>

Oh yes because that’s how things work. You dont have to prove you are right. I have to prove you are wrong. Wonderful way of shifting the burden of proof lmao
I'm just puzzled at why this is framed as a new thing
When I was in school decades ago we needed permission slips signed before we could sit in Sex Ed. Permission was also asked for including kids in things like Christmas celebrations, or even in high school you had to have permission for the 'global issues' class that covered things like world religions, the Holocaust, and the Rwanda genocide
Similarly, school libraries and computer browsing were always monitored for unsavory content
None of this is new >


None of this is new

What's new is parents going to their representatives and asking their state congress to ban sex ed, ban anything but Christmas celebrations, and remove the 'global issues' classes. That's why this is a new thing. >

Teachers are not in control of the material that they have to use in the classroom. 
I think parents are trying to control what the students are taught. 
I think teachers would like to not be caught in the middle of parents, school boards and students. The politics causing more than a few teachers to bounce. >

I am one of the parents that believe that children should have 100% access to books what ever the title is. Im so confident on the values i have tought my kids, that I am 100% sure they will be able to navigate life and books with no problem even if controversial. I also believe that children should have access to all kinds of information. Information is power. 
The only thing i banned was social media until they were 14. Specially snap chat, as ive seen so much drama unfold on that app, that for their safety i told them no and why no. We love to have great conversations with my kids about different things.
Also if you don’t educate your kids with proper values society will do, that is why there are prisons…..Therefore the state will take over educating your kids if you don’t…. >

I think this discussion comes down to if you view discussing whether or not a book is "age appropriate" is the same thing as "censorship".
Certainly, I would not support public libraries banning books whatsoever.  However, it's a little more tricky when we're talking about school libraries because they by definition cater to minors.  
For example, I wouldn't want a school library to carry the book "Gender Queer" because it depicts graphic pornography.  Is that tantamount to censorship?  It's a tough question for sure.  
Having this discussion is even more difficult because anyone that dares to point out that books like this actually do depict graphic pornography is immediately accused of being a bigot. >

I cannot comment on the specific reference to 'Gender Queer' but I would argue that school libraries should carry book that stop just shy of explicitly pornography. 
With the caveat that for explicit material has an age requirment or parental requirment.  
My argument is it does no good to keep information on life experiences from children who can only stand to benefit from understanding their own budding sensuality. 
It makes me profoundly uncomfortable to think about my daughter going through that process but she will and that if a facr. And I want her to be as knowledgeable and informed as possible. That includes learning about lgbtqia relationships and sensuality as even if it is not relevant to her, she will encounter it in the wild and should not be shocked by it.
Also, literally anyone can get on the internet and find unlimited hard core oron. It is niave to think children are not finding this shit anyway and I would much prefer them encounter it in a book where they can ask me questions rather than relaying on pork and developing an unhealthy view of sex from it. >

Idk, there was certainly at least as graphic descriptions of sex, if not imagery, in plenty of library books in my school libraries. It really does seem like this is just about the images being gay oriented. 
Also, one single panel of that is actually, objectively problematic. The rest are suggestive at best. There's a whole separate question about whether this single image warrants the backlash that it's getting, especially the decision to pull the entire book.
It's also not really worth focusing on Gender Queer; it's the most banned book in the country. Of course it is the most egregious. If you really care that much, you can have that one book. But it's more worth discussing the thousands of other books getting banned that lack the same defensibility. >

"It really does seem like this is just about the images being gay oriented."
You proved my point from two posts above that anyone questioning what's happening is labeled as a bigot. 
Do you have any proof of your accusation that I'm being driven by the images being gay oriented? Or are you just making a quite serious accusation with no proof whatsoever? >

I proved no point lol. I merely said that the selective outrage aimed only at gender queer books suggests that the outrage is not just about sexual imagery.
It's like, when I was highschool, all the parents were mad about Their Eyes Were Watching God, which includes descriptions of sex between black characters. Oddly, no one seemed to care about The Place Beyond the Pines (white sex scene), The Awakening (White Sex Scene) or even The God of Small Things (by far the worst in the list if you cared about sex). So, if you survey that list and consider what motivates a parent to object to only one of the books and zero others, you are left with only the inference that race, and not sex, was the motivating factor in the disgust.
So too here, as I said, those images only really differe from other highschool reading in that they are images and not words. I could believe that this distinction drives the uproar, but then I'd have to conclude that the parents either don't care enough to learn about the sex scenes in these books or else can't comprehend that children might react similarly to words as they do pictures. I think either conclusion underestimates these parents' intelligence. The only other distinction left is that the inoccous sex scenes are straight, while these are gay. >

