Florida teachers forced to remove books from their classrooms—or face felony charges

[Chomper Higgot]

2 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Sure it will work to some extent but I've  been around long enough to know that  newer presidential aspirants that seem inevitable winners this early usually peak early and <deleted> out. 

Yes, they’re in the game long enough to expose who and what they are.

 

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Chomper Higgot

[Chomper Higgot]

2 hours ago, BangkokReady said:

A certain group of people realised that children are vulnerable and if they use "progressiveness" as a smoke screen, they can indoctrinate them.

More remarkable claims with zero evidence 

[Chomper Higgot]

15 minutes ago, EVENKEEL said:

So you're saying parents with no college education shouldn't have a say about their child's education. How very elitist of you.

They are not being given a decision, the decisions are being made by rightwing and religious activists.

 

 

[johnnybangkok]

4 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Sure it will work to some extent but I've  been around long enough to know that  newer presidential aspirants that seem inevitable winners this early usually peak early and <deleted> out. 

 

He hasn't even begun to be tested and scrutinized on a national level.

Here's hoping so. 

[Baht Simpson]

It's difficult to opine on books that are banned without reading them but here is a list of 176 that Duval County removed in Feb 2022.

 

https://pen.org/banned-books-florida/

 

You will see from the list titles that very few deal with gender or LBGT+ issues. Most of them seem to be concerned with non-white Christian American lifestyles. Asian, Black, Native American, other religions etc.  

 

Therein lies the problem. The excuse of protecting children is used to prohibit anything that certain individuals deem unwanted. 

 

Here is one of the books. It seems delightful and just the thing any normal parent would be happy to let their children see.

 

 

As of November this matter was unresolved and I can't see any newer articles on it but that's beside the point now.

[Scott]

After many years of teaching and being involved in curriculum development, I can assure you, it is what is in the curriculum that is important, not what books are in the library.  The vast majority of young learners and high school students don't do much book reading beyond what is required and the occasional exploring of material for a term paper. 

 

The curriculum is invariably designed by the relevant Education department and in most instances the recommended texts are mandated by them. 

 

The struggle for most teachers is to get students to read anything.  The only books I ever had to confiscate were the Japanese comic books that were immensely popular among students and being read in class.  I never kept the books, but would take them away during class and return them after.  The school policy was to take them away and keep them, but I always figured if I can get them to read comic books it's a shorter leap to actually reading any book.  

[Chomper Higgot]

6 minutes ago, Scott said:

After many years of teaching and being involved in curriculum development, I can assure you, it is what is in the curriculum that is important, not what books are in the library.  The vast majority of young learners and high school students don't do much book reading beyond what is required and the occasional exploring of material for a term paper. 

 

The curriculum is invariably designed by the relevant Education department and in most instances the recommended texts are mandated by them. 

 

The struggle for most teachers is to get students to read anything.  The only books I ever had to confiscate were the Japanese comic books that were immensely popular among students and being read in class.  I never kept the books, but would take them away during class and return them after.  The school policy was to take them away and keep them, but I always figured if I can get them to read comic books it's a shorter leap to actually reading any book.  

The UK and elsewhere experienced a reversal in the trend of declining reading amongst young people as a direct result of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, attempts to ban the books only increasing readership.

 

Of course it was the religious zealots trying to ban those books too.

 

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/issue10/literacy/

 

 

[Hanaguma]

6 minutes ago, Scott said:

After many years of teaching and being involved in curriculum development, I can assure you, it is what is in the curriculum that is important, not what books are in the library.  The vast majority of young learners and high school students don't do much book reading beyond what is required and the occasional exploring of material for a term paper. 

 

The curriculum is invariably designed by the relevant Education department and in most instances the recommended texts are mandated by them. 

