The state I live in has chosen to spend its resources on ensuring that kids do not ever get exposed to ideas that a small minority of people deem inappropriate such as gender identity. Recently, it was decided that an AP African-American Studies class was inappropriate for the classroom because it discussed things like Black Lives Matter. In our state, Math books that promote the idea of SEL are not allowed into the classroom.
Our state ranks low in education due in part to the fact that our teachers’ salaries are ranked among the lowest in the nation. In my own school, so many kids cannot read fluently. They know little to nothing about the world they live in. There’s some irony in the idea that we live in a society that wants to ban books and ideas from children who can’t read or understand them. We are more concerned about hiding things from children than the fact that many of them couldn’t understand these concepts if they were clearly laid out before them in the form of a book.
The governor of my home state is on a mission to whitewash (pun intended) our history and culture to present an image that only a small number of people adhere to. Why? Because our leader wants to be the next US president, civil liberties be damned. So far, he is getting away with it. I’ve become so cynical to the point where I believe that those in power want our children to remain ignorant and semi-literate so that when they become adults they can be easily misled and manipulated into believing whatever our leaders want them to believe.
To me, our future feels more dystopian and totalitarian with each passing day.