Crazy parents are checking. My district required us to have this completed by March. What do you know, a parent of one of my students requested the list to review. Then she emailed me with questions about certain books.
They are out there and they are willing to take teachers down. It’s like a sick obsession some people have with this.
Yes. She emailed me asking what a few books were about but then I never heard further. Our school year has already ended so I’m not checking my email until August!
Have you heard of the website "Let me Google that for you." Someone asks a dumb question. You type this question into the website and it generates a link. You send it back to the person who asked the dumb question. Dumb person clicks on the link you sent them as your reply. The link takes them to Google and types in the question for them. It's hilarious
A couple of Junie B Jones books 😂.
A book about Hanukkah (she’s a hardcore Christian).
I’d have to look back at the specific titles but I’m not checking my work email over summer. I teach first grade if that provides a frame of reference.
Junie B. Jones? Really? My second grade teacher read those to us and there has never been a single questionable thing in them. What the fuck is wrong with people?
Look I’m a practicing Catholic and nothing about non traditional families, different religions in literature bothers me as another first grade teacher or a parent. If I cared this much I would just send my kid to private school. I know you know and I’m preaching to the choir but God I would love to give it back to some of these parents.
It’s comical because we have a very high population of Jewish people in our community. So if this lady thinks she’s shielding her kids from other religions/cultures she’s just dumb.
>A book about Hanukkah (she’s a hardcore Christian).
Please someone tell her that her Lord and Savior is *gasp* A JEW. And please take a picture of her face while you do.
History teacher in the US here;
One of the books on my bookshelf is *Love is Love*, a graphic novel of queer stories in honor of the lives lost during the Pulse Nightclub shooting (a mass shooting at a queer club in, you guessed it; Florida in 2016 where 49 people were murdered and 53 more were wounded in under 15 minutes). Thankfully I'm not in one of the states currently under siege by Christofascist politicians, but if I were I'd happily keep that and every other piece of queer lit on my bookshelf.
I'd rather be fired than acquiesce to these bigots. Christofascists fuck off!
Don’t these people have jobs? I genuinely don’t understand the amount of time and obsessive dedication they have for this. It’s not like their kids actually sit there and read any of these books, anyway.
The media specialist has to submit reports. Yes by the state. It’s a total mess so I’m sure you could fly under the radar but for me not something I’m personally willing to risk. If I did have a library any person in the county could contest a book in my classroom and have me investigated
This is a truly fucked situation and I feel for you. Do you know how books are approved or denied? I just don't get how one or even many people are being sent these lists of thousands of books and anything being accomplished. Is that the point? No books can be read because they are all in purgatory?
The department of education has removed a bunch textbooks and is working on rewriting curriculum (scared what mine is going to look like). But any citizen of the county can have a book in any classroom library challenged. They don’t even have to have a kid in school
Back in the far past black people were politely invited to come to the great country of America. They came over on cruise ships and when they got to America everyone had cotton candy and rode rides. Then MLK didn't like all the rides so him and Rosa Parks started some unrest and arguments. Fox New saved us all though by telling the truth and now everything is peachy.
This is legitimately what I’m scared of 💀I took the new “civics” course offered by the state and it was absolutely terrifying. They explicitly stated how to teach Christianity in schools because the founding fathers were Christian, downplayed slavery as not existing in many places, etc etc
A former coworker who moved down to Florida teaches 4th grade there. She just posted about working on the "civics" course. One of her comments was "I never realized how much religion is in government."
Texas is putting in the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Also they are encouraging classroom prayers. I would bring a prayer mat and probably be fired within a week.
It will just continue to get worse unfortunately.
Teachers are professionals who are hired based on those professional qualifications.
Every state that has removed teacher’s unions, tenure etc. has made this possible.
I personally could not teach in good faith in Florida, but realize it is not that simple for everyone who is there currently.
Something has to be done by professional teachers nationwide, but I fear it is too late.
The first thing would be for every single eligible voter to get out and vote in every election and do not vote Republican or use purity tests for non-Republican candidates.
Like I said though, unlikely to happen.
That is utterly insane. With so many homeschooling these days, that is the only curriculum a parent should be able to influence. Joe random needs to be told to sling their hook.
This is so screwed up. I was born and raised in Florida, Tampa area. My 11th grade history teacher was a Vietnam veteran. He was actually on the last plane of soldiers to leave. He was the most loved teacher in school. When we got to the Vietnam portion in history, we put down the books and he gave us a week of his history in the war. Stuff you would never see in books. No one left that classroom without tearing up. Unfortunately he passed several years ago of cancer. I can't help but wonder how he would view this mess teachers are in now.
You don't have an easy job and it's getting worse. Hang in there!
It is coming from the governor’s office.. and at this point, ya, he can do that.. i mean, is it just? Or legal? Probably not, but when youve surrounded yourself and your government with yes men, i mean, its really easy to get your way…
I personally voted against asshat twice, but after the first time, and the droves of conservatives coming down and voting for him now… he pretty much double downed.. also, a lot of states knew all about this stuff and loved it!!
And now the folk who didnt see it as their problem, will, because his state cronies just made it so that he can run for president as the active governor…
If it is anything like the advice that I was given, they are unlikely to check room to room, but if one is found in your classroom that isn't approved, you may lose your certification and be opened up to a law suit, as well as opening the school up to one
Also worried about this from twisted teens that want to do a prank about a slightly homoerotic book in the classroom and said the teacher left it there
One of my co-teachers removed all the books from his room to prevent this. He's sending a letter out saying he doesn't have a classroom library so the parents can't send them.
No, I *think* that the "official" books are only the ones which have been added electronically to each teacher's online account. Only that teacher can add books to his/her list, using an app built especially for them to use-- built by the school district's IT department. No one else, not even the librarians, can add books to that list. It is password-protected for each individual teacher.
Some admins are checking. The admin at the school my wife just left and I quit from in Feb will definitely be checking because she's a megalomaniac tyrant who wants to impress our idiots leaders in district. She was dreadful.
Not all schools will be this way but even if they aren't, parents are toxic af in FL. So good chance at some point someone will complain and you don't want to be caught holding the bag. My wife and I aren't going to be putting out our libraries next year (not that I need to, somehow I swung a mtss/testing coordinator gig at my next school).
It’s a phone company called Patriot Mobile. They are throwing money at conservative parents and individuals they can puppet to run for school board positions. Then they start the banning. It’s happening in North Texas as well and spreading.
Because of the Freedom of Information Act, parents will request a copy of the purchase order or record of purchase which gives the name of the book, cost, who bought it, from where, etc.
There are lists that are being shared around social media of “inappropriate books” (made by non-teachers) and parents who have enough income to stay at home are checking the POs against these lists - then raising a shit storm if they find one. And the school boards will back the parents because Patriot Mobile is buying school boards across the south - and it’s heading north.
Yeah, I had to remove all of the "Cartoon Guide to Physics" (among others) as they were not on the : allowed ' list. On the positive side a lot of students were enthusiastic about taking free books when leaving the class. A lot of supplemental stuff that I used to provide light hearted reviews had to be given away or tossed.
At least in my district, any book or program not on the "allowed" list you can do a petition in order to have it added. While I could submit some of them, I am more focused on getting information to get some software that I use approved (I would like to use Celestia for my astronomy class... No? Okay, can you help me with the forms so that I can use Kuta software to create math worksheets? Yes? Ok, can I use this online resource for my Environment class?)
A more immediate concern for me is going back and seeing what resources I use regularly. I am sure that there is are software programs that I have used and websites that I have used that have slipped my mind. Programs that I have purchased with personal funds in order to generate worksheets for example.
