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

[Heartstrings]

33 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

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.

Except that we know that having people repeat lies on tv, etc. just gets more people to believe them.  The more the lies get called out, the more dug in people get in believing them.    Having someone on TV talking about how slavery was wonderful and slaves were happy will just get more people to believe it. 
 

Sometimes the truth is just ugly.  The truth was enough people at the time thought it was, for cultural, historical reasons, but it was never ok.  It was always evil.  It’s ok to look at evil and call it evil.  

Edited August 7, 2023 by Heartstrings

[DawnM]

5 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. 

 

29 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

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.

Not in Florida.   And I am going to go do some digging, but the man who touted that the slaves gained benefits from being slaves has some serious allegations that were levied against him.   

[KidsHappen]

16 minutes ago, DawnM said:

 

Not in Florida.   And I am going to go do some digging, but the man who touted that the slaves gained benefits from being slaves has some serious allegations that were levied against him.   

Yeah, and there are tons of articles out there right now speaking out against that idea and Gov. DeSantis for backing it. Just search FL slavery silver linings. 

This is just the first article I read: https://www.charlottedems.com/floridas-silver-linings-guide-to-slavery/

That same article was published in The Boston Globe.

Edited August 7, 2023 by KidsHappen

[KidsHappen]

36 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Sometimes the truth is just ugly.  The truth was enough people at the time thought it was, for cultural, historical reasons, but it was never ok.  It was always evil.  It’s ok to look at evil and call it evil.  

I totally agree with this that is why I said we need to start by telling the truth.

[Heartstrings]

3 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

I totally agree with this that is why I said we need to start by telling the truth.

Which gets us to the very heart of the issue.  As a country we do not agree on the truth.  

[KidsHappen]

4 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Which gets us to the very heart of the issue.  As a country we do not agree on the truth.  

Which leads me back to my original statement that we start with the verifiable facts and then proceed from there. The discussion has to start somewhere and it seems to me that the facts are the best place to start. I don't really see any other way. Clearly the whitewashing and gaslighting are continuing unabated. If we let that stand without countering then many people will assume it is true because no one argued that it wasn't. If there is a better way I am open to suggestions and eager to learn. 

[Carrie12345]

20 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Which gets us to the very heart of the issue.  As a country we do not agree on the truth.  

I’d say that, more specifically, we as a country don’t agree on the definition of the word truth. This idea that opinions are facts is so incomprehensible to me, and yet that is what so many are standing on.

[maize]

I don't think that countering people's narratives by telling them how wrong they are moves us in a positive direction.

I think we have to let multiple narratives co-exist. I don't think the path forward is going to be deciding on one homogenous narrative--short of Chinese-government level of control over information dissemination, that's never going to happen. And I'm entirely opposed to imitating the Chinese government. 

I think people can learn from exposure to narratives beyond those of their own family and group,  but in a pluralistic society there will be a multitude of narratives with frequent disagreements among them.

Mutual respect includes allowing for wrongness of opinion by whatever standard I am judging. 

Difficulty 1: learning to live as a larger society with a multiplicity of sub-narratives and cultures, learning to be active in promoting things that are important to us without acting out antagonistically and judgmentally towards those we disagree with.

Difficulty 2: finding something to unite us across this plurality of cultures and viewpoints.

A commitment to plurality and diversity and liberality of thought and belief could be part of 2.

Edited August 7, 2023 by maize

[KungFuPanda]

I don’t understand how these book-ban-happy politicians can apply their standards and avoid admitting that they’ve just banned the Bible. It seems that there’s be some backlash from their voter base. Abraham can have three wives but Heather can’t have two mommies? The argument around that would be interesting. 
 

I’m also at the point where when I hear “being woke” used as an insult I just deduct IQ points in my head. People who say things like that tend to back a christian sharia law because they believe we’d all be better off if we were more like them. They refuse to see the hate in that. 

[Katy]

13 hours 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 see two methods. One involves designing a curriculum that incorporates everything you want, but make it with enough broad appeal that it could be widely adapted. And another involves media such as YouTube. 

[maize]

Since people keep bringing up Florida, I'm going to suggest that *letting Florida deal with Florida* may well be part of the answer. Federalism rather than centralism. Pluralism rather than national uniformity.

Here's a sociologist's definition of federalism:

"Federalism is a system in which pluralism is accommodated because governing principles vary from place to place."

Maybe we shouldn't be aiming for an ideal of across-the-board correct-thinking or correct-legislating. That is exactly what is not possible in a pluralistic society since perceptions of correct aren't all the same.

The best path forward might in fact be to let Florida (or California, or Massachussetts, or Arizona) be wrong.

To embrace that as part of our national identity--cousins squabble and disagree,  and that's OK. We're family.

I realize this makes no-one happy. I suspect that any path forward that does not start and end with broadly liberal conceptions of what individuals and groups and governing bodies can reasonably think and do is doomed to unproductive, antagonistic polarization.

