Spitballin’: A School of Thought

Hey everyone, or more likely, my one reader so far who most likely was a spam account. That’s okay, though. At the time of this writing, nobody really knows I’ve even started writing these dang blogs. Who knows, maybe I’ll be up to five by the start of March.

Anyway, writing blogs about education can be really wishy-washy as there are hundreds of topics that can be covered, and admittedly, I’m not an expert in the vast majority of them. I really had an issue trying to decide what to even write just for my second blog. I was going to write about grades and how they have changed in how we grade and how we submit them since I first started teaching. It was also timely since we just finished up our first semester of grades.

However, something I came across really made it a no-brainer to write about. This evening, there was a news segment about how Florida counties are starting to catalog books teachers have in their classroom libraries, and determine which books are inappropriate and need to be discarded. Crazy details are emerging from this news story.

First of all, there was a memo that detailed three criteria each book must meet. They are:

1. Free of pornography

Well, this is a no-brainer, especially for elementary schools.  However, what is their definition of pornography in literacy? What are they going to do with books that are in high schools that they may deem inappropriate? Is a barely descriptive love scene between two adults that a high school senior or junior reading that we, when we were in high school, had easy access to is now considered pornographic and must be banned? Is a same-sex kiss in a coming of age novel going to be considered pornographic and banned in the high school setting as well? Knowing Florida, and the tendencies of their governor, I have a feeling this “free of pornography” criteria is used as a means to rid books that have a target audience hungry to read something they can relate and learn to..

2. Books need to be suited to students’ needs and their ability to comprehend the materials presented.

A goofy criteria. What are their ideas of students’ needs and what do they mean about being able to comprehend the materials presented? Were they suspecting first grade teachers of bringing in the science journal The Lancet to have their students read about the brain and dementia? Something tells me not. You know, when I was in middle school, we were flanked by books that conveyed stories of first love and teen romances (don’t ask me what they were. I was a nerd only interested in horror stories). There was nothing for somebody who was finding out they weren’t straight like most of us, and most books did not represent their lifestyle they lived or were even remotely interested in. Now there are numerous books students can relate and learn from. However, some people in power can’t comprehend this, and assume coming of age students can’t either.

3. Appropriate for the grade level and age group for which the materials are used and made available.

Another goofy criteria. If these lawmakers ever stepped foot in a middle school, they would find students at all different developmental levels, even at the same age. Literature must meet the needs and curiosities of students so they can be engaged in the practice of reading. This criteria is just a way for lawmakers to appease a certain subset of voters to show they are against anything that goes against their way of life.  

What is crazy about this law is that it is up to the media specialist to come in and cross reference every book a teacher has in their classroom. This is laughable for the amount of books they’ll have to go through. But what isn’t funny are the parent volunteers they will be asking for to assist the media specialist. The ones that will be volunteering will most likely be the vengeful parents who have a fear of racial and LGTBQ+ equality where they think CTR is being taught in every class and LGBTQ+ rights picture books are 80% of the library in a second grade class.

I’m with the Florida teachers on this. I’m obviously not down there, but I would refuse to hide my books. I would love to engage in a discourse on what books should be banned in the classroom.  I hope teachers band together and say enough is enough.