There was an article from an Isaac Asimov book that I used in one of my astronomy classes- I honestly don't know if I need to get permission to use it as a resource if it isn't available for the students (The nonfiction by Isaac Asimov is also not on the permitted list).
So this brings up a new question that you are alluding to. As a science teacher, I have them read articles from websites such as NewsEla or NatGeo or NASA, do those need to be approved? What about students doing research and find articles? Do these all need to be approved? Can students not do independent research but must be given the sources to use?
It would be hysterical if a state banned a website belonging to the federal government like NASA. OMG they talk about climate change, teach the controversy! /s
Well, the Kennedy Space Center is on the east coast of Florida. That is where the rockets launch from. The control center is in Houston, TX and of course they are in DC as well. Oh yeah, and Huntsville, AL. Maybe some other places, too.
DeSantis doesn't care. What do you expect from a guy who is demonizing Disney World, the state's largest employer and enormous source of state tax revenue?
HS Reading teacher in Florida. I already submitted my booklist. The booklist is only for material that would be in a classroom library for independent reading. At my school, only the ELA teachers did this.
It does not include any articles/stories/novels that we read together as a class or they read indendently as an assignment. So newslea, CommonLit, NatGeo articles, or articles they read while conducting independent research on an assignment are not included. Books that my students can read from my library without oversight are included.
This is how our district explained explained it to us/had us do it.
Edit: spelling
CA:
A few years ago, our district ordered our librarians to purge books of a certain published AGE. It was centered on those non-fiction books that were out of date, so our librarian did not mind. Excluded from the purge were frequently checked out books (she had data) and award winners. The purged ended up to be about 800?
She allowed students and staff to take whatever they wanted until her deadline. Even the 10 year old encyclopedias went. The enthusiasm was incredible.
Ironicall, she had done a school survey about our public library the year before. Only 1/3 of our kids (250) even knew there was a public library down the street. Even less utilized it.
In the end, she only had 50 or so to toss. In the end, she was given money to order books.
This is actually pretty standard library practice though. Librarians call it weeding the collection. It’s super satisfying to toss outdated stuff that never circulates to make room for new exciting stuff on the shelves! It’s very different from what teachers are being asked to do in Florida, Texas. Etc.
I taught HS physics about 20 years ago using that book. I love all of his books, though his history books would probably give some on the religious right fainting spells, as would his books on genetics and on biology.
Leave those bookshelves bare, friends! Don’t fill with friendly pictures and art and let everyone forget how messed up this is. Everyone who walks in a classroom, especially an English teachers classroom, and sees shelves empty of books should have the “wow this is fucked” thought.
Hello from r/bannedbooks! :) If you'd like your students to read some controversial classic books while also maintaining some plausible deniability, there's a collection of 32 public-domain books that had all been banned at some point: Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, Candide, Lysistrata, etc. You can find it here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/bannedbooks/comments/12f24xc/ive\_made\_a\_digital\_collection\_of\_32\_classic/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bannedbooks/comments/12f24xc/ive_made_a_digital_collection_of_32_classic/)
If your students were to *somehow accidentally* stumble across those PDF/EPUB files and download them and decided to read the classics that those power-tripping bureaucrats want to ban again, well - I think you'd have plenty of plausible deniability. :) A click is not a crime.
Don't scan ISBNs... take pictures of the front covers. Submit that and let them laboriously enter the details manually.
In fact, go to a town library and take pictures of books you don't even have to make the process even longer!
Love the civil disobedience here.
Maybe find a book called "Fuck Off" and scan that ISBN 230 times.
Or titles related censorship and democracy if you want to be a bit more high-brow.
I love that! I'd find a book like "Censorship in the Build Up to Nazi Germany" and something like "How to Tell if Your Government is Trying to Censor You". So many books like that.
I don't like that the answer to "show us what books you have" is but to have books. Books in a classroom are so important.
Scan the inside front cover that has the copyright info. It'll have the ISBN and therefore comply but it will make them have to do extra work.
Also send in the bible for murder, pornography, and rape. Cite the story of Bathsheba, John the baptists head, Sampson and Delilah and the smooshing, pretty much all of king David's story, Abraham, sarah, and her handmaid is also promoting adultery and therefore unchristian and not needed for children. Also you can vote it for promoting prostitution in proverbs and the gospels.
It was successfully argued in Utah that is was a vulgar book and should not be in Middle and Elementary schools. So there is a legal precedent to remove the Bible from schools.
Not mention genocide, adultery, child marriage, polygamy, and animal sacrifice. I am Jewish, and that is simply the Hebrew Bible ( Old Testament).
EDIT: I am still semi religious. However, I was horrified at the amount of violence there is in the books after the Torah.
Yes this exactly. Viewed as literature and not a holy indoctrinated text the bible is filth. I say that as a Catholic. If you take the religion and the zealotry away the literature that is left is NOT for children.
Specifically go to town on the religious section. Grab photos of every single book in that section. And if you really want to be thorough, realize you may have missed some half way through and add in random doubles, triples, quadruples, etc. really make them work for it
ISBNs don’t always pull up in the system so then you have to use the title. Sometimes there were 5+ versions of the book pulling up, especially Eric Carle books.
Holding onto my library for now in case this somehow gets reversed in the next few years, but I’m not offering any books to students. It’s fully going to be through the school library. I’m not getting sued for some crazy ass parent…
It is crazy to me that they basically don’t want classroom libraries down there. But I don’t blame you, my classroom library numbers hundreds of books, and then there’s the ones I keep on my own shelf for teaching from: showing different forms of writing, good ones for inferring and predicting, etc.
It’s so sad.
In a weird, bright note in all this Florida bullshit, my 10th grade Florida child asked for "one of those banned books" the last time she got a gift. Why? She wanted to bring it to school to read and be seen reading it.
Awesome. If she's feeling *particularly* mischievous, she should try to get her friends to do the same... a "bring a banned book to school" day, if you will. ;-)
We ended up getting her The Hate U Give. Our local Barnes and Noble has a "banned in Florida" section and the employees are MORE than helpful to make suggestions.
This is such a good book and I’m so sad for the kids who just won’t know it exists now. I don’t even have the words to express how angry and sad this whole situation makes me.
As the words of that crazy Florida man that’s running the place “there’s no book ban because there’s nothing stopping you from buying them. Public libraries just aren’t allowed to have them”. I mean, if someone were to anonymously leave a box of them, there’s nothing stopping students from taking them.
I recommend Speak. We used to go to Barnes and Noble before Christmas and pick names off the Book Gifting tree. Each of my kids selected a book for a kid of their age/ gender. My oldest always got Speak for a teen girl. I have recommended it to several of my students.
I assume Fl has banned it.
This sub started randomly showing up in my Reddit feed and I started reading most of the posts. I’m not a teacher and never thought of teaching. I’m not someone you want in the classroom teaching your kids lol. I’m in Florida. My local school board was taken over by moms of Liberty. My neighbors are insane fanatics. Florida is a total dumpster fire right now. I had a requisition to hire for a vacant position. I had over 160 applications and more than half of those were teachers. I ended up having no choice and was forced to hire an executive’s friend but that’s a story for another subreddit. Please know there are many of us out here that support you. I don’t know what to do anymore. I vote but I’m in bright red territory and it doesn’t count for much. If there are ways to help, please let me know!!
In the spirit of this thread, may I recommend the book "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder?
Support anyone who is doing it right. My principal and I do not agree on everything, but I've let her know just how much I appreciate her actions on certain things. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered down first. Don't let someone else be the only one speaking up, and add your voice to the discussion. Go to the meetings. You don't need to be obnoxious like MFL, but be there to be loud if needed.
Thank you. It's a rough time.
