the distressed student and the helpful friend

I'm not a politically correct sort of person (I'm fairly antagonistic to political correctness, actually), but the casting for this USF video for the university's writing center struck me as being (unintentionally) hilarious and slightly mortifying all at once.

It's a cute film, but I was laughing and semi-cringing throughout: Oh, look! The distressed student has found another helpful white person!

I am reminded of the time I cruised every single textbook for every single education course at NYU one afternoon in the basement of the NYU bookstore. There were zillions of books about heroic white teachers bringing enlightenment to downtrodden black children.

As a general principle, I am against education as civilizing mission.

This is why I've never been a fan of character education for any child of any color.