[Heartstrings]

13 minutes ago, maize said:

Since people keep bringing up Florida, I'm going to suggest that *letting Florida deal with Florida* may well be part of the answer. Federalism rather than centralism. Pluralism rather than national uniformity.

Here's a sociologist's definition of federalism:

"Federalism is a system in which pluralism is accommodated because governing principles vary from place to place."

Maybe we shouldn't be aiming for an ideal of across-the-board correct-thinking or correct-legislating. That is exactly what is not possible in a pluralistic society since perceptions of correct aren't all the same.

The best path forward might in fact be to let Florida (or California, or Massachussetts, or Arizona) be wrong.

To embrace that as part of our national identity--cousins squabble and disagree,  and that's OK. We're family.

I realize this makes no-one happy. I suspect that any path forward that does not start and end with broadly liberal conceptions of what individuals and groups and governing bodies can reasonably think and do is doomed to unproductive, antagonistic polarization.

If it was just Florida, but Florida just gets the most attention.   As Florida goes, so goes the rest of the South.    It’s not a cousins squabble when it’s my state government, several states away from Florida.  
 

 

[skimomma]

20 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

After reading The Sum of Us by Heather McGee (about how racism affects all of us) and also What’s Wrong with Kansas , 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 think most people agree that x rated materials don’t belong in school libraries and most people agree that parents should have some influence in schools (the two defenses that always come up when book banning comes up). But, if you follow the funding dollars behind the candidates and organizations pushing for book bans, it’s pretty clear that there is a National push from a few key conservative think tanks to do this. It’s part of a coordinated push by those same organizations to place judiciaries, fund certain candidates, etc. 

I just finished reading The Sum of Us last night and I completely agree with this.  I also think everyone should read that book.  But most won't.

[PaxEtLux]

2 hours ago, DawnM said:

Teacher autonomy and creativity were thwarted.  

 

As I said in my first post, I'm outside the public school system. But what I see, and what others on this thread say, is that many (most ?) teachers seem free to create their own custom curricular materials, or grab any from the millions of web sites, paid or free, or show any youtube videos they can find.  So, teachers seem to have a tremendous amount of autonomy in this regard.  Is this what you see in your new role?

It easy to get upset about Shakespeare and other materials being removed from the classroom, but I'm more interested in who decides which books are read in a classroom. I don't think that should be the state legislature or governor, but I'm not sure it should be down to the individual classroom teachers, either.  If a school has four English 10 classes, should each be reading completely different texts?

And I think it is particularly cruel to teachers to threaten them with loss of employment (or worse) if they select the "wrong" material, without giving them any serious guidance on what is "wrong" or "right".

[maize]

24 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

If it was just Florida, but Florida just gets the most attention.   As Florida goes, so goes the rest of the South.    It’s not a cousins squabble when it’s my state government, several states away from Florida.  
 

 

Some states do wield out-sized influence.

Maybe we need to break the larger (by population) states into multiple smaller states for pluralistic federalism to work.

 

[Pam in CT]

re re-centering around The Question

13 hours 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?

 

12 hours 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 each step forward provoked furious backlash that then set us back at least half a step back.]...

10 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

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.

(100% stealing that language as my one, TY)

 

 

re how to start this round, there will be other rounds to come...

7 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. 

v

2 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

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

As often happens on these boards, I agree with both of you.

 

It is true that there aren't two sides to everything. The Vice President was wholly correct to refuse to debate the silver lining to slavery with the Governor who laid down the challenge to do so.  Similarly, Holocaust deniers in academic halls and on these very boards.  Trolls are trolls are trolls, and trolls don't deserve food.

But.  (Wading in with great trepidation here on my dear imaginary friend's thread.)

 

It is also true that multiple storylines live side by side within every interval of history; and getting to a shared story entails developing the capacity -- it's a muscle -- to hold two, three, four and more storylines at the same time.  Even when they pull in different directions.

• It is true that George Washington led the ragtag band that implausibly defeated the strongest military in the world. It is true that George Washington could have remained President for Life, but freely chose to transfer power peacefully so that the nation could actually become the democracy envisioned in the founding documents over whose drafting he ovesaw. It is also true that George Washington not only owned hundreds of slaves, but also is known to have vigorously pursued the re-capture of not just one, but at least two, enslaved people with precisely the types of skills that the Governor speaks who escaped after he brought them into Philadelphia where slavery had already been abolished.
• It is true that Thomas Jefferson's deep understanding of the Enlightenment ideals, and also the messy compromises of IRL governance, enabled him to envision the separation of powers that has been the foundation of our founding document. It is also true that he too not only owned hundreds of slaves, but also repeatedly raped at least one of them, and permitted his own children to live their whole lives enslaved albeit with less harsh physical labor and  more "silver lining" education and training than many others.
• It is true that the White House is a national symbol of our democracy, studded with physical objects enshrining our history and the locus of both the pageantry of state dinners and also of ordinary public moments like the Easter egg roll. It is also true that the White House was built with enslaved labor.
• It is true that Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase enabled a hardcrabble coastal scrap of mostly-lousy land to launch its trajectory into a global superpower.  It is also true that that trajectory was littered with the violent displacement and outright murder of native people. And thereafter the functional enslavement of railroad laborers from China who built from the west in, and then after the backlash-driven Chinese Exclusion Act from Mexico who built from the south up.

