" - - - The only way to avoid the discomfort is to avoid the issues. If we can avoid talking about and reading about problematic matters, issues that might require us to rethink values and assumptions, then we won’t feel the discomfort that such difficult thought might entail.
"If we banish from our minds, our libraries, and our classrooms any examination of politics, religion, race, environment, sex, justice, and the like, we might protect ourselves from the possible discomfort we might experience. All we have to do is trivialize the curriculum to the point that few will be bothered by anything.
"If we can make instruction completely insignificant, utterly irrelevant to anyone’s emotional and intellectual life, then absolutely no one should rise up to protest the threat we pose to treasured beliefs, valued affiliations, or well-established habits of thought and action. We can teach kids how viruses are different from bacteria but avoid discussing why the health care system better serves the wealthy than the poor. We can teach what events led up to World War II and which countries fought on which sides and the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps but fail to mention our own concentration camps for American citizens of Japanese ancestry or consider why the 761st Tank Battalion or the 555th Parachute Battalion consisted solely of African American soldiers. We can give the facts of Brown v. Board of Education but never read what happened to the Little Rock Nine, never discuss how the integration of schools caused thousands of well-qualified Black teachers to lose their jobs because white parents refused to let their children be taught by a Black teacher.
"We can teach the definitions of “preposition” and “conjunction.” That will raise few hackles. “Onomatopoeia” and “zeugma” are unlikely to drive marchers into the streets, even if we require students to learn both definition and spelling. Better yet, we can teach penmanship—that will threaten the values of neither the conservatives nor the progressives, neither Republicans nor Democrats, neither those drilling for oil nor the sailors on one of the Greenpeace ships. Total irrelevancy, absolute insignificance, and unwavering stasis are effective strategies for avoiding the discomfort of thought and change.
***
"We cannot, dear teachers, ever give in to the demands of irrelevancy. So, Mr. Principal, you must be brave. You must steer the ship into tomorrow. Your teachers will be there with you. And students, they may shudder at past injustices - long past and recent past - and I hope they do. If they don't, we are in more trouble than I thought.
"I wish you all bravery. Stamina. And the knowledge that your hard work is the good work; the best work; the needed work. We need you.
"Kylene Beers"