 

The struggle for most teachers is to get students to read anything.  The only books I ever had to confiscate were the Japanese comic books that were immensely popular among students and being read in class.  I never kept the books, but would take them away during class and return them after.  The school policy was to take them away and keep them, but I always figured if I can get them to read comic books it's a shorter leap to actually reading any book.  

Scott;

 

I gotta tell ya, some Japanese comics are pretty........... risque, to say the least!

 

I think a big part of the problem for schools is that, during the Covid lockdowns, parents got a long look into what was happening in classrooms across the country. And were less than impressed.  There has been a grassroots movement to get local schoolboards to have more parental involvement, and also to have a bit more balanced representation on the boards themselves.  

[BusyB]

On 1/29/2023 at 8:56 PM, Tug said:

That wannabe fascist will never be president he may play well with the Florida retirees and crack heads but his obviously sielf serving ignorant rasist bs ain’t gonna fly for the majority of Americans he’s allready facing backlash from the people of Florida not all Americans want to take refuge in ignorance there are lots of us who want to make our country a better place for all you can’t achieve growth through ignorance we must embrace knowledge Ronnie’s doomed imo 

First of all I deeply hope you are right - for the US and the rest of the world.

 

Secondly I deeply hope your archaic, no longer fit for democratic purpose electoral system doesn't install him as the winner even if he loses - just like it did with Trump.

 

Some 70 million US voters still thought Trump would be a good idea for a second term not so long ago.

 

Bit like Johnson, the floaters that won't flush down the bog however often you pull the chain. (Remember chains? ;D )

[Hanaguma]

3 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The UK and elsewhere experienced a reversal in the trend of declining reading amongst young people as a direct result of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, attempts to ban the books only increasing readership.

 

Of course it was the religious zealots trying to ban those books too.

 

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/issue10/literacy/

 

 

The Harry Potter books are getting attacked from a new source now, thanks to the widespread criticism of JK Rowlings as a transphobic TERF...  

[Hanaguma]

1 minute ago, BusyB said:

First of all I deeply hope you are right - for the US and the rest of the world.

 

Secondly I deeply hope your archaic, no longer fit for democratic purpose electoral system doesn't install him as the winner even if he loses - just like it did with Trump.

 

Some 70 million US voters still thought Trump would be a good idea for a second term not so long ago.

 

Bit like Johnson, the floaters that won't flush down the bog however often you pull the chain. (Remember chains? ;D )

Trump lost? Surely you mean in 2020.  Because the 2016 results were clear.  

 

One might also call the parliamentary system archaic, since in Canada for the past two elections the winner of the popular vote did not become Prime Minister. 

[Chomper Higgot]

14 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

The Harry Potter books are getting attacked from a new source now, thanks to the widespread criticism of JK Rowlings as a transphobic TERF...  

No they aren’t, but nice try.

[Chomper Higgot]

17 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Scott;

 

I gotta tell ya, some Japanese comics are pretty........... risque, to say the least!

 

I think a big part of the problem for schools is that, during the Covid lockdowns, parents got a long look into what was happening in classrooms across the country. And were less than impressed.  There has been a grassroots movement to get local schoolboards to have more parental involvement, and also to have a bit more balanced representation on the boards themselves.  

More ethnic minorities on the school boards, that’ll be an improvement.

[placeholder]

Just now, Hanaguma said:

Trump lost? Surely you mean in 2020.  Because the 2016 results were clear.  

 

One might also call the parliamentary system archaic, since in Canada for the past two elections the winner of the popular vote did not become Prime Minister. 

The results in 2016 weren't clear at all to Trump and 50% of his supporters who clamed he won the popular vote as well.

Poll: Half of Trump voters say Trump won popular vote

Roughly half of voters who said they voted for Donald Trump last November, 49 percent, believe Trump won the popular vote, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. That’s compared to 40 percent who say Democrat Hillary Clinton won.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-clinton-popular-vote-240966

 

As for Canada, the Conservative party was  "winner" of the popular vote as a plurality, not even close to a majority.  33.7% to be exact. The combined vote for just the top 2 progressive parties was 50.4%. If you throw in other parties whose views mostly align with progressives that jumps to over 60%.

https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/1867-present.html

[Bluespunk]

4 hours ago, BangkokReady said:

A certain group of people realised that children are vulnerable and if they use "progressiveness" as a smoke screen, they can indoctrinate them.

