Florida Has An Outrageous New Law Targeting Teachers. Here's Why I'll Be Breaking It.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Beth L. Matterson

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit held at the Tampa Convention Center on July 22 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo: Joe Raedle via Getty Images)

In a couple of weeks, I’ll walk back into my college classroom and continue my second decade of teaching at one of Florida’s universities. Despite the recently passed HB 7 Amendment (Stop WOKE Act), I won’t be adjusting my syllabi to remove readings or discussions that make students “uncomfortable,” and I won’t pretend that systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other forms of oppression do not exist. I will not “whitewash” our country’s history or minimize the challenges and oppression that so many still experience, especially those who are women and/or members of the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Instead, I will do what I have always done. I will select the creative work of writers who belong to all sorts of communities, and I will require students to read their stories and discuss the work and their themes. Some of those themes are difficult and may make many of us uncomfortable, no matter how we identify or what community we’re in.

But my students aren’t the snowflakes Gov. DeSantis assumes they are... and neither am I. We can take a little discomfort in our efforts to become a more educated ― and empathetic — group of people. The author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns us that, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make the one story become the only story.” Those of us who are able to come to college do so, in part, I hope, to expand our worldview. And my students come to learn how to tell their own stories, and one of the ways we teach that is to study what others have done.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-outrageous-law-targeting-teachers-123024707.html

[COL Mustard]

1. I wonder how long it'll be

Before “Beth” has a complaint filed and is fired. Unfortunately probably not long.

[Native]

2. Yup. Just a matter of time.

[Rebl2]

14. My thought too

Prepare to be fired

[Chainfire]

3. Some Jr. Trumper will sign up for the class just to throw her under the bus.

Florida is a dangerous place for thinkers.

[TrogL]

4. I had a job in high school collating the bags of books for students

A complete set would be on their desk when they walked in in September. Here's some of the books:

• Huckleberry Finn
  
• 1984
  
• Brave New World
  
• Catcher in the Rye
  
• Grapes of Wrath
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird
  
• The Lord of the Flies
  
• Animal Farm
  
• The Call of the Wild
  

Granted this was in Canada in the early '70s but could you imagine the shitshow if these were required reading in most schools today?

[Ocelot II]

7. I read most of those in high school or even earlier.

When I was in 6th grade I got scarlet fever and had to stay home for a couple of weeks; this was in 1960. My teacher gave my mom a list of books to get from the library for me to read - one of them was Brave New World. Florida would have fired her. I read The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird long before high school as well.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

5. Books on this list were required reading

in HS literature classes in my day. I am glad they did this and I ended up reading some very interesting literature.

[murielm99]

11. Same here.

I had finished off most of those by the time I was fifteen anyway.

[gibraltar72]

6. The ventriloquist is Larry Arnn. DeSantis is just the dummy!

[Timeflyer]

8. Be afraid, Florida--Larry Arn is President of Hilldale College

(Had to look that up). Florida education is under attack from the top! Arn advises DeSatan, and said recently, "You will see how education destroys generations of people. It's devastating. It's like the plague." Unholy hell!

[gibraltar72]

10. Further said teachers come from the dumbest departments in dumbest schools.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

12. I've seen fliers for Hillsdale and

it is a bunch of RW bullshit.

[Irish_Dem]

9. Force out all all qualified, highly educated public school teachers.

Hire new teachers with only a high school education and no teaching experience.
Pay them minimum wage.

Give them the daily lesson plans approved by the GOP.

You have the new GOP education camps.

[Rebl2]

15. I heard

last week that some state (maybe FL) might hire former military people where they are unable to fill teaching positions even though they have no teaching degree. They have allowed in my area of the state (MO) to hire people that have at least a bachelors degree, to teach classes as long as they pass a background check and if they have a certain type of degree, like math, science, business.

[Irish_Dem]

16. Former military and their spouses are eligible in some states.

Someone posted that they just have to have 12 hours of observation and then they are licensed to teach.

[Rebl2]

17. 12 hours

of observation? Does that mean they are observed for 12 hours by a teacher and the teacher okays them to teach? I hope they get a background check too. I don’t care if they were in the military. They should have to go through b.g. check

[Irish_Dem]

18. They just observe a teacher in a classroom for 12 hours.

No one observes them.

There was a post here written by a teacher who said this wanna be teacher had never taught before, had no teacher training and didn't even know what phonetics were. And she was getting licensed as an elementary school teacher. She was the spouse of a man who had been in the military 30 years prior.

[appalachiablue]

13. K/R FL TEACHER PLANS