Although Joseph Filko’s political leanings are generally transparent, his May 3 column, “The education wars continue,” is more so, despite his fine closing plea that we focus on our common humanity. My career as a high school English teacher (all secondary grades including AP) in Fairfax County and an adjunct professor at GWU provided me with a lot of direct experience in culture wars and book banning. Having taught bilingual immigrant students, as well as many African Americans, I believe that sensitivity to their individual needs —- as well as those of my majority Anglo students — is important. So is balanced representation of information.
Mr. Filko is lengthily specific about three books that feature “racism, sexism, xenophobia or anti LGBTQI+” being censored by “the left,” yet makes no specific mention of the huge preponderance of banned books — ones that are offensive to the political “right.” Without furnishing any supporting evidence, he states that unnamed organizations are trying to “script and condition” our children in order to bring about “cultural changes.” My students, from our study of logic and propaganda, would have recognized “script and condition” as Loaded Language. He suggests, without any evidence, that unnamed “advocacy groups” (who are they???) see no meaning in the term “age appropriate.” He then concludes that one side is guilty of wanting young minds to be “riddled with forbidden zones;” the other, of a “force-fed woke ideology.” Is not “force fed” a menacing use of language? And exactly what does “woke” mean? To right-wing elements, it is a loaded, derogatory term. “Forbidden zones” in a teenaged brain, on the other hand, sounds pretty typical.
Mr. Filko’s conclusion is conciliatory and anti-excessive censorship. In many ways, though, Filko belies his own claim, with which I heartily agree, that students introduced to a wide variety of literature will come to “rational conclusions” of their own. Hopefully, they will also learn to parse editorials for bias.
Virginia Dopp
Williamsburg