Links to credible evidence showing that is happening please. 

[Walker88]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:35 PM, Mac Mickmanus said:

All books are not being removed though , just books that contain pornography and see below 

 

 

 "In a message sent from the Manatee district to principals, the material must be “free of pornography” and “appropriate for the age level and group.” New training approved by the State Board of Education also asks media specialists to avoid materials with “unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination.”

It's unlikely to be the kind of pornography you have in mind.

 

Also, who decides 'age appropriate'?

 

What many of these books do is discuss the reality of things like slavery. There is a segment of the population, known as republicans, who insist everything always has been perfect in the US and it's the greatest country in the history of the world now and forever and ever, Amen.

 

There needs to be a middle ground between the absurdity of the far right and the wokiness of the far left.

 

The far right is maybe 35% of the US, while the far left is maybe 3% of the US. Both extremes are too loud.

[Walker88]

39 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Trump lost? Surely you mean in 2020.  Because the 2016 results were clear.  

 

One might also call the parliamentary system archaic, since in Canada for the past two elections the winner of the popular vote did not become Prime Minister. 

45 lost the popular vote by several million in 2016, but because of the anachronism known as the Electoral College, he 'won' the election.

 

Had Beau Biden not died of cancer, it's likely 45 would still be a Game Show host and would never have disgraced the White House. Biden would have run and won in 2016. Sadly, HRC felt 'entitled', despite all of her negatives.

 

Then russia intervened, both by funding treehugger jill stein's campaign, and then after manafort gave internal polling data to GRU asset kilimnik, who gave it to the Internet Research Agency (a GRU entity) in St Pete, who then microtargeted voters in swing States with disinformation about HRC.

 

stein had more votes in several swing States than the margin 45 had over HRC. One can safely assume all of those would otherwise have gone to HRC, as stein was left of HRC.

 

Sadly, 45 won and gave the green light to racism, violence and all manner of craziness. ("Good people on both sides", where one side was chanting "Jews will not replace us".) So we have terms like 'groomers', which the far right uses to censor reality and create a straw man where "dems are trying to turn your children gay/trans/etc." We have sitting repubs in Congress who think the insurrection was something between 'typical tourists' and 'legitimate 1st Amendment protest', when the 1st hardly said trying to overthrow the govt or hang the VP was okay.

[Mac Mickmanus]

13 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

 

 

The far right is maybe 35% of the US, 

A quick webseach gives the figure of 6 % of Americans being far right 

 

https://fortune.com/2018/10/22/far-right-americans-just-six-person-study-says/

 

[Hanaguma]

1 minute ago, Walker88 said:

45 lost the popular vote by several million in 2016, but because of the anachronism known as the Electoral College, he 'won' the election.

 

Had Beau Biden not died of cancer, it's likely 45 would still be a Game Show host and would never have disgraced the White House. Biden would have run and won in 2016. Sadly, HRC felt 'entitled', despite all of her negatives.

 

Then russia intervened, both by funding treehugger jill stein's campaign, and then after manafort gave internal polling data to GRU asset kilimnik, who gave it to the Internet Research Agency (a GRU entity) in St Pete, who then microtargeted voters in swing States with disinformation about HRC.

 

stein had more votes in several swing States than the margin 45 had over HRC. One can safely assume all of those would otherwise have gone to HRC, as stein was left of HRC.

