Last month, a principal at Tallahassee Classical School in Florida was fired after an image of Michelangelo’s “David” was shown to sixth graders along with “The Birth of Venus” and “The Creation of Adam” for a Renaissance art history lesson according to npr.org.
Parents complained, saying that a letter should have been sent warning about the nudity, with one parent going as far as equating the statue to pornography.
Many wonder how far public education will be censored to “protect the children” as we continue to see legal action working to limit childhood exposure to critical race theory, LGBTQ issues, sexuality and other controversial topics.
While protecting children is a noble cause, the actual course of action being taken to meet these goals directly opposes the alleged goal at hand.
The purpose of public education is to teach students what society needs them to know, not simply what their parents want them to know.
According to the 2020 data from cdc.gov, Arkansas has the second highest teenage birth rate for women aged 15 to 19 in the U.S., second only to Mississippi.
Suicide was also the leading cause of death for people in the 10 to 14 age range. Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found 45% of LGBTQ youth had contemplated suicide within the year, putting LGBTQ youth as a group at significant risk for suicide.
With these statistics in mind, one would think that the course of action to protect children meaningfully would be expanding on sexual education in school to lower the teenage birth rate or expanding on a social-emotional health program to help validate the feelings of these children and adolescents; however, this is not the case.
Instead, problems surrounding critical race theory and gender act as scapegoats for a religious agenda instead of meaningfully addressing issues that are actually hurting children and young adults.
While there is a correct place and time for exposure to certain topics in school and it is important to ensure that teachers present topics from a fair angle, removing access to a diverse array of topics altogether does more harm than good.
For students in the LGBTQ community seeking validation in their sexuality, lack of representation or the discrimination that arises due to student ignorance of the topic could further contribute to this community’s risk for teenage suicide.
For students who are going to engage in sexual intercourse despite being taught a pro-abstinence agenda, lack of education on safe sex only contributes to the already staggering teenage birth rate.
Parental influence currently has a chokehold on American public education and largely contributes to high birth rates and disproportionately high LGBTQ suicide rates.
If we really wanted to help our children, we would advance progressive and comprehensive education which would focus on the current pitfalls of society.
Reduction of teen pregnancy and suicide prevention are just a few immediate results of this change in the status quo, with longer-term benefits being both plentiful and valuable to our society as a whole.
We cannot neglect the future of our country by giving students an education that neglects topics that advance their ability to think and empathize with those different from themselves critically.
By taking away the free exploration of topics in our schools, we leave our children close-minded and oblivious to the real world surrounding them.
When teachers allow children to explore disputed topics, they are accused of “indoctrinating,” but leaving our future so helpless in bringing social betterment and equity to their generation is a disservice to our children and meets the true definition of indoctrination.