The Shame of the Culture War
Classrooms used to be safe havens for open and honest public discourse
The following estimate is not based on objective research. It’s a guess. But it’s a somewhat educated guess. I’ve been a teacher for 10 years of my life. When you are a teacher, you find yourself talking about education in conversations with other people you meet. So I’ve talked to a lot of people about their experiences in the K-12 education system in the United States.
Here is my best guess to the political demographics of teachers in America:
1% political activist teachers who would be proud to see their students become activists for the cause one day
59% registered Democrats who have biases (to varying degrees, as most people do) but genuinely care about teaching their subject well and try to stay neutral on political topics that might arise in class
30% independent-minded people who don’t really care about politics or are really good at hiding their political views
10% registered Republicans who go out of their way to show colleagues they’re not that kind of Republican
If you are consumed in right-wing media, you are convinced that our public schools are fully staffed with progressive activists. While this accusation might be closer to being true in deep blue enclaves like Seattle and San Francisco, it is certainly not true in Arizona.
Sure: the Democratic party has shifted left on cultural issues, and moderate Democrats are terrified of pushing back against the woke scolds in their own party, lest they be accused of siding with the enemy. I agree there is reason for concern that disputed narratives might be taught as objective truth in schools. I don’t think the concern warrants panic or knee-jerk legislation, but I agree we should be talking about school curriculum.
Our country has a history of leaders stepping out in front of public opinion to take courageous stands for civil rights. I’m glad Dr. King didn’t wait for public opinion to catch up before seeking to overturn Jim Crow laws in the segregated South. To read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail is to be shaken to the core. And that used to be a good thing in education.
Andrew Sullivan wrote Here Comes The Groom: A (conservative) case for gay marriage in 1989. It’s easy to forget, because public opinion has changed so dramatically on this issue, but mainstream Democrats weren’t publicly supporting gay marriage as late as the 2008 presidential campaign. By 2015, gay marriage was the law of the land. It was supported by 70% of the American people in 2021.
It’s unclear what will emerge from the cultural dialogue (or slugfest) we’re currently having on issues of race and gender theory. How should we interpret the sins of the past and the ongoing disparities in society? How and when should we teach topics relating to gender and sexual orientation in our schools?
In an ideal world, we would have open and honest spaces to talk about these issues. We would listen to counter-arguments made in good faith. We would reach conclusions based on facts, reason, and a coherent moral worldview. But in the current media ecosystem, we have chaos.
One of the things I loved about teaching social studies — before the culture war exploded — was that we could talk about controversial issues in an open and honest way. Students would share their opinions, and the opinions would be way different. And as a teacher, I could moderate the discussion and everyone would still be friends and come back the next day for a new lesson.
Today, teachers are walking through a minefield. Every day I read a new story about a new bill that would allow parents to sue teachers for something or another. Every day I see a social media warrior with hair on fire targeting a bad lesson taught by a teacher who, yea, sure, maybe taught a bad lesson, but the social media warrior doesn’t really care about education. The social media warrior wants ammunition. The social media warrior wants to destroy things.
When everything is controversial, there is no way to avoid controversial issues in the classroom. The safest thing for a teacher to do is quit teaching. Teachers won’t suffer too much; they will probably find a job with higher pay and less stress. Our society will suffer greatly, though, if our leaders keep focusing on crushing political enemies rather than solving practical problems like improving our education system.
Sedona, Arizona