Ignorance Is Not an Acceptable American Value

 

by Pa Rock

Retired Educator

It's a phenomenon that seems to be happening nationwide.   Angry parents steeped in conservative political ideology storm school board meetings demanding that classes and materials conform to their limited world views.   Conservative state legislatures cut funding to public schools while finding new and clever ways to channel taxpayer's money to private and charter schools, places where the rights of certain groups and populations can be more easily ignored or even vilified.  And good teachers are driven from the profession because of poor salaries and flagging public support for education.

It's a cycle of ignorance, feeding on itself and constantly slipping downward.  In the end students and families without means wind up in festering hellholes of educational deprivation, and those who can afford to buy their way into better school situations, do so - and a social and economic segregation is achieved in which the poor and minorities are more marginalized and deprived than ever.

One way this cycle of ignorance has been manifesting itself is through the banning of books in public schools.   Book banning - and even book burning - have been embarrassing filaments of American culture for years, but the practices seem to have been revitalized during and immediately after the Trump era in American politics, a period that served to empower a segment of America that does not value a liberal arts education or any education that lets children glimpse beyond the social norms of their parents.

The writers' organization, PEN America, recently released a report that revealed a surge in book challenges and bans across America.  The group found that the libraries of eighty-six school districts from across the nation had removed 1,145 titles from their shelves within the past nine months.  Some had already been permanently removed and other "challenged" books were off of the shelves pending reviews.   Two-thirds of the books were works of fiction, and most of the challenged titles dealt with racism or LGBTQ issues.  

It's not just books in the school libraries.  Text books are also coming under increased scrutiny over the social messaging that they may be spreading.  The state of Florida announced last week that it was rejecting forty-one percent of math textbooks submitted by publishers for Florida's K-12 schools because someone in the state government had determined that the books contained the dreaded (by conservatives) "critical race theory." 

 (Interestingly, Florida Governor Ron Desantis and the state's department of education have not shown any examples of how CRT - which isn't being taught in any Florida public schools - is present in any of the challenged textbooks.)

And that is often what is happening across the nation with school library books.  Parents are challenging books they have never read based on lists generated by national conservative lobbying groups - or certain news organizations - or even coffee shop gossip.  

Many regard this current anti-public education hysteria to be a temporary political reflection of the times, and something that will eventually pass.  Others see it as move to kill the concept of compulsory education and get children back into the workforce where they were before the government mandated that all children be educated.   

At its base, an educated public is necessary for maintaining freedom and democratic ideals .

It's up to concerned people everywhere to protect and nurture the flame of knowledge, and to improve and strengthen the family of man through the acceptance and inclusion of others whose lives and experiences may differ greatly from our own.

Buying and sharing banned books is one way to do that.

Ignorance cannot be allowed to become an acceptable American value.