"It really does seem like this is just about the images being gay oriented".
These are your direct words. Do you have any proof of this, or is it just conjecture? Because this seems like pure conjecture to me. 
For what it's worth, the right has decided that if we're all playing the baseless conjecture game, then calling people groomers with no evidence is also fair game.  I'm not really a fan of either accusation to be honest, but if we're going to play this game, then understand what type of standard you are cultivating. >

An inference is not conjecture. I've clearly laid out the basis for the conclusion. You're free to disagree, but it's not baseless. >

If Gender Queer depicted a woman on her knees sucking a penis instead of a man, you think that parents would be okay with it? >

As a parent, I know fuck all about medicine, I am not a teacher and I also don’t know about many other things that will ultimately impact my child’s life. However, the same way I trust in a mechanic to fix my car, I trust professionals to fill the gaps in my child’s life. As such, I shouldn’t be able to withhold essential medical treatment for my child because I saw a YouTube video on nano bots and if I want to teach my child at home, I should be assessed to make sure I am neither neglectful nor a total moron. Anything else is harmful to the child. >


However, the same way I trust in a mechanic to fix my car, I trust professionals to fill the gaps in my child’s life.

And you shouldn't - not in either case.  You shouldn't just blindly trust a mechanic and you shouldn't just blindly trust a teacher.  That blind trust is the exact abdication of responsibility that has let things get this bad. >

What has gotten so bad exactly? >

The divergence between what parents thought was being taught and what is and the resulting conflict as parents try to drag schools back into line and the schools actively fight against it.  Had parents been being more attentive over the years they would've been able to stop things earlier and keep everything humming smoothly along. >

So what are these conflicts exactly? I’ve always known what my daughter is being taught in school. What is being taught that shouldn’t be in the curriculum in yours or your kid’s school? >

Have you been living under a rock?  This stuff has been headline news for two years now - it literally flipped the VA governorship.  It's mostly centered around the cultural content - for example the racist and America-hating modern narrative on America's history.  Seriously, this stuff has been dominating the headlines and political discussions for quite some time now, if you aren't fully up to date on it then I don't get why you're so comfortable making strong statements on the subject. >

Seems like you are having difficulty answering my question. Should I phrase it a different way for you? What in the curriculum is racist and American-hating? You’re being very vague. >

I am ignoring your bad-faith JAQing off because I know that you're just derailing the discussion with bad-faith bullshit because you know that your positions are simply not considered tolerable by the majority.  You are using well-known bad-faith argumentation techniques and I'm not taking your bait. >

Everything boils down to informed uncoerced competent consent.
My children (at their current ages) are not competent enough at their current ages / mental maturity to do a great many things (play with matches, get tattoos, buy a house, examples ad hyperbole etc)
Until they are able to 1. Be fully (as possible) informed or provided with the appropriate information to make a decision, 2. Are under no duress for the decision (i.e. someone is threatening them. Etc) 3. Are mentally competent enough to understand the ramifications of their decisions,  and 4. Willingly want to do something after all factors are weighed.
It is my job as a parent to take those decisions on. 
This will be interpreted different in many households. But the parents should be the ones ultimately responsible for their children's well being.
That being said, as the child matures they gain more autonomy. How much is difficult based on the individual. My daughter for instance is extremely independent. Not distant or removed, but she definitely makes a large amount of her own decisions, whereas my younger son cannot.
This is an area with so much Grey that making universal rules is almost impossible. Which is why, I think, society defaults to "until they're an adult the parents rule ". >

This ignores the role of schools though. Parents cede some of that responsibility to teachers, much like they cede some responsibility to doctors, coaches, and other people with positions of authority and teaching wrt ones child. Each of these people will be slightly different from the parents, will have different values and incentives, and will be responsible for more than just one set of parents' children. 
Each of these people are functionally agents of the parent, the parent is entitled to some assurances from the agent, but cannot command specific conduct in every facet of the agent's job, (not least of all because that would be impossible). So the question inherently becomes, how do we ensure that all parents are assured that their parents are not being abused and that each parent's responsibility for child rearing is being discharged within reason. 
It's just not feasible to say "let the parents handle it" unless a parent wants to take back responsibility for every part of their child's life >

I don't disagree with this. This would be in the massive amounts of Grey areas. There's so much nuance to this. >