And that is just a smattering of our national origin story; similarly parallel dual- and triple- and multiple-strand truths exist side by side throughout every era of our history, straight up through today.

And elsewhere, in... well, everywhere in the world at every interval of history, more or less.

The laying out of those multiple strands, side by side, isn't -- quite -- silver lining wishcasting.  It's not denial or suppression of hard truths.

It is, rather, an attempt to widen the storyline to include the hard truths. 

Not an either/or exercise with two "sides"; but an effort to widen the lens of the narration of our shared history, to this/and also this/and also this.

 

 

[DawnM]

19 minutes ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

As I said in my first post, I'm outside the public school system. But what I see, and what others on this thread say, is that many (most ?) teachers seem free to create their own custom curricular materials, or grab any from the millions of web sites, paid or free, or show any youtube videos they can find.  So, teachers seem to have a tremendous amount of autonomy in this regard.  Is this what you see in your new role?

It easy to get upset about Shakespeare and other materials being removed from the classroom, but I'm more interested in who decides which books are read in a classroom. I don't think that should be the state legislature or governor, but I'm not sure it should be down to the individual classroom teachers, either.  If a school has four English 10 classes, should each be reading completely different texts?

And I think it is particularly cruel to teachers to threaten them with loss of employment (or worse) if they select the "wrong" material, without giving them any serious guidance on what is "wrong" or "right".

We do not have that kind of autonomy here.  It has nothing to do with my specific role, it has to do with the core classes.   Day 1 you teach X, Day 2, you teach Y, Day 3, you teach Z.   Not a whole lot of autonomy there, but yes, they still want to see your lesson plans.

Who decides here are district heads, but they have to stay within some very specific guidelines.   As to books, there have been some banned here, but we are not nearly as bad as Florida, where the governor is a.......well, let's just stop there.

[Heartstrings]

17 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

he laying out of those multiple strands, side by side, isn't -- quite -- silver lining wishcasting.  It's not denial or suppression of hard truths.

It is, rather, an attempt to widen the storyline to include the hard truths. 

Not an either/or exercise with two "sides"; but an effort to widen the lens of the narration of our shared history, to this/and also this/and also this.

I do think the answer is in “this” somewhere.  Teaching fairy tales about near perfect men, hand chosen by God to …yada yada ….sets people up with a childish view of history.  It’s ok to say that Washington did great things, and did terrible things, like every other leader in human history, but a lot of people fall apart over that.  Treating first grade history tales as the whole truth, elevated close to scripture, is part of the problem.  

But how to convince people in power that they were taught fairy tales and that history was actually more complex, when they really, really want to stick to their fairy tales?  Especially when the fairy tales they desperately cling too reinforce their political ideals and keep them in power?  Objective truth won’t  change their minds.  Countering “The civil war was fought for states right, nothing to do with slavery” with “Here is the constitution of the confederacy, saying clearly it was about slavery, right here in the first paragraph”  is met with “la la la, I can’t hear you”, Im not sure where we go from there. 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Heartstrings

[Longtime Lurker]

22 hours ago, wendyroo said:

That is not at all how math is taught in local high schools here anymore. It is all PowerPoint presentations and projects, group work, even group tests. Most of the resources are cobbled together from teachers pay teachers. If students have access to a text book it is typically digital instead of print. 

I thought I should chime in since I am in a neighboring county to you, I think it must vary greatly from one school district to another. The school where I work, and the school where my daughter is a high school math teacher, does use textbooks. Typically, the students have digital access also since they do not like to lug the textbooks home. They do not have presentations or projects in most math classes (they did have some in AP stats) and they don't have group tests either. Group assignments are rare but do happen occasionally, more typically in the upper level/AP classes. As a former math teacher myself (I stopped teaching to care for my son with special needs), I have been very, very impressed. 

[Amira]

10 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

And that is just a smattering of our national origin story; similarly parallel dual- and triple- and multiple-strand truths exist side by side throughout every era of our history, straight up through today.

And elsewhere, in... well, everywhere in the world at every interval of history, more or less.

The laying out of those multiple strands, side by side, isn't -- quite -- silver lining wishcasting.  It's not denial or suppression of hard truths.

It is, rather, an attempt to widen the storyline to include the hard truths. 

Not an either/or exercise with two "sides"; but an effort to widen the lens of the narration of our shared history, to this/and also this/and also this.

No, it's not wishcasting.  But to me, a goal to now lay out the strands more equally doesn't necessarily promote healing from past trauma and violence.  It's certainly better than what we've been doing, and it's not just "both sides," but it's not enough.

