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'Slavery was wrong' and 5 other things some educators won't teach anymore
‘Slavery was wrong’ and 5 other things some educators won’t teach anymore
To mollify parents and obey new state laws, teachers are cutting all sorts of lessons
By Hannah Natanson
Updated March 6, 2023 at 7:33 a.m. EST | Published March 6, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Writings by Christopher Columbus and Mary Wollstonecraft and a police data set are among materials teachers have cut from their lesson plans. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post; Hannah Natanson/The Washington Post; Bing Guan/Reuters)
Excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Passages from Christopher Columbus’s journal describing his brutal treatment of Indigenous peoples. A data set on the New York Police Department’s use of force, analyzed by race.
These are among the items teachers have nixed from their lesson plans this school year and last, as they face pressure from parents worried about political indoctrination and administrators wary of controversy, as well as a spate of new state laws restricting education on race, gender and LGBTQ issues. ... “I felt very bleak,” said Lisa Childers, an Arkansas teacher who was forced by an assistant principal, for reasons never stated, into yanking Wollstonecraft’s famous 1792 polemic from her high school English class in 2021.
The quiet censorship comes as debates over whether and how to instruct children about race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality inflame politics and consume the nation. These fights, which have already generated at least 64 state laws reshaping what children can learn and do at school, are likely to intensify ahead of the 2024 presidential election. At the same time, an ascendant parents’ rights movement born of the pandemic is seeking — and winning — greater control over how schools select, evaluate and offer children access to both classroom lessons and library books.
In response, teachers are changing how they teach. ... The quiet censorship comes as debates over whether and how to instruct children about race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality inflame politics and consume the nation. These fights, which have already generated at least 64 state laws reshaping what children can learn and do at school, are likely to intensify ahead of the 2024 presidential election. At the same time, an ascendant parents’ rights movement born of the pandemic is seeking — and winning — greater control over how schools select, evaluate and offer children access to both classroom lessons and library books.
{snip}
Gift Article
https://wapo.st/3kMz0HT
By Hannah Natanson
Hannah Natanson is a Washington Post reporter covering national K-12 education. Twitter https://twitter.com/hannah_natanson
To mollify parents and obey new state laws, teachers are cutting all sorts of lessons
By Hannah Natanson
Updated March 6, 2023 at 7:33 a.m. EST | Published March 6, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Writings by Christopher Columbus and Mary Wollstonecraft and a police data set are among materials teachers have cut from their lesson plans. (Michael Robinson Chávez/The Washington Post; Hannah Natanson/The Washington Post; Bing Guan/Reuters)
Excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Passages from Christopher Columbus’s journal describing his brutal treatment of Indigenous peoples. A data set on the New York Police Department’s use of force, analyzed by race.
These are among the items teachers have nixed from their lesson plans this school year and last, as they face pressure from parents worried about political indoctrination and administrators wary of controversy, as well as a spate of new state laws restricting education on race, gender and LGBTQ issues. ... “I felt very bleak,” said Lisa Childers, an Arkansas teacher who was forced by an assistant principal, for reasons never stated, into yanking Wollstonecraft’s famous 1792 polemic from her high school English class in 2021.
The quiet censorship comes as debates over whether and how to instruct children about race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality inflame politics and consume the nation. These fights, which have already generated at least 64 state laws reshaping what children can learn and do at school, are likely to intensify ahead of the 2024 presidential election. At the same time, an ascendant parents’ rights movement born of the pandemic is seeking — and winning — greater control over how schools select, evaluate and offer children access to both classroom lessons and library books.
In response, teachers are changing how they teach. ... The quiet censorship comes as debates over whether and how to instruct children about race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality inflame politics and consume the nation. These fights, which have already generated at least 64 state laws reshaping what children can learn and do at school, are likely to intensify ahead of the 2024 presidential election. At the same time, an ascendant parents’ rights movement born of the pandemic is seeking — and winning — greater control over how schools select, evaluate and offer children access to both classroom lessons and library books.
{snip}
Gift Article
https://wapo.st/3kMz0HT
By Hannah Natanson
Hannah Natanson is a Washington Post reporter covering national K-12 education. Twitter https://twitter.com/hannah_natanson