WE don't like it! Ban it!

 

Bookbook - Geo G. Epp, copyright

In Texas (I read in the news,) public and school librarians are stressed right now over what books may remain on their shelves and what books may have to be removed. The choices will be driven by legislation and whatever enforcement mechanisms the state deems necessary. The selection of reading materials to be banned centers on issues of sex and gender this time, and whatever influence a book might have in promoting a liberal attitude toward gender fluidity. Underlying the controversy is an assumption that reading a book in which a trans-gender person is pictured positively might raise children’s questioning of their own gender identity and/or innocently embarking down a path that will leave them gender-identity confused or damaged.

We have a history to refer to in this regard. Examples galore exist where book banning/book burnings, have occurred in an attempt at suppressing unpopular developments socially, culturally or politically. Stifling objectionable ideas, speech, activities by force seems to be a predictable response to change, particularly in volatile times like the “world war years” in Europe, for example.

I find it ironic that accusations of “cancel culture” (generally aimed at the liberal population) is so clearly exemplified by the book banning segment of the public in the USA. Seems to me,  these are the same people who accuse the fictitious “woke” cohort of cancelling (banning?) right wing expressions of opinion. I agree with Jordan Peterson on little more than this one thing: we need liberalism to help us adapt to changing conditions, and we need conservatism to help us regulate the pace of our adaptation. For one to gag the other by, for instance, banning their written speech, is surely unwise for this reason alone.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t books in which gay and/or trans people are depicted positively written for different reasons than for unsettling cis-gender persons? We all know how traumatic school can be for kids who don’t fit conventional norms; good teaching doesn’t pretend the differences are non-existent or meaningless; its aim is to guide the class and each child in it toward a life of social acceptance and personal dignity. One important goal of public education according to the Canadian PeopleforEducation.ca organization is to “Build a society that values the wellbeing of all its members.” To teach children a healthy approach to the wellbeing of the student in the next desk isn’t in question, even though how and when to teach this remains a relevant consideration.

We must be careful here. Book burning and banning have never, ever done more than stifle the efforts of a community to adapt in changing times. For that, both educational expertise and parental involvement are crucial. Setting the standards for what is and what isn’t justified in the classroom is not well served by legislated enforcement.

But some humility and some compassion on the part of us who have embraced the need for educating for “a society that values the wellbeing of all its members” (emphasis mine) wouldn’t go amiss. The advocates for banning and burning are reacting to fears that are currently being stoked, namely that multiple conspiracies are at work against citizens’ interests, in this case through the children. Unless we dialogue openly and for however long it takes—with parents and teachers and administrators facing each other across friendly tables—the children will suffer for our fearful responses to charges that are educationally illegitimate.

And as I’ve conjectured before, aren’t we all in favour of book banning at some level? Isn’t it true that our controversies only arise because we disagree on the threshold where acceptable and unacceptable divide? I agree with those who would maintain that Hustler Magazine has no place in an elementary or high school library. I would not agree that Huckleberry Finn should be taken off the high school curriculum because of racist content. To become a culture that attends to the wellbeing of every person, our upbringing must show us the face of racism, sexism, ageism, etc., so that we may learn empathy for those who are different. A kind of “walking a mile in their shoes.” Books provide the stories; teachers are trained to understand their students well enough to make of the stories learning experiences that promote “a society that values the wellbeing of all its members.

It’s a bit of truism that books don’t jump off shelves and read themselves to people; the patron of a library chooses what book will and what book won’t be taken home. This principle doesn’t provide comfort in the case of the internet, where any child with a smart phone is accessible to those who would wish to use him/her/them wrongfully. There the stories do jump off the shelves and present themselves to wide-eyed innocents without the benefit of a responsible adult interpreter. Resolving that kind of intrusion into children’s development is going to be a much more complex issue than simple book authorizing/banning has ever been.

Teach the Children Well ... or else.

 

David - Michelangelo

This morning’s (April 1, 2023) Global News app is reporting the resignation of the UCP’s election candidate in Lethbridge West, Alberta. Apparently, the United Conservative Party determined a video she posted online—including a claim that teachers were showing pornography to their students and influencing them toward gender ambiguity—was harmful to their party’s chances in the next election. She is said to have resigned her candidacy without apologizing for the unsubstantiated claims in the video. 

I recall another story of a principal, I think, who was fired over a question of whether one of his teachers should be disciplined for showing a picture of the full-frontally-nude David statue by Michelangelo.

Both stories lack a great deal of what’s called context, but that won’t prevent us from dividing into camps on the subject matter, which is typical of the great culture wars plaguing our politics these days. For one, the telling evidence of what lesson plan included the displaying of the David photo, or what pornographic imagery and teaching happened in which classroom and by which teachers, none of that seems necessary enough to be entered into the question which could—and here’s an important consideration—be real concerns. 

Teachers (not unlike police, businesspersons, doctors, airline pilots, etc., etc.) are drawn from a diverse population and sooner or later, a pedophile, a misogynist, a sociopath or a poorly- informed-and-so-incompetent practitioner will creep into the mix of the profession. At the same time, the child-guiding prerogatives of biological parents versus schools and teachers provides a greenhouse for the growing of conflict: it always has. 

Good public schools educate for citizenship in the country in which they exist; they teach about ideologies but don’t indoctrinate their students in any but the one under which teachers, students and administrators are governed at the time. 

Based on the content of a single news story, do I have the right to an opinion on its meaning, let alone to repeat my interpretation online or to people I meet? If I spread a biased interpretation of an event, a person or an idea, am I doing the same thing as the people who fired that principal, or who made a video about teachers teaching pornography and gender fluidity? Rushing to judgment, that is, while either neglecting or discarding context?

What would have happened if the UCP candidate for Lethbridge West had gone to the local school principal and said, “I have a concern about how sexuality and gender are being taught in this school. Can we talk about that?” What if she’d done that before making the accusatory video, and if the principal had called the involved teachers to a meeting with this person to explain their curriculum choices on gender-related subjects, thereby giving both positions a context?

Agnes and I were in Belfast for a few days during the “troubles” period in the 1980s. Our MCC colleague there told us that the teenaged boys particularly were addicted to conflict. If a week should go by with no smashing, burning, fighting, etc., they would invariably fill the gap with some act of violence; the previous week, a group of them had tossed a transit driver out of his bus, driven the bus out to an open area and set it on fire. 

Addiction to conflict can be as real as a dependence on cocaine.

There’s much in our era in the West urging us toward a combat of wills, undoubtedly fed by a tendency to seek out incidents—unsupported by evidence, if need be—that act as bullets in the culture war: woke against not-woke and vice versa, for instance.

I have acres of sympathy for the people whom we’ve mandated to educate our children in such a time. I imagine myself a music teacher in a smalltown elementary school. A faction of the population listens to classical music and considers country music beneath them. Another group maintains that this is a country-music kind of town, and the music curriculum should reflect that in its choices. Most parents are indifferent to either faction.

As the music teacher, I’ve felt the pressure both ways, and having my own tastes and my unique training and history, I can’t for the life of me think of a way to satisfy both sides. Banjos or flutes? Violins or guitars? Surely teaching kids to understand and appreciate music doesn’t boil down to this kind of choice, does it?

The principal calls me into his office and relays the concerns—primarily those expressed by the loudest faction—and proposes some 50/50 arran…

… but I’ve stopped listening, daydreaming about how I might live a relaxed life by giving private instrument lessons and playing in the city orchestra….

“... what do you think?” he says.

“I think I quit,” I reply.

And I do.