8 ms·

The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics. "In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themse

by tigen 2y ago

The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics. "In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themselves from book bans" Yeah this sounds false.

SpaceManNabs 2y ago
> Yeah this sounds false. I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?
- tigen 2y ago
  What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    I think the argument is quite subtle. There is a lot of book banning occurring and the rate seems to be increasing fast (see links below). There are penalties in some jurisdictions and zero teachers want to face the kind of shit that has gone on with parents and politicians, churches and local body meetings. So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. Teachers do not have time for this crap, and why risk their jobs? It’s chilling and it’s hard to see how this isn’t the aim. ‘Who ever needed more than a bible?’ https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/ https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-sc...
    - tivert 2y ago
      > So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically. Even in the most hostile environment, I doubt you'd run afoul of anyone with a well-stocked library of widely beloved classic children's books.
      - monknomo 2y ago
        "widely beloved" by whom? "classic" in what sense?
        nickd2001 2y ago
        I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.
        SpaceManNabs 2y ago
        The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries. But I guess in their words: > the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically
        nickd2001 2y ago
        Wow! I'd no idea the Hobbit was banned anywhere. Madness. Its just a work of art. Hardly even controversial. Kids should be able to make their on judgement about it. People need to be allowed to think critically. I could possibly see why one might disallow, say, Mein Kampf in a school library but even then you could possibly have, for historical purposes, a copy annotated with a lot of warnings and reminders of who the author was and what he did.
    - tigen 2y ago
      That pen.org article focuses on "number of bannings" but mixes together state law (predominantly Florida alone) and individual school district policy choices. It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. Most of the support for including explicit sexual violence seems to be about high school, and even there it's not clear that explicit content is necessary to these purposes (I'm not familiar with the books in question). Then there are the books by Kendi etc. and an example where that was required reading in an AP course (college-level). Sure, that's debatable but isn't of much relevance to reading, reading for enjoyment in particular, by young kids, which is the topic of this HN post. The pen.org article says "books aren’t harmful—censorship is." So it gives no credence to any kind of concern about age-appropriate topics.
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        > It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. A professional with training and some sort of certification could decide this, based on the child’s age and development level. A teacher for example.
    - lelanthran 2y ago
      > So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, This sounds like nonsense. Sure, they may have to do this for books that are close to crossing the line, or they could simply leave out any controversial book. Does that mean that the school library won't have some books? Well, yes, but they already don't stock "every book ever written". My school, back in the 80s, did not keep Nabakov's Lolita. The public library had it, though. School's aren't there to "teach the controversy". I said it back when the controversy not being taught was Intelligent Design, I stand by it in 202x when the controversy not being taught is LGBT.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - SpaceManNabs 2y ago
    Teachers are leaving the profession en masse because they feel unsafe, unsupported, underpaid, and harassed by national organizations. Teacher unions list book bans as one of the primary reasons for leaving. They have data and testimony backing that up. We see legislation and organizations all over America. Here is a quick article describing the number of books being banned and the effects it has on teachers [1]. It list numbers. There are numerous articles all over the internet from well respected organizations like the NYT saying the same stuff. The numbers are already presented by them. We see the teachers leaving. We know education is suffering from systematic national pressures from both political sides. Feel free to look it up. hell on first principles, book banning has a direct effect on libraries teachers can have when they include such classics. Again, what numbers do you have? Or just first principles logic to dismiss them at all? [1] : https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fight-book-bans-through-their-union https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fi...