Generally the issue is that young kids cannot possibly be fully responsible for themselves so some other adult needs to make decisions for them, including deciding which "influences" they are exposed to.
Historically it has been seen that government, church, councils, doctors or schools aren't perfect in this role as they don't have a singular focus on the needs of any specific child.  In general a "good parent" will care a lot more, know a lot more and do a lot to help their kid than any state employee.  On the other hand, there are also clearly "bad parents" that do all sorts of harm so they need to be monitored, mitigated and sometimes policed. 
The general idea is to resist the temptation to forever expand the role of teachers, doctors and so on as the moment parents view the teachers as part of the problem, all sorts of barriers go up and any "progress" will be limited at best.  Only when there is an immediate and serious problem should the state overrule the views of parents.
The current battleground seems to be about the move away from "teaching" heteronormativity, many parents want that presented to their kids as "normal", "proper" and "natural".  But frankly I'm not surprised at all by that as we live in a world where things like the theory of evolution, abortion rights or vaccine effectiveness are still contested. >


The current battleground seems to be about the move away from "teaching" heteronormativity, many parents want that presented to their kids as "normal", "proper" and "natural". 

Mainly because it is.  When the hell did we shift from "being not normal is perfectly fine and doesn't devalue a person" to "everything must be presented as normal no matter how much of an outlier it is"? >

We didn't.
Similar to CRT, they need to create an imaginary boogeyman. 
Remember the fake outrage of the "litter boxes" for "children who identified as a cat"?
Just like CRT brainwashing it was simply made up. >

The biggest issue is the people that complain about this are taking the actions of a couple of sparse teachers around the country and acting as if every teacher in the US is just radicalizing their kids, when in reality most teachers do not care. 
It’s angry boomers and Gen Xer’s mad that social conservatism is no longer popular in the public sphere who want to bully teachers and librarians into enforcing the hierarchy they want, but also want to be seen as beleaguered victims of globalization, who have to defend their right to an identity made of conspicuous consumerism.
They have to do this because their lives are so devoid of intrigue and purpose, that without it, they’d have nothing to do beyond spending time consuming the same things over and over again.
Sorry for the rant, but it really f***ing annoys me when people harass teachers, who are already overworked and underpaid. >

> "It's not happening"
> gets shown examples
> "They don't count, they're just one-offs"
This kind of bad-faith shit is exactly why discourse has broken down.  Instead of accepting that you're wrong your side continuously just moves the goalposts around as if they were on fucking wheels.  There's no discourse possible with people who engage in such flagrant bad faith. >

It's not bad faith at all. There are over 3,000,000 public school teachers in the US. Pretending there's some widespread CRT child grooming push is bad faith.
Meanwhile "your side" elected someone who actually married someone who sexually assaulted children and elected someone who covered for child rapists. Yet....no outcry there. Much larger percentage of Republican elected officials engaging in this stuff yet....silence.
You have no evidence to support your argument so instead you're attacking some random redditor. >

Parents scream "indoctrination" at schools.....all the while indoctrinating the shit out of their own kids.  When students project crazy attitudes at school, it's 99% learned from their parents.  Signed, An exhausted teacher >

They want their own brand of indoctrination. But they dont consider their ignorance and bigotry indoctrination, they consider it the "truth". >

Well, of course they do. Which I think is kind of the whole point here.
And before I go further, I'm assuming you're a Democrat (or sympathic to Democrats broadly) like myself.
If a die hard Republican majority took control of our local school board and started teaching in history class that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, what would you and I think? We'd think they were crazy! And rightfully so. But the school board would firmly and truthfully believe that they are teaching real history and we are the crazy ones. Now, you're responding to my comment right now going "but we are right, Trump lost! How can there be a dispute here?" 
But, and this is my main point, the actual truth doesn't matter in this situation. Of course our truth is the actual truth. But in this scenario the guys teaching the lie control the levers of state power. So the lie will be taught as truth and the truth will be taught as a lie.
What this comes down to is a matter of state power and how it's exercised. And we always need to remember that the other side can and will exercise state power at some point in a highly competitive Democracy, such as we have here.
Which is why I think this question is so complicated. Parents need real levers of control over their children's education, because at some point many of us will need to use those levers to defend our kids from fucking nut jobs who happen to be running the state that day. 
This is a Democracy. We need to be mindful we don't build a state empowered to wreck our own and our children's lives because an idiot won an election. >