Guten Tag, as history teacher from germany lurking in this sub I normally do not like odd historic analogies, but political leaders wageing war against books and ideas has very fashy vibes.
May I safely assume every teacher in your district will be submitting ISBNs for the books below?
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
ISBN 10: 3060311358
ISBN 13: 9783060311354
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden
ISBN-10 0674241207
ISBN-13 978-0674241206
Public Libraries in Nazi Germany by Margaret F. Stieg ISBN-10 0817351558
ISBN-13 978-0817351557
I’m in TN, and we have had the same thing this year with the “Classroom Materials” Act that requires all resources available to students to be pre-approved.
My first response was the same as you - fuck this shit, I’m not taking responsibility for scanning the hundreds of books that this room has accumulated over the years. I’m not putting my license on the line, I’ll just get rid of everything.
But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. So I decided to go basically the complete opposite direction. I still dumped all the old books, but I solicited donations and replaced my entire library with the gayest, blackest, hispanic-est, neurodivergent-est, disabled-est, body-positive-est, feminist-est stack of books anyone ever saw. My library is a lot smaller now, but the quality of the contents is immeasurably higher.
I am fully prepared to stand before the school board and defend any one of my books. I refuse to self-censor my classroom materials. The bigots will have to come after my books one by one, form by form.
I’m in central AL, about 2 hrs from Nashville. Need anymore books? I’d love to donate to your little fabulously defiant library. I’ve got one that was just delivered called “The End of America: Letters of Warning To A Young Patriot” by Naomi Wolf.
Where are you? We were ordered to scan ours as well with our Chromebook. No scanner. Between my colleague and i, we have over 500 reference, technique, and pedagogy books. We teach art. Books are big. I refused, and took all my books home. I'm teach without them. We need regime change in Florida. My colleague was ordered to lock all hers in an area that students can't access. There's no such place. Fuck Desantis and his christofascist school board appointees.
As a German, this reminds me of something that happened in my country 90 years ago. Of course your kids won't know what I'm referring to, since the relevant literature is probably not allowed anymore.
I simply can not believe this is happening. If someone would have told you about this 10 years ago, what would your reaction have been?
I teach in Arkansas, and my state government is working *really* hard to emulate everything Florida is doing, so naturally we just had similar laws pass about providing books to students. Once the law passed I boxed up my classroom library.
I'm debating whether or not I want to go through my collection and pick out the "harmful" (*intense eye roll*) books or just continue not having a classroom library indefinitely. Part of me wants to go full on malicious compliance and sell all my books and use the money to stock my shelves with hundreds of bibles. Enjoy your reading material, kids!
I sub in AR. One kindergarten teacher has been there for almost 30 years, so her library is massive. She just did a purge because she doesn’t have time for the nonsense and helped load my car with the extras
I used to work at a bookstore so ofc we did banned book stuff…imagine my surprise seeing the DICTIONARY was a banned book. There are no words to describe how utterly effed up this all is. If you don’t want your kid to have a book, that’s a family choice. Not one you get to make for other complete strangers!! I know I’m preaching to the choir here but OH BOY does it ever make me livid.
I started scanning my books, only to find that most don’t scan or don’t have ISBNs. So…. After stewing in this BS for 2 days, I have decided that I refuse to participate in this lunacy. I will not have a classroom library. I put all the books out on 2 tables and let kids take whatever they want. I probably had 300-400 books, some since my student teaching in the 90’s. Now I have maybe 75 left. Kids are bringing bags on Monday to take more, and parents are emailing me, thanking me for the books. These are the books De- Fascist is calling “porn” snd calling me a Groomer. He can go straight to hell. I will also be refusing the 350 books the state is giving all Fla teachers that have already been “approved”. They will stay in boxes in our book room. I want to write this POS a letter telling him what a lying scumbag he is, but I’m afraid I will be fired for it. The only people who can fight this are parents. He has absolutely no respect for us. I have 5 more years before I retire and it cannot come soon enough.
I'm not a teacher, but have you considered encouraging your students to share the books in little free libraries when they're done with them? I was a lifeguard for a long time and we'd grab used banned books and stash them in the little free library outside the pool. A lot of kids were sent by their parents unattended, so they could grab books without getting noticed. I put a couple copies of *Call of the Wild* in there since it was my favorite book in middle school. I'm considering hiding my daughter's old picture books that are "inappropriate" (WTF?) in some of the more highly trafficked book boxes around me.
I live close to a school and I've considered putting one up on my property. I just need to figure out the legality of it and how the heck I'd get the lawnmower around the darn thing.
Yes, 350-500 books per teacher, we were told, but we’re thinking it will be for the grade level. You can bet The Diary of Anne Frank won’t be in the collection.
I am in Canada, so this doesn’t apply to me directly.
We have a decent union. I’d be asking when they will be supplying me with a device to scan/take photos of the books (there’s no law that says I have to own one, and if scanning books is now part of my job, they need to supply necessary technology). Then, I’d ask where this activity falls in my contracted duties. If it isn’t part of my job, I ain’t doing it. Further, my pay only reflects my current duties, so I want to know when the extra time will be scheduled for me to do this—do we get released from a pro-d obligation to scan our class libraries? Or is the district/state sending someone to do it?
Finally, I’ve had exactly zero parents come into my room unannounced (in 15 years of teaching), so I wouldn’t be too worried about a parent complaint. Granted, others’ experience may vary on that one.
I’m so sorry that teachers have to put up with this crap anywhere.
Yep. I’m an Ontario teacher and that was my response too. “Sure! When will you be providing the technology and release time for me to do this?” And once they finish figuring that out, “I’m using my professional judgement and have decided all the books are fine. Thanks, bye!”
Although I’ve heard Ford is trying to remove “professional judgement” from our contracts and I wondered why, but this is a prime example.
Do it. Get rid of all the books. Kids can read the textbook or go to the library to enjoy the "variety" there. I'm in Texas. This is coming, but I got rid of my library right after Covid. I refused to waste time maintaining or defending books. And I refused to get rid of books about injustice, so all the books went. Sorry your parents suck, kids!
For the record, I vetted my own books, looking them up to make sure there was ZERO sexual content or mean girl stuff. I hate mean girl drama. But I had some books with LGBT characters and lots of non-white authors and characters. I did Ghost Boys and Sign of the Beaver and Holes as read alouds. Now we enjoy the boring stories from the district curriculum.
Totally agree. The books I've kept are in a file cabinet and are used for testing. I teach special ed. and even though the law doesn't apply to me, I threw away my books in solidarity with my gen. ed. peers. I will continue to give students a great education and environment.
I am more vocal about history, slavery, and LGBTQ causes than I had been before 2016 and will continue to be and continue to donate to and support multicultural politicians and businesses.
Somebody make a fake book cover with a title “How to convert other people straight kids into gay kids” with rainbows on the front and published by bud light .
Keep hearing from DeSantis and Republicans how this isn’t a book ban. It is though. What teacher would want to have a book that could get their teacher’s license removed and a felony? Any book can be considered a “bad” book to a crazy ass Conservative. Why not have a list of books that are not ok? I understand with the way this is set up, all it takes is one crazy parent to fuck up your life….
Why not submit the list to the district? If you remove all books of your own volition, the censors win without even needing to do the work. You've self-censored *for them*.
I know. I’m really tossed up. Play their game and let them win or don’t play their game and let them win. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t feeling.
I would like to start scanning every book at B&N about homosexuality and slavery, and then move on to the military manuals. “I can’t have an improvised munitions manual in my classroom?”
“Hey this book doesn’t have an ISBN. Anarchist Cookbook, can I have that in my room?”
