The outlooks and aspirations of future Indiana teachers are both inspiring and sad.
Indiana State University students training for careers in teaching are monitoring the actions of state legislators in the Indiana General Assembly. Proposed legislation from those lawmakers would restrict public school teachers from guiding their students through discussions of controversial issues.
Even if House Bill 1134 gets amended into being less draconian, even if it does not advance, the proposed law has already had a chilling effect on teachers.
It also is pushing some of those talented, eager young educators-to-be away from the profession. They sense a lack of respect and trust from dozens of those legislators who have expressed support for legislation that originally exposed teachers and schools to lawsuits for violations of the law.
This proposed legislation was not a homegrown response to an Indiana problem. It is part of a national trend, centered around critical race theory, a college-level concept that racism is pervasive in laws and practices. CRT, as it has become know, is a favorite topic of cable TV personalities, hence its rising notoriety. Conservative think tanks helped script legislation now under consideration in several states, including Indiana.
House Bill 1134 is unnecessary and harmful. It would freeze teachers from approaching topics in history and current events.
Students studying to become teachers wonder if they will be able to discuss the horrors of slavery through centuries in America, the injustices of Jim Crow laws throughout the country, Native Americans being driven from their lands, and McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s. In a story reported in today’s edition by the Tribune-Star’s Sue Loughlin, one ISU education student questioned whether she would be allowed to discuss the 1950s federal policy that called for gay men and lesbians working for the federal government to be removed from their jobs because they were considered a threat to U.S. national security.
Her question summarized the wrongness of House Bill 1134. Both McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare were mentioned in students’ assigned textbooks at their high school, where the ISU student is doing her student teaching. What if a high school student asked why the people wronged in those two historical events were targeted?
Prospective teacher Brianna Ulery speculated that she might not be able to answer, if HB 1134 became law.
The Indiana Senate removed some of the most restrictive elements of HB 1134 this week. They eliminated a requirement for parent-led review committees of classroom curriculum, making those optional instead, Indiana Public Broadcasting reported. Senators also removed the lawsuit threat, replacing it with a grievance process. Also cut was language restricting materials deemed harmful to minors. And, the list of eight “divisive” concepts banned from discussion was boiled down to three, ensuring that schools do not promote ideas that anyone should be discriminated against, or that students should bear responsibility for past actions committed by people of their race or origins. They also included language to ensure the bill is not used to prevent discussion of past injustices or to prevent the teaching of “factual history.”
Even the latter point regarding “factual history” could cause problems for a teacher or school. President Joe Biden won the 2020 election by 7 million popular votes and a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College, a verified reality. Yet millions of Americans still believe former President Donald Trump’s false claim that he actually won. Could an Indiana teacher describe Biden as the 2020 victor?
Some of the ISU students feel determined to teach history and social studies, even the hard lessons. One student said she hoped HB 1134 fails, then added, “But I hope even if it does pass, I’m able to find a different way to teach it correctly or a different way to do it.”
Indiana needs her and other prospective and veteran teachers. Legislators should drop HB 1134 and let the teachers do what they are trained to do, teach.
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