Free To Learn

Do parents have the right to restrict their child’s reading material? Yes, even if it’s a misguided effort.

Do they have the right to restrict the reading material of other people’s children? Absolutely not!

Access to information is a fundamental right, and a robust education system is necessary if we will keep those rights.

There are people with open minds and a need to understand and those whose minds are already made up. Too many of those with made-up minds aren’t thinking for themselves. They are devoted followers. That includes the rash of book banners who are making education harder and less inclusive.

One follower, though he’d like you to believe he’s a leader, is Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction. Ryan Walters cries indoctrination, then he attempts to make indoctrination a reality by using state funds for religious education. He said that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence had nothing to say about separation of church and state.

Well, he’s partially right. There is no Bill of Rights in the Declaration of Independence.

Walter’s state department is providing Oklahoma teachers videos from talk show host Dennis Prager, a man who makes no bones about changing minds. A PragerU video about Christopher Columbus and the enslavement of native peoples asks the question, “Isn’t slavery preferable to death?”

What is Prager’s point here?

Ryan claims that skin color had nothing to do with the burning of Greenwood. Right, they burned African American homes, businesses, and churches for what reason?

If you want the students in your life to know the truth about racism and slavery, don’t count on Walters, Prager, or Moms for Liberty. If you do want them to know the truth, make sure they have access to the books they are trying to ban and the histories they are trying to subvert.

We can start with the following four books. Two facts run through them: 1. It was illegal to teach a slave to read, and even after emancipation, black education was stifled. 2. Slaves often saw their children and partners sold away.

Elementary students can start with Steamboat School by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Ron Hudson. When a school for African American children is shut down by a new Missouri law, an educator builds a school that floats in the Mississippi River outside the domain of the law. This story is based on a true event.

For middle grade and high school students, Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen is the story of an enslaved man who teaches his fellow slaves in a secret night school.

The story continues in Sarny, following a main Nightjohn character after emancipation as she goes in search of her children who were sold away. Despite the men in white robes, she teaches others what Nightjohn taught her.

Jefferson’s Sons, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, is an impeccably researched book about Thomas Jefferson’s children by Sally Hemings. Jefferson owned Hemings, the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Deborah Wayles. Despite mothering four of the president’s children after Deborah’s death, Hemings was never freed.

History is messy, but true history is necessary reading. We can’t change the future for the better if we don’t understand the mistakes of the past.