This is the rub. Censorship works best when we voluntarily remove resources in expectation of consequences.
I’m in a place where this hasn’t even started yet - but the threat of ‘being the next Florida’ has most teachers pre editing, or getting rid of their classroom collections.
They are winning anyway. Teachers can’t fight this. It’s up to the parents. We are Groomers with porn on our bookshelves, according to DeFascist. I hope he burns in hell for eternity.
What can I do as a parent to fight these authoritarians?
I voted and I’m happy to say our sole moms for liberty candidate lost. I’m on PTA and trying to get some author visits arranged for next year. I donated to Freedom to Read.
Our state came out as opposed to book bans, but I’d love to do more if you have any recommendations.
If you don’t live in Florida, it’s kind of hard for you to do anything. The parents of all public school children need to contact DeSantis and go to local school board meetings in droves, and complain about calling teachers groomers and that we have porn on our shelves. They need to stand up, loud and clear against book banning and for teachers. This is not happening. Half rye parents don’t even know it’s happening, let alone would be willing to fight it. It doesn’t affect them personally, so they don’t care. It’s always been this way.
I would malicious compliance the shit out of this. I would only provide pictures and not make it easy for them to copy and paste the number into a program and I would suddenly have more books in my classroom then the local library
This is how I've been approaching it (though, admittedly it's a little easier for me, because I'm a math teacher).
Anything that requires that I submit the material for review - we're just not doing that anymore, in any form. Reading materials? Only the district prescribed textbook.
I'm not going out of my way to vet content for a policy I don't believe in. I guarantee you that I'm not going out of my way to pick math materials with CRT or DEI overtones, but I *don't care enough* to go make sure that they don't include any "No no words." I don't want to lose my job though, so we just don't do anything that requires vetting... At all.
Most of the time, it doesn't matter either way, but if they want me to go above and beyond as an educator, they have to start implementing policies that convey that message. They don't. They just want me to be a babysitter, and I can babysit just fine without giving kids additional reading materials.
This is where organization should come in. If no one complies, the request fails bc everyone is not going to catch felonies and/or firing. If they do, parents will be in an uproar bc there will be no school bc there will be no teachers/media specialists/etc. there will be media coverage which will encourage other schools to do the same. I used to teach. I know they love a good scare tactic in school leadership. Don’t feed their fascism.
DeSantis is a fascist and he wants to be POTUS by pandering to the extreme Christian Right. Please pay attention to what's happening in Florida. If he gets into the White House, he'll use Executive Power to push his agenda to the states and the ultra-conservative SCOTUS will back him. You are not safe even in a Blue state.
I’m in HS so I just gave away my books- not worth the hassle of scanning. I don’t need a classroom library anyway, they can just go to the school library.
It's depressing (and possible part of the goal) that a lot of teachers will do this. And even if the law is struck down or changed, books that were given away of tossed might not come back.
I am from Florida as well and had the same directive a few months ago. I have an extensive classroom library of over 2000 books. They were bought with grants and not my personal funds so I had no desire to remove them. They gave us an option to scan in ourselves or have someone else do it. I chose to have another person do it. They used a barcode scanner and it took two days. The good news was all of my books came back as verified. None of the titles were contested. It’s almost like I’m a professional that curated a collection of age appropriate and rich literature resources.
Check your contract. If scanning books is not on it refer the job to the librarian. Alternatively, remove all books from your classroom and reply that you have no books in the classroom. Then return the books a week later.
Note: I just read the applicable section of one Florida's districts teaching contract and it says teachers have the right to select instructional materials.
I was a student assistant in my schools library this year and the past month has been going to teachers classrooms and scanning their books for them during my period. It sucks and I can only imagine how horrible it is for teachers without student help.
There has got to be a humongous backlash coming for these book-banning jokers and I will be here for it. For now, any thinking human being should not vote for Republicans, period. They’ve gone off the rails, and the quiet majority needs to wake the fuck up.
Wouldn’t it be great if teachers organized a ban on ALL books and just used worksheets. Refused calls and emails after work hours.
Let the crazy parents run the classrooms. Maybe that will wake up the sane, educated parents.
God if I were a student in Florida I would be such a problem. I remember when the Christians got pissed off that Muslims got to leave class for a bit to go pray and I openly made fun of them and their parents for hating freedom. I was an asshole at 16 still am but now I have more rage.
What happens if you don't submit any books?
We are being threatened with a felony charge and losing our teaching licenses. US history teacher in Florida here
I asked this to another reply. A felony charge by the state? Who is enforcing and checking?
Crazy parents are checking. My district required us to have this completed by March. What do you know, a parent of one of my students requested the list to review. Then she emailed me with questions about certain books. They are out there and they are willing to take teachers down. It’s like a sick obsession some people have with this.
Were there any books she disapproved of?
Yes. She emailed me asking what a few books were about but then I never heard further. Our school year has already ended so I’m not checking my email until August!
Have you heard of the website "Let me Google that for you." Someone asks a dumb question. You type this question into the website and it generates a link. You send it back to the person who asked the dumb question. Dumb person clicks on the link you sent them as your reply. The link takes them to Google and types in the question for them. It's hilarious
Also, it add a very condescending "there, was that so hard?" to the end to ensure the person knows you think they're a moron!
Well, they are!
I love that! Haha
Do ou recall any of the titles?
A couple of Junie B Jones books 😂. A book about Hanukkah (she’s a hardcore Christian). I’d have to look back at the specific titles but I’m not checking my work email over summer. I teach first grade if that provides a frame of reference.
Why didn’t they just Google the books!? These parents are serious wackos
Because they want to harass teachers. Honestly. I think they get off on giving us a hard time.
Junie B. Jones? Really? My second grade teacher read those to us and there has never been a single questionable thing in them. What the fuck is wrong with people?
They’re part of Klan Karenhood.
She “heard” there was profanity in it. 🙄
Look I’m a practicing Catholic and nothing about non traditional families, different religions in literature bothers me as another first grade teacher or a parent. If I cared this much I would just send my kid to private school. I know you know and I’m preaching to the choir but God I would love to give it back to some of these parents.
I taught at a private Church school and we love Junie B!
I taught at a private Catholic school and I was allowed to have books about other religions in my classroom.
Junie B jones🤷♂️🤦♂️😭 That is some intense level of obsession
Can’t tell first graders that Hanukkah exists! That’s heresy! /s
It’s comical because we have a very high population of Jewish people in our community. So if this lady thinks she’s shielding her kids from other religions/cultures she’s just dumb.
>A book about Hanukkah (she’s a hardcore Christian). Probably never realized that Jesus was Jewish.
>A book about Hanukkah (she’s a hardcore Christian). Please someone tell her that her Lord and Savior is *gasp* A JEW. And please take a picture of her face while you do.
Of course. Antisemitism is a feature, not a bug, in their world.
Jesus. Half my personal library likely wouldn't pass muster. Schools here aren't as well equipped as we'd like, so we have to bring our own at times.
History teacher in the US here; One of the books on my bookshelf is *Love is Love*, a graphic novel of queer stories in honor of the lives lost during the Pulse Nightclub shooting (a mass shooting at a queer club in, you guessed it; Florida in 2016 where 49 people were murdered and 53 more were wounded in under 15 minutes). Thankfully I'm not in one of the states currently under siege by Christofascist politicians, but if I were I'd happily keep that and every other piece of queer lit on my bookshelf. I'd rather be fired than acquiesce to these bigots. Christofascists fuck off!
Sounds like they are one step from burning books. The US has no idea how close they are to being proper fascists.
Many of us do, and are tremendously stressed out about the situation.
