, and so you know. That's why I actually do think people who want to get into it about what is indoctrination and what isn't you do need to indoctrinate. You just need to indoctrinate them in the right things. I'm talking about religion per se, but I am talking about wisdom and objective universal truths that are true in an ill context Right, not political indoctrination.

Mr. Webb: 21:33

So in the spectrum of indoctrination that's OK, which may start at home, you know, teaching the values. Just like you know my kids, I want to teach them what my values are. I feel like my values are the correct values. I think everybody should feel that way about their values. So I want to you can call it indoctrinate, I guess them into that. And on the other end of the spectrum is in the public school setting, political and liberal ideology indoctrination. That's not OK.

Paul Rossi: 22:13

Right, and you know yeah.

Mr. Webb: 22:15

So you mentioned something a minute ago and it's a question that I was going to ask you about. Once you left the school and got out of teaching, did you have some students and teachers that then said, hey, I couldn't say anything then, but since you're not, since you're not at the school now, you know I support you and it sounds like you did.

Paul Rossi: 22:42

Yeah, and I continue to get some emails now and then from students, my former students, who are in college now and they see, you know, and they're starting to question some of the things that and they were true believers in our progressive high school and now they're starting to question. So this is very encouraging. I was a hardcore lefty in college, right Like. I think it's very natural in someone's 20s to get carried away with those ideas and the utopianism of certain ideas. You know, I'm just glad there wasn't an Antifa when I was in college, or if there was, I didn't know about it because I might have joined. But time has a way and experience has a way or it has historically had a way of, you know, giving people experiences that lead them to sort of think differently about things and not to be so. Life is not so simple. That's been gratifying to hear that Several of my current students at the time were very supportive and that was gratifying.

Paul Rossi: 23:57

And their parents as well.

Mr. Webb: 23:59

And what would you say to educators who find themselves in similar situations?

Paul Rossi: 24:05

Well, one of the things I've learned about the situation I went through and I'm not alone, there are several others you know have come out Dana Stanglplau for one, frank McCormick for another. There hasn't been a groundswell by any means, but several teachers have started to come out. I can you know, maybe it doesn't, some of them have filed legal complaints. What I would say is understand what you're willing to give up and what is the line that you will not cross and ask yourself what that is so that when it comes you won't do it and you'll finally say no. And I think it's very important to anticipate that and to act on it when the time comes.

Paul Rossi: 25:01

Myself, I knew that I was going to say something six months before I did and I was just thinking about what is the opportunity where I can say in a way that will benefit the children. And it turned out to be that Zoom meeting. I wasn't plotting it, but when the opportunity came I was ready, because I kind of loosened the screws on my silence, if that's the way to put it. I wasn't as bolted down as I was before. I guess I had a screw loose or something.

Mr. Webb: 25:41

The questions you asked.

Paul Rossi: 25:43

you probably had six months to think about those questions, yes, but it was an impulse move, I'll be honest, because the facilitator, who was, all I think, 25 years of age and a very nice young woman I don't blame her, I don't think she's at fault for this insanity she had said as you look at this slide on the Zoom, with all these characteristics of white supremacy, you may be experiencing white feelings. And at that point I was just like now you've taken whiteness and created this construct called white feelings okay, which is a demonic formulation, if there ever was one that you could have a feeling because you were white. And what is a white feeling? And so I asked what is a white feeling? And that was the thing that kind of cascaded from there and that was a simple like act of impulse, even though it had been a long time coming.

Paul Rossi: 26:55

So don't be afraid to be and also make plans, like, if you don't have potentially other income as a teacher because you may get fired, you have to be willing to be fired. You may even have to be willing to give up entirely in the profession, because if it goes sideways and you get a reputation and you work in a small town, well then you're done in teaching. You have to find an alternate source of income, particularly if you have a family. You have children. I knew I could code right. I had experience in computers. So if I lost my job in math, I had a fallback and as it turned out, I didn't need it because I found another teaching job in New York, which is kind of a miracle, and I'm very grateful to that.

Mr. Webb: 27:40

Can you tell us about? So you're out of the classroom. You know, grace, fast forward to today. You mentioned the Terra Ferma Teaching Alliance, so tell us about that.

Paul Rossi: 27:54

So we are. We're a national network, actually international now, because we have teachers from Britain and Australia and Canada, many teachers from Canada. They have a real tough up there and we strategize, we offer peer support, we offer professional development and we don't charge anything for the peer support and we also do hiring and placement. So if a teacher is really struggling at a school, we try to counsel them to stay and to push back in ways that they can control. That won't, you know, cause them their job. So we try to assess the risk tolerance of every individual and we, you know, we kind of shepherd them through that process and then brainstorm and draw on tactics and strategies that we've developed over years to think about what could you do or how to reach out to allies.

