Does the US Education system pressure teachers to conform, thereby stripping them of individuality, while forcing them to “teach” diversity?

A useful analogy here might be the “social contract” (http://tr.im/n2PN) harkening back to Hobbes and Locke.  In order to reap the benefits of goods and services which have been commoditized, we agree to cohere to the laws of our society, though we may also exercise our rights to participate in the evolution of those laws.  That teachers “preach diversity” without really having any clue about it, is both common, and a travesty.  Much the same as the racist white-trash faculty who have not hired a SINGLE black tenure-track professor in some areas, they are ignorant despite their “education”.

Diversity is about respecting and trying to understand the culture, beliefs, and values of people who are different from you under certain circumstances.  This includes “appropriate” expression of those beliefs and values, and particularly when protected by law.  It includes many other circumstances too, such as EEO laws.  It doesn’t mean that you are expected to change who you are, although I would argue that most folks don’t really know who they are as an individual.  In my opinion, my race, my culture, and my geographic origin only partly identify who I am today, which is also the result of my own adult intentional choices, both in experiences and what I have learned and read.

I believe that institutionalizing the practice of teaching ‘diversity’ means opening up communication.  It means keeping an open mind and willingness to discuss things that might make you uncomfortable, particularly if you still have bigoted/prejudiced attitudes and feelings.  The most common problem I see here is that these kinds of ignorance are more a reflection of the heart than the mind, which is why so many highly respectable, well educated people still cling to them defensively.  I am sure I could drag every racist through a course in genetics, and it wouldn’t change their heart one tiny bit.  I could virtually prove to them that genes partially encode intelligence, risk-taking propensity, and other broad personality traits, but NOT morality, but it wouldn’t change their heart.

Most folks MENTALLY already recognize that having well-developed and highly functional frontal lobes is correlated with REASONING about morality and ethics (and intelligence), but as the myths of the bible teach, Satan quoted scripture with the best of them (recall, he was no. 2 in heaven).  Certainly, in many religions, we learn of highly intelligent demons.  Furthermore, these demons and Lucifer himself certainly MUST believe in Jesus, though they hate him.  That you believe in Heaven and Hell as a reality, also makes little difference whether you are a despicable waste of human DNA, or a virtuous kind and empathic person.  For many folks (like Adam and Eve), having the knowledge of good and evil is not enough to keep them from evil.  They have the truth, but it just doesn’t matter to their heart.

I think the problem with teachers who teach diversity while remaining clueless about what diversity really means is that they have at some point simply ‘sold out’ to conformity, rather than really tried hard to understand or reasoning through deconstructions of their own beliefs and values.  It’s not the raving lunatic KKK freaks, or the Nationalist “white-devil” haters who are the biggest problem today.  It’s all the sell-out cowards (Thoreau’s “mass of men who lead lives of quiet desperation”) and uncle Toms who lack the courage to expose themselves, voice their opinions, and enter mature, honest, communication about their beliefs and values – and who pass on their subtle “living room only” opinions to future generations.  It’s all the immature cognitively lazy adults who don’t really have any desire to learn, but somehow chose that field as a career – faculty at Universities and K-12 teachers.