Sanitizing Education
Some Republican politicians are trying to sanitize education. Where will it end?
Do I understand this correctly: Regulations mandating the wearing of masks or getting a shot in the arm — both of which are proven deterrents against either contracting COVID-19 or preventing serious cases of the virus — are tyrannical but ordering school teachers to avoid certain subjects is the proper function of government? Is that where the Republican Party is in the age of Trump?
In Virginia, newly inaugurated Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s first executive order bans the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory.” (Never mind that no Virginia schools “teach” critical race theory.) In Florida, a bill backed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis would prohibit the teaching of subject matter that makes “an individual… feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”
Republican elected officials apparently want to sanitize education to ban from school curricula anything that might make White people uncomfortable. Heavens to Betsy that any White students might have to learn about the horrors of the Middle Passage, the forced transport of more than 12 million Africans from their homeland to the Americas during which perhaps as many as two million died. No, any instruction on the Middle Passage is bound to make some White students cringe (not to mention the reaction of Black students), so teachers should avoid the topic.
And, what about slavery itself? Do we raise generations of Americans totally ignorant of the nation’s original sin? Apparently so, since it is very difficult to teach slavery — at least to portray the institution as accurately as possible — without discussing uncomfortable matters. And, the Holocaust? Is that not to be taught in Red States? (A Tennessee school board banned a Pulitzer Prize- winning graphic novel about the Holocaust because board members thought it inappropriate for students.) Memo to Youngkin and DeSantis: The point of teaching such subjects is precisely to make sure those taught are uncomfortable. If anyone can sit through a discussion of slavery or the Holocaust and not be uncomfortable, then there is something wrong — either with the person being taught or the presentation of the material.
Out with the invasion of Iraq and the Vietnam War! Someone is bound to be uncomfortable! Come to think of it, we should ban the teaching of wars, since people often get hurt and die in them.
And, what of science? Will Florida cease teaching the theory of evolution, about which there is a scientific consensus, because some in the Republican base may be uncomfortable on religious grounds? Welcome to Tennessee in 1925!
Come to think of it, we should ban the teaching of the eradication of smallpox, one of the great triumphs of medicine. After all, knowledge of how that dreaded disease disappeared leads to a discussion of the germ theory of disease, which leads to lessons in epidemiology, which in turn raises the question of vaccines against the coronavirus. You see where all this is headed.
All zealous protectors of the nation’s young need not worry about teachers deciding not to follow the law in the Sunshine State or the Old Dominion. In Florida, state-sponsored vigilantes will enforce the law against being discomfited. DeSantis has proposed a “Stop the Woke Act” (seriously, that is the law’s suggested name) to empower parents to sue school districts they allege are “teaching” critical race theory. Those suing may collect lawyer fees, an arrangement modeled on the odious Texas anti-abortion law.
Where Florida encourages vigilantism, Virginia plans to turn citizens into informants. Youngkin told a conservative radio host that parents who believe critical race theory has wormed its way into a school’s curriculum should contact the state government. “We’re asking for folks to send up reports and observations,” the governor said, to “help us be aware of their child being denied their rights that parents have in Virginia, and we’re going to make sure we catalogue it all…. And that gives us further, further ability to make sure we’re rooting it out.”
A state chock full of informers turning in the goods on teachers! Where have we seen that before? The Ministry for State Security — commonly known as the Stasi — in the former German Democratic Republic had nearly 200,000 unofficial informers and hundreds of thousands more occasional sources providing information on their friends, neighbors, relatives, and colleagues. East Germans lived in perpetual fear of talking to the wrong people who might report their remarks to the secret police. Some informers passed on made-up information to extact revenge on enemies or discredit a rival.
The Soviet Union and other Communist regimes employed similar tactics. The Gestapo in Nazi Germany used informers to find Jews. Authoritarian states today study the East German regime’s tactics on cultivating informers as a way to maintain control over their citizens. And, apparently, some Republicans believe informers have a role in the United States today.
It is not a difficult leap from banning the teaching of certain subjects to the government mandating what should be taught, as is common in authoritarian regimes, past and present. The next step is banning books, an issue that arose during Youngkin’s campaign for governor when he criticized a Virginia school district where seniors in high school read Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The movement to ban books seems to be spreading. The American Library Association reports an unprecedented rise in attempts to ban books in libraries, a phenomenon it attributes to organized conservative campaigns.
Where does this end? With bonfires for books, as in Nazi Germany? With citizens with outstretched arms five years from now shouting “Hail President Donald Trump”? With students starting the school day praising a reelected President Trump?
Posted January 28, 2022