    - tigen 2y ago
      From first principles, it is normal to ban material. The ages and exact policies are debatable but these articles are entirely one-sided. It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans. There are always bans. But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda. Others do not want that. Fight. This recent WSJ article mentions primarily reasons of salary and student behavior, as any layman would guess from first principles. It did mention "political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed". Well, this is not going away -- the battle is fought from multiple directions. Another direction is the industry profits from institutions being morally obligated to buy a lot of new diversity-related books. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/teachers-leaving-quitting-schools-data-302d282e https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/teachers-leaving-quitt...
      - SpaceManNabs 2y ago
        > From first principles, it is normal to ban material. Sure. > It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans That is not true. The ban list is overly broad. The hobbit is banned in some locations. Harry potter and asoiaf... Maybe high schoolers and middle schoolers shouldn't be reading that stuff. Multiple teachers in multiple districts have been disciplined over books they did not expect. It is far more sustainable for teachers to avoid this issue. > But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda I am not going to judge this statement's veracity. Let's take it as true. As I mentioned before, the issue would then be that they are also banning other books that have nothing to do with this, and that still makes the jobs of teachers difficult. It is not feasible to have this much overhead on book bans because of political battles and also expect teachers to manage this overhead. Thanks for sharing your first principles argument. If you have the time, please share some numbers.
rimunroe 2y ago
What sounds false about it? A (very straightforward) search surfaced this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-removing-classroom-libraries-to-avoid-going-to-jail https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-...
- tigen 2y ago
  That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school. The emphasis on "taking away libraries" appears to be partly politically motivated. This isn't about censorship per se since we have a baseline expectation of censorship. We already don't allow teachers to stock racist material or porn in classrooms. This new thing seems to that there are LGBT books which veer close to the edge with stuff like explicit sex scenes. It mentions other "proposed" laws, some of which seemingly setting a lower bar. But "proposed" laws aren't banning libraries now. In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?
  - krapp 2y ago
    The fact that these laws are applied to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain - while non-LGBT books with sexual content remain unbanned and available to minors - is what makes it censorship[0]. [0]https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-florida-dont-say-gay-books-bed1a412f3efaa0f371da8e8c89f4975 https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-florida-dont-say-gay-books-...
    - tigen 2y ago
      Sure but that was backed off. The law does not, in fact, apply to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain. There was a March 2024 legal settlement clarifying many cases that are explicitly not prohibited. Also, do you think these laws have been important regarding the "decline by 9" of 9-year olds reading for enjoyment? One possible issue on the contrary side is promotion of kids' books involving racial diversity themes. Often such moralizing books are not very interesting for pure entertainment value. They are there to meet a market trend, some may be better than others but in general have not stood the test of time.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
janalsncm 2y ago
It’s a pretty standard pattern in right wing politics. Defund a thing, it becomes less efficient, politicians claim the thing they broke is better handled by the private sector, defunding continues. We have seen this with pretty much every public good since the Reagan/Thatcher era. The nice things we had in the West have been gutted and sold off for parts. It should tell you something that these “concerned parents” never pressured Amazon to stop selling the books they complain about. It was never about the books.

