U.S. residents/voters of good will...come in, pls.

[prairiewindmomma]

1 minute ago, livetoread said:

I would quibble with this. I think it was developed "by" all sorts of cultures, but "for" WASPs. Other people and cultures contributed quite a bit, but their contributions were coopted and/or erased in the service of WASP majority.

Yes. The White House, the Capitol, much of our early infrastructure….all built by enslaved persons who were not WASPs. Much of what we think of as built for America, by America, was built by non-WASPs, and the erasure of those stories = the erasure of our history.

[Wheres Toto]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

And I think it's interesting that when I was in high school, 12th grade "college prep" English was English Literature based.  My kids' AP English is multicultural literature based.

We also were not required to take any world history or geography in middle or high school, while these are now required courses in public school.

I graduated in 1987 and the standard literature sequence was American Lit, Brit Lit, World Lit, then electives for Senior year.   The first three years was intended to match up with what was being studied in history the same years.  

[Frances]

21 minutes ago, BusyMom5 said:

Maybe I will come across as a book banner, but I have thought for a LONG time that books should have ratings just like movies and video games do.  Every program on TV will give the rating and why " Rated P-13, nudity and violence "  so then parents can decide if that's okay or not.  Why are books not the same?  I have picked up books before and was totally disgusted- I wish they had a rating to warn me!  I don't want to read a gay romance book- not my thing.  Knowing in advance,  I wouldn't have picked it. 

How would a rating system help you differentiate between a gay romance novel and a straight romance novel if they both had the same level of s*xual content?

[Sneezyone]

7 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I graduated in 1987 and the standard literature sequence was American Lit, Brit Lit, World Lit, then electives for Senior year.   The first three years was intended to match up with what was being studied in history the same years.  

By the time I graduated in 1994, the sequence SKL described was in full effect for college bound kids. 9/ancient, western lit, 10/19th-20th century western lit, 11th/American lit with a WASP focus, 12th/English lit with an optional nod to Russian lit. That was it.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Pam in CT]

re tension between a nation built BY v built FOR

10 minutes ago, livetoread said:

I would quibble with this. I think it was developed "by" all sorts of cultures, but "for" WASPs. Other people and cultures contributed quite a bit, but their contributions were coopted and/or erased in the service of WASP majority.

That's a nice succinct way to put it.

 

[Heartstrings]

4 minutes ago, Frances said:

How would a rating system help you differentiate between a gay romance novel and a straight romance novel if they both had the same level of s*xual content?

I think for things like that we would need multiple ratings.  A category indicating that LGBT is in the book, then a rating level for intensity, then a different category for straight romance, with a rating level for intensity, perhaps something to indicate if divorce or premarital romance is included.  Violence would need different categories too.  We'd need a grid, I think.  

[Wheres Toto]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

By the time I graduated in 1994, the sequence SKL described was on full effect for college bound kids. 9/ancient western lit, 10/19th-20th century western lit, 11th/American lit, 12th/English lit with an optional nod that Russian lit.

I don't know if it mattered but I live/lived in a very diverse area of the country that is considered to have good schools.

There was still a lot I didn't learn about until I took a college history course that used Howard Zinn.  

[Sneezyone]

2 hours ago, maize said:

I don't know how we would go about creating a common foundational knowledge core for history and literature. We live in a diverse, pluralistic society. History is narrative, point-of-view, story telling. How do you go about establishing a compilation that would be accepted by the multiple points of view?

I'm not arguing against it, I'm just not sure it is possible.

Every country I have lived in has had a (current at the time I was there) mainstream narrative regarding their history. It is not a narrative that encompasses every people group or point of view in the country. It usually represents primarily a majority culture point of view. Few countries are trying to balance as many different perspectives as we are in the United States. Where we now stand, we've rejected the notion of embracing a majority culture or a majority-culture historical narrative. That's a complex, I think even unprecedented place for a society to be. It's not going to be easy to navigate. There's a ton of tension between different views that very much want *their* perspective to become the new established culture perspective, but I don't think there's enough of an actual majority behind any of them to do that. Somehow we need to learn to actually accept living in a world with a multiplicity of cultures in balance. Including the ones we disagree with or don't like or think are just plain wrong.

 

Other countries have done it, and hew closely to it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I don't know if it mattered but I live/lived in a very diverse area of the country that is considered to have good schools.

There was still a lot I didn't learn about until I took a college history course that used Howard Zinn.  

