Public education and community input

Image source

A great number of column inches in the press have gone to questions of who decides what is taught in our public schools.

• The Mankato (MN) school board has created new rules over how members of the community can be heard at school board meetings - angering many in the community.. 
• The outcome of the 2021 gubernatorial race in VIrginia has been attributed to the losing candidate saying that parents should not have a voice in public school curricular decision-making.
• A legislator in Texas recently published a list of 850 books he feels should not be in the state’s schools. Many deal with issues around race and sexuality.
• Contentious school board races have pitted vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers, mask mandaters vs anti-mask mandators, and critical race theory opponents vs those who actually understand critical race theory and the degree to which it is taught in schools. 

It’s kind of a hot mess, but not necessarily a new one. We (old) librarians have been responding to community input related to titles in our collection for about as long as I remember. And while angry parents are not much fun, I believe that it’s important that their voices be heard.

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a column titled Don’t defend that book  Library Media Connection, August/September 2007. In it, I argued for individuals’ rights to ask that material be removed from library collections.* At the time, an award winning book called The Power of Lucky was being challenged since it used the word “scrotum.” People were going nuts (I punned.) In it I wrote:

What troubles me is that our professional colleagues are trying to defend a single title rather than defending a fair and open process for selecting and retaining any instructional material in our schools. Quite frankly, if a school decides to remove Lucky or any other book from its library or classrooms, so be it. If it decides to block every Web 2.0 resource because it can’t discriminate between MySpace and a professional blog, so be it. If it decides that Zeffirelli's movie Romeo and Juliet not be not be allowed because it shows a glimpse of Olivia Hussey's breasts, so be it. 

So long as due process has been followed in making the decision.

While I can't imagine the circumstances under which I would do so, I sort of like knowing that as a citizen I can request that ill-chosen materials be removed from my public school. Harrumph!

“Community standards” is often a term that is used by public schools in their materials selection policies. I take that to mean that the values of people in the community are taken into consideration when an item is selected or targeted for removal. What parents and other engaged community members should have are formal processes for providing input into educational decisions being made. Don't protesters protest when other means of being heard seem fruitless?

Once again, I will advocate for the process, not necessarily for a set of outcomes. Should a community decide that mask mandates should not be required, so be it - so long as the decision was made in a rational manner with a means for gathering citizen input. 

As engaged citizens, we have a number of ways to get involved in educational decision-making that do not require marches, signs, or screaming matches:

• Know the issues on which school board candidates are running and vote for the ones which align with your personal values. Run for school board yourself if you have the courage and energy.
• Volunteer to be on district committees that have community members. Our district technology advisory committee was always lucky to have good citizen voices when debating policies and budgets.
• A good deal of curriculum is written at the state level. Find out how you can provide feedback to proposed standards as they are being written or in draft form.
• Make an effort to actually understand the issues involved in areas of contention. Do you actually know what “critical race theory” and provide an example of how it is being taught in your district? Have you actually read the book you want to see removed from your library? Can you accept the fact that you may be in the minority if your opinions are too extreme

Ever the Pollyanna, I believe most of our country’s problems can be solved through open and good-willed discussion and compromise. Yes, I am a radical centrist. But rational thinking and polite discourse don’t sell many clicks on Facebook or increase viewership of national news channels. One can dream.

*I am shocked that not every person in the world did not read this and have it burnt into their memory. Hah.

Climate change and sacrifice

Sacrifice definition is - the act of giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else or to help someone. Merriam-Webster

My son-in-law Aaron, who is a pastor, gave a very good talk when I was visiting the Kansas City area last weekend. He spoke about sacrifice and its meaning in the scriptures. As do all good sermons, this one made me ruminate a bit - this time about the need for sacrifice in the modern day. We don’t put many lambs (or sons) on altars anymore. But do we as modern humans willingly give up things of value to us for spiritual or societal good? And do we need to?

Climate talks made up a lot of this week’s news. World leaders recognize the need to reduce pollutants in the atmosphere if our weather is not to become more extreme than it already is.  They all certainly talk a good game. But as politicians, they don’t often mention the need for individuals to change their own behaviors in order to accomplish their admirable goals.

