Beth L. Matters on is a college professor in Florida. She describes how she will respond to DeSantis’ censorship laws: She will ignore them.
She writes:
In a couple of weeks, I’ll walk back into my college classroom and continue my second decade of teaching at one of Florida’s universities. Despite the recently passed HB 7 Amendment (Stop WOKE Act), I won’t be adjusting my syllabi to remove readings or discussions that make students “uncomfortable,” and I won’t pretend that systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other forms of oppression do not exist. I will not “whitewash” our country’s history or minimize the challenges and oppression that so many still experience, especially those who are women and/or members of the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities.
Instead, I will do what I have always done. I will select the creative work of writers who belong to all sorts of communities, and I will require students to read their stories and discuss the work and their themes. Some of those themes are difficult and may make many of us uncomfortable, no matter how we identify or what community we’re in….
I purposefully select work by members of marginalized communities, because many of my students have not yet heard these voices… and many of my students belong to these communities. Recently, among other work, my students read, “Heavy: An American Memoir″ by Kiese Laymon and poems by Danez Smith. Both of these authors address race, class, whiteness, sexuality, politics, family and body image. Smith’s work also addresses homophobia and police brutality, and other topics that are “uncomfortable.”
What if every teacher in Florida did the same? They can’t arrest everyone.
Massive resistance.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
YES, MASSIVE RESISTANCE!
Will DeSantis put them all in jail? Hahahaha…
A statewide strike would be more effective.
With the current nationwide and Florida teacher shortage and horrendous teaching conditions in Florida, there is no way DeSantis could hire even close to the number of scabs needed to replace them.
And there is no way parents in Florida are going to accede to having qualified teachers replaced with untrained, unqualified people, no matter how much DeSantis believes that to be true. I respect military veterans, but training in that area has little bearing on teaching in a public school. Even the military discipline aspect has far more applicability in a no excuses charter. I don’t know where people like DeSantis got the idea of filling teaching shortages with military veterans who have no K-12 teaching qualifications or experience or even a college degree but it is very ill-advised.– is, stupid.
I don’t think teachers in Florida in particular realize how much power they currently wield
A lot of these people think that teaching is a completely low-level job that literally anyone can do. They have ZERO respect for teachers. They assume that almost any adult knows more than almost any kid about almost any subject and so can be a teacher of that subject. And they think that that’s all teaching amounts to. Thus Rhonda Santis’s veterans move. Is it idiotic? You bet it is.
If folks like DeSantis and Abbutt have proved anything, it is that governor is a job that literally anyone can do, especially in Florida and Texas.
But we already knew that from Dumbya, Ronny Raygun and Ahhhnold.
It’s a sign of how primitive we are that we entrust these positions of power to people who are often entirely unqualified and unvetted. Trump is the clearest example. An utter buffoon serving in the most powerful position on Earth. I have said this many times: we do a better job of vetting the person who is going to run the local gas station. Do you know how to take inventory? Check. Do you know basic bookkeeping? Check. Do you have experience in customer service? Check? Read this list of OSHA requirements. I’ll come back and quiz you on them. Even the most minimal stuff like this we don’t do with these people. It’s totally bizarre. Trump freaking thought that stealth airplanes were actually invisible!!!! He didn’t know what the nuclear triad was!!! He didn’t approve of having classified documents!!!!!! What a complete moron.
Shrub and Raygun really were pieces of work. LOL. I recently saw a video of Shrub being pranked by someone pretending to be Zelenskyy, and Shrub was offering utterly childish “advice” about conducting the war. Really, really embarrassing that a man of this low intellectual caliber was in the Oval Office. I thought at the time, it doesn’t get worse than this. But then, IQ45.
Yes, Dumbya giving advice about how to win a war is very funny indeed.
And regarding gas station workers, I will just say that I worked at a gas station after my freshman year in college and the guy who trained me was working on his PhD in one of the best math programs in the country.
So, yes, gas station attendants are sometimes far more qualified than pretty much every president we have ever had.
I had forgotten how utterly moronic Shrub sounded when he expostulated on anything and the bravado and certainty with which did it. It was hilarious.
Trump and Dumbya are in good company.
Most politicians are simply incapable of competently performing any sort of real job. That’s precisely why they go into politics — because they can’t do anything else.
And it’s no real surprise that they usually can’t do the job they were elected to perform either.
DeSantis is attempting a cultural purge in public K-12 schools and universities. He is being assisted by Sinclair Broadcasting that keeps their “Crisis in the Classroom” report in every evening broadcast. It is all part of the agenda to undermine trust in public education. Of course, a few parents will be enraged and eager to report on ‘offending’ educators, but this whole witch hunt is fueled by DeSantis himself and his vague laws that are subject to interpretation.
Unfortunately, Matt Gaetz is my Congressman. He was campaigning with Lauren Boebert in my area. It should be called the ‘dumb and dumber’ tour. When asked by a reporter what should be done about school shootings, he said, “We need more prayer in schools.”