 

Sadly, 45 won and gave the green light to racism, violence and all manner of craziness. ("Good people on both sides", where one side was chanting "Jews will not replace us".) So we have terms like 'groomers', which the far right uses to censor reality and create a straw man where "dems are trying to turn your children gay/trans/etc." We have sitting repubs in Congress who think the insurrection was something between 'typical tourists' and 'legitimate 1st Amendment protest', when the 1st hardly said trying to overthrow the govt or hang the VP was okay.

At risk of derailing the thread, both 2016 candidates knew going in how the Electoral College system worked. It was no surprise to either. There is no such thing as "winning the popular vote" because it doesn't matter.  It would be akin to losing a chess match due to checkmate, but claiming victory because you took more pawns than your opponent. Or a baseball team claiming victory because it got more hits (but fewer runs) than the winning team.   Hillary lost because her campaign was <deleted>. She was arrogant and overconfident.  And Trump won.

[Hanaguma]

35 minutes ago, placeholder said:

The results in 2016 weren't clear at all to Trump and 50% of his supporters who clamed he won the popular vote as well.

Poll: Half of Trump voters say Trump won popular vote

Roughly half of voters who said they voted for Donald Trump last November, 49 percent, believe Trump won the popular vote, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. That’s compared to 40 percent who say Democrat Hillary Clinton won.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-clinton-popular-vote-240966

 

As for Canada, the Conservative party was  "winner" of the popular vote as a plurality, not even close to a majority.  33.7% to be exact. The combined vote for just the top 2 progressive parties was 50.4%. If you throw in other parties whose views mostly align with progressives that jumps to over 60%.

https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/1867-present.html

Never said they won a majority, but their taking more votes than any of the other parties was as irrelevant as the Democrats getting more votes than the GOP in 2016. There is no such thing as "combining the vote" either.  Trudeau won. So did Trump. End of.

[Scott]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

Scott;

 

I gotta tell ya, some Japanese comics are pretty........... risque, to say the least!

 

I think a big part of the problem for schools is that, during the Covid lockdowns, parents got a long look into what was happening in classrooms across the country. And were less than impressed.  There has been a grassroots movement to get local schoolboards to have more parental involvement, and also to have a bit more balanced representation on the boards themselves.  

On line classes are in no way a representation of what happens in a classroom any more than seeing a movie is representative of reality.  

[blazes]

2 hours ago, johnnybangkok said:

And they truly believe their child can be taught to 'catch' the gayness so since they have more control over their children than most things in their life, this triggers them biggly.

"Biggly" :  the only other human being I ever heard converting "big" into an even greater adverb "biggly" was Donald J. Trump.....

[Hanaguma]

2 hours ago, Scott said:

On line classes are in no way a representation of what happens in a classroom any more than seeing a movie is representative of reality.  

As someone who taught online during the lockdown, I will have to respectfully disagree.  Not saying that online is as good as in-class, but it does provide a window into what the teachers are teaching, and how they teach it, as well as the materials they choose.

[Bluespunk]

4 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

As someone who taught online during the lockdown, I will have to respectfully disagree.  Not saying that online is as good as in-class, but it does provide a window into what the teachers are teaching, and how they teach it, as well as the materials they choose.

As someone who taught online for nearly two years at an international school I will have to disagree with you here.
 

The content I grant will be mostly the same but the materials used and how we taught were very, very different. 

[Scott]

3 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

As someone who taught online during the lockdown, I will have to respectfully disagree.  Not saying that online is as good as in-class, but it does provide a window into what the teachers are teaching, and how they teach it, as well as the materials they choose.

As someone who supervised teachers for over 25 years and watched both live and taped online classes, I can tell you that it most certainly does not provide a window into what goes on in a classroom.  

 

A classroom is infinitely more interactive than an online class.  Again, one is like watching a scene from a battle and the other is like being in one. 

 

Drawing assumptions from a few minutes of viewing an online class is like diagnosing a disease from watching a medical drama on television.

 

Teachers are trained to teach.  They know their subject material and they have a curriculum to follow.  It is extremely difficult to cram all the requirements of the curriculum into the actual time before exams and the effectiveness of the teacher is in part, measured by how well the students perform on the exams. 