Paul Rossi: 28:47

How do you find colleagues that might agree with you to get support within the institution without compromising yourself? How can you connect with parent groups in the area, like Moms for Liberty, your parents offending it, you know? How can you perhaps be a conduit for materials that parents would want to know about if the school has adopted a quasi-policy or non-policy policy about, you know, not telling parents if their child is questioning their gender, which many schools have in some of them. In many cases it's actually the law. How can you try to get that information out there?

Paul Rossi: 29:24

So there are a lot of things that teachers can do and they're in a unique position to do it, to move the needle in their communities on some of these questions and push back and try to change things in the institutions. So we counsel them there and then we also do hiring and placement. So if a teacher is just really at the end of the rope at a school, we have contacts with classical charter networks or religious schools or independent private schools that are more traditional and values-based and they are desperate for good teachers. Right, they're desperate for teachers that are believe in traditional values, you know whether they're religious or not. This trend you know this is broader than religion, any particular religion, and so we, you know we will vet these teachers. We know these teachers. There are teachers and so that we can vouch for them and we're a go-to source for teachers to find their place in an institution that will support them.

Mr. Webb: 30:27

That's an interesting organization. I'm not sure that I know of another one.

Paul Rossi: 30:31

Yeah, I don't think there is.

Mr. Webb: 30:33

The hiring and placement and counseling.

Paul Rossi: 30:36

That's very it's a unique approach, Also legal like, so we have lots of contacts in public interest firms and pro boner lawyers that we can get them to if there's actually anything actionable within their school and in several cases there are we've been able to help some of our teachers with that as well.

Mr. Webb: 30:55

So what is, what's the goal of TerraFirma?

Paul Rossi: 30:59

You know, we are a. We don't have a lot of grand goals, and I kind of like it that way. We are very grassroots, very humble, we want to help each individual teacher. So we take things as a case by case basis. I think a lot of large nonprofit organizations, some of them tend to have a broader political agenda, and we a lot of times we've seen some teachers that get caught up in that political agenda in a way that doesn't necessarily serve them, and so we really are teacher focused in that way and we're totally comprised of K-12 teachers. There's no one outside of that milieu. So we don't have college professors, we don't have anybody higher education, and there is a need for this, because Heterodox Academy recently eliminated their K-12 division. So did FIRE, bonnie Snyder, who's my partner at TerraFirma she used to be in the education K-12 at FIRE and so so many of these big organizations have sort of abandoned that project, for good reasons, I'm sure, but there's definitely a need for what we do.

Mr. Webb: 32:20

Tell us about some of the resources that you guys offer. I'm looking at your website and tell us about the sub stack. Actually, subscribe to that.

Paul Rossi: 32:33

Yeah, we publish articles by teachers for teachers. So many of these teachers are under anonymous handles because they can't give their names, but it's a way for people to sort of see what schools are really like on the inside. We also have some strategy articles about how to approach problems. It's important for us to, we think, get back to a patriotic view of our country. We're not perfect, our country's not perfect, but we have many things that we should be proud of.

Paul Rossi: 33:10

And if you raise children to think that their country is corrupt, hopelessly corrupted by, say, the original sin of slavery, then you are not gonna have a coherent and functioning society for very long. So, part of you know, one of the things we advocate for is a strong sense of identity as Americans from all backgrounds, and to teach pride and to teach the habits of democracy, the habits of viewpoint diversity, the habits of tolerance, is very important, because once you lose that, it doesn't matter what's written on a piece of paper. The Constitution might as well be gone. Freedom of speech is enshrined in many constitutions in this world, but it's not always followed, so we need to cultivate that as a living, you know, in the lives of people and their habits, and so that's important to us and we talk about that on the sub-stack too.

Mr. Webb: 34:15

You said something very important diversity of thought. I think you worded it differently. If that's what you were talking about, that's an important type of a diversity that I feel like we're losing. We're instead of viewpoint diversity. We're just, you know, the color of your skin, the diversity, equity and inclusion, that diversity, part of that, the DEI, it's not diversity of thought.

Paul Rossi: 34:46

I always compared, like what it was like growing up. I mean, a lot of people do this, but as a Gen Xer, you know, I always think about what it was like in the 90s. If somebody said something that was totally disagreeing with you, you know I think about, my first reaction would be curiosity oh, why do you think that? Huh, you know, as long as it wasn't totally crazy, but it would be, you know, it would be like, wow, you know, huh, you know Andrew thinks that about the situation. I never thought of it that way. You know, maybe I don't think he's right, but whatever, Andrew's Andrew Right.

