ADAMS: Social Emotional Learning, or SEL, has become a hot button in today’s educational conversations. What may sound like an effort with good intentions—stuff like teaching kids to manage their emotions, develop healthy identities, and build their relationships—has become a vehicle for devastating ideologies to indoctrinate kids about things like gender, race, and other very controversial things.
Today, we’re going to speak with one of our nation's leading voices for fighting unhealthy SEL in schools. Join me in welcoming Alvin Lui to this show. Alvin, welcome!
LUI: Thank you, Melvin. How are you, sir?
ADAMS: Doing great! Now, you told me a minute ago that you are in Indiana—
LUI: I am.
ADAMS: Let’s tell a little more about you for our audience so that they can put that all together.
Alvin is the president and founder of an organization called Courage Is A Habit. It’s an organization very much like Noah Webster Educational Foundation, that resources parents and educators with actionable tools so they can fight for their own children unapologetically.
Courage Is A Habit is especially keen on equipping parents to protect their kids from SEL surveys, gender identity indoctrination, and vulgar books. Is that about right?
LUI: That is correct. That is absolutely correct.
ADAMS: So tell us a little more about yourself: your background and how you got into this space. How did you get this organization started?
LUI: I’m originally from California. When I moved my young family to the midwest, we saw a lot of the same ideology that ruined California had begun here in the midwest already. It was seeded pretty hard already, which is the same around the country. Which is why we’re seeing this explosion across the country in education.
A lot of these seeds had already been planted underground—you just don’t see it. When I got here I saw it because I knew what to look for because in California, anything that anybody’s fighting…we’ve already gone through that in California. That’s why California’s the way it is. That’s why it’s in such an awful disarray.
Anything from crime to drugs to the way they spend money…all of it. But that started in academics. It all starts in academics. It’s about indoctrinating children to make decisions that go against their best interests, go against their best interests of merit, of success, the American dream, American opportunity. They teach kids that America is oppressive and needs to be torn down.
At the end of it all, that’s really what the goal of the K-12 education system is. I realized that I needed to try to create an organization that wasn’t just focused on a local level, which is hugely important, but to empower parents to be able to fight at the local level.
Courage Is A Habit creates tools and strategies for parents, grandparents, and legislators. We distill very complicated indoctrination tenets and programs down to information that any average parent can understand. We focus on the parent that doesn’t have twelve hours a week to dig into this stuff.
The most important thing that Courage Is A Habit does is to have a call to action. After every tool, we have a call to action. We explain to parents, This is what you can do. One of the biggest drawbacks I saw before I started Courage Is A Habit is that a lot of organizations will point out the problem—some accurately, some not so accurately—but even the ones who point it out accurately often don’t leave the parents with an outlet.
What happens is, you expose the problem and then they have the outrage…but there’s no outlet. Outrage without outlet often works against a person, eventually, because they get hopeless. They feel hopelessness.
ADAM: Exactly. Yep.
LUI: That’s what the organization focuses on: action before anything else. It’s not just about sharing—I mean, sharing is important, talking about it is important—but you have to take action. You have to take physical action. Because if you don’t, the people who are indoctrinating your children, they take action. They take action against you and your children every single day. They don’t just talk about the problem, they don’t just get into a private Facebook group and say, “Oh, we’re going to push this.”
No, no. They do it. Live, in-person. On your children, on you. If all you’re doing is sitting back, being afraid to speak up because someone might call you a label. “Oh, what if someone calls my job. My kid—he’s on the basketball team. What about him?” If you’re thinking that and you might not speak up, that’s where they want you.
Fear is a habit. Fear is absolutely a habit. Once you make that habit, it’s very difficult to break out of it, which is why we see so many parents take so long to speak up. But once you make courage a habit then nothing’s going to stop you from standing up for your children, which is what your God-given responsibility is.
ADAMS: Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that. Are you a 501(c)(3) or—
LUI: Yes, right.
ADAMS: Okay. You’re based in Indiana, you started out in California. And as you stated earlier, you’ve already seen a whole progression of an invasion of our schools. Then ultimately, communities and the whole state in California.
Let’s zero in just a little bit on what we call “SEL,” Social Emotional Learning. That’s a term that’s used an awful lot today. A lot of parents may know what it is because we hear so much about it, but maybe still a little unsure and kind of confused about what in the world we’re really talking about.
Dive into that just for a second.
LUI: Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to give you guys a question to ask and then we can get into Social Emotional Learning. The reason parents get so confused is because the school and the organizations that push Social Emotional Learning, they push out so much misinformation and language contamination that it’s very difficult for parents. Which is where we come in because we distill it down to the actual facts and truths of it.
But forget Social Emotional Learning for a second. If I was to tell you that I’m teaching my eight year-old empathy—and I’m going to give you this exercise and everybody listening to this wonderful podcast or watching this with me and Melvin—I want you guys to do this exercise with me. And Melvin, I want you to do the same thing.
