Community Conversation - FAIR - Delicate Flowers
The following is part of DougCo Collective’s “Community Conversations” and was written by a Douglas County community member (parent, student, teacher/staff or community member). The intent of “Community Conversations” is to give members of the Douglas County community an opportunity to contribute to the larger DCSD conversation with their lived experiences and perspectives.
Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes
Recently, Will Johnson of the Douglas County chapter of FAIR (formerly Wokebusters of Douglas County) posted this on the organization’s Facebook page. These are pictures of artwork hanging in some classrooms at Castle View High School.
Good lord. What a bunch of triggered, whiny, safe-space, snowflakey nonsense. I can’t remember ever running across a group of more delicate flowers than this bunch. There is not one single thing here that I find inappropriate for a high school setting. Not one single thing I would object to my child seeing in a classroom at school, or discussing with her friends, or talking about at home with her father and me.
Hey FAIR (formerly Wokebusters), instead of braying about how “inappropriate” things are, and hand wringing over “messaging,” and spending all your time coming up with reasons why you don’t like something without coming out and saying that what really makes you uncomfortable is being challenged to reassess the things you think you’ve always known and to consider them from a different perspective, why not do something way, way simpler and much, much more productive: take the time to have a conversation with your kids about it? Talk about it around the dinner table. Ask them what they think of it, if they like it or dislike it, agree or disagree with it, approve or disapprove of it, and so on. Talk with them about why you might feel differently about it than they do. Challenge them to change your mind. You know – have an actual discussion and help your kids develop their critical thinking skills and learn how to defend or question something. Let them make up their OWN minds and come to their OWN conclusions instead of spending all your time fretting and fussing and trying to control what they’re exposed to and what they think and believe. This might come as a shock to you, but sooner or later your kids are going to be out in the world on their own and you’ll no longer be able to control what they see. You’re not even really able to completely control it now, even if you think you are. Even the most vigilant and conscientious parent can’t monitor and/or censor everything on YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, TV, and all the various video and music streaming services, not to mention just plain old Google. Isn’t it better for them to be prepared to be exposed to different ideas and opinions sooner rather than later?
If you’re so afraid of your kids being “indoctrinated” (and quite frankly, I’m so much more sick of that expression than I am of either “social distancing” or “pandemic”), that says way, way, WAY more about you than it does about their teachers, the state curriculum standards, the big bad evil teachers’ union, or any other boogie man that FAIR (formerly Wokebusters), FEC, the 1776 PAC, or anyone else identifies as being the cause of the problem. What it says most clearly is that you’re not secure enough in your parenting and childrearing abilities to be confident that your kids will remember what you’ve taught them and follow the moral compass that you’ve helped them develop. You’re saying that you believe your kids are so malleable, impressionable, and susceptible to manipulation that their teachers -- who only spend about 30 hours a week with them and maybe – MAYBE – a tiny fraction of that one-on-one with them – will fill their head with all sorts of ideas that you disapprove of and do it to the point of brainwashing them. Exactly what types of courses do you believe are included in the curriculum for an education degree? Where can I find “Svengali” listed as a required skill in the job description for a teacher in DCSD? Do you really think that teachers are that powerful and influential? Or is the more likely possibility that they’re simply people like the rest of us, just trying to make a living and support their families? I mean, if they really were that compelling and persuasive, don’t you think they would have figured out how to make everyone in DCSD love the teachers’ union and vote for MLOs in every election?
Here’s a good example of letting your kids be exposed to ideas and people that you personally disagree with. I think Rush Limbaugh was a hideous stain on humanity and one of the most repugnant, hateful, disgusting people who ever lived. I despised him with the red hot fire of a thousand burning suns. I never wished for his demise, but I certainly didn’t mourn him when he died.
He wrote a series of “award winning” children’s books. The term “award winning” is used loosely because said award was the result of an online poll easily manipulated by things like bulk purchases, book giveaways, and people being able to vote as many times as they wanted to. But that’s neither here nor there; these books are out there, part of the lexicon.
If I learned that his Rush Revere book series was in my kid’s school library, would I demand that they be banned because they were written by a horrible person with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever? Nope. I’d encourage my kid to check them out and read them with her (after taking a strong enough dose of anti-nausea medication of course) and talk with her to find out what she thought about them. It would be an excellent material for a conversation with her about historical accuracy, how to distinguish between narrative and factual information, and the difference between well-written prose and jejune wordsmithing. I have no fear of letting my child read a book – any book.
I’d only pitch a fit if the state of Colorado made them part of the official curriculum. But should that ever happen, I’ll take it as a sign that the world is coming to an end, and I’ll be too busy preparing for floods, famine, pestilence, stars falling out of the sky, and the impending zombie apocalypse to worry about much of anything else.