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Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

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Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#361

Post by mfer »

nobody9999 wrote: post #352
mfer wrote: post #115

Context as to what's happening in US schools... This highlights part of the growing movement and disagreement around culture shaping through kids. To highlight this, if you take a look at school of educations mission statement[1] > Through commitment to innovation, social justice, excellence in teaching and research, and partnerships, the School of Teacher Education will position itself as a national leader in shapin…

>Other schools [2] in the US are more explicit on change... ?> School of Education devoted to developing civically engaged children, youth, and adults for a diverse and inclusive society. Why is developing "civic engagement" among our population a bad thing? Why is a "diverse and inclusive" society a bad thing? Not being snarky here, I just really don't understand how reducing civic engagement and excluding those who…

First, let me say that I'm not attempting to give my own opinion on the direction that folks should go in. I'm most interested in bringing awareness as to what's going on so we can have deeper understanding and discussion.

With the school his is from, look at what their vision isn't. It's not to create well educated people who can excel at their jobs. Their vision isn't to create people who are self sustaining adults who can operate in society.

Their vision is to get people civically engaged around certain forms of change.

The specific forms of change are not agreed to as a culture in the US. This is an area where we don't have good in depth thoughtful conversations, either.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#362

Post by Jsebast23 »

Dig1t wrote: post #240

This is a backlash to these kind of books: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1615866743444078593 https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1613623613156098049 https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1612817285676244997 https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1609719090456793089/... Please don't attack me for posting something from this Twitter account, I don't endorse them, I'm just providing an example of what t…

Yet the posted article reads like they want to ban Aristotle or Voltaire. The same people who banned Dr Seuss have a problem when Florida wants to ban gay-sex explicit books from elementary schools.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/02/six-dr-seuss-books-will-be-d...

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#363

Post by nobody9999 »

alexb_ wrote: post #182
wolrah wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really emphasize your first sentence in some way, it was really easy to have eyes drawn to the second part when skimming down the thread.

It's unfortunate that Hacker News doesn't support bold text. I would have bolded it if I could - it seems like a lot of people replying to me completely missed that I don't actually agree with any of these arguments, and am just telling people arguments that those on the other side make.

Poe's Law[0] strikes again!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#364

Post by martythemaniak »

sedeki wrote: post #8

Can someone provide book titles that are affected by this...?

from another comment: https://nypost.com/2022/04/22/floridas-banned-math-textbooks...

So you should teach how to read graphs in Math. But if those graphs show that racial prejudice exists, that's a felony. Simple.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#365

Post by EForEndeavour »

soco wrote: post #317
seanw444 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Watch Active Self Protection on YouTube, and tell me that again. You'd be surprised how often people get targeted for no reason / stupid reasons. Frankly, I find that the people that oppose guns and concealed carry are usually the type that live in nice neighborhoods and make nearly six figures, where the opinion is invalid. So, basically the demographic of Hacker News.

How about this crazy idea that instead of bringing war to those nice neighborhoods, to try to make all neighborhoods better?

I don't want to come off as a troll, but I honestly believe that a person can do both those things at the same time:

1. Do what you can to make all neighbourhoods better. (Donate to or volunteer at local organizations working to improve neighbourhoods, get to know your neighbours, vote for positive change, join neighbourhood watch, etc.)

2. Do what you can to protect yourself until Step 1 comes to fruition. (Avoid high-risk areas, maintain situational awareness, train in self-defense, carry self-defense tools, etc.)

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#366

Post by mfer »

chmod600 wrote: post #358
mfer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, the question becomes should we keep schools neutral or not? What is the role of school? Is the role to prep kids to go to college? Is it to drive social change? Is it to teach what kids need to perform common jobs? Is it to teach kids how to have skills to operate as adults (like managing their personal finances)? These are questions we don't agree on as a culture. A bunch of debate is rooted in disagreement as…

"What is the role of school?" There are really only two possible answers in the current public school systenlm: 1. Whatever a broad consensus of people want them to do. 2. Whatever a slim majority can impose on the rest. As consensus evaporates, we are left with the latter. This plays out in red/blue states differently. Eventually, we may need to move to a voucher system so that the parents just pick a school that th…

> There are really only two possible answers in the current public school systenlm:

There is one more option. Have a small group of people push their agenda while the masses are mostly unaware.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#367

Post by everforward »

schulboy wrote: post #161
mfer wrote: post #115

Context as to what's happening in US schools... This highlights part of the growing movement and disagreement around culture shaping through kids. To highlight this, if you take a look at school of educations mission statement[1] > Through commitment to innovation, social justice, excellence in teaching and research, and partnerships, the School of Teacher Education will position itself as a national leader in shapin…

“Back in my day…” there was a crusade against Christian prayer and what not. Keep things neutral - to the point that teachers who were otherwise obviously religious would completely dodge the topic when my intellectually curious atheist self asked on topics. Now we’re back at teachers here-and-they’re wanting to assert their belief system in the classroom and activist parents seeking to eliminate this issue… only the…

I think there's some validity to this thought process. I'm of the opinion the books shouldn't be banned, but this point gives me pause.

There's an obvious difference here via the 1st amendment, which doesn't regulate social issues, but that's more legal technicality than philosophy.

My experience as a kid (after these crusades) was that religion wasn't forbidden as a topic, but that endorsement or derision of any particular religion was forbidden. E.g. it would be fine to ask what the difference in belief is between a Catholic and an Amish, but a teacher would probably refuse to answer if asked which one is better supported by historical fact. One of the history classes spent a week or two on the various common religions.

If I'm recalling correctly, the school library had copies of at least the Bible, the Quran and a Hebrew Bible (I feel like there was a better term but I can't recall it). There wasn't an attempt to hide the information, the school just couldn't endorse a particular religion. Tolerance was generally encouraged to all religions (or lack thereof).

This feels like it's going further than the religious issues. It's an attempt to suppress knowledge, rather than to suppress opinion.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#368

Post by toomuchtodo »

kjghkjghkjgh wrote: post #313
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also drives families with kids out of Florida to more sane educational operating environments. Florida already has the worst teacher shortage in the nation: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/22/our-child...

Umm, there's a teacher shortage because everyone's moving to Florida. They had the largest population growth in 2022.

> Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed lawmakers to boost starting teacher salaries to $47,500, which ranks 16th in the country. Overall though, Florida’s average teacher pay is ranked 49th.

Re: Unapproved books now a felony in Manatee County schools

#369

Post by yamtaddle »

hooverd wrote: post #251
notch656c wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they completely non-curated? Kids just put whatever book they want there? If so I'd say the teacher isn't liable for what happens. If the teachers put the books or manages which books are there they are curated and that activity can be managed by the people paying the teacher, ie the taxpayers/representatives.

Eh, I disagree. Teachers should be given some leeway in their pedagogy as long as they meet expectations.

There's also the fact that you're selecting for some of the worst teachers by confining them to curriculum and harshly punishing deviation or expansion. The best teachers are good precisely because they do those things, and if you take that away it's not the same job anymore—they're just reading a script and serving as a mouthpiece for the state rather than serving the students the best they can. That's not what they signed up for. They'll leave.

Check teacher forums, this kind of over-management and micro-management are major reasons for discontent in the job, and one of several factors pushing good teachers out of teaching.

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