I think our kids deserve so much more.

[kbutton]

2 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I don’t see the current book bans as something that came from good parents pushing porn out of schools. I think people are being told by the media that that is what is happening. 

I see a lot of that here, and no one fact checks. Also sub in influencers/"concerned parents"/alternate media for the simple word media. The narrative is set by certain people, and everyone else falls in line. Older generations that have more reasoning skills (relatively) and are less politically reactive (relatively) assume that the younger generation doing all the banning is upset about what they'd be upset about too.

There is a very big smoke and mirrors element to it, but the authoritarian wins are becoming mainstream enough that the influencers are now able to remove some of the sleight of hand, whereas previously they had to reserve their most radical side for their in group. I am confident in my area that there are people that if you could take plop their year 2002 or so self into the current context, they would see through some of this and be shocked at their 2023 selves, but their tolerance to whackadoodle has been built up gradually.

Lots of dog whistling going on. Lots of people saying, "that nice young mom over there is worried, and she actually has kids that age, so she must know" without really verifying. 

[SKL]

I don't have a problem with LGBT being part of a story if the story is otherwise age-appropriate.  I wouldn't want it pushed in preference to excellent literature, just for the sake of being woke, but if the book is good lit from an educational perspective, then put it on the reading list.

I don't think graphic sex scenes of any kind are necessary in fiction distributed in / read in public institutions educating minors.

I do think society is to the point where the fact that LGBT+ individuals exist is well understood by the time kids are in middle school, unless they are incredibly sheltered.  So even if some parents don't like that, censoring books is not the way to address it.

[Pam in CT]

9 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I think for things like that we would need multiple ratings.  A category indicating that LGBT is in the book, then a rating level for intensity, then a different category for straight romance, with a rating level for intensity, perhaps something to indicate if divorce or premarital romance is included.  Violence would need different categories too.  We'd need a grid, I think.  

that sounds like... reviews...only in a form that looks more "objective." 

Which it could not possibly be, as there is no way to delineate an objective distinction between a "Violence - Intensity 2" vs "Violence - Intensity 3"?  Red Badge of Courage vs Beloved, which is more "intense"?  Well, depends on the critera, which are necessarily subjective.

 

[Same thing with movie reviews - which violence is more "intense" - Top Gun or Color Purple?  Well, depends on the criteria.  Number of swear words and seconds of partial nudity can be measured, but "violence" not so much.  And lopsided violence, by whom and towards whom, is mostly what the culture wars are and have always been about; and what the current sweep of state-legislated whitewashing restrictions on content are mostly now about.]

[Katy]

11 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I see a lot of that here, and no one fact checks. Also sub in influencers/"concerned parents"/alternate media for the simple word media. The narrative is set by certain people, and everyone else falls in line. Older generations that have more reasoning skills (relatively) and are less politically reactive (relatively) assume that the younger generation doing all the banning is upset about what they'd be upset about too.

There is a very big smoke and mirrors element to it, but the authoritarian wins are becoming mainstream enough that the influencers are now able to remove some of the sleight of hand, whereas previously they had to reserve their most radical side for their in group. I am confident in my area that there are people that if you could take plop their year 2002 or so self into the current context, they would see through some of this and be shocked at their 2023 selves, but their tolerance to whackadoodle has been built up gradually.

Lots of dog whistling going on. Lots of people saying, "that nice young mom over there is worried, and she actually has kids that age, so she must know" without really verifying. 

Idk, I think the narrative is set by people pushing agendas. I blame removing the FCC requirements to present both sides of a story in anything claiming to be news. So we’ve ended up with a generation of people who only hear what any educated member of previous generations would call propaganda. 

[Sneezyone]

8 minutes ago, Katy said:

Idk, I think the narrative is set by people pushing agendas. I blame removing the FCC requirements to present both sides of a story in anything claiming to be news. So we’ve ended up with a generation of people who only hear what any educated member of previous generations would call propaganda. 

Agree except that what ‘educated’ members of prior generations learned was often BS.

[Heartstrings]

4 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

that sounds like... reviews...only in a form that looks more "objective."

For parents, an "at a glance" grid or something might be helpful.  I'm pretty sure most books already have something similar online. 

 

I agree with you about the intensity levels.  I think whatever movies use would be a good starting place, although imperfect.  

 

I'm not sure how helpful it would be in schools, or with removing books from libraries.  A rating system would only be helpful for empowering the parents who are inclined to care about such things.   