I’m going to teach my eight year-old daughter empathy. Now remember, she’s not eighteen, so keep that in mind. She is eight. I’m starting to teach her empathy. Everyone listening right now, I want you to take five seconds and in your mind, to yourself—Melvin, I want you to say it out loud—what do you think that means?
Go ahead, Melvin. She’s eight. Empathy. What do you think that means? What am I teaching her?
ADAMS: Well, for an eight year-old it’s about caring for your sibling, having a sense of feeling for someone else that’s nearby you. Maybe your pet. That compassion, empathy.
LUI: Perfect. Everyone that is listening to this show, you probably thought something similar to what Melvin said to yourself. More than likely.
Alright, so school goes, “We’re just teaching empathy. That’s all. Just empathy.” Through Social Emotional Learning, what they mean by empathy is: they start in kindergarten, it’s a twelve-year brainwashing program, so that by the time your little girl is, say, thirteen/fourteen/fifteen, when a grown man or a boy walks into the locker room or restroom or shower, drops his pants and she gets that visceral reaction that every girl should have…but she’s trained to have empathy.
Now, parents go, “Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t mean that.” But wait a minute. Melvin, what did you just say? To have empathy for those close to you. And to have compassion. Likely everyone who’s listening to this thought something like, “put yourself in someone else’s shoes,” “put their feelings before yours.”
“Wait a minute. That’s not what I meant!” I know that. That’s what we call language contamination, okay? They use your vocabulary but not your dictionary. They use your vocabulary, not your dictionary.
Here’s the one question I want to teach everyone listening: when the schools tell you, “We’re just doing X,” “We’re just teaching X,” and whatever that X—that virtue or that trait is—instead of going, “Oh good! I teach that at home too,” like you did with empathy, I want you to ask yourself this one question: through whose lens is it being taught?
Through whose lens is it being taught? In my example of empathy, you were assuming I was coming through the lens of a loving parent. They are coming through the lens on a critical race theorist or a transgender cult recruiter. I want every parent to understand this and then I will explain why SEL’s fooled so many people and then the technical why it’s taken over education.
Traits and virtues are not good or bad. As decent, kind people in a civilized society, we actually put positive connotations over traits. But traits by themselves are not good or bad. Traits are neutral. It depends on who’s teaching them and how they’re being used.
I will give you an example. After a long manhunt and a serial killer is finally arrested and everybody’s, “Thank God, they arrested him,” nobody ever says, “Hey, that serial killer: he sets goals really good. He’s a good goal-setter.” Even though all of us love goals, we put positive connotations on goal-setting…but when he gets arrested, we don’t say, “Hey, he sets really great goals. In fact, he even exceeded his goals, unfortunately. He has grit, he has determination, he went after his victim two or three times because he stalked her and he couldn’t get alone, he kept coming back. He has grit, that guy has grit, determination.
We don’t say that about a serial killer. Why? Because we’re kind, sane people and we would not put that positive connotation. But if you strip away the horrificness of a serial killer, he did display those things. He did have goals. He did have grit. He did have…determination. So through whose lens is it being taught?
So, Social Emotional Learning. Just that term alone puts parents to sleep. They go, “Of course. Social Emotional Learning: who doesn’t want that?” Who doesn’t want to teach their child empathy? Or compassion or responsible decision-making? Again, through whose lens?
When you’re talking about through the lens of a critical race theorist, which is what Social Emotional Learning is—Social Emotional Learning is critical race theory, okay? It is Marxist ideology. It uses something called “culturally responsive teaching.” Culturally responsive teaching was coined by a woman named Gloria Ladson-Billings. She is one of the biggest critical race theorists. One of the biggest critical race theorists. Social Emotional Learning uses her culturally responsive teaching and that’s why, if you look up Social Emotional Learning and you look up what’s in your school, it’s all about equity. Which is a heavy critical race theory tenet.
Through the lens of a critical race theorist, responsible decision-making—again, through the lens—is not what you think. If you’re white, your responsible decision-making is to vote for reparations. White guilt is to atone for your white[ness]. That'd be your responsible decision-making because you’re an “oppressor.”
If you’re not white then your responsible decision-making is to tear down the systems of an oppressive America. So when you hear some of these [younger] activists, some of these twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-five year-olds talk, it is the end of a twelve-year brainwashing program. It’s brought in through Social Emotional Learning. Social Emotional Learning has taken over [unintelligible 13:20] K-12.
How it works…that’s where it gets a little more complicated. The way Social Emotional Learning works is it’s based on competencies. There are five competencies and the school has to fulfill these competencies. The way they show they’re fulfilling these competencies is by giving your children in-class surveys.