Yes, Thomas Jefferson was many things, good and bad. But most of our history has been spent talking about the good and actively suppressing the bad. I don't think it's enough to simply add in  strands about Sally Hemings or James Hemings to Jefferson's life.  That helps, but because there is so much momentum behind the "good" narratives, I think we need to spend more time on the difficult narratives to make sure they actually are getting the attention they deserve. 

It's not something we'll ever be done with.  The "both sides" thing pushes the idea that if you tell two sides, then you're done.  Multiple strands takes more work, but it also can come with the idea that it can be finished if you add in a few more hard stories.  

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, just thinking through what Sneezy's words and your words feels like to me.  

(Also thinking about the historical site I visited yesterday with lots of interpretative signs.  There are now a few signs that talk explicitly about the people who were enslaved at the site.  Their work built and maintained the place for over 60 years.  The interpretation is not a both sides things at all, and they have worked to widen the storyline. But most of the signs and interpretation are still about the white people who lived there even though most of the people who lived there were not white.  One of the three signs mentioning people who were enslaved used a drawing that was very stereotypical.   More strands are there, but the white narrative still dominates.)

[SKL]

2 hours ago, KidsHappen said:

I totally agree with this that is why I said we need to start by telling the truth.

I think this is an interesting and refreshing perspective (each family telling its own truth to its children).  However, I think most Americans have limited access to their family history.

I also think that it needs to be done in a developmentally appropriate way.  If introduced at too young an age, or without proper context, the child's mind will process it as "my ancestors did this, so it must have been OK."

I also think it should apply to people of all colors and classes, as we've all contributed to the good and the bad, if we're honest.

Is there a guide anywhere for how to approach this as kids grow?

[Heartstrings]

8 minutes ago, SKL said:

I think this is an interesting and refreshing perspective (each family telling its own truth to its children).  However, I think most Americans have limited access to their family history.

I also think that it needs to be done in a developmentally appropriate way.  If introduced at too young an age, or without proper context, the child's mind will process it as "my ancestors did this, so it must have been OK."

I also think it should apply to people of all colors and classes, as we've all contributed to the good and the bad, if we're honest.

Is there a guide anywhere for how to approach this as kids grow?

Can you say more about why the focus needs to be on family history?   

[SKL]

Just now, Heartstrings said:

Can you say more about why the focus needs to be on family history?   

I was building off KidsHappen's previous post (or intending to).

[SKL]

I agree that it would be good if we could do a better job of teaching "the good, the bad, and the ugly" without minimizing any of them.

One thought would be to have a section in each history textbook chapter that discusses the areas for improvement at that time and place.

[aggie96]

3 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

If it was just Florida, but Florida just gets the most attention.   As Florida goes, so goes the rest of the South.    It’s not a cousins squabble when it’s my state government, several states away from Florida.  
 

 

Agreed. Texas has lost its collective mind. And it is going under the radar. Absolutely out of control even for it's own citizens. 😞 Book censorship/banning/selection sounds like mere child's play compared to what's happening in education here from K through public university. It's extremely upsetting.

Edited August 7, 2023 by aggie96
Wrong possessive used. I know better. Grrrr.

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

I think this is an interesting and refreshing perspective (each family telling its own truth to its children).  However, I think most Americans have limited access to their family history.

I also think that it needs to be done in a developmentally appropriate way.  If introduced at too young an age, or without proper context, the child's mind will process it as "my ancestors did this, so it must have been OK."

I also think it should apply to people of all colors and classes, as we've all contributed to the good and the bad, if we're honest.

Is there a guide anywhere for how to approach this as kids grow?

Is it really that hard though? And I mean hard, I don’t mean simply uncomfortable. Grandpa says racist things, and that’s not okay. Uncle Bob is an alcoholic, and that’s unhealthy and dangerous. Aunt Jane’s husband was abusive, and that’s bad. Our ancestors owned slaves, and that was horribly inhumane. Our relatives “bought” most of northern NJ from the native people for mere trinkets (true story in my case) and that was deeply wrong.

My kids have never shown confusion about the bad things in our family history. Now, had i painted our history as no big deal, perhaps I could have gaslighted them into seeing it differently.

[Idalou]

26 minutes ago, aggie96 said:

Agreed. Texas has lost it's collective mind. And it is going under the radar. Absolutely out of control even for it's own citizens. 😞 Book censorship/banning/selection sounds like mere child's play compared to what's happening in education here from K through public university. It's extremely upsetting.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/texas-am-kathleen-mcelroy-investigation-explained-18279212.php

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/02/texas-dan-patrick-tamu-professor/

 TX its making it clear what they want the state to be. They should have the guts to call themselves what they are. Regressives.

[Faith-manor]

3 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

I don’t understand how these book-ban-happy politicians can apply their standards and avoid admitting that they’ve just banned the Bible. It seems that there’s be some backlash from their voter base. Abraham can have three wives but Heather can’t have two mommies? The argument around that would be interesting. 
 

I’m also at the point where when I hear “being woke” used as an insult I just deduct IQ points in my head. People who say things like that tend to back a christian sharia law because they believe we’d all be better off if we were more like them. They refuse to see the hate in that. 