[Faith-manor]

42 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

A lot of the hub bub is not about empowering parents. Its about a top down approach to controlling other people and their children.  There is no interest in allowing parents to have more information and make choices for their individual families.  The only interest is in taking away choices, under the guise of protecting children.  

Bingo.

Our closest public library has a book on basic human reproduction, cartoon drawings, cartoonish, fact based descriptions of sex, and seriously, nothing more than medical information about just human reproduction...the kind of thing you would expect to get from an OBGYN explaining the nuts and bolts to a child or teen.  It is in the juvenile section which is labeled as ages 11-14. We made it into the news as far as 100 miles away because a pastor in the area went to a library meeting, raised cain about that book, called the librarians and volunteers depraved jezebels and pedophiles, then started a recall petition to get them thrown out. One book, the contents of which this pastor and his supporters are lying about epically. One totally appropriate medical book in an age appropriate section that he doesn't want his hyper sheltered kids to see. His rhetoric and name calling is just getting worse and worse. That said, the recall petition was thrown out by a judge. So for the moment, a brief reprieve.

I have no great wisdom to share about how to combat this other than to speak up and loudly where you can, do not mince words, call a spade a spade just to do it respectfully and without a tone of malice or anger so there is some chance the words will be heard. Beyond that I cannot do a damn thing for the most part at the national level.

The head librarian at the township library told me she thinks they will eventually be forced to discontinue all their children's programs including the Lego club, and become an 18+ admittance only facility where they will keep a children and youth section in case parents want to come check out books for their children, but children will not be allowed inside the building without a parent or guardian so they can't be accused of grooming kids. Then she figures not long after that, the township will simply defund the library. She retires in December and the two other paid librarians/media/educational programming persons have said they will probably quit because they are so discouraged.

I am always amazed that the "don't infringe on my parental rights folks" freedom beaters seem to be the most zealous about controlling everyone else's parenting choices. Rules for thee but not for me.

If I could afford it, I would buy a copy of Fahrenheit 457 for every household in this township. I am not rich enough manage that.

[kbutton]

19 minutes ago, Katy said:

Idk, I think the narrative is set by people pushing agendas. I blame removing the FCC requirements to present both sides of a story in anything claiming to be news. So we’ve ended up with a generation of people who only hear what any educated member of previous generations would call propaganda. 

I don't think that everyone hears and experiences the information directly from those sources though. I think they are often removed from them, but based on personal connections to people plugged into those sources, they just kind of average out the pros and cons and skip the critical thinking.

Is that more clear? I don't disagree. I just don't think that everyone is directly plugged into the propaganda.

I think there are also people looking the other way because...relationships. They aren't going to call out people they have a lot in common with; they will overlook the crazy and to some extent tolerate it or trust that things will work out sensibly. They aren't going to leave their community over these things because it's lonely (BTDT).

[maize]

48 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Other countries have done it, and hew closely to it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Can you give me examples please?

[prairiewindmomma]

I think we, as a general society, would benefit from greater social media literacy skills. Critical thinking skills and discernment can be taught. I have wondered about gamifying it by making it a multiple choice questionnaire that scores people while providing the correct answers that explains why the correct answer is what it is, or playing a “spot the lie” type of game.

[Sneezyone]

17 minutes ago, maize said:

Can you give me examples please?

I’m unfamiliar with exact comparisons because I don’t live there, but in most of the world, there are national exams covering national history that have a basis in a shared set of facts. The US has no such thing because we prioritize local/state control, until we don’t/it’s inconvenient. What is known, accepted, tested for is up for debate but there is an endorsed narrative. We don’t even have that.

I think when you have a shared national history, you can test for it. When you have a shared understanding of what’s gone before, you can speak to it with one voice. We don’t have a basic, national test/baseline for competency with respect to US history.

We assess new immigrants for competence and knowledge of our constitution but not our collective history. That sometimes results in folks who enter at the tail end, and benefit from the progress, thinking those who haven’t are slouches. It’s unhelpful.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sneezyone

[kbutton]

13 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I think we, as a general society, would benefit from greater social media literacy skills. Critical thinking skills and discernment can be taught. I have wondered about gamifying it by making it a multiple choice questionnaire that scores people while providing the correct answers that explains why the correct answer is what it is, or playing a “spot the lie” type of game.

Ask and you will receive, lol!