They’re data mining your children. Okay? I’m going to let that sit for a second because a lot of parents don’t know that.
ADAMS: That’s true.
LUI: They data mine your children, they collect data—and at the very end of this, I’m going to explain to you that the single most important thing a parent can do is opt your children out of the data mining. It’s to throw a wrench. If you want to throw a wrench into this indoctrination, this program, get your children out of the data mining because that’s their bloodline.
The mistake parents make when they hear “surveys”—and I can hear it already in my head from the people listening! “Let me see the questions.” Nope, that’s the wrong—that’s the bait. Some of these questions are very sexual in nature. That’s true. Especially when you get to middle school, highschool. But in the elementary and early middle schools, the question seems kind of innocuous.
It doesn’t matter what the question is, so don’t ask to see the questions because they won’t show it to you anyways. They don’t have to. It’s a private company giving these surveys and they’re collecting the data on your children, then selling your children’s data. But that aside, seeing the questions doesn’t matter. It’s what they do with the answers.
What they do with the answers is they put your children’s answers through what they call an “equity lens.” Meaning that, no matter how they answer, the solution is more Social Emotional Learning, more representation, more equity, more diversity, more inclusion. Which translates to more Black Lives Matter, more LGBTQ clubs, more transgender flags, more teachers who don’t know if they’re a boy or a girl so they influence your children.
It doesn’t matter what the questions are, it’s what they do with your answers. I will give you an example of a Social Emotional Learning survey. Melvin, here's a question: what is your confidence level that you can complete all the work assigned to you in school?
ADAMS: For me, pretty good!
LUI: But if you read that question, Melvin, you would probably go, “Okay, that’s probably not—that’s fine, that’s a decent question.” The child may say high confidence or low confidence, whatever they answer. One through ten or whatever they answer. Then the lower scoring kids—maybe the teacher needs to teach them a little differently, maybe they’re having some trouble finishing their homework at home. Maybe they need to work with their parents. No, again, whose lens? Your lens.
Their lens is this: the children who answer low: it’s because school is oppressive. The school’s oppressive. Look, more non-white kids say they're not as confident as the white kids or the Asian kids, whatever. So the school’s oppressive. That’s why they don’t feel confident in completing because the environment, the system and the school, is making them feel “not belonging.” Not included. Not inclusive enough.
ADAMS: Let me just interrupt for a second because I think it goes beyond the school. A lot of times it’s who is being oppressive? Is it the family? Is it the community? Is it their church? There are all of these things that play into that scenario.
LUI: You’re absolutely right though. That’s why education is everyone’s problem. When they leave the school, they then take the same training—now they go to work and they don’t get that raise or they don’t get hired or they don't get that promotion or assignment they want. The company must be oppressive. The company’s not inclusive enough. I don’t have a boss that looks like me. My supervisor doesn’t look like me. So the company needs to do more diversity inclusion.
If you’re working in a corporate environment and you have to take all this nonsense, you wonder where it comes from. It starts here in K-12 then into academia. That’s how it connects.
ADAMS: That’s great, that’s really very put together. Thank you for doing that. Let’s just step back for a second and help parents understand—and even educators—this has become such a significant part of everyday life. It’s in many people’s workspaces…
LUI: Yes.
ADAMS: It’s certainly in our schools. We know that. For parents looking on and trying to understand okay, where does this happen? Well, it happens by a very organized and systematic approach.
There are trainings where superintendents are pulled out and they are given these trainings—
LUI: That’s right.
ADAMS: —saying, “This is how you need to lead your schools because, at the end of the day, the focus is no longer about creating outstanding scholastics and so forth. It’s about equity, it’s about making everybody feel valuable. It’s not about acumen, it’s about how I feel about my own attitude to myself or somebody else’s attitude to themselves.
Maybe that’s over-simplifying, but that’s kind of the focus. What’s happening is they’re starting with superintendents and school board members and so forth. They then implement training programs and the teachers go into these programs and they’re basically taught…and it’s not all overt, okay? A lot of this stuff is very covert—
LUI: That’s right.
ADAMS: —and people hardly realize what they’re getting into. But what they’re doing is they’re teaching these basic things and how to work with students to make them feel a certain way. And then the curriculum comes in and the curriculum as it is taught, gives those repetitive processes that you were just speaking about. Those surveys that you were just speaking about. That begins the implementation of all the data mining and all the conditioned reflexes or responses.
Where the teachers, now—without even realizing it—are helping to create this communal society in the classroom that’s helping these entities with their objectives. At the end of the day, it is a slow shifting in how we think—not only about ourselves, but about others. What our values, what our priorities are.
It gradually shifts. As you were saying, the eight year-old versus the thirteen year-old and that progression of where it takes them. Until, when they hear things, it doesn’t mean the same thing as it does to the parent. The children are thinking in a completely different way.