It's a big world after all

I’ve been to Disney World a few times. The first time I heard “It’s a Small World,” I thought it was catchy. Its theme of the world as one family seemed sweet. After about 50 times it wasn’t so sweet. After the 100th, I want to scream, “Turn it off.”

That’s the trouble in Iowa, where 134 Republicans in the Legislature are singing “It’s a Small World” at the top of their lungs from January until late April.

They’re not singing about the world as a big happy family that recognizes differences. They’re making our world small.

Most Iowans believe public education is to broaden students’ understanding of a big world. That’s why they study literature, science, history, geography and math. Students say, “I’m never going to use this in real life.” But we can only hope these courses will help in understanding a complex world.

Teachers encourage and challenge students to think beyond themselves. That’s not always comfortable or easy, but a talented, dedicated, teacher can bring out potential in a student, unless meddling politicians block the magic of the classroom.

It’s happening in Iowa.

A Linn-Mar School board member recently was attacked by the GOP scream machine for saying, “The purpose of public education is not to teach what parents want. It’s to teach them what our society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.” She’s right.

It’s a big world, after all. But Republican legislators want our kids to fear it.

They’re putting Iowa students in a tiny box pretending that’s the size of our world. It began last session with an attempt to criminalize teaching, and it continued with the more than 30 bills attacking LGBTQ students.

Currently, the House and the Senate may be singing from different pages of the same song, but eventually the choir director is going to get the tune she wants. The overarching theme of this session is limiting what’s taught in public schools to please a minority of loud parents pretending public schools have stolen their parental rights.

Both chambers have now passed versions of the governor’s monster “Parent’s empowerment bill” (Senate File 496). Part of this bill meddles in the curriculum by attempting to ban books under the guise of “age appropriate.”

The definition of age appropriate contains this, “Age appropriate does not include any material that includes any material with graphic descriptions or visual descriptions of a sex act.”

Of course, educators and parents want children taught with age-appropriate materials. But age appropriate is open to interpretation. In the 27 years representing teachers, I never had a serious accusation of a teacher using pornography in the classroom.

This broad, vague definition, could eliminate a lot of world literature and American classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Catcher in the Rye” and “Lord of the Flies.”

Without knowing characters like Atticus, Holden, and Jack, a student’s world is indeed smaller. Let’s not let narrow ideology make it small for our children.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City, taught for 11 years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association Regional Director for 27 years until retiring.