[kbutton]

14 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I think we, as a general society, would benefit from greater social media literacy skills. Critical thinking skills and discernment can be taught. I have wondered about gamifying it by making it a multiple choice questionnaire that scores people while providing the correct answers that explains why the correct answer is what it is, or playing a “spot the lie” type of game.

Unfortunately, one downfall of this is that a lot of sources are not considered biased that just aren't. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I don’t think I am thinking of this just in terms of bias. I think people aren’t able to understand statistics or complex information well…..kind of like the Burger King(?) problem where people thought 1/3 of a lb burgers contained less meat than the 1/4lb.

We tend to be really well educated, thoughtful people here. Many of the people I have interacted with in life do not have that solid foundation from which to examine stuff, iykwim.

ETA: in talking with people about basic fundamental underpinnings, people don’t have correct info that they are working off of. They have assumptions, but not facts. This is one of the bits from What is Wrong with Kansas—people were making decisions against their own self interests, not just out of tribal alignment, but because they were being told made up sh!t about how the state budget would be affected by policies being considered.

Edited August 6, 2023 by prairiewindmomma

[kokotg]

I mean, AP courses are an attempt to create a standardized curriculum--one that's comprehensive but also widely acceptable to people all over the US--and two of its courses have recently been banned in Florida. So I'm not terribly optimistic about a search for common ground. 

[Murphy101]

 

1 hour ago, Frances said:

How would a rating system help you differentiate between a gay romance novel and a straight romance novel if they both had the same level of s*xual content?

Same as on tv. It says something like:

rated whatever and then reasons for rating such as:

Sex, intense intimacy, violence, drug use, horror, profanity, suicide, BL (boy romantic love dynamic portrayed) and so forth…

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

I think for things like that we would need multiple ratings.  A category indicating that LGBT is in the book, then a rating level for intensity, then a different category for straight romance, with a rating level for intensity, perhaps something to indicate if divorce or premarital romance is included.  Violence would need different categories too.  We'd need a grid, I think.  

We have multiple ratings for tv and games. There’s no reason not to trace the ratings for books too. 

I would be good with a similar rating system for books.

Because frankly, at 50, I am still not old enough and don’t like finding out half way through a show or book I thought was going well. 

[kbutton]

8 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I don’t think I am thinking of this just in terms of bias. I think people aren’t able to understand statistics or complex information well…..kind of like the Burger King(?) problem where people thought 1/3 of a lb burgers contained less meat than the 1/4lb.

We tend to be really well educated, thoughtful people here. Many of the people I have interacted with in life do not have that solid foundation from which to examine stuff, iykwim.

ETA: in talking with people about basic fundamental underpinnings, people don’t have correct info that they are working off of. They have assumptions, but not facts. This is one of the bits from What is Wrong with Kansas—people were making decisions against their own self interests, not just out of tribal alignment, but because they were being told made up sh!t about how the state budget would be affected by policies being considered.

We have an issue in my state right now that should fit in this category but is complicated by bias. When both are in play, it just gets so much worse.

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, kokotg said:

I mean, AP courses are an attempt to create a standardized curriculum--one that's comprehensive but also widely acceptable to people all over the US--and two of its courses have recently been banned in Florida. So I'm not terribly optimistic about a search for common ground. 

Except the college board is a private entity and not a public initiative. We have citizens actively promoting, even today, the notion that slavery was a gift, a beneficial condition, of marginal import in modern life. The ONLY reason folks can say these things with a straight face and not be laughed out/run out of polite company is the lack of shared history. It’s a problem.

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

Except the college board is a private entity and not a public initiative. We have citizens actively promoting, even today, the notion that slavery was a gift, a beneficial condition, of marginal import in modern life. The ONLY reason folks can say these things with a straight face and not be laughed out/run out of polite company is the lack of shared history. It’s a problem.

Sure...I'm definitely not holding the College Board up as an example of everything pure and good..but they DO have a monetary interest in creating a common curriculum that's acceptable to as wide a range of people as possible, while still being acceptably comprehensive and rigorous for colleges to see it as valuable....and they STILL can't do it. 

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Sure...I'm definitely not holding the College Board up as an example of everything pure and good..but they DO have a monetary interest in creating a common curriculum that's acceptable to as wide a range of people as possible, while still being acceptably comprehensive and rigorous for colleges to see it as valuable....and they STILL can't do it. 