by tigen 2y ago

SpaceManNabs 2y ago

> Yeah this sounds false. I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?

tigen 2y ago
What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  I think the argument is quite subtle. There is a lot of book banning occurring and the rate seems to be increasing fast (see links below). There are penalties in some jurisdictions and zero teachers want to face the kind of shit that has gone on with parents and politicians, churches and local body meetings. So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. Teachers do not have time for this crap, and why risk their jobs? It’s chilling and it’s hard to see how this isn’t the aim. ‘Who ever needed more than a bible?’ https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/ https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-sc...
  - tivert 2y ago
    > So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically. Even in the most hostile environment, I doubt you'd run afoul of anyone with a well-stocked library of widely beloved classic children's books.
    - monknomo 2y ago
      "widely beloved" by whom? "classic" in what sense?
      - nickd2001 2y ago
        I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.
        SpaceManNabs 2y ago
        The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries. But I guess in their words: > the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically
        nickd2001 2y ago
        Wow! I'd no idea the Hobbit was banned anywhere. Madness. Its just a work of art. Hardly even controversial. Kids should be able to make their on judgement about it. People need to be allowed to think critically. I could possibly see why one might disallow, say, Mein Kampf in a school library but even then you could possibly have, for historical purposes, a copy annotated with a lot of warnings and reminders of who the author was and what he did.
  - tigen 2y ago
    That pen.org article focuses on "number of bannings" but mixes together state law (predominantly Florida alone) and individual school district policy choices. It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. Most of the support for including explicit sexual violence seems to be about high school, and even there it's not clear that explicit content is necessary to these purposes (I'm not familiar with the books in question). Then there are the books by Kendi etc. and an example where that was required reading in an AP course (college-level). Sure, that's debatable but isn't of much relevance to reading, reading for enjoyment in particular, by young kids, which is the topic of this HN post. The pen.org article says "books aren’t harmful—censorship is." So it gives no credence to any kind of concern about age-appropriate topics.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      > It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. A professional with training and some sort of certification could decide this, based on the child’s age and development level. A teacher for example.
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    > So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, This sounds like nonsense. Sure, they may have to do this for books that are close to crossing the line, or they could simply leave out any controversial book. Does that mean that the school library won't have some books? Well, yes, but they already don't stock "every book ever written". My school, back in the 80s, did not keep Nabakov's Lolita. The public library had it, though. School's aren't there to "teach the controversy". I said it back when the controversy not being taught was Intelligent Design, I stand by it in 202x when the controversy not being taught is LGBT.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- SpaceManNabs 2y ago
  Teachers are leaving the profession en masse because they feel unsafe, unsupported, underpaid, and harassed by national organizations. Teacher unions list book bans as one of the primary reasons for leaving. They have data and testimony backing that up. We see legislation and organizations all over America. Here is a quick article describing the number of books being banned and the effects it has on teachers [1]. It list numbers. There are numerous articles all over the internet from well respected organizations like the NYT saying the same stuff. The numbers are already presented by them. We see the teachers leaving. We know education is suffering from systematic national pressures from both political sides. Feel free to look it up. hell on first principles, book banning has a direct effect on libraries teachers can have when they include such classics. Again, what numbers do you have? Or just first principles logic to dismiss them at all? [1] : https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fight-book-bans-through-their-union https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fi...
  - tigen 2y ago
    From first principles, it is normal to ban material. The ages and exact policies are debatable but these articles are entirely one-sided. It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans. There are always bans. But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda. Others do not want that. Fight. This recent WSJ article mentions primarily reasons of salary and student behavior, as any layman would guess from first principles. It did mention "political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed". Well, this is not going away -- the battle is fought from multiple directions. Another direction is the industry profits from institutions being morally obligated to buy a lot of new diversity-related books. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/teachers-leaving-quitting-schools-data-302d282e https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/teachers-leaving-quitt...
    - SpaceManNabs 2y ago
      > From first principles, it is normal to ban material. Sure. > It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans That is not true. The ban list is overly broad. The hobbit is banned in some locations. Harry potter and asoiaf... Maybe high schoolers and middle schoolers shouldn't be reading that stuff. Multiple teachers in multiple districts have been disciplined over books they did not expect. It is far more sustainable for teachers to avoid this issue. > But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda I am not going to judge this statement's veracity. Let's take it as true. As I mentioned before, the issue would then be that they are also banning other books that have nothing to do with this, and that still makes the jobs of teachers difficult. It is not feasible to have this much overhead on book bans because of political battles and also expect teachers to manage this overhead. Thanks for sharing your first principles argument. If you have the time, please share some numbers.

rimunroe 2y ago

What sounds false about it? A (very straightforward) search surfaced this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-removing-classroom-libraries-to-avoid-going-to-jail https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-...

tigen 2y ago
That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school. The emphasis on "taking away libraries" appears to be partly politically motivated. This isn't about censorship per se since we have a baseline expectation of censorship. We already don't allow teachers to stock racist material or porn in classrooms. This new thing seems to that there are LGBT books which veer close to the edge with stuff like explicit sex scenes. It mentions other "proposed" laws, some of which seemingly setting a lower bar. But "proposed" laws aren't banning libraries now. In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?
- krapp 2y ago
  The fact that these laws are applied to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain - while non-LGBT books with sexual content remain unbanned and available to minors - is what makes it censorship[0]. [0]https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-florida-dont-say-gay-books-bed1a412f3efaa0f371da8e8c89f4975 https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-florida-dont-say-gay-books-...
  - tigen 2y ago
    Sure but that was backed off. The law does not, in fact, apply to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain. There was a March 2024 legal settlement clarifying many cases that are explicitly not prohibited. Also, do you think these laws have been important regarding the "decline by 9" of 9-year olds reading for enjoyment? One possible issue on the contrary side is promotion of kids' books involving racial diversity themes. Often such moralizing books are not very interesting for pure entertainment value. They are there to meet a market trend, some may be better than others but in general have not stood the test of time.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

janalsncm 2y ago

It’s a pretty standard pattern in right wing politics. Defund a thing, it becomes less efficient, politicians claim the thing they broke is better handled by the private sector, defunding continues. We have seen this with pretty much every public good since the Reagan/Thatcher era. The nice things we had in the West have been gutted and sold off for parts. It should tell you something that these “concerned parents” never pressured Amazon to stop selling the books they complain about. It was never about the books.