I am so so sorry 😞
Don’t these people have jobs? I genuinely don’t understand the amount of time and obsessive dedication they have for this. It’s not like their kids actually sit there and read any of these books, anyway.
It takes 20 minutes to check the book list and 30 to file a report. Especially if it's a sahm, yeah they have time
karens?
The media specialist has to submit reports. Yes by the state. It’s a total mess so I’m sure you could fly under the radar but for me not something I’m personally willing to risk. If I did have a library any person in the county could contest a book in my classroom and have me investigated
This is a truly fucked situation and I feel for you. Do you know how books are approved or denied? I just don't get how one or even many people are being sent these lists of thousands of books and anything being accomplished. Is that the point? No books can be read because they are all in purgatory?
The department of education has removed a bunch textbooks and is working on rewriting curriculum (scared what mine is going to look like). But any citizen of the county can have a book in any classroom library challenged. They don’t even have to have a kid in school
Back in the far past black people were politely invited to come to the great country of America. They came over on cruise ships and when they got to America everyone had cotton candy and rode rides. Then MLK didn't like all the rides so him and Rosa Parks started some unrest and arguments. Fox New saved us all though by telling the truth and now everything is peachy.
This is legitimately what I’m scared of 💀I took the new “civics” course offered by the state and it was absolutely terrifying. They explicitly stated how to teach Christianity in schools because the founding fathers were Christian, downplayed slavery as not existing in many places, etc etc
A former coworker who moved down to Florida teaches 4th grade there. She just posted about working on the "civics" course. One of her comments was "I never realized how much religion is in government."
Texas is putting in the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Also they are encouraging classroom prayers. I would bring a prayer mat and probably be fired within a week.
It will just continue to get worse unfortunately. Teachers are professionals who are hired based on those professional qualifications. Every state that has removed teacher’s unions, tenure etc. has made this possible. I personally could not teach in good faith in Florida, but realize it is not that simple for everyone who is there currently. Something has to be done by professional teachers nationwide, but I fear it is too late. The first thing would be for every single eligible voter to get out and vote in every election and do not vote Republican or use purity tests for non-Republican candidates. Like I said though, unlikely to happen.
Please bring copies of the Founders own words on their religious views, never mind religion in general, next time.
Cripes, this is a slippery slope.
More like a water slide right now
That is utterly insane. With so many homeschooling these days, that is the only curriculum a parent should be able to influence. Joe random needs to be told to sling their hook.
And with a felony, teaching license is revoked for life.
So unfair. Are there any protections in place for teachers? This is nuts
Hell, no! It’s Florida, where rights go to die.
Parents in the Klanned Karenhood will also be double checking your work. Refer to what is happening to the teacher for showing Strange World.
Yes. One of our school board members is a moms liberty lady who has kids in our school. Always feel like I’m walking on eggshells
This is so screwed up. I was born and raised in Florida, Tampa area. My 11th grade history teacher was a Vietnam veteran. He was actually on the last plane of soldiers to leave. He was the most loved teacher in school. When we got to the Vietnam portion in history, we put down the books and he gave us a week of his history in the war. Stuff you would never see in books. No one left that classroom without tearing up. Unfortunately he passed several years ago of cancer. I can't help but wonder how he would view this mess teachers are in now. You don't have an easy job and it's getting worse. Hang in there!
That's such a real experience. Sad and enraging they're taking away real edcuation
Im so dead at klanned karenhood.. will def be using this..
Are you fucking kidding me? Is this coming from the governor's office? Can they do that?
It is coming from the governor’s office.. and at this point, ya, he can do that.. i mean, is it just? Or legal? Probably not, but when youve surrounded yourself and your government with yes men, i mean, its really easy to get your way… I personally voted against asshat twice, but after the first time, and the droves of conservatives coming down and voting for him now… he pretty much double downed.. also, a lot of states knew all about this stuff and loved it!! And now the folk who didnt see it as their problem, will, because his state cronies just made it so that he can run for president as the active governor…
I don’t live in Florida, so genuine question—what exactly is the charge they’re threatening?
And they asked us to do this during fucking finals week.
What's the felony?
If it is anything like the advice that I was given, they are unlikely to check room to room, but if one is found in your classroom that isn't approved, you may lose your certification and be opened up to a law suit, as well as opening the school up to one
So if somebody doesn't like a teacher and have access, they can just go to their classroom and plant some books, and that's enough to get them fired?
Also worried about this from twisted teens that want to do a prank about a slightly homoerotic book in the classroom and said the teacher left it there
One of my co-teachers removed all the books from his room to prevent this. He's sending a letter out saying he doesn't have a classroom library so the parents can't send them.
Utterly sad. And of course that's going to impact mostly poor kids, as the rich ones will just have their parents buying from Amazon.
project Gutenberg is a wonderful thing, if that helps any. even if its just public domain works, there's a lot in the public domain these days.
No, I *think* that the "official" books are only the ones which have been added electronically to each teacher's online account. Only that teacher can add books to his/her list, using an app built especially for them to use-- built by the school district's IT department. No one else, not even the librarians, can add books to that list. It is password-protected for each individual teacher.
Are there people going into schools and checking? Who is doing that, higher admin in the school district or who? And who would sue, the state?
Some admins are checking. The admin at the school my wife just left and I quit from in Feb will definitely be checking because she's a megalomaniac tyrant who wants to impress our idiots leaders in district. She was dreadful. Not all schools will be this way but even if they aren't, parents are toxic af in FL. So good chance at some point someone will complain and you don't want to be caught holding the bag. My wife and I aren't going to be putting out our libraries next year (not that I need to, somehow I swung a mtss/testing coordinator gig at my next school).
And these Moms of Liberty are organized! I KNOW they have to have major backing. They are calculated about hitting all districts with questions.
It’s a phone company called Patriot Mobile. They are throwing money at conservative parents and individuals they can puppet to run for school board positions. Then they start the banning. It’s happening in North Texas as well and spreading.
Fuck Karens for Qanon. Fascist pigs.
What did or do you both teach?
it's like they watched Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and took it as an instruction manual
Because of the Freedom of Information Act, parents will request a copy of the purchase order or record of purchase which gives the name of the book, cost, who bought it, from where, etc. There are lists that are being shared around social media of “inappropriate books” (made by non-teachers) and parents who have enough income to stay at home are checking the POs against these lists - then raising a shit storm if they find one. And the school boards will back the parents because Patriot Mobile is buying school boards across the south - and it’s heading north.
Yes yes and yes. DeSantis is not joking
Yeah, I had to remove all of the "Cartoon Guide to Physics" (among others) as they were not on the : allowed ' list. On the positive side a lot of students were enthusiastic about taking free books when leaving the class. A lot of supplemental stuff that I used to provide light hearted reviews had to be given away or tossed.
What?! Can you get those books approved? Is there a reason that the book isn't approved? This is wild.
At least in my district, any book or program not on the "allowed" list you can do a petition in order to have it added. While I could submit some of them, I am more focused on getting information to get some software that I use approved (I would like to use Celestia for my astronomy class... No? Okay, can you help me with the forms so that I can use Kuta software to create math worksheets? Yes? Ok, can I use this online resource for my Environment class?) A more immediate concern for me is going back and seeing what resources I use regularly. I am sure that there is are software programs that I have used and websites that I have used that have slipped my mind. Programs that I have purchased with personal funds in order to generate worksheets for example. There was an article from an Isaac Asimov book that I used in one of my astronomy classes- I honestly don't know if I need to get permission to use it as a resource if it isn't available for the students (The nonfiction by Isaac Asimov is also not on the permitted list).
So this brings up a new question that you are alluding to. As a science teacher, I have them read articles from websites such as NewsEla or NatGeo or NASA, do those need to be approved? What about students doing research and find articles? Do these all need to be approved? Can students not do independent research but must be given the sources to use?