 

There was also an chat line line for parents and the teacher to give help, advise, suggestions and feedback from the parents about how well the lessons were going.  This was mostly for those parents who were trying to help their children with their homework. 

 

A 3rd grade math teacher simply doesn't decide to throw a little Calculus into the curriculum while trying to teach fractions.  If they did, they would most likely end up not teaching for long.  

[heybruce]

12 hours ago, BangkokReady said:

It's about classroom libraries in the original post, the twitter post and the article linked.

 

If you read the article, all they're doing is having a specially trained member of staff who already works at the school approve the books that can be used in the school.  It isn't the government doing it.  They haven't got the the teacher's personal books yet, so the school has asked teachers to remove any unauthorised books.

 

it's all hot air and performance by the teachers.  Probably because ego makes them think that no one should be able to tell them what books are and aren't allowed in "their" classroom.

From the article:

 

What is a "valid education media specialist certificate"? 

 

What is the criteria for determining approved books?

 

Keep in mind that the law carries harsh penalties for violating it, but is too vague for anyone to know what is or isn't allowed.  This results in censorship--when it doubt, ban it.

 

Also, pity the person tasked with approving an entire library of books.  Florida is among the lowest in education spending on a per student basis.  https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/public-school-spending-per-pupil.html

 

School districts will probably have a single person doing the job of screening all books, possibly with additional job responsibilities as well.

 

Finally, but must important:  What is driving this?  No one, including you, has given any examples of this terrible indoctrination and grooming that the law is supposed to prevent.

Edited January 30, 2023 by heybruce

[heybruce]

8 hours ago, Baht Simpson said:

It's difficult to opine on books that are banned without reading them but here is a list of 176 that Duval County removed in Feb 2022.

 

https://pen.org/banned-books-florida/

 

You will see from the list titles that very few deal with gender or LBGT+ issues. Most of them seem to be concerned with non-white Christian American lifestyles. Asian, Black, Native American, other religions etc.  

 

Therein lies the problem. The excuse of protecting children is used to prohibit anything that certain individuals deem unwanted. 

 

Here is one of the books. It seems delightful and just the thing any normal parent would be happy to let their children see.

 

 

As of November this matter was unresolved and I can't see any newer articles on it but that's beside the point now.

I wonder why "The Life of Rosa Parks (Famous Lives Series), by Kathleen Connors" was banned.

[heybruce]

10 hours ago, Baht Simpson said:

I'm particularly impressed by DeSantis not wanting children to be used as political pawns whilst appearing in a photo opportunity using children as political pawns. 

At least he didn't lash out at them.  Remember when DeSantis, who insisted mask wearing should be a choice, repeatedly telling students to take off their masks for his photo op?  https://news.yahoo.com/please-take-them-off-de-santis-scolds-students-for-wearing-face-masks-200256803.html

[heybruce]

11 hours ago, BangkokReady said:

Something to bear in mind.  Obviously we don't want to go "out of the communist frying pan and into the nazi fire".

 

But you really think that far-right groups will go ransacking libraries and burning books or something?  I don't think they would know where to start.

If you mean the far-right groups will not know where libraries are, you may be correct.

 

If you mean far-right groups are not capable of violence and stupidity; remember the neo-Nazis marching in Charlotte Virginia and chanting "Jews will not replace us"?

[radiochaser]

On 1/29/2023 at 10:12 AM, Mac Mickmanus said:

You should have looked in the medical books , those were hardcore

Oh, but I did and I checked one book out from the library.   Soon after, I had visits from classmates that wanted to see the pictures.   While I was interested in the pictures, I was also interested in what I was reading, which in most cases I failed miserably to understand due to what I eventually came to understand, was the frequent use of the Latin language.

I quickly became bored with the book and took it back to the library with a week left on the 2 week check out.