Kendall Stanley: Ah, the cultural wars

We’re now down to the “ban the books” in the cultural wars, after many skirmishes over critical race theory and the teaching of history.

Banning books in schools is nothing new — “Catcher in the Rye” being the prime example of a book school boards have wrestled with for decades.

Now it is down to books that touch on sexuality and anything that might cause little Johnny and Susie mental “distress.” Try teaching history honestly and there is bound to be some distress.

Some states are coming up with laws that would give parents the ability to have books pulled from school libraries and, in one case, legislation would put cameras in the classroom so parents could see what their children’s teacher was teaching that day.

Imagine, if you will, a class of 20 students. And in that class there are a mix of students. Now imagine the teacher, with the all-knowing camera eye trained on them, trying to come up with class instruction that would theoretically please all of the parents of those disparate students. Sounds pretty ugly, doesn’t it?

In a column by Art Cullen in The Washington Post, he talked about the first things on the agenda for the Iowa legislature.

“Next on the agenda in Des Moines: draft a list of books to ban from schools involving race or sex. Here, Kansas already had the jump on Iowa. Not to be outdone, Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman, a Republican from the nearby suburbs, said that the media and teachers were complicit in a 'sinister agenda' to push 'deviant' materials onto children. He wants to impose criminal penalties on Marian the Librarian if she puts on the shelves something like 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' — or whatever a farmer-legislator finds prurient without having read it. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in her Condition of the State address suggested that every school district should publish its entire curriculum online with a listing of assigned reading material. Some of this stuff could be X-rated, she claimed. She wants parents in charge.”

Apparently the governor doesn’t realize that little Johnny can find plenty of X-rated material on his iPhone anytime his little heart desires. Even in Iowa.

Republicans are touting all of these laws as part of “parental rights” which sounds good until you realize that the concerns of one set of parents may be opposed by another set — with the poor school district and its teachers stuck in the middle.

All of which suggests that the current teacher shortages will probably become even worse as more and more teachers retire or leave the profession for other work.

If you were a teacher, would you want to be under a microscope for every class you teach?

As an example, this is Black History Month. How do you proceed so that little Johnny isn’t distressed by reading about the actions of his forebears in the age of slavery? What materials do you recommend that some might find offensive?

Education is in a crisis across the country with class positions going unfilled, substitute teachers unavailable, even school bus drivers are in short supply.

National Public Radio reported this week on a poll taken by the National Education Association which found that 55 percent of those surveyed said they will leave the professional earlier than they had originally planned.

Ninety percent of the members said burnout was a problem, 86 percent had seen educators leaving the profession or retiring and 80 percent said unfilled job openings had led to more work obligations for those who were left.

While not all teachers who say they are out the door actually walk through it, about 43 percent of educational job openings are going unfilled.

You will still hear some teachers say they became teachers because they felt it was a calling. Nowadays it might be better to not heed such calling.

It is hard enough being an educator these days without being second-guessed by parents who seek to keep their children “safe” and “distress free” from the realities of American life.

So Republican politicians will continue to vote for “parental rights” in education making sure that life is stress free for little Johnny and Susie.

And they call us liberals snowflakes.

— Kendall P. Stanley is retired editor of the News-Review. He can be contacted at kendallstanley@charter.net. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily of the Petoskey News-Review or its employees.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Kendall Stanley: Ah, the cultural wars