There are several school districts that have banned the Bible now because Karma. It isn't like that compilation of books is without obscene, violent, genocidal, disturbing content. 

The school district here has warned parents if they start going crazy on the book ban thing for the school libraries, they will ban Bibles from the buildings and grounds, punish kids for bringing them to school. The local Baptist church that produced the pastor who went bananas at the township library, got a little butt hurt about it. I just stood up and said, "Follow your own book. You reap what you sow." They piped down. It didn't occur to them that they could ever be on the receiving end of their own cattle prod. This is very frustrating because I am going to be totally honest here, when I was a child, this was not how the local Christian community, regardless of the denomination, acted. They were much more concerned with feeding people, clothing people, helping people, and being gracious and compassionate than they were about militantly forcing their beliefs on others. It is a heart breaking mess to see.

 

[pinball]

17 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

The school district here has warned parents if they start going crazy on the book ban thing for the school libraries, they will ban Bibles from the buildings and grounds, punish kids for bringing them to school.

Oh, please….😂

😂😂😂

[aggie96]

41 minutes ago, Idalou said:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/texas-am-kathleen-mcelroy-investigation-explained-18279212.php

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/02/texas-dan-patrick-tamu-professor/

 TX its making it clear what they want the state to be. They should have the guts to call themselves what they are. Regressives.

Agreed. And I'm a very proud Aggie. And I just left my daughter there to start school. And my son has his sights set on there. I am just heart sick. As are many other Aggies. The Texas Tribune is doing a great job exposing all the hush hush underpinnings of this.

[Happy2BaMom]

20 hours ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

As I said in my first post, I'm outside the public school system. But what I see, and what others on this thread say, is that many (most ?) teachers seem free to create their own custom curricular materials, or grab any from the millions of web sites, paid or free, or show any youtube videos they can find.  So, teachers seem to have a tremendous amount of autonomy in this regard.  Is this what you see in your new role?

It easy to get upset about Shakespeare and other materials being removed from the classroom, but I'm more interested in who decides which books are read in a classroom. I don't think that should be the state legislature or governor, but I'm not sure it should be down to the individual classroom teachers, either.  If a school has four English 10 classes, should each be reading completely different texts?

And I think it is particularly cruel to teachers to threaten them with loss of employment (or worse) if they select the "wrong" material, without giving them any serious guidance on what is "wrong" or "right".

Curriculum is not a lesson plan, and educational standards are not curriculum(ae). Teachers can still follow state & district guidelines, and/or curriculum, while choosing lesson plans that better meets the needs of their students. Lesson plans have objectives and goals which relate to what the state has decided needs to be covered for each grade. They're not chosen out of the wild, as you seem to think. *However*, many districts now *require* (under risk of termination) that teachers *only* read directly from the selected curriculum, regardless of how that may work - or not - for each classroom of kids.  How much each individual teacher decides to conform to that strict of a straightjacket depends upon many factors. Many now are giving it up entirely.

Different teachers can teach the same English 10 class, which selecting different literature, particularly in high school, and still reach the same objectives.

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Happy2BaMom
grammar, clarity

[kokotg]

5 hours ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

As I said in my first post, I'm outside the public school system. But what I see, and what others on this thread say, is that many (most ?) teachers seem free to create their own custom curricular materials, or grab any from the millions of web sites, paid or free, or show any youtube videos they can find.  So, teachers seem to have a tremendous amount of autonomy in this regard.  Is this what you see in your new role?

It easy to get upset about Shakespeare and other materials being removed from the classroom, but I'm more interested in who decides which books are read in a classroom. I don't think that should be the state legislature or governor, but I'm not sure it should be down to the individual classroom teachers, either.  If a school has four English 10 classes, should each be reading completely different texts?

And I think it is particularly cruel to teachers to threaten them with loss of employment (or worse) if they select the "wrong" material, without giving them any serious guidance on what is "wrong" or "right".

Honestly, this seems like a completely different discussion; the stated point of current legislation in Florida and elsewhere isn't to create a common curriculum so that all 10th graders are learning the same thing (remember Common Core? That WAS the point of that, and it definitely wasn't embraced by conservatives). Would it be nice if there were a common body of literature that we could expect everyone would have read by the time they graduated from high school? Maybe? I don't think it's necessary, and in some ways I think the fact that we don't is reflective of what a wonderful variety of excellent texts we have to choose from rather than the narrower canon that generations past had to work with. But, at any rate, that's NOT the goal of current legislation. So do I think it would be better for teachers or students if teachers were given a narrow list of acceptable texts that carefully avoided all mention of racism or sexuality or religion? No. If you want to talk about how we create a modern literary canon that takes into account the full range of human experience and ensures wide representation across cultural and racial and gender lines, then that's an interesting conversation. But it's not the one that's happening right now in the US. If you want to cut lots of people back out of the canon in an effort to ensure that no one is ever made uncomfortable (and when we say "no one" in that context, we mean no straight, white, middle class, Christian kids), then I'm not interested. 