I get what you are saying, but that is not the greatest example. The election wasnt stolen. This is not something that can be spun, it is strictly a conspiracy theory. No credible professional in any capacity anywhere agrees with that regardless of political party. It just didnt happen. It's not something that is historically debated. There is no debate, it did not happen. Public schools teach historical facts. Now, one can choose to focus something (ie schools focus or lack thereof on historical injustices) but schools curriculum's wont allow for something that is made up, to be taught. You cant focus on something that doesnt exist. Homeschool sure, or a private school sure, they can teach fictitious stuff (religion, conspiracy theories etc), but not in public schools. No state official in any state will teach something that is 100% false in a public school. And this would trickle down to the local level, which ultimately answers to the state. No state official would be on board with that. They arent. That's just a fact.
But again, I do get that parents should have a good amount of control over their kids. I think that is already the case. Parents get the final say in anything and everything. Heck in my day permission slips were the norm, and they still are. You dont want your kid learning something, boom sign a permission slip have them excused. Done. Not a problem. Parents already have those levers of control. They arent getting taken away.  It's all a contrived moral panic over nothing, used to get votes and consolidate power. It does nothing beneficial, except to promulgate fear, ignorance and hate. It's a big nothing burger.  If you go down this rabbit hole, then what's next? Should public schools be allowed to teach kids that we didnt really land on the moon, that 9/11 was an inside job, that Bill Gates experiments on African kids?
Now, I also agree that it is quite complicated because the issue might be one that cannot be preempted with a permission form. If the class is going to discuss LGBTQ issues on a specific day for example, then it's real easy, permission forms sent out sign or dont sign boom, done. But it one of the kids textbooks has two men or women as parents, is that something that had to be preempted with a permission slip? You have to sign a permission slip for the whole school year because the textbook has pictures of same sex couples? That textbook will be used all year long, not just on a particular day. What if there are interracial couples in the book and somebody takes issue with that? Whats the overton window here? Maybe the racially mixed couples would not have been acceptable 40 years ago in kids textbooks and parents would have complained but it's ok now, and any complaints would ne negligible. I suspect the same sex couples may still raise eyebrows now (not as much as before) but in 40 years it will be the norm. This is all very dicey, and it seems as if unfortunately, ignorance and bigotry take time to dissipate. Tough pill to swallow for minorities, in this case LGBTQ (especially the T) to basically say, "hey you all are not even close to being accepted by the mainstream so people will continue to be suspicious and view you all as pedophiles, just as they used to do with the L's G's and B's but in time they will accept you more. Sorry but you all have to wait it out." But hey, they burned witches for thousands of years, so it's a cruel fact of reality that ignorance takes extremely long to be diminished, although with the advent of modern technology access to information is readily available so that is speeding up the process and providing a bulwark against ignorance and all its accompanying maladies. >


No state official in any state will teach something that is 100% false in a public school. And this would trickle down to the local level, which ultimately answers to the state. No state official would be on board with that. They arent. That’s just a fact.

What a silly thing to say. I mean just off the top of my head everything related to Christopher Columbus and Native Americans was outright lies taught to Americans in schools to push European and American (read:white) exceptionalism. State officials are partisan and human. They will approve factually wrong things that fit their political agenda. >

Certainly lies, lies by omission. They paint a rosy picture and mention only the things that make the person look good but dont mention the genocide, that went along with the person. And can cite plausible reasons for these omissions. "Oh, kids shouldnt be taught about genocide". This is wrong but it gives them some cover, if the person did something they consider important historically. If they say 2+2 = 5 they will be called out. If they say that Hitler hurt dandelions as opposed to people, they will be called out.Hitler had no redeeming values so nothing good to hide the genocide behind. Nothing to save face for. See the nuance there?  They do not concoct fabrications up as part of the curriculum, and if they do say something false, they will be called out on it. Outright fabrications on a systemic level that can easily be disproved wont hold up for very long. Again, the only things they may get away with for longer (and thats limited because of the information we know have) are nuanced things and the aforementioned lies by omission.  In today's day and age with the readily available information most of us have, we will not suffer foolishness for extended periods anymore. Lies will be called out. So again, they may be partisan and human and may spout of inaccuracies, but it will not be tolerated on a systemic level. How could it? The teacher spouting off lies can quickly be fact checked with one basic google search. How do you or I know the truth about Christopher Columbus? That information that came to us, how did that information come out? >


How do you or I know the truth about Christopher Columbus? That information that came to us, how did that information come out?

