View from the Cottage

 

 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity—W. B. Yeats

When my younger son, Jamie was in fourth grade, his class studied Texas history. Jamie was enthralled, particularly by the idea of doing rubbings of cemetery stones. He dragged me to the historic cemeteries in Fort Worth and regaled me with the history of the city and stories of its heroes, while he rubbed furiously. To this day, Jamie has a good grounding in Texas history.

But our state history is controversial. The legislature has mandated guidelines for the way it is to be taught, with their focus on forbidding the teaching of CRT in public schools. You’d think a body of citizens charged with governing our state would be open-minded enough to study CRT and learn that it is not now, has not ever been, and will not be taught at any level below graduate school—and then mostly in law schools. But no! The legislature also wants the martyrs of the Alamo depicted as heroes and does not allow teachers to suggest there is more than one way to view that episode in our history. Read Forget the Alamo, a book which so incensed lite gov. Dan Patrick that he cancelled a program at the Bullock Museum at the last minute. Racism and slavery? Not to be discussed with young minds, lest they feel guilty about being white, a theory that does not consider black and brown children.

Volunteer groups of teachers have been working for at least two years to rewrite the social studies curriculum and had created guidelines that integrated various cultures into the curriculum, including immigrants and LGBTQ citizens. The fourth- and seventh-grade focus on history was replaced with a more chronological teaching. This week, the State Board of Education voted to delay implementation of the new curriculum for two years for “more study.” They objected to the possibility of “woke indoctrination,” which is both as difficult to define as CRT and is the worst grammar I’ve ever heard.

The Texas Freedom Caucus is rejoicing. One conservative said, “The purpose of government is to secure our God-given rights” and stressed that children must be taught American exceptionalism—the idea that we are better than the entire rest of the world and destined to be the leader (apparently ignoring how far we fell in international esteem under trump). Another said, “We need to teach them to love freedom and to love limited government …. to replace those things with things that are going on in our world now with globalism, foreign relations, LGBTQ agenda, Marxism and other foreign ideas ... to swap those would be against the will of Texans and would be terrible.” I’d guess this guy is not a futurist.

I am at a loss for words. The majority, even in Texas, is letting a vocal minority determine our educational system, our personal lives, everything about our culture. I am so weary of people who rant about CRT in the schools and “woke indoctrination”—that use of woke grates every time I hear it. I cannot fathom that education is not valued, that critical thinking is not a way of life, that blind fear of what they don’t understand is a driving force behind these overbearing, loud-mouthed people.

It's one thing to urge people to vote blue—and I am not minimalizing that at all. But I think we all also have to educate ourselves so that we have cogent arguments to meet conservative prejudices. Of course, I know some won’t listen, many will deny, but we can’t just sit back and accept the rantings of those who would take us back beyond the 1950s, to Jim Crow laws and women without a voice and educational discrimination. It simply can’t happen! A good starting place: fight for our schools.

I read a lengthy post on Facebook today that suggested some of these parents—and maybe some of us whose kids have aged out of schools—ought to volunteer instead of criticizing and demanding book bans and refusing posters from other cultures (Yes, hello, Southlake!). We should see what’s really going on—read to the kids, eat lunch with them, listen to them and their questions, learn with them without lecturing at them. It’s a big challenge. But more and more I think it’s the schools where Biden’s battle for the soul of our nation will be fought.