[MercyA]

On 8/6/2023 at 4:23 PM, Faith-manor said:

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.

Yes. Brave Books also sells a children's picture book called Fame, Blame, and the Raft of Shame. It is described on their website: "In Dan Crenshaw's book 'Fame, Blame, and the Raft of Shame,' BRAVE Books and Dan Crenshaw explore cancel culture and the effect it has on society. While today's culture presents canceling others’ opinions as the solution to their problems, they don’t realize that a culture of canceling eventually cancels culture entirely."

Hmmmmm. Who is wanting to censor education in this country? I literally cannot understand the cognitive dissonance. 

[AmandaVT]

15 hours ago, KidsHappen said:

Literally everywhere else. 🙄

Exactly. I was watching the board meeting online and DH was in the room. He was stunned and just yelled, "it's the WHOLE library!!!"

[Sneezyone]

8 hours ago, maize said:

Since people keep bringing up Florida, I'm going to suggest that *letting Florida deal with Florida* may well be part of the answer. Federalism rather than centralism. Pluralism rather than national uniformity.

Here's a sociologist's definition of federalism:

"Federalism is a system in which pluralism is accommodated because governing principles vary from place to place."

Maybe we shouldn't be aiming for an ideal of across-the-board correct-thinking or correct-legislating. That is exactly what is not possible in a pluralistic society since perceptions of correct aren't all the same.

The best path forward might in fact be to let Florida (or California, or Massachussetts, or Arizona) be wrong.

To embrace that as part of our national identity--cousins squabble and disagree,  and that's OK. We're family.

I realize this makes no-one happy. I suspect that any path forward that does not start and end with broadly liberal conceptions of what individuals and groups and governing bodies can reasonably think and do is doomed to unproductive, antagonistic polarization.

The issue for me, with this, is that there are MAJOR military bases there. Those who serve, wherever they're called to go, can't choose which values they are subject to. If their families choose not to follow, and many will make that choice, we will have a recruitment issue that only a draft will solve.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

7 hours ago, skimomma said:

I just finished reading The Sum of Us last night and I completely agree with this.  I also think everyone should read that book.  But most won't.

TY SO MUCH FOR READING! It's a great book!

[Sneezyone]

4 hours ago, aggie96 said:

Agreed. And I'm a very proud Aggie. And I just left my daughter there to start school. And my son has his sights set on there. I am just heart sick. As are many other Aggies. The Texas Tribune is doing a great job exposing all the hush hush underpinnings of this.

TA&M is a source of guidance for folks who HIGHLY esteem/VA Tech and VMI, and not in a positive way. I had a full ride there and didn't go. I feel validated. This isn't OK.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Sneezyone

[City Mouse]

Every time we have one of these discussions, it makes me remember a line from a tv show.
 

I don’t remember the name of the show, but it was a post-apocalyptic series where the electricity just went off one day and never came back on. My DH used watch it regularly, and I would catch bit of it. This particular episode was in the last season.

The “good guys” had kidnapped a “bad guy” politician from the new country of Texas. When they are questioning him, one of the “good guys” ask something like “Why don’t you just tell people the truth?” The politician responded with “Son, people don’t want you to tell ‘em the truth. They want you to tell ‘em what they want to hear.” 
 

I think this statement really sums up a lot of what has been happening over the last few years.

[Sneezyone]

10 hours ago, maize said:

I don't think that countering people's narratives by telling them how wrong they are moves us in a positive direction.

I think we have to let multiple narratives co-exist. I don't think the path forward is going to be deciding on one homogenous narrative--short of Chinese-government level of control over information dissemination, that's never going to happen. And I'm entirely opposed to imitating the Chinese government. 

I think people can learn from exposure to narratives beyond those of their own family and group,  but in a pluralistic society there will be a multitude of narratives with frequent disagreements among them.

Mutual respect includes allowing for wrongness of opinion by whatever standard I am judging. 

Difficulty 1: learning to live as a larger society with a multiplicity of sub-narratives and cultures, learning to be active in promoting things that are important to us without acting out antagonistically and judgmentally towards those we disagree with.

Difficulty 2: finding something to unite us across this plurality of cultures and viewpoints.

A commitment to plurality and diversity and liberality of thought and belief could be part of 2.

To think we can ‘let’ them but not as part of accepted reality/discourse/instruction. Sigh.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Sneezyone

[TechWife]

On 8/6/2023 at 12:05 PM, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

… Books that deal with hard themes, but they gave my kids words to describe what they had seen and put some of it in context.  Sexually explicit at their ages? No, but books that just plainly deal with hard topics and themes, even if there is some profanity sprinkled in? Those books are so important to so many kids who’s lives contain hard things.

 

This is such an important advantage of reading widely. I was exposed to a lot of real world ideas and happenings and the books I had read gave be a framework to process them. 

[KidsHappen]

11 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

I’d say that, more specifically, we as a country don’t agree on the definition of the word truth. This idea that opinions are facts is so incomprehensible to me, and yet that is what so many are standing on.