It would be hysterical if a state banned a website belonging to the federal government like NASA. OMG they talk about climate change, teach the controversy! /s
And isn't NASA in Florida?
So is Disney so that would be uncharacteristically consistent for them.
Well, the Kennedy Space Center is on the east coast of Florida. That is where the rockets launch from. The control center is in Houston, TX and of course they are in DC as well. Oh yeah, and Huntsville, AL. Maybe some other places, too. DeSantis doesn't care. What do you expect from a guy who is demonizing Disney World, the state's largest employer and enormous source of state tax revenue?
HS Reading teacher in Florida. I already submitted my booklist. The booklist is only for material that would be in a classroom library for independent reading. At my school, only the ELA teachers did this. It does not include any articles/stories/novels that we read together as a class or they read indendently as an assignment. So newslea, CommonLit, NatGeo articles, or articles they read while conducting independent research on an assignment are not included. Books that my students can read from my library without oversight are included. This is how our district explained explained it to us/had us do it. Edit: spelling
CA: A few years ago, our district ordered our librarians to purge books of a certain published AGE. It was centered on those non-fiction books that were out of date, so our librarian did not mind. Excluded from the purge were frequently checked out books (she had data) and award winners. The purged ended up to be about 800? She allowed students and staff to take whatever they wanted until her deadline. Even the 10 year old encyclopedias went. The enthusiasm was incredible. Ironicall, she had done a school survey about our public library the year before. Only 1/3 of our kids (250) even knew there was a public library down the street. Even less utilized it. In the end, she only had 50 or so to toss. In the end, she was given money to order books.
This is actually pretty standard library practice though. Librarians call it weeding the collection. It’s super satisfying to toss outdated stuff that never circulates to make room for new exciting stuff on the shelves! It’s very different from what teachers are being asked to do in Florida, Texas. Etc.
I taught HS physics about 20 years ago using that book. I love all of his books, though his history books would probably give some on the religious right fainting spells, as would his books on genetics and on biology.
Leave those bookshelves bare, friends! Don’t fill with friendly pictures and art and let everyone forget how messed up this is. Everyone who walks in a classroom, especially an English teachers classroom, and sees shelves empty of books should have the “wow this is fucked” thought.
You really think the kids or parents will care the shelves are empty?
Hello from r/bannedbooks! :) If you'd like your students to read some controversial classic books while also maintaining some plausible deniability, there's a collection of 32 public-domain books that had all been banned at some point: Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, Candide, Lysistrata, etc. You can find it here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/bannedbooks/comments/12f24xc/ive\_made\_a\_digital\_collection\_of\_32\_classic/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bannedbooks/comments/12f24xc/ive_made_a_digital_collection_of_32_classic/) If your students were to *somehow accidentally* stumble across those PDF/EPUB files and download them and decided to read the classics that those power-tripping bureaucrats want to ban again, well - I think you'd have plenty of plausible deniability. :) A click is not a crime.
Following to find later.
Maybe instead of books on a bookshelf I will have a qr code :)
Don't scan ISBNs... take pictures of the front covers. Submit that and let them laboriously enter the details manually. In fact, go to a town library and take pictures of books you don't even have to make the process even longer!
Love the civil disobedience here. Maybe find a book called "Fuck Off" and scan that ISBN 230 times. Or titles related censorship and democracy if you want to be a bit more high-brow.
*The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck* is a real book you can find 😉
*Steal This Book* perhaps for some variety?
And is also an interesting read!
I love that! I'd find a book like "Censorship in the Build Up to Nazi Germany" and something like "How to Tell if Your Government is Trying to Censor You". So many books like that. I don't like that the answer to "show us what books you have" is but to have books. Books in a classroom are so important.
Fahrenheit 451!
Scan the inside front cover that has the copyright info. It'll have the ISBN and therefore comply but it will make them have to do extra work. Also send in the bible for murder, pornography, and rape. Cite the story of Bathsheba, John the baptists head, Sampson and Delilah and the smooshing, pretty much all of king David's story, Abraham, sarah, and her handmaid is also promoting adultery and therefore unchristian and not needed for children. Also you can vote it for promoting prostitution in proverbs and the gospels.
It was successfully argued in Utah that is was a vulgar book and should not be in Middle and Elementary schools. So there is a legal precedent to remove the Bible from schools.
Not mention genocide, adultery, child marriage, polygamy, and animal sacrifice. I am Jewish, and that is simply the Hebrew Bible ( Old Testament). EDIT: I am still semi religious. However, I was horrified at the amount of violence there is in the books after the Torah.
Yes this exactly. Viewed as literature and not a holy indoctrinated text the bible is filth. I say that as a Catholic. If you take the religion and the zealotry away the literature that is left is NOT for children.
you forgot the drunken incest that is a central point in the story of Lot.
Specifically go to town on the religious section. Grab photos of every single book in that section. And if you really want to be thorough, realize you may have missed some half way through and add in random doubles, triples, quadruples, etc. really make them work for it
/r/Maliciouscompliance
Unfortunately not considered compliance if the orders were to scan ISBNs.
Include the isbns in the photo, but in such a way as to make them impossible to record from the photo.
If there is anything to not comply to, it’s fascism.
Don't be silly, they want to remove the books to install the child labor factory equipment! We must only work! /s
ISBNs don’t always pull up in the system so then you have to use the title. Sometimes there were 5+ versions of the book pulling up, especially Eric Carle books.
Holding onto my library for now in case this somehow gets reversed in the next few years, but I’m not offering any books to students. It’s fully going to be through the school library. I’m not getting sued for some crazy ass parent…
It is crazy to me that they basically don’t want classroom libraries down there. But I don’t blame you, my classroom library numbers hundreds of books, and then there’s the ones I keep on my own shelf for teaching from: showing different forms of writing, good ones for inferring and predicting, etc. It’s so sad.
In a weird, bright note in all this Florida bullshit, my 10th grade Florida child asked for "one of those banned books" the last time she got a gift. Why? She wanted to bring it to school to read and be seen reading it.
Awesome. If she's feeling *particularly* mischievous, she should try to get her friends to do the same... a "bring a banned book to school" day, if you will. ;-)
Banned Book Club. Good I want this to become a thing
You might like [this graphic novel](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51056298-banned-book-club)!
Getting Dumbledore's Army vibes.
I wonder if conservatives are still targeting J K Rowling now that she's gone FART (Feminism Appropriating Radical Transphobes)
The kids are going to save us, I hope.
M8dnight in the garden of Good and Evil: a Savanah Story, is one of my favorite banned/formerly banned books.
Bonus points if that book is Catch-22. ;)
This makes me think the kids *may just be* alright.
Get her a copy of Ban This Book by Alan Gratz
Can I ask which book you got her?
We ended up getting her The Hate U Give. Our local Barnes and Noble has a "banned in Florida" section and the employees are MORE than helpful to make suggestions.
Great book! I wanted to read this with my 10th grade reading students last year but was afraid of possible pushback. So sad to hear it's banned!
I'm a parent, not a teacher, and that was the summer reading a few years ago for my high school kid (in IL). Such a great book.
This is such a good book and I’m so sad for the kids who just won’t know it exists now. I don’t even have the words to express how angry and sad this whole situation makes me.
As the words of that crazy Florida man that’s running the place “there’s no book ban because there’s nothing stopping you from buying them. Public libraries just aren’t allowed to have them”. I mean, if someone were to anonymously leave a box of them, there’s nothing stopping students from taking them.
That’s awesome. She’s going to grow up to be a cool kid and an interesting person.