It’s not in THEIR interest to do it, and alienate users??, it’s in ours. It’s NOT their responsibility, it’s ours. We can see the failure of this model in FL. Who’s next?

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sneezyone

[AnotherNewName]

1 hour ago, Katy said:

Idk, I think the narrative is set by people pushing agendas. I blame removing the FCC requirements to present both sides of a story in anything claiming to be news. So we’ve ended up with a generation of people who only hear what any educated member of previous generations would call propaganda. 

That is a common misunderstanding of what the Fairness Doctrine did.  The FD was overly vague and meeting the standard was not difficult, and there never was an equal time or even format provision for differing views.  I do agree our current cable programming has led to a significant increase in polarization, but the cable programming would have been exempt from the FD even if it still existed.

[kokotg]

Just now, Sneezyone said:

It’s not in THEIR interest to do it, and alienate users??, it’s in ours. It’s NOT their responsibility, it’s ours.

I don't think I'm disagreeing? I'm just commenting on the incredible difficulty of the task. Or impossibility. I was just thinking of AP exams as maybe the closest thing we have to the comprehensive exams some other countries have. 

[Pam in CT]

re "silver lining of enslavement"

4 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Except the college board is a private entity and not a public initiative. We have citizens actively promoting, even today, the notion that slavery was a gift, a beneficial condition, of marginal import in modern life. The ONLY reason folks can say these things with a straight face and not be laughed out/run out of polite company is the lack of shared history. It’s a problem.

Notes from the field here:  another reason =  there's a sizable segment of white people who very much wish for that line of reasoning to hold true. 

It's certainly related to the lack of shared history, but it's also its own distinct wishcasting.  Spain's colonization of South America saved zillions of souls from eternal damnation; Britain's colonization of India left the railroads/ the school system/ widespread English/ an educated middle class; the US deployment of nuclear weaponry saved tens of thousands of lives; and etc.  Given the technological reasons why there's no going back to Walter Cronkite's capacity to curate a hegemonic media storyline and the Constitutional reasons why we're very unlikely ever to have a national history curriculum like, say, Singapore's... I don't think there's a path toward shared stories until we first find a way to pierce that white insistence on white innocence.

[Melissa Louise]

I don't like interference in librarian professionalism. 

It's up to.librarians to cleave very closely to their role as curators of collections in ways that meet the needs of a diverse public. 

They need to provide reliable information, broaden horizons through texts, allow access to a variety of sources, meet public need, create reading habits and love of books/texts, promote self education, love of knowledge and life long learning. 

That's their activism. It's a deeply humanistic role. 

Leave them to it. 

(Not all librarians agree with performing a humanistic role - that's sad, imo. All librarians will introduce bias during curation, and they, like other professionals, need to exercise regular self reflection). 

 

[Dmmetler]

2 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

Maybe I will come across as a book banner, but I have thought for a LONG time that books should have ratings just like movies and video games do.  Every program on TV will give the rating and why " Rated P-13, nudity and violence "  so then parents can decide if that's okay or not.  Why are books not the same?  I have picked up books before and was totally disgusted- I wish they had a rating to warn me!  I don't want to read a gay romance book- not my thing.  Knowing in advance,  I wouldn't have picked it.  I don't have time to look through every book my kids read, I don't even preview my own books.  I tried to check on the Good Sense Media website with my oldest,  but she would read 15 books a week!  

In my book-rating program, I would also have categories for different levels of violence- like Hunger Games or Matilda- both include violence,  but one is very cartoonist, the other realistic. I don't think this would prevent kids from reading inappropriate books, but it would give parents and schools a place to start from.  Plenty of kids are still watching horror movies and playing that Auto Theft game with the prostitutes in it, but at least there is a warning on them for the parents paying attention.

 

I can tell you that in my state a character asking another if they want to play after school and the character saying “I’ll ask my moms” is enough to get a book restricted from classroom libraries in some districts. One of the books I reviewed so it could be listed was a kid who moved to Area 51 and went to school with alien kids-one of which was a shapeshifter who had no fixed gender. 
 

Maus and Anne Frank are restricted. So are many, many books about slavery, civil rights or reconstruction. 
 

It’s terrifying for teachers, and I truly don’t think parents know how much is being taken away from their kids.

[Katy]

1 hour ago, AnotherNewName said:

That is a common misunderstanding of what the Fairness Doctrine did.  The FD was overly vague and meeting the standard was not difficult, and there never was an equal time or even format provision for differing views.  I do agree our current cable programming has led to a significant increase in polarization, but the cable programming would have been exempt from the FD even if it still existed.