Yes, I believe I have best heard this summed up by, "you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts".

[KidsHappen]

10 hours ago, maize said:

Since people keep bringing up Florida, I'm going to suggest that *letting Florida deal with Florida* may well be part of the answer. Federalism rather than centralism. Pluralism rather than national uniformity.

Here's a sociologist's definition of federalism:

"Federalism is a system in which pluralism is accommodated because governing principles vary from place to place."

Maybe we shouldn't be aiming for an ideal of across-the-board correct-thinking or correct-legislating. That is exactly what is not possible in a pluralistic society since perceptions of correct aren't all the same.

The best path forward might in fact be to let Florida (or California, or Massachussetts, or Arizona) be wrong.

To embrace that as part of our national identity--cousins squabble and disagree,  and that's OK. We're family.

I realize this makes no-one happy. I suspect that any path forward that does not start and end with broadly liberal conceptions of what individuals and groups and governing bodies can reasonably think and do is doomed to unproductive, antagonistic polarization.

One problem with letting Florida be Florida and Texas be Texas is that they are both large, rich, powerful states that have textbooks designed to meet their standards and then many other states end up using those same textbooks in their states. When my youngest two went to PS middle school here in TN all of their textbooks were the TX editions. So as someone else said as go these states so goes the south.My own state has gone from a great place to raise a family to a place where I am worried for our future here.

[Terabith]

The older I get, the more I realize that the history education I got in public schools from African American English and social studies teachers who were not under any federal guidelines of what to teach prepared me for the present day in ways I had no earthly idea at the time were unusual.  I find myself kinda unique among middle aged white women in my community that I'm not being forced to relearn history, because I grew up from kindergarten on knowing both the amazing skills and also horrific crimes of our founding fathers, and the way the struggle for civil rights didn't end the struggles for African Americans and how prison is modern day slavery, etc.  

[TechWife]

On 8/6/2023 at 3:10 PM, 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.  

I think this is important to think about on relation to @Sneezyone’s original question. There is a thin line between curation and control. I curated my son’s reading list when he was school age, meaning I picked specific books that I wanted to read to him or have him read, or, when he was older, the option to read. But, when we went to the library, he could check out anything that was developmentally  appropriate, as determined by me. So, control and choice lived side by side.

Now, however, it is about control and about making moral judgments of and for others. It isn’t even about education. 

This desire to control the narrative extends beyond high school and us influencing universities. It’s the majority white state government that takes over the majority black school system because it’s “underperforming,” yet there are majority white districts that are, statistically, worse off. It’s the state governors office who sends in hand picked leadership to remake a public university because it’s “woke,” though their few DEI efforts were actually mandated by the state. It’s the tier 1 state university that doesn’t offer tenure to a black author/researcher/professor who was awarded a chair, even though everyone who held that chair previously received tenure.

It’s true we don’t have a unified narrative  of our history. That’s primarily because a great deal of it has been hidden by the majority culture because some of it reflects badly on them.  History is also not told as a story, but as seemingly isolated facts w/o context. 

Overall,  education in the US has been struggling for generations. We have reached a point where we are reaping what we have sown. An example of this would be the group of school teachers who worked very sincerely and hard to determine how to best teach their students to read a few years ago. They did a good job figuring it out and ended up writing their own phonics curriculum, but they didn’t know that’s what they were doing, because they had never been taught phonics, themselves.

How are teachers to teach what they dint know? We don’t always know we have knowledge gaps until they are pointed out to us. Well, now they are being pointed out and not everyone likes to be told their knowledge is deficient in some way, especially when they are supposed to be experts of a sort. 

So, to the question- is this who we are? Yes, to the extent that It reflects the preferences of the people who vote (Electoral College excepted).

Is this who we want to be? - Probably not. It’s probably hard to survey people who aren’t registered to vote re: decisions elected officials make, though.

One of the best West Wing quotes from the character CJ Cregg, while speaking at a get out the vote style rally. “Decisions are made by those who show up.” Make sure everyone you know who qualifies to vote registers and votes. Do your own voter registration drive among your finds & family. Then, we must show up. Show up on Election Day. Show up at the town council meeting. Show up at public hearings about the proposed highway in your area. Yes, show up at school board meetings. Show up at the HOA meeting, the parish meeting, the cookout your neighbors invited you to. Listen to everyone who speaks very carefully and respectfully. Treat these meetings with the seriousness they deserve.  Ask questions. 

Why should we do these things? In the words of a homicide detective I follow on social media, Pat Skinner (he has awesome cats), “We all matter or none of us do.” If you matter, your neighbor matters. So, show up, for yourself and for your neighbors. 

Thank you or coming to my TED Talk. 

[Pam in CT]

re the capacity to hold multiple strands

9 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I do think the answer is in “this” somewhere.  Teaching fairy tales about near perfect men, hand chosen by God to …yada yada ….sets people up with a childish view of history.  It’s ok to say that Washington did great things, and did terrible things, like every other leader in human history, but a lot of people fall apart over that.  Treating first grade history tales as the whole truth, elevated close to scripture, is part of the problem.  

