If you read the emails, the parents were asking him what the school did to make sure everyone is informed about the Holocaust. The parents were concerned that the schools special class dedicated to the Holocaust was an elective many students do not take. He told them that the school followed state-level guidelines in all courses except for AP, which have their own criteria. He said that they have an assembly each year for the sophomores where they talk about the Holocaust, but that parents have the right to have their kids opt out of that assembly. The assumption seems to be it is Holocaust deniers that opt out, though I am not sure that’s obvious; if it is graphic, I can see pulling a kid if they were sensitive, and frankly, if a kid came from a family directly impacted by the Holocaust I can see pulling them because they probably know the information and because it might be upsetting.
I think the parents were objecting to parents having their kids opt out. I am not really sure that it’s really reasonable to expect a principal to mandate attendance.
I thought of another thing a principal often can’t say, depending on state law and district policy: “It’s a good idea to wear a condom if you are having sex”.
The mother should have written back asking if he was in a position to determine if American slavery as a factual episode in American history. I mean, not everyone believes slavery actually happened, and many slaves were apparently treated better than the masters’ own children. :rolleyes:
We have to remember that this is a school administrator.
The breed typically avoids taking a decisive stand on anything that could be perceived as remotely controversial, for fear parents, students, the news media, higher-ups in administration or school board members might take offense.
Their overriding concern is protecting their position, and living in a trembling, ball-less state is the price they’re willing to pay.
I am not Manda JO and cannot speak for her, some restrictions may apply, yadda yadda yadda, but as I understood it, she was asking where the line should be drawn between things school administrators may defer to (erroneous) parental opinions about and things they may not.
Yes, it’s historically unambiguous that the Holocaust happened, but it’s also historically unambiguous that the US Civil War had a lot to do with slavery. Where do you draw the line on which subjects can be described as “controversial” because a lot of people have strong and wrong opinions about them?
Nothing. Also, nothing about American Slavery, Global Warming, Evolution, or Fundamentals of sexual reproduction. But ALL of these are areas where we have explicitly told educators: you must not say that anything is a fact. You must only say that others have said. If you say that the preponderance of the evidence supports evolution, or that the world is growing hotter, or that slavery caused the civil war, you are Taking Sides and Indoctrinating Children. It is not your place to do this.
We haven’t said this about the Holocaust, yet, but given the trend, I can see how an administrator would be unsure if his administration would back him up, or if he’d get called into some office and formally written up for “taking sides on a political issue”. He told the parents he also “can’t tell students what to believe about slavery”–so clearly he’s been given some very clear instructions on that. Honestly, we are a generation from having the present “both sides” on Vaccines and Flat Earth, as well.
I think that, over the past few years, we have finally seen the end of the ivory-tower “there is no such thing as objective reality” philosophy (not sure if there was a name for it.) This sort of thing may be finally what puts an end to it, along with solipsism and “pain is only an illusion” and other such philosophical nonsense - along with the notion that feelings trump facts.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anywhere near the end of the anti-intellectual positions “This can’t be true because the Bible says different” and “This can’t be true because it’s just a conspiracy by One-World-Government scientists” and similar. And it’s those attitudes that are the real problem here.
A lot of people like to blame the recent “controversialization” of scientific and historical fact in primary/secondary education on “ivory tower intellectuals” with their postmodernist deconstructionist philosophy and all, but that position is mostly bullshit. Even the most radical poststructuralists were not trying to argue that we can’t identify scientific and historical facts in the context of educating children.
What has primarily caused this “controversialization” in American education is the passionate resistance of many “anti-elitist” and anti-science conservatives to having their children taught facts that they (the parents) don’t like.
Arguing that history can be viewed from different perspectives with different interpretations, or pointing out that there are legitimately conflicting accounts of what actually occurred is one thing; arguing that something did not happen when, in fact, it is demonstrably provable is quite another.
I’ve been out of school for a while. Which school districts are explicitly instructing teachers to say that we can’t say anything is fact? I guess I’m looking for examples to help me understand what could lead a high school administrator to reach the kinds of conclusions he apparently has, because it literally shocks the shit out of me. Maybe it shouldn’t in this day and age.
Well, it was 2018before Texas teachers could teach that slavery was a central cause of the Civil War; restrictions on teaching evolution as fact are also wide-spread; I know it was only in 2017that Texas removed language that students must “evaluate” alternate theories of cell complexity (which was code for ID; it was so teachers couldn’t say “evolution by natural selection is true”; they had to “evaluate” alternate possibilities. Current Texas law requires health teachers to devote the majority of their time to abstinence and present it as the preferred choice. Climate change is noticeably absentin Texas state education standards. Texas is significantly more progressive on these issues than the deep South.
I’ve also personally known teachers who were told by administration to “never talk about evolution in the context of Human Evolution”.
Teachers have always faced pressure not to say facts people wish weren’t true, if those people were powerful enough. This is why colleges have tenure.
And just to be clear–I think the administration probably would have backed him if he’d made the daring statement that “The Holocaust happened”. I just understand why it might seem plausible to him that they wouldn’t. It’s not that far from the “Don’t say the south fought to keep their slaves”.