Paul Rossi: 35:25

And now we just have, I think, as the anxiety level has increased in society, people are more autistic, and I use that word, you know, not as a diagnostician, but as a sort of a general societal problem, and that, you know, we feel constantly that our beliefs are under threat and so we cannot tolerate other beliefs, and this could be on the right as well as the left. And so, you know, our first instinct is no longer curiosity, which is kind of curiosity, is kind of a luxury. I didn't think of it that way back then. But if you are psychologically grounded and you don't feel under threat, well then you can afford to be curious. But if your anxiety level is too high, you can't tolerate a lot of ambiguity. You need to have people agree with you.

Paul Rossi: 36:16

And it's sort of like the global village, right?

Paul Rossi: 36:19

I mean, people used to say the global village was a nice place to be, but you know, I don't know how many villages they've actually lived in, because there are some villages that are not a very nice place to live in because everybody's very closed-minded, and so I think we're seeing the dark side of the global village now, in that people who are particularly those that are perpetually online are kind of don't have that groundedness in their communities, and I count myself as a member of that.

Paul Rossi: 36:57

So I'm not going to throw stones in any particular direction, but it's a. You know, if you're going to think about general trends in society over the last few decades, that's one of the biggest that I think is having a major impact on our discourse and our ability to tolerate differences, and we need to try to dial it down. We need to, you know, dial down the temperature when you talk to people, because they're going to be them and you can be you and it's okay, they don't have to agree with you and I try to teach. You know I can't teach that to the kids directly, but hopefully we can model it and you know it's. I think that would work better.

Mr. Webb: 37:38

In the 90s and 2000s, maybe earlier than that, but this is when I noticed Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people. I'm sure you're familiar with that. One of those seven habits is seek first to understand, then to be understood, and I feel like that is so rare in society now, and where we used to be taught in higher education to be curious, now it's. They don't say be closed minded, but it's okay. Here are the list of acceptable views, and if you disagree, your speech is violence. I don't know how we came so far. I mean, that's just crazy to think about.

Paul Rossi: 38:27

Well, one thing one thing that people don't understand about progressivism and education, and it is incredibly effective and they have honed their tactics to the point where they can come into a kindergarten or an you know, you can have a first grade teacher and they use these tactics, which is like using a bazooka on a butterfly. Okay, it's, it's if you actually want to know, you can go to their videos, that you can see training videos where they teach these teachers how to do it and the way they do it is. There are lots of components to it, but essentially it's. It takes that curiosity and it takes it from a, from a place of curiosity, to a place of certainty, and it's not simply beating them overhead with a political idea. That would be. You know, that wouldn't work. Okay, because the kids would rebel. They actually use curiosity and empathy In a way that gradually leads them down this primrose path into a hedge maze of ideology, and it's it's almost like you kind of have to admire it in a sick way because it's so well done.

Paul Rossi: 39:36

For example, identity. What they'll do is they'll start with you know who are we, what you know, what are we, who are you, you know and celebrate yourself and all of these very seemingly harmless nostrums about being a happy person. And what are the things you like, what are your preferences? Well, I like ice cream and I like, you know, color orange and you know I like the Buffalo bills, or whatever your, whatever your preferences are, and that's your. And then they create a construct around it called that's your personal identity. And so that's you and your preferences and your likes and dislikes, which is already sort of impoverished view of identity, frankly. But it's no longer right. Right, it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily lead to anything bad yet, but what they'll do is then they'll move from that into social identity. And so, well, how do other people see you? Well, they see me, you know, and they, they lead. That's your social identity. So how other people perceive you is important, right, because then you have expectations and stereotypes for how you're supposed to be and you know some of those things are. They don't really see the real. You do, they Right, and you know. But so this is your social identity and it becomes a racial identity, it becomes an ethnic identity, becomes a gender identity, how you are perceived is a political identity, and then gradually they completely eliminate the personal identity. So the personal identity is just a gateway into the social identity and then, upon that platform of resentment about how you are perceived, and you know they, they tell you, they have a whole story to tell you back in time in the history of your people, your identity and how it's been persecuted. And then they have a whole projection to the future for activism and how to change the world based on that political identity.

Paul Rossi: 41:35

And so the kids from the earliest ages I think they just came out with a poll talking about how, you know, there's an incredible generational split between you know, people who are 18 to 29 who think whiteness should be blamed for the world's problems, and people older than 29 who think that's divisive and not a good idea. Because you know, the simple truth is that indoctrination works and they're much better at it than anyone on the right. I can tell you that. And it's scary because they use empathy is the coin of the realm. We're just being good people. This is their virtue, right? It's kindness, metastasized into this crazy thing which obliterates all other virtues. And the kids run with that, because when you're a child, you think like a child and you don't reason outside of your feelings, and they use the feelings as a platform. And so one of the things, yeah.

Mr. Webb: 42:40

And you tend to believe what an adult is to you.