But how to convince people in power that they were taught fairy tales and that history was actually more complex, when they really, really want to stick to their fairy tales?  Especially when the fairy tales they desperately cling too reinforce their political ideals and keep them in power?  Objective truth won’t  change their minds.  Countering “The civil war was fought for states right, nothing to do with slavery” with “Here is the constitution of the confederacy, saying clearly it was about slavery, right here in the first paragraph”  is met with “la la la, I can’t hear you”, Im not sure where we go from there. 

It is interesting that you reach for the particular language in the bolded.

 

Our national culture -- by which I mean the culture embraced by our historical white Christian majority -- is an outlier on several key dimensions (one of which is our robust disinclination to GAF about how other societies approach problems that we also face, including apropos of this thread, education).

But the two cultural dimensions on which we are global outliers that to my mind most deeply pervade and explain our exceptionalist mythology and also our exceptional problems, are 1) our elevation of The Individual over any and all collective; and 2) our insistence on binary categories, with Good wholly clumped here and Evil wholly clumped over there.

Both dimensions seem to be.. rooted in?  amplified by?  find resonant audience in?  cynically instrumentalized by charismatic men to? a particular form of Christianity, insistent on binary caricatures of HEROIC and EVIL in this world and reserving redemption solely for the next.

 

It's a muscle, the capacity to hold multiple strands without getting tetchy or defensive or Outraged.  It can be modeled, practiced, developed, strengthened.

[TechWife]

2 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

…

But the two cultural dimensions on which we are global outliers that to my mind most deeply pervade and explain our exceptionalist mythology and also our exceptional problems, are 1) our elevation of The Individual over any and all collective;

Speaking to this. I’ve just started reading a book for background on a Bible study class I’m teaching in the fall. I’m only in chapter two so I haven’t seen all of this fleshed out yet. What I have learned is helping me to connect some dots.
Valuing the individual over the collective wasn’t common place in the US until after WWII. Before that, during the Industrial Revolution & Victorian era, there was a sense of social responsibility, resulting in action carried out mainly by women. Charity societies, visiting the sick & poor, providing food & clothing to those who needed it was a cultural  expectation for those who had the means to help. Literacy, advocating for child labor laws, suffrage, etc. were some of the initiatives spearheaded. During the depression people ran soup kitchens, shared what food they could  with the stranger that came to the back door (yes, not everyone did this, but it was common for those who were able to do it).  This came to an end after WW II. Families, especially women, were told it was more important for women to stay home and create a nurturing, healing atmosphere for their returning war veteran husbands. They left the work place having been told it was more important for the men to work and to temper their “independence and confidence” lest the men’s self confidence fall. Women were to stay home & raise kids & by the mid -50’s motherhood was “the most important job in the world.”

These ideas were promoted in books & in magazines like Harper’s Bazaar. 

So, in less than ten years, community action went from being integrated into the Am. way of life to being actively discouraged.  My next block of study time isn’t until Wednesday, and I’m looking forward to learning more. 

[Carol in Cal.]

4 hours ago, Terabith said:

The older I get, the more I realize that the history education I got in public schools from African American English and social studies teachers who were not under any federal guidelines of what to teach prepared me for the present day in ways I had no earthly idea at the time were unusual.  I find myself kinda unique among middle aged white women in my community that I'm not being forced to relearn history, because I grew up from kindergarten on knowing both the amazing skills and also horrific crimes of our founding fathers, and the way the struggle for civil rights didn't end the struggles for African Americans and how prison is modern day slavery, etc.  

I got this from my White teachers and Sunday School teachers at Lutheran schools, and from reading what my Black friends read as well.  Starting very early.  Plus we had old books around.  Like my grandmother’s Boppsey Twins books, in which the Black servants gave the girl twin a Black doll which at first she put with her other dolls but later moved down the shelf because it wasn’t really proper for them to be ‘friends’.  Casually assumed views like that were awfully common in popular children’s fiction of the 1910s.

[Carrie12345]

21 hours ago, skimomma said:

I just finished reading The Sum of Us last night and I completely agree with this.  I also think everyone should read that book.  But most won't.

 

14 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

TY SO MUCH FOR READING! It's a great book!

Does anyone know if the adapted version is worth it for a 16yo and a mature 12.5yo, or if the regular version is adequate?

[MercyA]

11 hours ago, KidsHappen said:

Yes, I believe I have best heard this summed up by, "you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts".

At the beginning of the pandemic, a COVID denier told my DH that "different people have different facts." And she meant it. 

Scary times.

[Katy]

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

 

Does anyone know if the adapted version is worth it for a 16yo and a mature 12.5yo, or if the regular version is adequate?

I haven’t read the books yet, but I generally find mature 7th graders can handle adult content with guidance. And I think this is why many faiths put joining as an adult in the early teen years.