Teacher says ‘positive behavior’ like ‘sitting quietly,’ ‘following directions’ is white supremacy

By Kendall Tietz

A Virginia high school teacher posted a TikTok video criticizing the state’s disciplinary approach which promotes such rules as sitting quietly and following directions as “white supremacy.”

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a framework adopted by Virginia “to support positive academic and behavioral outcomes for all students” through “evidence-based prevention and intervention behavioral strategies.”

“I stated that PBIS is white supremacy with a hug and a lot of y’all wanted to know more about that,” the teacher said in the video that was originally posted to his TikTok account in May and reposted Monday. “So if PBIS concerns itself with positive behaviors, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Okay well what are those positive behaviors?’ And it’s things like making sure that you’re following directions, and making sure that you’re sitting quietly, and you are in your seat and all these things that come from white culture.”

The teacher in the video appears to be Josh Thompson, an English teacher at Blacksburg High School, Fox News reported.

“The idea of just sitting quiet and being told stuff and taking things in in a passive stance is not a thing that’s in many cultures,” Thompson said in the video. “So if we’re positively enforcing these behaviors, we are by extension positively enforcing elements of White culture. Which therefore keeps whiteness at the center, which is the definition of white supremacy.”

The Montgomery County School District told Fox News, “A teacher is entitled to their personal belief regarding any division program,” in relation to the video. “The statements made by this teacher do not reflect our PBIS program or the behavioral expectations that we have of students in our schools.”

“MCPS has used PBIS in our schools for eight years,” the district added. “We are proud of our PBIS work. This work helps create a standard for social-emotional learning and behavior expectations in the school building.”

Thompson believes a school should value “education justice” that puts “relationships at the heart of everything,” “whose curriculum wasn’t whitewashed” and “told the true stories of not only America but of the world,” according to a Member Spotlight from the National Education Association. Thompson also advocated for “spaces designated specifically for people of color.”

“One of the challenges of fighting for education justice is having to deal with people who have grown up in a hetero, white supremacist, patriarchal society,” Thompson added.

In another TikTok, Thompson said that he wanted to remind “educators that instances of police brutality and the murders of black and brown people by police officers is directly connected to the work that we do. Because if any of those people had been White, chances are they wouldn’t have been murdered.”

Thompson’s TikTok account is now private, but the video prompted backlash and calls that he be fired.

The Montgomery County School District did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Elvert Barnes

8 thoughts on “Teacher says ‘positive behavior’ like ‘sitting quietly,’ ‘following directions’ is white supremacy

  1. Goes to show again that the Liberals are the ACTUAL racists here, telling black and brown kids that they don’t have what it takes to succeed in American society, so we need to invent new, laxer rules for them.

    Same with denouncing voter IDs and defunding police, which America’s black communities do not support. According to polls, 85% of black Americans want the same or even more police presence in their neighborhoods.

    Please see the writing on the wall: All of this is meant to create chaos and confusion in our country to obfuscate the stealth communist takeover that is already in full swing.

  2. And math, getting the correct answers, grammar and the use of proper English are also said to be “too white”. The sad irony is that promulgating nonsense such as this actually harms black kids and reduces their chances for success in life.

  3. Continued lunacy by the Marxist educators. This filth must stop, We The People are rising up.

    Help us, go to “Vermonters for Vermont” Initiative page on Facebook to get involved

  4. Permitting mayhem in the class reduces the learning potential of the class to the level of the agitators. Given the marked decline in educational achievement of our schools under Common Core, Critical Race theory and the Orwellian distortions of the history that’s taught, it’s easy to believe that’ the goal. Rational thinking is not the province of any specific race (although the Asian students do seem to have some advantage there).

  5. “The idea of just sitting quiet and being told stuff and taking things in in a passive stance is not a thing that’s in many cultures,” Thompson said in the video” WHAT A LIE!! Teaching in Nigeria and Tanzania in the 90s, my colleague at school said the children do not take education for granted and sit quietly for as long as they have to in order to learn the lesson. This guy is just a dope and racist to boot. He should be fired.

  6. Why is one idiots pronouncements newsworthy at all? Does this site need to promulgate crap all the way from Virginia?
    This type reporting just keeps the pot stirred!

    • The pot has been stirred by idiots on the left. We need to know what’s coming next! Remember Paul Revere, would you have screamed out your window for him to shut up because you didn’t want to know what was coming? They have brought the fight to us!

  7. Is telling all kids to not join gangs and not roam the street carrying stolen pistols, or knives – – –

    ALSO White Supremecy?

    Behave, pay attention and learn so ALL the students can rise at the same time to the same level !!

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