This story is one of hundreds Colin Flaherty planned to publish in a book before his death. American Renaissance will post one a week.

Just a week ago, I completed my first year as a teacher at an inner city high school. It wasn’t my choice to wind up in this school, it was that my university assigned me to it. You know what the latest fads are within the realm of pedagogical theory, and the administrative staff at my institution were devout believers in all of these panaceas: Restorative Justice, Positive Behavioral Instructional Supports, Institutionalized Racism, Ending the School to Prison Pipeline, etc. All of these concepts and teaching methods were preached by the administrative staff as if they were manna from heaven that would miraculously cure all that ails the world.

The evidence did not bear this out. While teaching at this school, an average day would unfold a little like this. Upon my arrival, the students would all be eating their taxpayer funded breakfast and I would head towards my classroom. At the ringing of the bell, my class would remain empty for quite a while. Arriving to class on time was not a priority for my students, and the administrative staff did not care. So, I would wait for maybe five minutes and the first of my students would begin to trickle in. This, by no means, meant that class would begin. Often, the students would arrive with their earbuds firmly cemented into their ears, and would either flat out ignore my instructions, or more likely begin to get combative when asked to take part in the day’s planned learning activities.

Luckily, I am immune to any sort of demeaning verbal abuse, and I actually began to enjoy being addressed as “b*tch *ss teacher,” “white motherf*ck*ng cracker,” or an assortment of other terms of endearment that the ever-so creative students bequeathed upon me. Anyways, eventually more students would begin to arrive, and some 30 minutes after the bell rang, hopefully about 50 percent of the students would have found their way to the classroom. It was rare to have more than 50 percent. Many students found it much more enjoyable to wander through the halls, smoke marijuana in the stairwells, and possibly get laid while they were at it. As the day rolled on, the students would become much more energetic. Maybe it had something to do with their buzz wearing off. Just a little prior to their taxpayer-provided lunch, the fights would begin to break out among the pupils.

Admittedly, fights were not an everyday occurrence, they happened on perhaps two out of every three school days. Some days, though, there would be multiple fights. These fights were seldom your typical “mano a mano” meeting at the flagpole, they tended to involve large groups. Not only that, teachers were constantly threatened with violence, and oftentimes these threats were carried out. On multiple occasions, I was assaulted by students. Not once, however, was a student disciplined for an attack against me. One time, it was bad enough that I had to go see a doctor. Administrators seemed to prefer to act like the assaults against teachers were typical examples of run of the mill teenage angst that could be found in any American high school. Any concerns about the safety of the faculty were promptly dismissed.

Needless to say, not much learning went on within this school. Not that this mattered. The literacy rate of the student body probably equaled that of an average Third World school, and that was good enough to satisfy the administration. The mission of this school was not to educate, but to proselytize and advocate for the cause of social justice. As long as the students knew that they were victims of endless white racism, that was enough to satisfy the powers that be. There was no concern given towards producing productive citizens. For that matter, they didn’t even consider themselves as part of our nation. At school events, it was not the Star Spangled Banner that was sung, but it was the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” And that is exactly what the administrative staff wanted. To lift their voices and sing, “don’t make the black kids angry.”