Indiana’s SB 167 is on hold, although its House equivalent 1134 is still working its way through the system. Senator Scott Baldwin jumped the gun a bit in the standard GOP playbook for justifying horrifying policies:
1) Explicitly reject and condemn the horrifying policy.
2) Shift the focus to how unfair and hurtful it is to be accused of supporting the horrifying policy.
3) Insist that your opponents are actually the ones doing the horrifying policy… in reverse!
4) Downplay just how horrifying the policy actually is (i.e., muddy the waters).
5) Declare the issue closed because you’re tired of rehashing the issue and why can’t they find something else to harp on (clearly they don’t have useful policies of their own)!
6) Embrace the horrifying policy while pointing out that at least it’s nothing like this OTHER horrifying policy, which you do absolutely reject and condemn.
7) Repeat with the new policy.
In terms of censoring history and literature in public schools, the GOP is still largely on Step #2 – the “we are not banning books, we’re just protecting children from ideas we find uncomfortable!” stage. Baldwin got all excited and jumped right to Step #4: “What’s wrong with being a Nazi?”, which as we all know isn’t supposed to happen until about 75 minutes into Swing Kids.
The kerfuffle, however, has somewhat detracted from some of the underlying problems with the legislation – not just SB 167, but all similar bills demanding that educators simply provide students with a list of objective facts and definitions and avoid anything smacking of evaluations or judgments involving those facts.
That’s not education. That’s reciting definitions (or dates, or names, etc.)
Naughty Nazis
Yes, the Nazis were bad. But adding an “unless you’re talking about the Nazis” provision to the bill doesn’t solve anything. Wrestling with the relative “good” and “bad” of various economic systems, political beliefs, lifestyles, attitudes, behaviors, and the like, is one of the primary functions of secondary education. Yes, we’d like to see our students become employable. Yes, we aspire to see them happy and personally fulfilled. But somewhere in the mix is this crazy hope that they’ll be informed, rational citizens, capable of weighing complex ideas and understanding multiple points of view.
Unlike, for example, the folks pushing this legislation.
Accomplishing this requires more than listing a few terms and definitions or reciting a watered-down historical record. It requires wrestling with ideas – including many of the ideas Republicans are actively trying to prohibit.
For example, let’s assume Hitler was a very bad man and everything the Nazis stood for was abhorrent. It’s still worth trying to understand why so many Germans (and others) went along with it. How do basically decent people rationalize each new horrible step and still feel pretty good about themselves? It’s also worth recognizing that many men proudly sporting swastikas went home to their families each night, spoke kindly to their wives, and played with their children.
Yes, Nazis were bad. (I’d go so far as to say VERY bad.) But they weren’t cartoon characters. They were complex humans, and doing right by history means wrestling with that fact a bit if we’re serious about not doing it again. That doesn’t mean I’m coming out in support of the Nazis, but it does mean I might be asking a few provocative questions along the way. Unless, of course, I know there are political operatives out there just waiting for an excuse to come after me and my family.
In that case, I’ll probably stick with a list of definitions and dates.
Staying Neutral-ism
How about some other “-isms” GOP legislators are worried about teachers embracing or criticizing? Senator Baldwin mentioned several economic systems on which teachers should avoid expressing any sort of “position.” Surely that’s a reasonable expectation…?
I suppose I could hand my kids a graphic organizer with some basic definitions for them to memorize:
“Communism”: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
“Capitalism”: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
“Mercantilism”: the economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances, which a government should encourage by means of protectionism.
“Socialism”: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
OK, kids – quiz this Friday!
The problem with this approach is that it’s all but completely useless. There are major, historically documented problems with Communism when attempted on a large scale – problems worth discussing and understanding. The same goes for Mercantilism – you can hardly claim to “understand” it unless you recognize and appreciate its historical baggage. I’m not interested in demonizing either one; in specific circumstances, one or the other may prove beneficial. But trying to feign “neutrality” forces me to distort reality in ways I’m neither willing nor talented enough to do.
As to Capitalism and Socialism, such stripped-down definitions are almost dishonest. Like “Christianity,” “Breakfast,” or “Alternative Rock,” these broad classifications manifest themselves in dramatically different ways across time and place.
Raw Capitalism minus any government restraints or social protections is brutal. Pure Socialism is intended to be a transitional stage towards Communism. You’d be hard-pressed to find a functioning modern nation claiming to be either one without substantial mixing in of the other in order to function effectively. Neither Capitalism or Socialism is an objective absolute; they represent points on a sliding scale with infinite variations between the extremes. Understanding them (or any other economic “-isms”) requires far more than memorizing a “You Have Two Cows…” chart.