The internet after I graduated from public school. I am not young enough to have been live fact checking things online while at public school. Those public officials we are talking about? They are boomers and Gen Xers who truly believe all the lies they were taught as kids are absolute truth and will (attempt to) set the curriculum accordingly. And if you tell them to fact check online they will happily point you to a PragerU video that affirms their incorrect worldview. >

I do extoll and encourage independent learning, much of what I have come learned has also come from my own research. Cheers to that. But also, that information that you learned from the internet, where did it come from? If you go back far enough, that came from somebody else, they were taught that. Educators were behind that initial information that you got. All the misinformation in the world wont keep the actual legitimate information from coming to light. What we are discussing is on the public school level, where they can get away with nonsense (to an extent), but do you think that extends to the college level in those aforementioned backwards areas? I figure they can give kids some simplistic sometimes inaccurate bullshit, but adults? Children wont look stuff up and high schoolers dont really care to look stuff up generally because they are immature, but  a college aged person has more sense I would think (to some extent, I know so many can still be idiots). I just think (and hope) that the idiocy has it's limits. >

If you want full control of your child, then you need to homeschool them. By dictating that your child can't learn X Y or Z you are taking X Y & Z away from my child and other people's children.  I don't want my child's education to be stunted because someone else is a bigot and/or a homophobe. 
Why does YOUR limited world view have to be my child's problem? >

I sort of wish your OP had been a lot shorter as I think it raises a lot of good points but is waaaaaayyyy too long. I have to say this is one of my favorite topics. Because I think. We have become way too indulgent in this view that parents are the be all and end all when it comes to raising children.  I have four children but while they are my children, they are also citizens, friends, students, colleagues, etc. that is to say I do not have a monopoly on who they are.
I personally am cynical enough to believe that this view is a spinoff of the idea of radical individualism. And I view radical individualism, as smokescreen for the wealthy and powerful to increase their wealth and power. That is, it is part of an attempt to make people less aware that they are part of a society and the community.
I also feel like I need to call out what I see is one of the greatest disservices. That is when parents are allowed to homeschool their children or send them to religious schools. If as an educated adult, you want to believe in bullshit, magic, hocus-pocus, that I suppose is your prerogative , but I view it as almost a form of child abuse to subject your child to that. 
While this is not completely unproblematic the French, especially during the revolution, you children as creatures of the state first and foremost. I think you by state you mean the community and society at large, I generally agree with that sentiment. So I have a huge issue with this absurd. Focus on parental rights, which is a cynical way to manipulate voters into voting for morons like Ron DeSantis . >


I sort of wish your OP had been a lot shorter as I think it raises a lot of good points but is waaaaaayyyy too long

Me too honestly. I've just been thinking about this for weeks now and the more I thought about it the more tangled the thoughts became until I had to vomit my thoughts all over the post, and I think the conversation is missing most of it.
The rest of your post raised the kinds of points I was interested in thinking about, the role of children as a member of society vs as an instrument of their parents' will. >

Its a great topic.  I myself have been almsot physically assaulted when I tell a parent that I think they are doing a disservice homeschooling a kid or sending him or her to some fundamentalist school.  
And I honestly view it ad an attempt to isolate people from the collectove institutions that used to make us citizens, ie members of a political body …. >

Parents should understand the difference between protection and control. I can teach my kid to watch for cars crossing the road, for a while I can require him to hold my hand to cross, but eventually I'm not going to be there and he's either going to look or not and get hit by a car or not. I can try to protect him and for a while I can try to control him, but ultimately he is the only one in control of himself. That can be extrapolated to any belief/concept. Eventually, the parent is not going to be there and these Parental Bills of Rights are trying to allow the parent to control those moments too by using teachers and librarians as proxy parents. (It's so ironic to me when people in favor of these "rights" point out that teachers aren't parents. Of course they're not and that's why they aren't responsible for controlling your child the way you want them controlled.) It's just not possible and it's ridiculous that we have politicians pretending it is. I think any parent trying to control every aspect of their child's life is some form of abuse and we've seen real cases of this that have harmed and even killed children. >

Teachers are meant to educate. They are not meant to serve as second parents. >

Schools fundamentally exist to serve the interests of the state and society by educating the populace, but also by instilling cultural norms and a way of viewing the world which benefits the interests of the state and society, which parents may not otherwise provide. If you view that as “serving as a second parent” then schools were absolutely designed from the start with the intention of serving as second parents, and you’re deluding yourself if you think otherwise. >

I fundamentally disagree that that is the purpose of schools. >

It’s why our public schools were created in the first place, and that’s a pretty indisputable fact. Do a bit of reading into the Prussian model of education that our schools are based on. Public schools were designed to create a well educated citizenry, with the key words there not just being well educated, but also citizenry, meaning people with the same concept of national identity and cultural context. If you don’t think this should be the purpose of public schools, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend that you’re trying to defend some original ideal form of the public school here. >

It most certainly was not the reason. >

If you don’t have an actual argument as to why this isn’t the case, I think we’re done here.