As anyone who had tried to implement large-scale change knows, it’s tough. There will always be winners and losers anytime one changes anything. There are some giants who will fight efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - coal, gas, and oil industries and their confederates like pipeline builders and governments that depend on revenues from these energy sources. The airlines, the trucking industry, and manufacturing will want as economical fuels as possible. And I suppose any of us who have money in the stock market want the business sector to continue to make a lot of money which will then be redistributed in part to we shareholders - the cheaper the energy, the more the profits. That’s a lot of giants.

Aaron’s talk got me thinking about an old African folktale about how one giant was once defeated.

Lesson of the Ngong Hills 

A tour guide in Nairobi told me this tale about how the Ngong (Knuckle) Hills came into being.

A giant once ravished the land. The animals of the savanna were determined to get rid of it. The big animals went in first: the elephants, the rhinos, the lions. Each in turn were soundly trounced.

That night all the ants gathered and decided each would carry a few clumps of dirt and place them on the giant while he was asleep. By the next morning the giant was buried so deeply that he never rose again. All that can be seen today are the protruding knuckles of one hand – the Ngong Hills.

I used this tale often to encourage educators to keep making positive changes to their schools, and not rely on departments of education, school boards, or school administrators to improve learning outcomes. Can this tale now be told about problems like climate change? 

Are we as individuals willing to make those small sacrifices, carry those small clumps of dirt, that will reduce energy consumption and move the world toward more eco-friendly energy sources? I ask myself:

• Can I buy a more fuel efficient car? Can I walk or bike instead of drive?
• Should I keep my thermostat set lower in the winter and higher in the summer? Should I be investigating more energy efficient appliances?
• Are my vacations adding to overall global warming? How often do I fly for pleasure rather than necessity?
• Why I am I not better at remembering to bring reusable shopping bags with me when I go to a store? Do I recycle enough of my garbage? Am I donating enough of the clothes and other things I no longer need to charities where they can be used?
• Am I volunteering enough hours and for good causes?
• Should I only be buying financial investments that are "green'?

“Sacrifice” seems inherently altruistic, but I have never been a big believer in altruism. If I sacrifice for the sake of combating global warming, it will be to give my children and grandchildren a better future. And the children and grandchildren of my neighbors. I don't consider that to be selfless at all.

Fighting the fade

Sometimes the funny pages aren’t all that funny. The Doonesbury cartoon above appeared in last Sunday’s paper. It struck a nerve.

Trudeau has been creating the comic strip for as long as I can remember and I have been a constant reader. I admire both his political observations and his ability to find humor in ironic situations. He makes one think.

As a relatively recent retiree, Trudeau made me ponder the fading men in the frames above. While their wives seem to be using the time retirement has given them to pursue educational, social, and volunteer opportunities, the males are unable to articulate the purpose of their days. And thus fade…

I often ask myself if I too am not fading now over two years into retirement. Like the women depicted in the cartoon, I do a good deal of volunteering (usually around 30 hours a month for a non-profit that gives rides to seniors and shops groceries) and serve on my Rotary Club board of directors. I’ve used the luxury of being schedule-free to travel extensively, even during the pandemic, including two bike trips to Europe, two long road trips to US National Parks, and lots of in-state travel for hiking. I exercise regularly and read extensively.

But questions remain: Should I be doing more, especially given the labor shortages we are seeing in the U.S.? Should I be driving a school bus or working at an airport or just plain putting in more volunteer hours? And should I be focusing on new “areas of expertise” on which to study and write. It’s getting tougher all the time to find topics for the Blue Skunk that may be of interest to anyone but me. For a person who is accustomed to being read, this is hard.

Yet after 43 years of 9-5 plus employment along with a great deal of professional writing and speaking, I am reluctant to give up this newish freedom to set my own hours, choose my own activities, travel when I wish, and take a nap nearly every afternoon.

Suggestions, other retirees?

Fading, but still fighting.