Oroville High teacher Marta Shaffer astonishingly tells students GRAMMAR is rooted in 'white supremacy'
OROVILLE, CALIFORNIA: An English teacher is facing backlash after claiming "white supremacy runs deep" in US public schools and that she combats that "BS" in her classroom by citing "arbitrary" grammar and writing rules as examples of rules "created by Westerners."
Marta Shaffer, a tenured English teacher at Oroville High School, reportedly began the 2022-2023 academic year by teaching her students parts of linguistics as a way of "fighting white supremacy in my classes," per videos she posted on a TikTok account named @ShafferLovesToRead. She said the goal was to be "inclusive of all kinds of ways we use the language." One of her videos made waves on Twitter after it was shared on the platform by the popular conservative account @LibsofTikTok, after which Shaffer's TikTok appears to have gone private.
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Shaffer reportedly believes expectations for students to use proper grammar and syntax were part of the White supremacy culture that was deeply entrenched in the US education system. "I try to undermine that B.S. in my classroom as much as I can," she said, adding, "We study linguistics and the rules that we actually use to communicate instead of the made-up rules that White supremacy created for when we write papers and stuff, which is what scholars call the 'language of power.'"
English teacher says that grammar and writing rules are based in white supremacy so she tries to undermine it in her classroom pic.twitter.com/uKVs3MO1ih
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 4, 2022
Fox News reported how the teacher lauded students for including the so-called "AAVE" language – African-American Vernacular English – in their academic essays. "As an educator, I am constantly worried if I'm the problem. What do I mean by that? Well, public education is an institution that upholds lots of problematic systems in our society like white supremacy, misogyny, colonization, etc," she continued. "Well, let's look at how we write essays [where we] start with an introduction that includes a thesis, always cite your sources, use transition words like ‘however’ and ‘therefore.’ These are all made-up rules. They were created by Westerners in power. Which got me thinking, what if I started my school year with a unit honoring how we talk rather than teaching students how to write properly."
In another post, Shaffer reportedly included a prompt that said a student's "codes" -- meaning how they interact with family or friends -- were "just as important, if not more than important" than an employer's expectations on how their employee communicates. "Just because your teachers, your professors, and your boss may expect you to write and speak in a certain way that may not be natural to you, does not mean that your more natural… languages are not important," she insisted. "They are just as important, if not more important than the ‘language of respectability.’"
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The language educator said that she felt like a "cringe white lady" while "teaching students of color" about linguistics. "Did I worry I was being a White savior? Absolutely. Was it uncomfortable? Definitely. But a lot of my students come here, and they're uncomfortable with the white mainstream culture of public school life. So I think it's good for them to see their teacher deal with linguistic discomfort, too," she said. Shaffer also claimed that the IQ bell curve and the SAT were "racist," adding, "The writers of these tests were made up almost entirely of White people… and they still are." According to NBC 24, the organization Parents Defending Education has listed Shaffer's video as an "incident" worthy of highlighting. The group has cited the California teacher's "incident" as an example of "indoctrination" and "critical race theory & equity."