Tag: Florida

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Florida continues to rewrite the history of the Civil War. The governor and his cronies want a much more palatable history so that white children don’t have to learn that their ancestors behaved like assholes. As Chauncey DeVega, in the above linked Salon article, noted: “The discomfort of Black and brown children — who watch their communities’ histories, experiences and reality being systematically erased and distorted — was apparently of little concern.”

But never mind, the fragile minds of white children are the concern here. They need to know that their country is great. Period. Any information that might suggest otherwise has to be massaged so that these delicate darlings don’t get the wrong idea about the country.

So the Civil War becomes a little kerfuffle about State’s Rights. The North wanted to force its ways on the South and the South wasn’t having it. Making State’s Rights the issue, as opposed to slavery, drains the Civil War of any meaning.

Florida education wants white children to think that slavery wasn’t so bad. The plantation owners gave the slaves a good profession, and kept them well fed, and housed. The plantation owners and the slaves, in fact, got along fabulously. Besides, slavery was a dying institution and wouldn’t have lasted much longer any way. Got it.

Leaving white children with the mistaken idea that the founding fathers were perfect and the nation was perfect from the beginning with no need to change. But the nation did change — a bloody civil war was fought, the slaves were freed, and the South began a hundred year resistance campaign against blacks which included lynching and legal discrimination.

How does one explain American History without touching on the Civil War and race? More importantly, how does this silence about what happened help anyone – Black, Brown, Red, Yellow or White? The fact is race is an ongoing concern for the American people. The American people’s approach to race has changed over time and this change is important both to note, to discuss and to understand.

How does a student understand Reconstruction without first learning about the Civil War? How does a student understand the Civil Rights Movement without understanding legal discrimination? Yes, these are unpleasant topics because a lot of people behaved badly and their behavior is difficult to understand. But it did happen. It is a part of history.

Children, contrary to popular belief, live in the real world not an imaginary world of lollipops and gum drops. They see confusing and terrible things every day. This is part of their transition to becoming adults. Not all truths are pleasant. Children need to know that. The country started with some grand ideas but some pretty awful ones too. It is important to learn from the awful ones in order to change our present to an even better future.

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Florida legislators are discussing further limitations on what teachers can and can not talk to children about. Yesterday they debated whether it is OK to talk about menstruation with girls who are already menstruating. These laws are protecting no one because, as far as I can tell, no one has ever proven that talking about sex with children is damaging. No child has become gay. No child has become a drag queen. You can not groom a person’s sexual nature. There is no danger.

But innocence, you have to protect a child’s innocence. What do you do about children’s legitimate interest in sex? After all, playing doctor isn’t just about the child’s future career options. They want to know where babies come from, why boy’s bodies are different from girls bodies. What is a teacher to do? Refer them to their parents who, by the way, just might tell them about the stork delivering babies instead. Which is, I guess, OK because the child’s all important innocence is preserved even though they are getting incorrect information.

It also creates a stigma regarding conversations about sex that might impede the child feeling free to talk about it. How do you warn children about sexual predators without talking about sex? What it is so important about preserving a child’s innocence? Children need to learn how to take care of themselves and this means a free flow of information is imperative. If a child senses that talking about sex is somehow wrong then how will they feel comfortable talking about it when they have questions? At some point, preserving a child’s innocence is counter productive and is no longer in the child’s best interest.

These same Republican legislators, so worried about preserving children’s innocence, also vigorously defend the right to bear arms. This means that children, for their own safety, must go through drills on what to do if gun man enters their school. How is discussing sex any more dangerous to a child’s innocence than explaining that some day some crazy gun man might start shooting up the school some day and you will need to protect yourself. I suspect that after learning that someone might want to murder them for no good reason that a child’s innocence is pretty much shattered so spare me the concern about a child’s innocence.