Technolandy

Day 16 (of 2024/25) a lit review? Or a ban by any other name… ?

‘review literature and textbooks in BC schools, removing content deemed inappropriate for students’. 

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/09/12/Unpacking-Rustad-Pledge-Review-BC-Textbooks/

Whoo – that can be a loaded question. 

Much like “Can we read this book [eg Princess Boy] that my child picked out to the class?” Seems easy, but then there are personal discomforts that may be opened up… and then we sometimes wish there were an “official list of books that are allowed to be read in class” that we could refer to – and in our province, there is not. There is ‘teacher autonomy’ – the most powerful tool (with pros and cons) in our education system. 

I didn’t need to wait for some list to approve reading Wild Robot to the class. And in the Information Age, it can be a great detterent to consider that someone else knows better what a class/student ought to read. 

In this stories case “review BCs Textbooks” leads to an interesting conversation. First, really? Still using static textbooks when dynamic resources are available? The Second is “who does the review” – people who believe in or deny climate change? Those who believe religion should influence education… but only certain religions and definitely not others? Those who believe that only some people should have access to all information while others receive less? 

Quotes that made me chuckle:

“Ensure the books on offer in school libraries and classrooms are ‘neutral’’ – yeah, the point of libraries is not to provoke thought and ideas and synthesis… I’m looking at my own library and not sure which books would be considered ‘neutral’… and I consider the ‘library’ I had for my classrooms and wonder the same thing – even my x-men comics are not neutral – and again, I wonder if some of the people who like ‘removing ideology from the classroom’ also root for the sentinels against the uncanny mutants…

Speaking of which: “pledge to ‘remove ideology from the classroom’” makes me laugh because I have long told students in some college courses I have taught that schools are about indoctrination and ideology – they always have been as they reflect the culture. Currently our ideology focuses on inclusion and encouraging personal learning foci. I know Rustad wishes that “It shouldn’t be about indoctrination of anything, whether that’s environmental or whether that’s political or whether that’s sexual.” But school is about all of those things. We talk environment… we try to not influence politics, and we are gender focused from bathrooms to sports…

We need to be mindful that most books that are targeted for banning seem to have characters or authors who are queer/bipoc… that’s not a coincidence… 

And there is always the debate that will arise over a heterogeneous community as to what is ‘sinful’ and what is ‘normal’ – and lgbtq2ia+ families traditionally have always been a key target… it was not long ago when boards agreed with parents that books like “One Dad, Two Dads” was banned as not being ‘suitable for five to six year olds’ – imagine being a child with two dads and learning that this arrangement is ‘not to be talked about’..

Glad the upcoming election campaign is giving us some interesting topics to think about! Read more books!

And as I think about ‘bans’ I can’t help but think of the sticker that once inspired a lot of music sales…