Grasping the differences means discussing pros and cons, both theoretically and historically. It means diving into things many consider “good” (more people able to meet their basic needs and access essential goods and services) and others most would label “bad” (discouraging innovation, encouraging corruption, or punishing success). Teachers should avoid deifying or condemning viewpoints or systems categorically, but I’ve often made value statements about various systems by way of elaboration or example, or simply to provoke and challenge my kids.
That’s part of what education should be. It’s not a defect; it’s a feature.
Not Slavery Again
Finally, we have to address the topic Republicans are most worked up about – the thing they wish we’d just forget about and pretend it was so long ago it couldn’t possibly matter.
No, not January 6th, 2021. The other one.
I’m talking about how we address slavery in the American south. (You know – that historical oddity that has absolutely no impact on our nation or its inhabitants today because we’re all SO over it?)
There’s no “good” version of slavery – no “positives” to being a slave. But there were many different types of slavery practiced. There were regional variations, and a wide range of “good” and “bad” when it came to masters. What you did and how you were treated could vary widely, and not all slaves reacted the same way to the same circumstances. It’s a genuinely complicated issue in some ways, and one we must be willing to wrestle with honestly if we’re serious about real progress.
Frederick Douglass went to great lengths to argue that while slavery was obviously bad for the slave, it corrupted and destroyed the slaveowner as well. George Fitzhugh argued that “wage slavery” in the north was in many ways far worse than chattel slavery in the south. William Lloyd Garrison demanded complete equality for blacks and condemned the U.S. Constitution for allowing slavery in the first place, while more moderate voices suggested colonizing freedmen in Liberia, Africa. Even Abraham Lincoln was not certain black folks and white folks were equal in every way or would ever live together comfortably.
Can I share this information without taking sides? Probably. But can I teach it? Can I help my kids in a developmentally appropriate way to wrestle with the ideas, to understand even those points of view they don’t like, or stretch themselves to embrace complexities that defy easy answers – all without saying or doing anything which taken out of context might constitute promoting one ideology over another? Probably not.
Heck, I can’t even accurately identify the date beyond which slavery no longer impacted the America in which we live today. The institution ended (at least legally) in 1865 or so, but surely it’s safe to suggest its impact lingered through at least… 1877? 1900? 1954? 1964? 2008? That’s where I hit a serious wall with current GOP dogma.
If my father raped your mother, burned down your home, and took everything your father owned, all before you were born, can you reasonably claim that’s in some way impacted how you were brought up compared to me? I didn’t do it – but is it at least possible I benefited from all that extra wealth, while you struggled from having so little? Is it at least worth considering that the emotional dynamics in both of our families might be impacted even a generation later by the relationship between our fathers?
While I wouldn’t use such a loaded analogy in class, it’s becoming literally illegal in many red states to even proffer the idea for analysis or debate. The language of bills like those being considered in Indiana (and already passed in other states) puts a premium on avoiding anything that might make little white kids uncomfortable with their past or the ways in which it shapes their present. I, on the other hand, see little point to ANY history that doesn’t make us at least a LITTLE uncomfortable with who we are and what we believe about ourselves.
Honestly, I thought that was the whole point.
Letters of the Law
The current wave of “anti-CRT” legislation, whatever its specific phrasing or disclaimers, is being pushed through disinformation and fear-mongering. Proponents can argue the specifics of the bills themselves, but they can’t reasonably deny that the entire point is to stoke straight white Protestant paranoia with emotionalism and intentional distortions.
When you threaten someone at gunpoint, it’s no defense to claim afterward that the gun might not actually be loaded, or that the bullets were actually intended to be used in very different situations. The gun waving is generally enough to get what you want. To act all hurt that anyone thought there were bullets involved is disingenuous… and a tad pathetic. But that’s what legislators are doing in reaction to criticisms of these bills.
There are already stories of districts and administrators scrambling to remove anything that might land them in the news or in court – from MLK to Anne Frank to the Stonewall Riots. Right-wing groups are offering financial “bounties” for anyone “catching” teachers saying or doing anything they can portray as violating these new restrictions, while the politicians who passed the laws with THESE EXACT GOALS in mind do their best to sound shocked that anyone could possibly blame them for working so hard to make it happen.
We should absolutely debate what’s appropriate in the classroom. Parents should be welcomed and involved and free to ask or challenge anything they like. And teachers who step past their role of challenging and educating children and slip into indoctrination or harassment should certainly be disciplined – perhaps even dismissed.
But trying to legislate what thoughts students and teachers are allowed to discuss, or micromanage every possible scenario in every possible classroom, at best stifles a meaningful education for the very students the GOP claims to be protecting (not to mention driving even more educators out of the profession and burning up tax dollars in the courts). At worst, it’s leading us towards an Orwellian sort of ugliness and bringing us one step closer to losing forever the core values and beliefs that made the U.S. such a nifty idea to begin with.