Paul Rossi: 42:42

And not only that, but many clueless parents are saying do what your teacher says right, because they grew up in a context where the teacher did know best and so they've carved out. These teachers and of course, not all teachers, but many of the most politically dedicated teachers have carved out an intimacy with your child, if you're a parent, and they are exploiting that intimacy. And this works at the level of gender, which we haven't talked about. But it really is something that you can't worry enough about, in my view, because education is everything to a society. If you think generationally, if you think long term and the ancients knew it right, we've forgotten it because we trusted people to raise our children for us, and if you do that, then you are forfeiting your right to guide your child's upbringing. I mean, you're passing them off to somebody else for six hours a day. God knows what they're telling them, right?

Paul Rossi: 44:01

So if I get parents who say, well, what can I do? My school is this, my school is that, thank you. Maybe it's not the best for everyone, but that's the only way you can be sure because, let's say, you managed to fix your school right. What's going to happen in five years when they hire different teachers or there's a new administration. You cannot control that. You will never be able to control that. So it's a dark pill for a lot of parents to swallow, and God bless them. They're in a tough spot, but that's really what I see right now.

Mr. Webb: 44:39

Well, I sure thank you for sharing your story and there's so many other things I want to get into, maybe on another episode. If you'd like to come back about school choice the teacher ethics standards that's on the Terra Fermi website.

Paul Rossi: 44:57

Yeah, the ethics standards are fascinating because a lot of teachers don't even know, a lot of states don't even know they exist anymore. But they can be a way to hold on, hold up some of these, some of these policies to a mirror and say, look, we're failing our ethics standards. So they can be useful useful in that way as well as being correct.

Mr. Webb: 45:26

And I usually end the episode with a key takeaway. So, paul, what's the one thing you want the listener to remember, if they don't remember anything else about this episode?

Paul Rossi: 45:36

If your, if your listeners are parents, I would say this don't trust the grades that your child is getting, because the grades have inflated and they are not generally an accurate reflection of what they know. So I would say find independent diagnostic tests at grade level and see what your child knows. What do they really know and what do they not know? And many parents would be shocked to find out that their child is like two grades below their actual grade and what they know.

Paul Rossi: 46:11

Because the state of education, particularly public education, has degraded so far and even though we focused on politics in this episode, I would say the even bigger and problems are just the greater. Dysfunctions are at the level of discipline and the level of declining standards and the fact that most teachers don't know how to teach anymore. There are, there have been, several fads which are tied in with the politics but separate from them around the best pedagogy and these have caused enormous destruction in the education of youth because they're simply that, their fads, and we need to get back to basics, not just in viewpoint diversity and political deep politicizing education, but also in the pedagogy. So maybe I would love to talk about that on a future podcast, if possible.

Mr. Webb: 47:07

Yeah, I'd love to. As we wrap up this conversation, can you share with us your share with our listeners where they can find more information about any upcoming projects or books? How to find tear affirmative teaching alliance, the sub stack, and we didn't even mention a podcast, but you're involved in a podcast.

Paul Rossi: 47:29

Yes, we haven't done one in a while, but there are some great ones in the can that you can visit us on YouTube there. I do a podcast with Frank Bacormick, who is a teacher in the Chicago area, called Chalkboard Heresy, so if you can look us up on there, we're on Spotify, we're on iTunes Terra firma teach. Our URL is tftechorg and you can find our resources and how to join our mailing list and join our network there. Our sub stack is called the ethical educator at ethicaleducatorsubstackcom.

Mr. Webb: 48:05

And how can they connect with you on social media?

Paul Rossi: 48:09

At Paul D Rossi. That's Paul D Rossi on Twitter. That's the best way to find me and you can Victor, you can DM me there by DM zero. So if you're a parent or a student, you have questions, I'm pretty responsive.

Mr. Webb: 48:28

I'll put a link to your link tree in the show notes. I read that link tree, I believe, has all those links you mentioned, including the podcast. I would suggest folks check that out. I'm subscribed to it, um, and it's worth a listen, definitely. Thank you so much for joining us today, paul. It's been a pleasure having you on the conservative classroom and I know my listeners appreciate you sharing your story and some of these resources that you shared with us. So thank you so much.

Paul Rossi: 48:59

Thank you, Joey, it's been a pleasure.

Mr. Webb: 49:03

That's it for today's episode of The Conservative Classroom. Thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. If you liked what you heard, please don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. That would really help the podcast out. Most importantly, share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. You can also connect with us on social media and share your thoughts on today's topic by sending me an email at TheC onservativeC lassroom@ gmail. com. We'd love to hear from you If you feel that education without indoctrination and teaching the truth is important to preserve traditional values and support my efforts to keep the conservative classroom running.

Mr. Webb: 49:52

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