Detoxifying Toxicity in American Education

The issue of toxicity in American culture runs the gamut. From sexist accusations toward men to the haughty denunciations of so-called elites of those not as fortunate, it is prevalent and problematic. Toxicity is prevalent because it seems to be pervasive in all corners of American society. It is problematic because American culture has rapidly shifted leftward, socially and politically, to places most Americans do not think are correct.

Defining Terms

The general definition of toxic pertains to someone or something that is “very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.” Similarly, the term toxicity refers to the “quality or state of being toxic” as a person, group, or institution. Whether pertaining to people or things, certain poisonous cultural elements are implied.

In terms of environments, which include educational institutions, some social scientists speculate that toxicity is a reflection of the presence of coarse rhetoric often found among the disagreeable in areas ranging from religion to politics to the blaming of one race.

General Outcomes of Toxicity

Toxicity results from social-emotional learning. This indoctrinates students toward empathy and compassion—not truth and science. The reality is that cognition, truth and logic—as well as conversation and friendly disagreements—have all but disappeared from public discourse. What is the nation’s state now, as a result of all of this confusion?

• Toxicity adds to isolation. Mary Pipher authored Writing to Change the World. Pipher observed, “We no longer live in a culture where we know most of the people we encounter.” According to McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears, whose research analyzes nearly two decades of American culture, people tend to feel more isolated than ever. This, of course, is a byproduct of the usage of ubiquitous technology and social media platforms.
• Toxicity adds to discourse difficulties. The axiom of agreeing to disagree agreeably has been shelved as a virtue no longer worth practicing. America is now realizing the cost of this across generations.
• Toxicity adds to easy offenses. We are living during peculiar times. Michael Barone refers to these times as a contrast between soft and hard America. Some would argue that people are softer today and do not really understand the meaning of hardship. People are too easily offended by almost everything and almost everyone these days. This is especially true in the political realm.
• Toxicity adds to the refusal to engage. Americans are becoming more hardened with overuse of certain terms. Such is the case with the term “People are less empathetic these days. But from ages eighteen to thirty, Americans live mostly in hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” As a nation, we must question the number of toxic experiences that our children and young adults contend with regularly. Most education research indicators point to toxicity’s negative effects on students and civic interpersonal engagement.

Toxicity as Related to the Indoctrination of Students

Over 50 million American K-12 students are squarely in the middle of the nation’s so-called education model. Nearly all public schools have now completely sold out to what is referred to as the social agency model of educating the whole child. One of the hallmarks of this model is indoctrination.

Classrooms are toxic when the current secular whole-student education ideology does not instruct students on how to handle disagreements. Educating about something should not be confused with advocating for something. The former is proper. The latter cultivates activists and done so through the process of indoctrination and see this in the whole student ideology.

The truth is, that educating with the whole child approach comes with an agenda to assert control over young minds and hearts. The influences upon students’ emotions focus squarely on causing doubt by adding a form of indoctrination through empathy and equity into the discourse.

Toxicity as Related to Educators and Colleagues

Many educators today are more socially active than in the past. This is more egregious among faculty at colleges and universities. Educators who intentionally influence students toward side-taking by seeking to evangelize them to one or more particular positions are harmful to students. Heavily weighted faculty hires, especially in the humanities departments, often belong to one political party. This type of exclusivity breeds toxic environments, often seen when the existing echo chamber is perceived as infiltrated.

A toxic educator is an instructor who either intentionally or unintentionally harms or is patently dismissive of children through words, actions, reactions, emotions, body language, targeted physical discipline, and even inappropriate relationships. A toxic faculty member often enjoys confrontation, leading to severe collegial and personal relationships.

A brief survey of the literature on characteristics of a toxic educator yielded five common traits. These include:

(1) Envying of students’ successes and focus on students’ flaws.

(2) Ridiculing students and coming across as a bully, claiming a motivation tactic.

(3) Negative feedback focuses on student work.

(4) Educators who are results-obsessed.

(5) Educators who insist on only one way to do things in the classroom—their way!

Toxicity as Related to Educational Environments and Institutions

Toxic schools have persistent negative cultures. Teacher feedback is often one of the surest methods of discovery when it comes to describing negative school cultures.

Kent Peterson describes toxic educational environments as “schools with a negative, or toxic, culture (1) lack a clear sense of purpose, (2) have norms that reinforce inertia, (3) blame students for lack of progress, (4) discourage collaboration, and (5) often have actively hostile relations among staff.” Taking these a step further results in the following conceptual framework.

A conceptual framework descriptive of toxic educational environments may include: (1) Educators that do not trust the majority of their colleagues; (2) Educators and parents cannot trust the administrator or principal; (3) Educators find themselves not fitting in with the environment; (4) Educators are bitter and faculty are fearful repercussions for speaking out; (5) Educators gripe about the time they have to put in to do their jobs; (6) Educators become numb and sometimes experience burnout of interpersonal relationships; (7) Educators feel unsafe and unsupported by their administrators; (8) Educators’ bodies begin to break down physically; and (9) Educators have more and more moments of patience lost and consider doing something extreme, so as not to have to go to work.