The change started in radio with Rush Limbaugh. Cable “news” came later. 

[Sneezyone]

I’m probably rambling but just to re-center, is all of this stuff (limiting what people can learn) who we are, have always been, and if not…how do we change course? If these problems are indicative of minority/authoritarian rule, how do we combat it?

[Sneezyone]

2 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

I can tell you that in my state a character asking another if they want to play after school and the character saying “I’ll ask my moms” is enough to get a book restricted from classroom libraries in some districts. One of the books I reviewed so it could be listed was a kid who moved to Area 51 and went to school with alien kids-one of which was a shapeshifter who had no fixed gender. 
 

Maus and Anne Frank are restricted. So are many, many books about slavery, civil rights or reconstruction. 
 

It’s terrifying for teachers, and I truly don’t think parents know how much is being taken away from their kids.

My son loved Maus and Persepolis. He tried to donate the latter series to his middle school and they refused it.

[Kidlit]

2 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

I don't like interference in librarian professionalism. 

It's up to.librarians to cleave very closely to their role as curators of collections in ways that meet the needs of a diverse public. 

They need to provide reliable information, broaden horizons through texts, allow access to a variety of sources, meet public need, create reading habits and love of books/texts, promote self education, love of knowledge and life long learning. 

That's their activism. It's a deeply humanistic role. 

Leave them to it. 

(Not all librarians agree with performing a humanistic role - that's sad, imo. All librarians will introduce bias during curation, and they, like other professionals, need to exercise regular self reflection). 

 

Hear, hear.  

[kokotg]

15 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

I’m probably rambling but just to re-center, is all of this stuff (limiting what people can learn) who we are, have always been, and if not…how do we change course? If these problems are indicative of minority/authoritarian rule, how do we combat it?

I think it's who we've...often been? Like I think it's worse right now than it's been in awhile, but there was McCarthyism. There were the Alien and Sedition Acts back when the ink was still drying on the First Amendment. So I think there's always been a tension between free speech and attempts to stifle it (and shifting ideas about the limits of free speech). 

[Heartstrings]

22 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

I’m probably rambling but just to re-center, is all of this stuff (limiting what people can learn) who we are, have always been, and if not…how do we change course? If these problems are indicative of minority/authoritarian rule, how do we combat it?

I think it is who we are, at least in a general sense.  All of our steps towards inclusivity have been hard fought and barely won, each one almost a quirk of history that almost didn’t happen if some little thing had gone a different way.  
 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Heartstrings

[AnotherNewName]

3 hours ago, Katy said:

The change started in radio with Rush Limbaugh. Cable “news” came later. 

But again, the FD didn't do what you seem to think it did.  It did not prevent programming like Limbaugh.

[Faith-manor]

4 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

I can tell you that in my state a character asking another if they want to play after school and the character saying “I’ll ask my moms” is enough to get a book restricted from classroom libraries in some districts. One of the books I reviewed so it could be listed was a kid who moved to Area 51 and went to school with alien kids-one of which was a shapeshifter who had no fixed gender. 
 

Maus and Anne Frank are restricted. So are many, many books about slavery, civil rights or reconstruction. 
 

It’s terrifying for teachers, and I truly don’t think parents know how much is being taken away from their kids.

Many parents do not care what their kids are losing educationally just so long as their fascist perspective is the only "valid" viewpoint in any book, play, poem, their kid encounters. It is very disturbing.

 

[prairiewindmomma]

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

I think it is who we are, at least in a general sense.  All of our steps towards inclusivity have been hard fought and barely won, each one almost a quirk of history that almost didn’t happen if some little thing had gone a different way.  
 

And, generally after some movement forward, there is a rebound push-back. 2 steps forward, one step back and all that. To some degree, I think our current circumstances are reflective of that. We moved forward in talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion and regressives aren't happy about it.

[Heartstrings]

30 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Many parents do not care what their kids are losing educationally just so long as their fascist perspective is the only "valid" viewpoint in any book, play, poem, their kid encounters. It is very disturbing.

 

It helps that so many of them are thoroughly convinced that education is just “indoctrination” and that they don’t really want any of that for themselves or their children.  

[KidsHappen]

12 hours ago, AmandaVT said:

We had a group of students at the school I work at request and create a small LBGTQ display in our library. Our school board got wind of it and forced the librarian to take it down because "where is the straight section?" 