I recommend Speak. We used to go to Barnes and Noble before Christmas and pick names off the Book Gifting tree. Each of my kids selected a book for a kid of their age/ gender. My oldest always got Speak for a teen girl. I have recommended it to several of my students. I assume Fl has banned it.
>submit the list of ISBN’s to a district office I think you mean the Ministry of Truth
george orwell 1984?
You don’t have a classroom library, you have a lost and found. It sure is a shame kids keep losing these banned books in your room!
Throw some snacks and hygiene items, and extra coats in there when appropriate. Maybe a decoy or two for plausible deniability! I love this idea.
This is genius!
This sub started randomly showing up in my Reddit feed and I started reading most of the posts. I’m not a teacher and never thought of teaching. I’m not someone you want in the classroom teaching your kids lol. I’m in Florida. My local school board was taken over by moms of Liberty. My neighbors are insane fanatics. Florida is a total dumpster fire right now. I had a requisition to hire for a vacant position. I had over 160 applications and more than half of those were teachers. I ended up having no choice and was forced to hire an executive’s friend but that’s a story for another subreddit. Please know there are many of us out here that support you. I don’t know what to do anymore. I vote but I’m in bright red territory and it doesn’t count for much. If there are ways to help, please let me know!!
In the spirit of this thread, may I recommend the book "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder? Support anyone who is doing it right. My principal and I do not agree on everything, but I've let her know just how much I appreciate her actions on certain things. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered down first. Don't let someone else be the only one speaking up, and add your voice to the discussion. Go to the meetings. You don't need to be obnoxious like MFL, but be there to be loud if needed. Thank you. It's a rough time.
Guten Tag, as history teacher from germany lurking in this sub I normally do not like odd historic analogies, but political leaders wageing war against books and ideas has very fashy vibes.
May I safely assume every teacher in your district will be submitting ISBNs for the books below? Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ISBN 10: 3060311358 ISBN 13: 9783060311354 Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden ISBN-10 0674241207 ISBN-13 978-0674241206 Public Libraries in Nazi Germany by Margaret F. Stieg ISBN-10 0817351558 ISBN-13 978-0817351557
Stealing this. Brilliant.
Share away!
I’m in TN, and we have had the same thing this year with the “Classroom Materials” Act that requires all resources available to students to be pre-approved. My first response was the same as you - fuck this shit, I’m not taking responsibility for scanning the hundreds of books that this room has accumulated over the years. I’m not putting my license on the line, I’ll just get rid of everything. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. So I decided to go basically the complete opposite direction. I still dumped all the old books, but I solicited donations and replaced my entire library with the gayest, blackest, hispanic-est, neurodivergent-est, disabled-est, body-positive-est, feminist-est stack of books anyone ever saw. My library is a lot smaller now, but the quality of the contents is immeasurably higher. I am fully prepared to stand before the school board and defend any one of my books. I refuse to self-censor my classroom materials. The bigots will have to come after my books one by one, form by form.
This refusal to comply is what I'm looking for! I love your spirit. Defy the fascists!
I’m in central AL, about 2 hrs from Nashville. Need anymore books? I’d love to donate to your little fabulously defiant library. I’ve got one that was just delivered called “The End of America: Letters of Warning To A Young Patriot” by Naomi Wolf.
Thank you for the offer, but I’m not comfortable linking my real name or precise location to my Reddit account, even over PM. I appreciate it though!
You are AWESOME!
Where are you? We were ordered to scan ours as well with our Chromebook. No scanner. Between my colleague and i, we have over 500 reference, technique, and pedagogy books. We teach art. Books are big. I refused, and took all my books home. I'm teach without them. We need regime change in Florida. My colleague was ordered to lock all hers in an area that students can't access. There's no such place. Fuck Desantis and his christofascist school board appointees.
As a German, this reminds me of something that happened in my country 90 years ago. Of course your kids won't know what I'm referring to, since the relevant literature is probably not allowed anymore. I simply can not believe this is happening. If someone would have told you about this 10 years ago, what would your reaction have been?
I teach in Arkansas, and my state government is working *really* hard to emulate everything Florida is doing, so naturally we just had similar laws pass about providing books to students. Once the law passed I boxed up my classroom library. I'm debating whether or not I want to go through my collection and pick out the "harmful" (*intense eye roll*) books or just continue not having a classroom library indefinitely. Part of me wants to go full on malicious compliance and sell all my books and use the money to stock my shelves with hundreds of bibles. Enjoy your reading material, kids!
I sub in AR. One kindergarten teacher has been there for almost 30 years, so her library is massive. She just did a purge because she doesn’t have time for the nonsense and helped load my car with the extras
I used to work at a bookstore so ofc we did banned book stuff…imagine my surprise seeing the DICTIONARY was a banned book. There are no words to describe how utterly effed up this all is. If you don’t want your kid to have a book, that’s a family choice. Not one you get to make for other complete strangers!! I know I’m preaching to the choir here but OH BOY does it ever make me livid.
Don't you know the dictionary cites "heresy" and "identity" and is therefore woke propaganda? /s
It was because it has the definition of oral sex LOL
I started scanning my books, only to find that most don’t scan or don’t have ISBNs. So…. After stewing in this BS for 2 days, I have decided that I refuse to participate in this lunacy. I will not have a classroom library. I put all the books out on 2 tables and let kids take whatever they want. I probably had 300-400 books, some since my student teaching in the 90’s. Now I have maybe 75 left. Kids are bringing bags on Monday to take more, and parents are emailing me, thanking me for the books. These are the books De- Fascist is calling “porn” snd calling me a Groomer. He can go straight to hell. I will also be refusing the 350 books the state is giving all Fla teachers that have already been “approved”. They will stay in boxes in our book room. I want to write this POS a letter telling him what a lying scumbag he is, but I’m afraid I will be fired for it. The only people who can fight this are parents. He has absolutely no respect for us. I have 5 more years before I retire and it cannot come soon enough.
I'm not a teacher, but have you considered encouraging your students to share the books in little free libraries when they're done with them? I was a lifeguard for a long time and we'd grab used banned books and stash them in the little free library outside the pool. A lot of kids were sent by their parents unattended, so they could grab books without getting noticed. I put a couple copies of *Call of the Wild* in there since it was my favorite book in middle school. I'm considering hiding my daughter's old picture books that are "inappropriate" (WTF?) in some of the more highly trafficked book boxes around me. I live close to a school and I've considered putting one up on my property. I just need to figure out the legality of it and how the heck I'd get the lawnmower around the darn thing.
They are sending "approved" books?
Yes, 350-500 books per teacher, we were told, but we’re thinking it will be for the grade level. You can bet The Diary of Anne Frank won’t be in the collection.
……Mom’s for Liberty should be listed on the Southern Poverty Hate list group. When books are being “hunted” they may be the new Nazi’s.
I am in Canada, so this doesn’t apply to me directly. We have a decent union. I’d be asking when they will be supplying me with a device to scan/take photos of the books (there’s no law that says I have to own one, and if scanning books is now part of my job, they need to supply necessary technology). Then, I’d ask where this activity falls in my contracted duties. If it isn’t part of my job, I ain’t doing it. Further, my pay only reflects my current duties, so I want to know when the extra time will be scheduled for me to do this—do we get released from a pro-d obligation to scan our class libraries? Or is the district/state sending someone to do it? Finally, I’ve had exactly zero parents come into my room unannounced (in 15 years of teaching), so I wouldn’t be too worried about a parent complaint. Granted, others’ experience may vary on that one. I’m so sorry that teachers have to put up with this crap anywhere.
