Did our legislature sleep through civics class?

Todd Dorman’s March 3 column, “Letting lawmakers write history is a mistake,” reminded me of teaching civics to Iowa high school seniors in 1969.

For the first Earth Day a few students sampled river water from different sites and took them to the chemistry lab to determine the sedimentation and pollution levels. Others took pictures of sewer discharge pipes and smokestacks. They presented this at an all-school assembly which local state legislators attended.

Later, I gave a course assignment to write a letter to the editor or any politician about any issue that concerned them. They were to be graded on the clarity of their argument, their factual sources, and their composition. Mailing them was their own choice, and some did.

The late 1960s was an era of political polarization much like today. Prompted by the local state senator, an investigation of me was started by the Division of Criminal Investigation for my supposed radicalization of my students.

Encouraging civic participation is now called “action civics.” The Iowa House passed a bill to ban it. It is the legislature that wants to indoctrinate students with political views by rewriting history and requiring students to view anti-abortion films.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Socrates was forced to drink Hemlock and die for subverting the nation’s youth as claimed by the reactionaries of his time or as I would say, teaching students to think. Has humanity made any actual progress if this is still a crime?

David Mansheim

Parkersburg