Literally everywhere else. 🙄

[KidsHappen]

12 hours ago, maize said:

I don't know how we would go about creating a common foundational knowledge core for history and literature. We live in a diverse, pluralistic society. History is narrative, point-of-view, story telling. How do you go about establishing a compilation that would be accepted by the multiple points of view?

We start by telling the truth, the actual facts of history - the who, what, where and when. This action/situation occurred at such and such place at such and such time involving these people. Then maybe present both POVs regarding why something happened. This seems like the most basic place to start. 

[Sneezyone]

4 hours ago, KidsHappen said:

We start by telling the truth, the actual facts of history - the who, what, where and when. This action/situation occurred at such and such place at such and such time involving these people. Then maybe present both POVs regarding why something happened. This seems like the most basic place to start. 

This is how silver lining chattel slavery happens tho. There aren’t two sides to everything.

[Amira]

I don’t have any ideas for large-scale shifts in how we talk about our national history, but if we start telling our own family and community histories differently, that would help to shift broader narratives. 

For example, most national, community, and family stories ignore the violence that white people, including their ancestors, directed toward Native Americans. My ancestors were part of that. Maybe they weren’t shooting anyone (although my husband’s ancestors were), but at the very least they got practically free land in the western US when they immigrated in the 1870s.  Except it wasn’t free since it had very recently been violently taken from the Shoshone nation. What if we actually told those stories too, in family and community histories?  Not just mentioned them, but really were aware that they happened?  And listened to the family and community stories of the people whose nations and lives were destroyed? And listened to the stories of their descendants who are just as much part of the US?

Or what about slavery?  My ancestors mostly arrived after the Civil War ended and my religious/ethnic community mostly didn’t participate in the practice of slavery.  Dh’s ancestors did, but his family stories don’t talk about that.  In one branch of the family, I’ve found the names of over 100 people who were enslaved by his ancestors (and many more who were unnamed). These weren’t huge plantation owners, but small-scale enslavers who usually enslaved fewer than 10 people who were usually related to each other (and were, in every single case, separated from their family members at some point).  If dh only knows the “good” stories about his ancestors and doesn’t know the “bad” stories, he doesn’t really know his history and he’s less likely to care about the stories of people who 

Every white American has to deal with the legacy of violence that was directed toward Native American nations.  All of our stories are based on that. For many white Americans, our stories are based on or influenced by our history of enslavement.

Starting from the ground up to change the narrative, rather than trying to work from the top down, could help people hear and accept new stories.

 

 

[DawnM]

18 hours ago, PaxEtLux said:

I'm outside the public school system, so there's mountains I don't understand, and I certainly sympathize with these teachers.

But I am shocked that we ask each of these individual teachers to do so much work to come up with assignments, reading lists etc., on their own, when it could be shared between all the teachers of the same subject across the district or state or even AP.  It reminds me of the scandals we hear, seemingly yearly, about classes holding a "slave auction" or writing essays with questionable prompts that came from a "teachers pay teachers" web site.  Why are the teachers creating this material on their own?  Why can't the district/State/whatever provide a set of, say, 30 books for 10th grade English teachers could choose from, and a bunch of essay prompts for each of those?

It reminds me of our situation with the IRS, where the IRS knows how much tax we should owe, but never tells us outright -- they ask us to compute our tax, and if we compute too low a number, we get in trouble.

This is a side note, but I took 10 years off to homeschool and raise my older kids, and when I returned to public education it was literally not the same job I left.  Some of that may be the transition from CA to NC, but part of it was just a total shift in education in general.

• Everything became rote and forced.  
• Teacher autonomy and creativity were thwarted.  
• Parents got overly involved.   Not to come in and help mind you, just being a back seat driver and complaining about everything.  
• Tests became the end all be all to mark student and school success.  
• Joking and such have become "triggering" even if it isn't something offensive
• Essentials that I believe every child should leave school knowing, were deemed unimportant.   Just look at the folks doing social media questions on the streets of our country.   Young folks can't even answer basic questions.  
• None of this is good for kids and education, none of it.

[KidsHappen]

53 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

This is how silver lining chattel slavery happens tho. There aren’t two sides to everything.

But certainly bringing this to light by telling the truth allows us to call BS on these kinds of ideas? And having people publicly speak these excuses allows us to call them out and expose their nonsense for what it is? At least that is what I would hope for.