Lewis and Clark Middle
In the sixth grade at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian, Idaho, everyone is not “welcome” anymore (Today). In Mrs. Inama’s class, the administration ordered her to take down two posters, the two banners above. According to the administrators, the banners violate a district policy that requires, “…“banners to be content-neutral and conducive to a positive learning environment .” Clearly, in the West Ada School District, welcoming and valuing everyone, regardless of the color of their hands or some other factors, is against District policy.
That’s how far our Nation has come, in such a short time. Putting multi-racial hands together in a poster is now controversial. And the fact that “everyone is welcome” simply isn’t true anymore. To West Ada, and for a lot of the rest of the Nation, everyone is NOT welcome. Or at least implying that they might be is now a “political controversy”.
And West Ada isn’t some tiny district in the mountains of Idaho. It’s the school district of suburban Boise, with 40,000 students and seven high schools. This ain’t the “hicks” in the middle of nowhere, this is modern, suburban, America. West Ada is 77.75% white, 12.1% Latino, 5% multi-racial, 2% Asian-American, and 2% Black. You might be able to guess who doesn’t feel particularly “welcome” here.
21st Century Politics
The sixth graders at Lewis and Clark Middle are getting a lesson in the white-power, MAGA politics of the 21st Century this year. They are learning that some in power in our society, don’t want them to see that, “All men are created equal”. To the West Ada District, black hands and brown hands and white hands aren’t to be together. In West Ada, equality is now; “not conducive to a positive learning environment”. And they might lose their teacher, Mrs. Inama, in the process.
Do the Administrators of West Ada really think that their students shouldn’t be; “welcome, important, accepted, respected, encourage, valued and equal?” They probably do. But those Administrators are dead-afraid that community members might call them a new dirty word: W#@E!!!! It’s “woke” to say that kids are “equally respected”. It’s “woke” to say that Black and Asian and multi-racial kids are “welcome”. And it’s really, really, really “woke”, to think there might even be sixth graders becoming aware that they are not “the same” as all the others. Science (that dreaded word) now identifies seventy-two versions of gender. But I’m sure in the minds of many in West Ada, and the President of the United States, they can only think of two.
Be the Same
There also might be some sixth graders who are discovering their sexual preferences, completely separate from their gender identity. That would place them somewhere on the eight-point “Kinsey Scale” of sexual orientation (from 1948, not so new). Again, that’s not “acceptable” in our new order of 1950’s rigidity. Gay kids, especially sixth graders: OH, NO WAY are they acceptable!!
And then there’s the usual factors that divide any group of children: economic background, intellectual, artistic, musical, athletic abilities; and all of the other things that make us different to each other. When they come to school, they all want to know that all of the things that “make them, them” matter, and are accepted. They also want to know that the teacher will see them as who they are, and treat them fairly. (But, not necessarily equally. If a teacher doesn’t somehow differentiate how they teach to the needs of the individual kids, it might be equal, but it won’t be fair). But the message of West Ada is this: be the same.
On the List
Sure, if Mrs. Inama is fired, it won’t be for her “beliefs”. No one is fired for believing that kids should be secure in the classroom. She’ll be fired for “INSUBORDINATION”, refusing to knuckle-under to the new change in our “political environment”. She’s a fifth-year teacher, and she knows what’s right. Veteran teachers will tell her to let this go, take the posters down, then close the door and teach the way she always did. That’s the way to “weather” political turmoil. But it’s hard for newer, “gooder” teachers to do that. She wants to model for her kids what “good citizens” do: stand up for their beliefs.
The veterans still model good citizenship in the classroom. But they’ve lost the willingness to fight the “admin” or the most vocal citizens of their community. I guess the good folks in Meridian should ask: what kind of teacher do they want their kids to have? Maybe they should want someone who is willing to fight for their kids, even risk her job for them; all of them.
That teacher ought to be pretty high on the list.
