These groups wanting to remove books are less than civil at these meetings. They also may not even be parents of children in the system- so this doesn’t really have to do with protecting their child. These are organized groups.
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Groups like the one that emailed the list of 58 books referenced by the OP - emailed to every single school district in Florida.
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Less than civil, it’s certainly possible. People aren’t always nice when expressing their strong opinions. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a voice. And even if they are NOT parents they still get a voice in how their taxes get spent. In our town, when citizens were deciding building a hugely expensive school everyone got a vote. It didn’t matter if they had 10 kids or no kids. Your voice and opinion isn’t dependent on having kids in the system. That’s not how the system works. Sure, parents are going to be the loudest voices because their kids are in the system from day to day.
I think what might rile some is that people are starting to get organized on both sides. Personally, I’d never join either side. I can voice my opinion and let others do the same. Far Left and Far right are too angry for my tastes.
I think the national conversation is getting less civil. YMMV.
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This is why it took so long for segregation to end. Majorities in the communities didn’t want it to go away. Doesn’t make it right. Heck, the whole Civil War was about giving all people equality even though majorities in certain areas didn’t want it and were willing to go to war over it.
The majority doesn’t get to exclude others. Public school is for everyone. No one should be made to feel lesser just because they have two moms/dads or don’t plan on keeping sex until after marriage. If a parent opts to send their kids there, they need to know that and respect it.
One way I would support to change out books being read in class is if enough parents pulled their kid from reading Book X. I would think if a teacher had 1/4 to 1/2 of the kids being pulled due to parental concerns, they’d select a different option. The book would still be around if others chose to read it on their own out of curiosity.
But for most of these bans, people aren’t even content with the book being in the library where kids will only read it if they want to.
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100% agree with this. What I have a problem with is when there are groups from not only outside the community, but even outside the state that are filing complaints and sending people to school board meetings because of their political agendas.
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I think you are really off topic talking about segregation in reference to banning books. It’s like talking about a random subject from 200 years ago and trying to tie it to your ideas.
Yep, and here again you are way off topic on various themes not related to book banning. And since public school is for everyone, then why is it ok for some to say if you don’t agree take your kid out. Maybe you’re not one of the folks supporting this. But this has been said in the thread and comes from the same logic, agree or be dismissed and banished because I say so. THat’s a no for me. I might not agree with your opinions, but I agree you have the right to voice them.
OK, so it’s your rule or nothing. But there’s nothing wrong with one person setting the rules? This is very confusing since you said you didn’t like the majority setting the tone.
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A community considering a new school building is completely different than a community deciding certain books can’t be in a school library because they don’t want anyone to be able to read them - or see certain pictures or similar.
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If anyone can’t see how my thoughts are connected, feel free to pm me and I’ll explain further once I see where you’re stuck. Otherwise, I think it’s perfectly clear to most reading.
ps Your emojis make me smile - reminds me of some of the high schoolers I’ve dealt with.
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Community decision making, spending of financial resources, laws (or school rules). How is it different? It’s only in the eyes of those who think the community has no say. In our town the public schools are run by the school committee. The same people who decide on curriculum also decide on the school building.
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In public school, you do have a choice to not have your child read a book and I would also assume not even enter the library with a class. There are solutions that give an individual parent control with in the public school system. Many more than most private schools, of which if you disagree, you would probably be told to leave.
ETA:The public school system can not force you to homeschool. It’s a suggestion for people who want to control every aspect or eliminate exposure to a topic a parent might disagree with.
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Sure, you have the right to a voice – you can come to a school board meeting and take a speaker’s card and have your say within the allotted time/rules. But no you don’t get a vote. That’s what the professionals are for. Parents are by and large neither professional educators nor curricular experts. We don’t govern schools by popular vote of the parents. That’s just not going to work in a public school system that has to educate all of a community’s children, and what these astroturfing orgs in Florida and elsewhere are doing is trying to knock great books off of lists for all kids. These aren’t local parents in a school district. They are organizations with a political goal.
I certainly support your right to tell the AP Lit teacher that your own child may not read “Beloved” or any other book within the curriculum because you deem it inappropriate (but are you going to do the same that next year when it’s on the reading list for their college American Lit class?), but I don’t want you – the proverbial you, not you specifically – having a vote in what experts set as policy and curriculum for my kid and the rest of the kids in my district.
Everyone these days likes to think they are an expert, and it’s en vogue to put down actual professionals. I don’t pretend to understand all of the research behind our state’s adoption of Common Core as its approach to teaching math. Yes it’s uncomfortable for me as a parent to think in a new way when I’m helping my youngest with her math homework. No I don’t always understand the materials, and I sigh and grumble like everyone else about why they can’t just “do it the old way like we all learned it.” But you know what? She is understanding and excelling at math in ways that her much older brother and sister didn’t. And I’m bowled over when she explains a problem to me, showing me exactly how she thought through it in 4 different ways to arrive at the answer. And she still learned her times tables fine. So I’m willing to grant the experts their due on this. Why would I ever think I know more than they do?