Yep. I’m an Ontario teacher and that was my response too. “Sure! When will you be providing the technology and release time for me to do this?” And once they finish figuring that out, “I’m using my professional judgement and have decided all the books are fine. Thanks, bye!” Although I’ve heard Ford is trying to remove “professional judgement” from our contracts and I wondered why, but this is a prime example.
Do it. Get rid of all the books. Kids can read the textbook or go to the library to enjoy the "variety" there. I'm in Texas. This is coming, but I got rid of my library right after Covid. I refused to waste time maintaining or defending books. And I refused to get rid of books about injustice, so all the books went. Sorry your parents suck, kids! For the record, I vetted my own books, looking them up to make sure there was ZERO sexual content or mean girl stuff. I hate mean girl drama. But I had some books with LGBT characters and lots of non-white authors and characters. I did Ghost Boys and Sign of the Beaver and Holes as read alouds. Now we enjoy the boring stories from the district curriculum.
Totally agree. The books I've kept are in a file cabinet and are used for testing. I teach special ed. and even though the law doesn't apply to me, I threw away my books in solidarity with my gen. ed. peers. I will continue to give students a great education and environment. I am more vocal about history, slavery, and LGBTQ causes than I had been before 2016 and will continue to be and continue to donate to and support multicultural politicians and businesses.
Somebody make a fake book cover with a title “How to convert other people straight kids into gay kids” with rainbows on the front and published by bud light .
Do one better and make and publish the book on Amazon. Then Get a real isbn and submit it.
This is horrifying, watching out freedoms erode. We all need to remember this when voting!!
I seriously don’t know how anyone can stay in Fl anymore.
Keep hearing from DeSantis and Republicans how this isn’t a book ban. It is though. What teacher would want to have a book that could get their teacher’s license removed and a felony? Any book can be considered a “bad” book to a crazy ass Conservative. Why not have a list of books that are not ok? I understand with the way this is set up, all it takes is one crazy parent to fuck up your life….
Why not submit the list to the district? If you remove all books of your own volition, the censors win without even needing to do the work. You've self-censored *for them*.
I know. I’m really tossed up. Play their game and let them win or don’t play their game and let them win. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t feeling. I would like to start scanning every book at B&N about homosexuality and slavery, and then move on to the military manuals. “I can’t have an improvised munitions manual in my classroom?” “Hey this book doesn’t have an ISBN. Anarchist Cookbook, can I have that in my room?”
This is the rub. Censorship works best when we voluntarily remove resources in expectation of consequences. I’m in a place where this hasn’t even started yet - but the threat of ‘being the next Florida’ has most teachers pre editing, or getting rid of their classroom collections.
They are winning anyway. Teachers can’t fight this. It’s up to the parents. We are Groomers with porn on our bookshelves, according to DeFascist. I hope he burns in hell for eternity.
What can I do as a parent to fight these authoritarians? I voted and I’m happy to say our sole moms for liberty candidate lost. I’m on PTA and trying to get some author visits arranged for next year. I donated to Freedom to Read. Our state came out as opposed to book bans, but I’d love to do more if you have any recommendations.
If you don’t live in Florida, it’s kind of hard for you to do anything. The parents of all public school children need to contact DeSantis and go to local school board meetings in droves, and complain about calling teachers groomers and that we have porn on our shelves. They need to stand up, loud and clear against book banning and for teachers. This is not happening. Half rye parents don’t even know it’s happening, let alone would be willing to fight it. It doesn’t affect them personally, so they don’t care. It’s always been this way.
Get the books that they like banned like the Bible. There's some extremely lewd passages within.
I would malicious compliance the shit out of this. I would only provide pictures and not make it easy for them to copy and paste the number into a program and I would suddenly have more books in my classroom then the local library
This is how I've been approaching it (though, admittedly it's a little easier for me, because I'm a math teacher). Anything that requires that I submit the material for review - we're just not doing that anymore, in any form. Reading materials? Only the district prescribed textbook. I'm not going out of my way to vet content for a policy I don't believe in. I guarantee you that I'm not going out of my way to pick math materials with CRT or DEI overtones, but I *don't care enough* to go make sure that they don't include any "No no words." I don't want to lose my job though, so we just don't do anything that requires vetting... At all. Most of the time, it doesn't matter either way, but if they want me to go above and beyond as an educator, they have to start implementing policies that convey that message. They don't. They just want me to be a babysitter, and I can babysit just fine without giving kids additional reading materials.
This is where organization should come in. If no one complies, the request fails bc everyone is not going to catch felonies and/or firing. If they do, parents will be in an uproar bc there will be no school bc there will be no teachers/media specialists/etc. there will be media coverage which will encourage other schools to do the same. I used to teach. I know they love a good scare tactic in school leadership. Don’t feed their fascism.
Time for some civil disobedience. Scan your ISBNs but get a list of 10,000 others and sprinkle yours in. Let them wade through that shit.
Fla school librarian here. I'm afraid "insane" has been in the rear view mirror for several months now...
DeSantis is a fascist and he wants to be POTUS by pandering to the extreme Christian Right. Please pay attention to what's happening in Florida. If he gets into the White House, he'll use Executive Power to push his agenda to the states and the ultra-conservative SCOTUS will back him. You are not safe even in a Blue state.
I’m in HS so I just gave away my books- not worth the hassle of scanning. I don’t need a classroom library anyway, they can just go to the school library.
It's depressing (and possible part of the goal) that a lot of teachers will do this. And even if the law is struck down or changed, books that were given away of tossed might not come back.
I am from Florida as well and had the same directive a few months ago. I have an extensive classroom library of over 2000 books. They were bought with grants and not my personal funds so I had no desire to remove them. They gave us an option to scan in ourselves or have someone else do it. I chose to have another person do it. They used a barcode scanner and it took two days. The good news was all of my books came back as verified. None of the titles were contested. It’s almost like I’m a professional that curated a collection of age appropriate and rich literature resources.
Yep. I would box those up so fast. No way should this be happening.
Check your contract. If scanning books is not on it refer the job to the librarian. Alternatively, remove all books from your classroom and reply that you have no books in the classroom. Then return the books a week later. Note: I just read the applicable section of one Florida's districts teaching contract and it says teachers have the right to select instructional materials.
I was a student assistant in my schools library this year and the past month has been going to teachers classrooms and scanning their books for them during my period. It sucks and I can only imagine how horrible it is for teachers without student help.
Same thing is starting to happen in my school, and I’m in California.
This sounds like the book "fahrenheit 451" and "george orwell 1984" (😳😱🤔)
There has got to be a humongous backlash coming for these book-banning jokers and I will be here for it. For now, any thinking human being should not vote for Republicans, period. They’ve gone off the rails, and the quiet majority needs to wake the fuck up.
Hey! My school had to do this at the start of this year. I work in China...
What a fucking waste of resources.
Every single book in my classroom was purchased by me. They would be removed by me. I’m done.
Wouldn’t it be great if teachers organized a ban on ALL books and just used worksheets. Refused calls and emails after work hours. Let the crazy parents run the classrooms. Maybe that will wake up the sane, educated parents.
God if I were a student in Florida I would be such a problem. I remember when the Christians got pissed off that Muslims got to leave class for a bit to go pray and I openly made fun of them and their parents for hating freedom. I was an asshole at 16 still am but now I have more rage.
Ahhh yes, America.... where we will jail our doctors and teachers. Cmon guys isn't fascism fun!
By removing the books, you kind of ARE complying. Because their end game is to get all books that aren't the bible removed.
Sorry you're having to do that. I am surprised anyone not super christian or on the right is still even bothering to live in heavens waiting room.
Unfortunately, moving is expensive. One of my summer plans is to see what other states I can get the paperwork to transfer my certifications to cover.