By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
In a poll published in the November 2, 2022 Education Week, a large sample of teachers, principals and district leaders were asked “Do you support or oppose state government restrictions on K-12 teaching, curriculum, and/or reading materials involving the following subjects?” Only 23% supported restrictions on teaching about slavery, 24% about the Holocaust, 26% on ethnicity/race, 27% about religion, 31% on politics or sex ed, and 32% supported restrictions on gender/sexual orientation.
The survey asked whether teachers experienced reactions from addressing ethnicity/race or gender/sexual orientation. But, 57% never discussed gender/sexual orientation. And 32% never discussed ethnicity/race with their students. For those who did address these topics, 41% had not experienced any reactions to teaching on ethnicity/race and 23% had no reactions from teaching about gender/sexual orientation. Praise, criticism, threats or disciplinary action varied from 6% down to one percent.
During the board of education elections, there was a lot of misunderstanding concerning the academic freedom of K–12 teachers. It is important to distinguish academic freedom of teachers in the classroom from free speech of citizens in the public arena.
A geology teacher who teaches students that the earth is flat is readily fired! Two plus two equals five—fired! Academic freedom is constrained by the body of knowledge of the profession. At the university level, a solid body of knowledge makes up the content taught in classrooms. At the edge of this established knowledge, additional research is being conducted to expand our understanding. This advanced realm of ongoing research is a matter of legitimate debate in advanced graduate classes. But once definitive research produces clear results, that becomes an added part of professional knowledge and the substance of textbooks and future professional training.
It is the same table of chemical elements that hangs in chemistry labs worldwide. However, the “soft” social sciences do vary across cultures and languages. Yet, at the university level, the professional academies are the clear moderators of legitimate professional knowledge which textbooks reflect.
This academic “freedom” and the responsibility to teach within the boundaries of professional knowledge has generally been accepted as an important aspect of university education. It ultimately leads some students to move into advanced research and expand our future knowledge.
Attacks on academic freedom, such as Stalin’s embrace of Lysenko’s anti-genetics are readily seen as governmental censorship intended to promote political viewpoints. Now, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has begun state censorship with the signing of the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act” or simply “Stop WOKE.” After signing the bill into law, DeSantis is quoted as saying “In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida.” Students must never be “uncomfortable.”
Restricting teaching in colleges and universities follows on the heels of many states that have adopted “divisive topics” laws restricting what and how a K-12 teacher can teach. So far, seventeen states have enacted “curriculum restrictions” on topics from race to gender to history. Many politicians continue pushing parents’ “bill of rights” policies requiring parent approval of local curricula.
So, do K–12 teachers have “academic freedom?” To a great extent, math teachers are fairly secure since in their discipline, 2+2=4. Their professional content is universal throughout the world. Physics, chemistry and biology are also “hard sciences” with worldwide concepts. Yet, the science of evolution and gender identity have been directly targeted. In addition—and unlike professors—the content training of many K–12 science teachers is nowhere thorough and deep enough to ensure they understand the profession’s critical mass of knowledge. Answers provided by respondents in the Education Week data reflect how some do not know their subject and are agreeable to outside censorship.
Any country that allows “flat earth” to be taught will produce a population that can never successfully launch a satellite. When professional teachers are gagged, a society’s future is bleak. Even more dangers result when professional knowledge is forbidden and alternative “perfect” histories are commanded to be taught. That is how children in the Third Reich learned to say ‘Sieg Heil.’
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities during 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.