What Gaetz was probably thinking when he said we need more prayer in schools was “we need more xex between Congressmen and underaged girls in school”
Matt: We need more prayer and more lines of cocaine off the backs of hookers.
If most if not all of the public school teachers ignored DeSantis gag orders, I suspect he’d do what President Reagan did when he fired 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1025018833/looking-back-on-when-president-reagan-fired-air-traffic-controllers
Since the libertarian-fascist RINOs in the Republican Party already want to destroy public education, if the public school teachers refused to do what DeSantis gag order says without going to court to stop him, he might use that as an excuse to fire all those public school teachers and shut down the public school systems in the state.
Then he’d turn over K-12 education in Florida to Charters and online schools to take over teaching our children.
Once DeSantis fired all the public school teachers and closed down Florida’s public schools, the only way to reverse that damage would be in the courts so why not go through the courts first?
until cases end up in courts, it feels as if the “news” won’t speak to issues no matter how blatant they may be
The situation is much different than the situation with the air traffic controllers.
Reagan was able to replace them all.
That is z virtual impossibility in this case.
And parents would never allow the teachers being rep!Acer with unqualified people.
There are 177,000 teachers in Florida.
DeSantis could not feasibly fire them all, not unless he replaced them with completely unqualified people and I don’t think parents would ever go along with thst.
DeSantis only does what he does because he thinks no one will call his bluff.
And his supporters only go along with him because they think they have nothing to lose.
The second that changed — if DSantis fired all the teachers and replaced them wit unqualified people — you would see them abandoned in him in droves.
One Libertarian goal is to privatize air traffic control. Another Libertarian goal is to end higher education. Not to privatize it; to end it. Jailing ALL the professors is not only on the table; it’s in the playbook. What’s the first thing a dictator does in power? Get rid of the teachers who don’t fall in line.
The brave professor who wrote this post is more than an education hero. Professor Matters is an American hero, a hero of all of civilization.
Exactly, LeftCoast. Fascists always go after the professors–the intellectuals generally–at the same time that they go after whatever Enemy Within they have been pitching to the rubes. This is on their agenda from Day 1.
Will the parents – level headed, trusting, and hopefully ticked off about all of these laws – flood Board meetings – and bring a book?
And, news is spreading about teachers not allowed to accept donations of books, hold book fairs, and other restrictions.
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2022/08/12/sarasota-schools-library-book-purchases-donations-frozen/10307632002/
Beth Matterson matters, son.
My new shero!!!
Yes, massive resistance. When, in our democracy, laws are so obviously self-servingly unjust and evil, are they really laws to obey?
Émile Durkheim: “When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
So, we might say: When laws are insufficient, mores are necessary. When laws are sufficient, that’s because mores are sufficient.
This beautiful, important manifesto was written under a pseudonym. Why? Because the age of reprisals by the Thought Police against Crimethink has begun. If the Pugs win in November and in 2024, expect a LOT more of this. Goons on the doorstep. Teachers hauled away.
She is a hero! But, as someone said above, there should be statewide action. Our teachers’ unions–AFT & NEA were built by courageous teachers and their leaders, in the ’60’s & ’70’s. Where is that leadership now? This teacher should not have to fight this battle alone!
And joining in should be every university and college president – – and millions of college students who heard about the ’60s from their grandparents – – and every acronym-ed educational association, organization, foundation, and consortium… voter!
DeSantis now wants to expand the program for veterans to teach to retired firefighters, police officers and EMTs. This would be considered in the 2023 legislative session.
He bashes education schools saying that these people’s “real life” experiences are more worthwhile than a 22 yo who just completed a traditional degree program and semester internship. I know they are at risk of being punished for speaking out, because that is how we unfortunately roll in Florida, but the College of Education deans at UF, FSU, UCF, USF, etc. need to defend their programs as much as we K-12 teachers are trying to defend our profession.
I would post a link, but when I do so, my comment doesn’t appear.
Here is the story from Orlando Sentinel.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ne-desantis-first-responders-teachers-20220816-tg2k6mtywrhz5aluwrj5vtckfe-story.html
Paywall free article.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/547584-ron-desantis-cops-2/
DeSantis wants to deprofessionalize teaching. Another aspect of his agenda is to put people inside public schools that are more ideologically aligned with his right wing Christian Nationalist point of view. That way he can better control the narrative in the schools. He believes that inserting authoritarian men into the schools will force the “unruly women” to behave.
This is just what good teachers do. No matter how much pressure there was to teach the test, I closed my door and taught kids.
Yes. Second that.
Yes, Dr. Griffith. Thank you.
Even non-education sources are catching on to grift. Too late, I fear.
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/08/estimated-300k-teachers-left-year-why
If the Florida public are already electing people like Ron DeSantis and Matt Gaetz , just imagine how dumb they will become after replacing teachers with unqualified people.
It will be all downhill.
Every time we stand for each other, for the planet, we support the truth that we are here for Love, made for Love and belong to Love. Everything else is a lie.
Amen