This argument is one of those things that is both true and also highly misleading. It relies on 2 people using terms in different ways, both technically being correct.
While they may not teach college level CRT to kids, CRT has certainly influenced k-12 classroom activities and its ideas are thus 'being taught' in schools.
Some educators distill the aforementioned [CRT] principles into a pedagogical approach referred to as critical race pedagogy. Critical race pedagogy encapsulates the teaching practices and content that Educators of Color employ for Students of Color (Jennings & Lynn, 2005; Leonardo, 2009; Lynn, 1999, 2004, 2005; Lynn & Jennings, 2009; Solórzano & Yosso, 2000b) in order to center race and racism, validate the experiential knowledge of Students of Color, and deconstruct dominant ideologies in their class- rooms. In other words, critical race pedagogy is characterized by the ‘emancipatory teaching practices of People of Color’who utilize multiple‘liberatory strategies as a vehicle for counteracting the devaluation of racially oppressed students’ (Lynn, 2004, p. 155). These approaches include – but are not limited to – critical pedagogy (Freire, 2003), anti-racist pedagogy (Sleeter & Delgado Bernal, 2004), decolonial pedagogy (Asher, 2009), feminist pedagogy (Trinh, 1989), border pedagogy (Giroux, 1988), Afro-centric pedagogy (Lynn, 2004), culturally responsive pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), and engaged pedagogy (hooks, 1994). Critical race scholars describe these varied teaching stances and curricular choices as not only a form of ‘dissent’ towards the inequities that subordinate marginalized students (e.g. poli- cies, curriculum, funding structures, and testing standards), but also a source of ‘affirmation’ that helps develop positive cultural/racial/ethnic identities (Jennings & Lynn, 2005, p. 192). Such approaches and class material challenge color-blindness, whiteness, meritocracy, assimilation, and conformity in K-12 schools; they also critique deficit thinking about the educability of Students of Color. Moreover, critical race pedagogy aims to revolutionize classrooms into sites where marginalized students flourish (Leonardo, 2004, 2009; Lynn, 1999; Robinson, 1997; Stovall, 2006a). Thus, critical race pedagogy utilizes various instructional approaches and race-based content that, at minimum, both challenge mainstream discourses and legitimize the experiential knowledge of Students of Color...
Most of the literature documenting challenges to pedagogies – like critical race pedagogy – that unmask and dismantle systems of oppression concern the reactions and sentiments of white students. In particular, much emphasis is placed on how both white and non-white educators face multiple challenges in their efforts to name and interrogate race and whiteness among the nation’s predominantly white college students (Johnson, Rich, & Cargile, 2008). Simpson, Causey, and Williams (2007) argue that classroom spaces mirror contemporary society’s dysfunctional color-blind or post-racial discourses (Johnson & Bhatt, 2003; Roberts, Bell, & Murphy, 2008), resulting in ‘heightened tension, resistance to or denial of raced readings of reality, rigorous avoidance of race issues’ (Simpson et al., 2007, p. 34). Notably, the current millennial generation of college students present a particular challenge to these types of pedagogical approaches, because although they may have more tolerant racial attitudes, they are invested in a post-racial world which they believe is better integrated and more egalitarian than years past, resulting in a skewed understanding of racism (Mueller, 2013).
Sonya M. Alemán & Sarita Gaytán (2016): ‘It doesn’t speak to me’: understanding student of color resistance to critical race pedagogy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2016.1242801
