Preparing the child as an equal participant in democracy

I usually don’t listen to the NPR program On the Media, which discusses how the media treats various stories in the news or provides background on a current story. However, an advertising clip of the February 4th episode was intriguing. So I waited until the transcript was available and worked through that. The host of this episode is Brooke Gladstone. In the first part of the hour she talked to Kelly Jensen of Book Riot, who writes a weekly update of book censorship news. That intriguing advertising clip was this by Jensen (which didn’t appear in the story):

It's not about the kids, it's about creating such havoc in public schools that they're able to say, why are we paying tax money to this institution that isn't doing its job?

Gladstone and Jensen discussed a case in one of the suburbs in the Seattle-Tacoma area. The principal of a middle school heard some parents were working towards challenging certain books. To avoid a noisy school board meeting the principal went into the library and removed those (not surprisingly LGBTQ positive) books. A big problem in this case is the parents who might welcome these books don’t know it was done. The students and teachers don’t know either. Thankfully the librarian blew the whistle. The group Moms for Liberty, and their sub group Moms for Libraries, has 70K members in 165 chapters in 33 states. They operate a county at a time – their actions can be quick and targeted. While pulling books from a library is negative press, they work with Brave Books to donate books to these libraries. But the books that Brave Books publishes are conservative propaganda. Gladstone and Jensen discussed various other cases. Each town or school system has its own policy or procedure to handle book challenges. Politicians in some states are imposing their policies or books to removed. As above, sometimes school or town officials try to get ahead of possible challenges. The speed at which it happens varies. Some librarians demand books be replaced. Challenges are based sometimes on appropriateness for the age group, some tie to obscenity laws. Sometimes the book is moved to a shelf near the librarian’s desk so a child will feel intimidated to browse there. Most of the people challenging books are white – one school board meeting had a visit by the white supremacist group the Proud Boys. Gladstone included a clip of Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin, back when he was campaigning, talked about parents not allowed to be engaged in their child’s education. Gladstone says the key word is “engaged” which is a euphemism for “limit.” Gladstone talked to Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider of the Education Podcast: Have You Heard. They discussed case law. They said parents aren’t the only ones with rights. Children also have rights, including the right to be exposed to ideas that may not be aligned with the ideas they hear at home. These are future citizens we all have a stake in. We want young people who learn to think for themselves. Yes, that can divide child from parent. But that’s not indoctrination. But preparing the child as an equal participant in democracy is more important than parental desires. Examples of this tension include the teaching of evolution and climate change. In the 1990s there was a push for parental rights. Columnist George Will said it would set off an explosion of litigation – at a time when Republicans were pushing tort reform to limit lawsuits. These debates are happening in school board meetings because since the decline of most civic associations this is the only place of civic activity. There are more parents who want their children exposed to an honest accounting of history than parents who don’t. But the parents who don’t engage in anti-democratic behavior, such as shouting down their opponents and saying we’re coming back and bringing guns. The good parents decide it is better to say quiet. But limiting a child’s education through other parents getting books removed has consequences in AP tests and college admissions. Parents are vying for an advantage. When parents realize other parents are limiting their child’s education the backlash will likely begin. Micah Loewinger of On the Media guided the story of the third portion of the show. Back in 1976 three members of the school board of Island Trees School District on Long Island went to a conservative conference and picked up a list of objectionable books. When they returned home they went through the middle and school libraries and removed the books on the list they found. The removal was not prompted by students, parents, or the community. The board sent out a press release saying the books they removed were offensive to Christians, Jews, Blacks, and Americans. They contained obscenities and perversions. Steven Pico was part of the discussion of this episode. He was 17 at the time and student council president, He challenged the board. He had read some of the books and suspected they cherry picked passages and handn’t actually read the books. He got in touch with the ACLU to challenge the constitutionality of the removal. The board’s position was they were a democratically elected body and it was up to them to make judgments about the curriculum and contents of the library. The ACLU argued they could not impose a narrow orthodoxy of views and values. Pico won at the Second Court of Appeals, so the board took the case to the Supremes. There the arguments included the question: What if the board removed books because they didn’t like Republicans? Each side got a confirmed four votes. The ninth vote couldn’t decide, which sent the case back to a lower court to see if there was evidence of motivation. The school board returned the books and dropped the case. It is hard to apply this case because seven opinions were written. Arthur Eisenberg, the ACLU lawyer on the case and a part of this episode, said:

Public education is not just about reading and writing and arithmetic. That an element of a sound basic education involves being educated in democracy and ideological diversity and pluralism, are foundational democratic values. And democracy rests on the power of reason through public discussion, and the remedy for bad ideas is not coerced silence, it is not censorship, but more speech to correct those errors.

Charles Jay of the Daily Kos community reported Jeff Bezos, whose fortune increased by 70% – $113 billion to $182 billion between March 2020 and October 2021, isn’t sharing that wealth with his Amazon employees. Instead, he is spending a half billion on a new super yacht. He has contracted with a shipbuilder in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The boat is 417 feet long and its masts reach 229 feet high. It will likely be completed in June. There’s a little problem. There is a bridge between the ship yard and the open sea that can be raised up only 130 feet. The bridge was built in 1927, rebuilt after it was damaged by German bombs in 1940, and restored in 2014-2017. It is declared a national monument. The mayor of Rotterdam must now decide whether the shipbuilder be allowed to partially dismantle the bridge to allow Bezos’ yacht to pass. Presumably the bridge would be rebuilt afterward. In what began as a joke among friends, 4,000 people have signed up to throw rotten eggs at the yacht as it heads to sea. I’m puzzled about something. Why isn’t is possible to attach the masts after the ship reaches open sea? Why is it cheaper to dismantle and rebuild the bridge than do that? Rebekah Sager of Kos highlighted Isias Hernandez, the Queer Brown Vegan. In high school he learned about environmental injustice – one’s zip code was the most significant indicator of whether one lived in a toxic environment. The poor knew they were being poisoned, but didn’t have the resources to defend themselves. Yet it is white celebrities who are at the forefront of environmental movements. White and people of color should be working together. He tries to insert himself in white conversations. Artist Badiucao is Chinese, but because his art is a protest against the Chinese regime he lives in Melbourne, Australia. For these Olympics, he created a series of posters. The Chinese biathlon contestant aims the gun at a blindfolded Uyghur captive. The Chinese curler’s stone looks like the coronavirus. The Chinese figure skater slices up the flower that is the emblem of Hong Kong. The Chinese snowboarder is riding a surveillance camera. And a few more. A couple of these images are in a story about blockchains and NFTs. Others can be seen by searching for Badiucao Olympics. I’m posting a bit early tonight. Ice dancing will be live and may run late. I’m watching CBC because of that football game on NBC.