Toxic educational environments. Claims of toxicity have also been directed toward one particular race of people, as well as broad categories, such as masculinity. Teachers that practice equity in their classrooms, and with all good intentions, may very well be producing a toxic environment. Selecting students based on immutable characteristics for the sake of equity does communicate a message to those not selected. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs are an example of selection by election and reduction by rejection, as a result. Americans are coming to realize, as the American Conservative has concluded, DEI “was phony.”

Toxicity Drives People Away. There is no secret that the United States is entrenched in one of its most desperate educator shortages in history. In addition, one cannot help but connect America’s toxic culture to reasons for some educators leaving their classrooms early.

Likewise, students have been bailing on public schools. The United States now has some of the highest enrollments in private and homeschools to-date. One of the reasons for the exodus of students from public education is that people are experiencing deeply profound clashes with both the systemic part of education, and institutions that train the nation’s instructors.

Faith has Become Toxic. There is an intolerance of timeless truth. Educators which ascribe to either Judaism or Christianity are told to leave their beliefs at the doors. Two decades after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, there has been a softening of Muslims living in America. However, with the recent attacks on Israel by Islamic terrorist groups, a new anti-Semitism has arisen across the Middle East. It has taken hold in America’s colleges and universities.

Politics Have Become Toxic. Politics have polarized Americans. Hatred and violence have increased because of the wearing of red hats and posting of signs. Political anger is at a fever pitch over gender issues and changes in marriage definitions. Anyone disagreeing with the modern notions on gender is dismissed as ignorant. It is as if every student and every person in culture just has to accept subjective changes in culture as if absolute truth.

Secondary and Post-Secondary Institutions Cultivate Toxicity. Educators are now instructed not to refer to mothers and fathers, men and women, or even boys or girls. One’s biology means little when taught that choice is the highest form of self-expression. Pronoun insistence has run amuck.

The toxic nature of controversies in American higher education not only find their ways into classrooms each day, but they are affirmed. Toxic teachings stem from toxic educators—those which have mind sets that will affect a generation, by selecting one group over another.

Toxicity as Related to Topics Taught

Toxic topics are those which (1) may emanate from social activists with slanted issue advocacies and biases, (2) are founded on emotions and accusations, over truth, (3) incite side-taking that harms students emotionally and psychologically, (4) capitalize on disunity, (5) drive wedges between people’s personal beliefs and practices, and (6) focus on a form of positivity over denial, and rejection of the negative.

Topics Considered Toxic. The following list includes topics proven to be toxic when addressed improperly, or from a bias perspective, without allowing for counter ideas. The question asked of all educators, is what is the purpose of teaching any of the following in the first place?

Examples of Toxic Topics:

• Abortion
• Alternative Genders List
• Antifa
• Anti-Semitism
• Black Lives Matter
• Capital Punishment
• Common Core State Standards
• Competition of Biological Males in Sports Against Females
• Evolution
• Feminism
• Free Speech
• Influences of Social Media
• Intelligent Design
• Israel and War against Terrorists
• Latent Racism
• LGBTQ+
• Misgendering
• Nuclear Traditional Family
• Politics
• Pride Month of June
• Pronoun Usage
• Racial, Cultural, Gender Appropriation
• Racial, Sexual, and Gender Identity
• Rainbow Flag
• Religion
• Restorative Justice
• Romantic Relationships Between Educators and Students
• Same-Sex Marriage
• Social Justice
• Social-Emotional Learning
• Special Needs Students Mainstreamed
• Student Discipline
• Toxic Masculinity
• Use of Restroom Based on Claimed Gender
• Use of Terms such as Mother and Father
• War between Russia and Ukraine
• What is Truth
• White Privilege

Fifteen Suggestions for Detoxing American Schools

What can be done to begin to reverse some of the toxicity in America’s learning institutions? What follows is a list of practical suggestions for those concerned about the current toxic environment. There is no magic bullet of overnight reform. But Americans have to start somewhere, and this list is a good point of the beginning.

1. Return truth and absolutes to the classroom curriculum and instruction.
2. Promote American unity over Identity.
3. Protect children and students’ minds from corruptible influences.
4. Develop patriots with an unashamed love of the country who understand the importance of voting.
5. Restrict teachers from promoting personal ideologies in class.
6. Lobby administrators to hire a balance of faculty with a blend of differing viewpoints on education, and not based on politics, or secular cultural fads and ideologies.
7. Carefully address flashpoint political topics in the classrooms, but if a discussion ensues, allow all sides an open forum.
8. Develop and enforce dress codes and restrict cell phone usage at school; unity over diversity.
9. Promote academic success and the development of character in students. Insist that teachers have similar strengths and adequate training to mentor others.
10. Encourage students, parents, faculty, and board members to speak up and to guard against wrong academic directions in schools.
11. Parents must exercise vigilance in examining their K-12 students’ curriculum and spot the areas where indoctrination occurs.
12. Parents must form committees to survey the books that students read chosen by school librarians.
13. Be on the alert for sexual and gender groups that seek to indoctrinate children, including the pressure to allow biological males to compete against biological girls in sports and their locker room usage.
14. Lobby to bring a biblical ethic back into the classrooms. This is already the foundation of Western law and right and wrong.
15. Remember that the fight against toxicity in any educational institution involves identifying what is toxic and working to remove it.

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