I hear so much disdain for public school teachers, administrators, professionals. Of course it’s your right as a citizen and taxpayer to keep your kids in public schools. But I sometimes wonder why parents who seem to hate them so much don’t find a different way to educate their kids. If your district doesn’t have public charters or affordable religious schools and you can’t homeschool, then I guess you stay and just ask to keep your kid from reading whatever books you disapprove of or getting whatever science/sex education you deem inappropriate. But I definitely don’t want you (the proverbial you) having a vote regarding policy or curriculum overall.
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Segregation was not 200 years ago, and its vestiges are still present today. It is no coincidence that the majority of books that are being targeted involve depictions of the black and/or LGBTQ experience. Certain segments of society would just as soon pretend that the historical and contemporary experiences of marginalized people are not part of the American fabric. It makes them uncomfortable, just like an accurate historical of depiction of Jim Crow and segregation make some parents uncomfortable.
That’s why a book like Beloved is targeted. The complaints about references to rape are just the surface, the core issue is that the book humanizes of the experience of the people who were raped, enslaved, and abused for hundreds of years. It exposes the emotional, psychological toll that the dynamic has on communities, families, and individuals. it is a very uncomfortable book for people who would rather believe these issues are irrelevant to who we are as a nation, or that they were so long ago that they somehow do not matter today.
If anyone’s kid is not mature enough to learn about these issues by the time they are juniors or seniors in high school, then AP level English Lit - which is supposed to be college level - is probably not the right class for them. There is no need to water down the class for everyone else just because some kids and their parents are too uncomfortable with “Advanced” topics.
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The Bible definitely isn’t banned in our district. In fact there is an upper grades English class at our public high school that reads only the Bible and related lit crit – it’s called “Bible as Literature.” I love that my son took it his senior year. Even though we are a non-religious family, he felt it was important for him to be educated on it – it’s kind of a key basis for understanding so much about everything else.
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Actually, our town is run by town meeting and everyone does get a vote. The school board meets with a committee and everyone gets a voice. And parents often get together to get something changed like class size, school curriculum, special needs classes etc. It gets done. Parents and people in town raise a lot of noise. That’s how it works. In smaller towns, you’d be unwise to tell others to hush up unless you don’t mind running into them in the only store in town for the next ten years. YMMV.
You may think that experts are the way to go and that’s fine. But other disagree and they will use whatever legal/voting/persuasion powers they have. And they should. People don’t have to sit down and do what you ( the proverbial you) say. And they have shown that in FL and elsewhere recently.
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They are finding a different way…they’re working to change what they don’t like so they do feel comfortable sending their kids to public school…which they are paying for. It’s the people who are currently happy with the status quo who are freaking out because it’s being challenged.
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He’s also talking about the Civil War, roughly 200 years ago (ok 150).
I’m not going to argue about Beloved. I don’t have an issue with any book per se. What I do think is egregious is someone claiming that they have the moral high ground on any subject and want to push it on others. I’d respect someone who’s kid was uncomfortable reading a particular book just as I’d respect someone not wanting to read a book about anything in particular.
My kids have taken AP English Lit, I actually think Beloved was read earlier than that. I certainly never made any claims for watering down any class or even taking any book out. You should probably address whomever said that elsewhere.
We’ve never run into an issue with any specific books. There was one book that had a bad scene that one of my kids found disturbing. I think they skipped that part ( I would do the same) and read the rest of the work. Don’t remember the title. It was assigned reading.
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“What they don’t like”…which is what, exactly? Books that make them uncomfortable because they depict experiences they themselves can’t relate to?
There’s no “status quo” in our school district. It’s constantly changing and evolving. It’s just doing so in a direction that’s research- and knowledge-based. I still want a pilot to fly my plane, not a guy from the back of the plane who thinks he knows better than the pilot. YMMV.
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From the same folks, “Moms for Liberty” wanting books banned around here, and likely elsewhere around the nation.
1984’s doublethink is involved with their name.
How welcoming to all do you suppose this action was?
“Posts on the Facebook page for the Franklin County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative activist group, indicated that the group had been lobbying the school district to remove the mural.”
…
“Several speakers noted that district schools have many murals depicting many different subjects. Allowing students to express their various interests in the form of wall murals and then putting that policy in doubt as those interests extend to LGBTQ rights, sends a clear message, Shuff said.”
“With a few strokes of a paint roller you effectively sent the message loud and clear, that if you are different you don’t belong,” she told the board.
“I did not hear one solid reason about a policy, a law, that it violated,” district resident Herb Dolaway said regarding Betts’ statement on the mural. “As a school system you are to protect the rights of and include all students, no matter whether they’re the popular CASHS sports teams’ students or whether they’re a minority group of students.”
It really isn’t just about banning books in FL or PA. It’s banning people they don’t agree with.
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And that’s what’s happening in Florida but you’re not happy about it. The people in those school districts are determining what’s right for them. You want everyone to do what you want. You apparently place great stock in the experts and professionals….not everyone does.
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Good point. I don’t live in a small town, and things are done differently in different places. I shouldn’t have assumed there. Personally that sounds like a nightmare to me, but I can appreciate others might like it. People raise their voices and raise hell where I live too. I come from the original center of hell-raising during the 1960s. But none of us would ever expect to have an actual vote. The people in charge survey parents – but when it comes down to it, we know that people who have content / curricular expertise are making the recommendations that hold final sway.