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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, a call in for teachers on the question, are you feeling any political pressure from the culture wars to teach social studies or to not teach social studies in certain ways? 212-433-WNYC. Again, are you feeling any political pressure from the culture wars to teach social studies or to not teach social studies in any particular ways? 212-433-9692.

Here's the context as the new school year is beginning already in some places and about to begin everywhere else, we are beginning a week of call-ins for teachers and other school personnel on how the culture wars are affecting you and your school community. Part one right now is for anyone who teaches history or social studies to your students in preschool right up through high school, young grades included I want to make that clear on the question, are you feeling any political pressure to teach social studies or to not teach social studies in certain ways? 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692.

You know about the backlash to more inclusive teaching. The Nation Magazine had a story, the summer called culture war in the K through 12 classroom that opens with the story of a third-grade teacher in Cupertino, California, who became a right-wing punching bag after a lesson she taught on white privilege went public. Listeners, if you are a third-grade teacher or a teacher in any grade, do you broach the topic of white privilege or anything related in your social studies lessons? How is the climate of backlash to inclusive social studies affecting what you teach or how you think about what you teach self-censorship, or how you look over your shoulder about what you teach? 212-433-WNYC.

Now, these kinds of things have become midterm elections issues too. You probably know about the Virginia governor's race last year, where it seemed to be a defining issue. Here's an example from the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona right now, Kari Lake in a video titled "Wanna end racism? Stop telling our kids they are racist.

Kari Lake: Our children are pure. Our society is good. Our shared Western culture is superior to any other in history. I'm Kari Lake. I will be our Republican nominee for governor in Arizona. I've had it with the woke, anti-American, and oftentimes perverted agenda they are pushing on our children.

Brian Lehrer: Arizona's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake with sentiments that Republicans are running on in many state and local elections right now. Is language like that or anything related coming down on you, teachers from politicians or some parent groups? Are you feeling pressure to teach that Western culture is superior to any other in history as Lake put it there in those words, or to avoid what you called woke education?

Maybe you heard that thinly veiled hate speech, dog whistle aimed at LGBTQ students or their parents by throwing in the words sometimes perverted. Lake has famously called for having cameras in the classroom. If parents hear about anything they disapprove of, they can blow the whistle I guess and put on pressure to roll it back. I guess it's like body cams on police officers. For third-grade teachers and anyone who talks about history and culture, social studies to their students.

You get the idea, teachers. As a new school year is dawning, we're beginning a week of call-ins for teachers and other school personnel on how the culture wars are affecting you and your school community. Part one right now is for anyone who teaches history or social studies to your students preschool right up through high school on the question, are you feeling any political pressure to teach social studies or to not teach social studies in certain ways? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Rebecca in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hi, good morning, Brian. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine.

Rebecca: I am a high school teacher and the last five years have been increasingly difficult. As I try to explain developments to this younger generation under the expectation, I think that parents have that their teachers are disinterested, or unbiased. As I read so much to learn to then convey to my students, I of course have my own opinions and I have my own perspective.

When bothsidesism, the effort to maintain impartiality becomes increasingly compromised because one direction is so extreme. I find it to be intellectually dishonest, to try to pretend to lack of bias. Then there's a concern, of course, that parents are going to chime in and make the argument that, "My child is being indoctrinated and this is not right, and this is not unbiased."

It's challenging. I have a great deal of autonomy in my classroom, which I really appreciate, but by the same token, I feel that it's important to both create an environment in which everyone can articulate their views, but also say there are some things that are factually correct, there are some intellectual perspectives that have legitimacy and there are some that absolutely don't. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Can you give an example of something where you felt pressured to engage in this bothsidesism where it's a reality where there's really a false equivalency?

Rebecca: I think that certainly in the months before the Dobbs lead when the arguments were being made and trying to inform my students about the various perspectives, some students are coming in with ideas about anti-choice and pro-choice arguments that are not supported. That are not grounded in actual history.

Particularly as a female teacher who is very openly a feminist teacher trying to say, that's actually not the case that so many women are seeking third-trimester abortions. This is not accurate without putting kids on feeling like they're being persecuted for articulating their views. It's a very delicate stance. The history wars. There's a lot, I'll be teaching a lot more about the Supreme court this year. I have a lot of opinions about the Roberts court stirs prudence. I've limited it amount of time. I can't-

Brian Lehrer: You can't do everything. Let me ask you one follow-up question. Can you, as somebody who, as you say has opinions, you called yourself a feminist teacher? There's an expectation that teachers are disinterested. You used that word. I know by that you don't mean uninterested. It means you're not trying to push a point of view. Can you just explicitly say, "Here's my opinion on this, there are also other opinions that go like this?"

Rebecca: Absolutely. I take inspiration from something I heard Linda Greenhouse say a few years ago when an interviewer asked her.

Brian Lehrer: She's a former New York times Supreme Court reporter.

Rebecca: He said, "Can you be unbiased as a woman reporting on this stuff?" She said, "It's not my job to be unbiased." I say early and often with my students, I read a lot. I try to learn a lot. That means that I have views, but it's also really important that we together create a space where everyone's views are respected. I challenge my arguments and have the expectation that we will also challenge each other. I don't want an echo chamber. It's not fun to teach in an echo chamber. I want kids to go out and pursue a variety of views. I provide them with all of these sources. There's a great media site. Other teachers may want to know about it called all .com, which gives you media perspectives left, right, center. I present those to my kids, I want them to-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: At the same time, you don't want to present false equivalencies or falsehoods as truths. Rebecca, I hear the dilemma. Thank you very much for sharing that so openly with us. We really appreciate it. Here's Brian in Berkeley Township. You're on WNYC. Hi, Brian.

Rebecca: Hi, Brian, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine.

Brian: Hi. I happen to be a 5th Grade music teacher, but one of the subjects that I teach I have a whole unit on rap where we go in-depth into how the music industry has treated black musicians over the years. I compare it and contrast it to how jazz musicians were treated similarly to how rap musicians are treated now, but I happen to teach in a very red area and I'm non-tenure so I always feel like I have to be so careful about how I word everything because I know that I'm very worried about what I'm teaching, getting misconstrued with the falsely being compared to critical race theory, that buzzword that keeps getting used.

As a nontenured teache,r I just feel so much extra pressure to keep my job, but also make sure I'm doing the service to the students, that I'm teaching them all the information that they should know.

Brian Lehrer: Have you suffered any backlash or do you just have fear of backlash because of what you see going on around you?

Brian: So far I haven't had anything directly. I know I've seen on parent Facebook groups in the general area they've complained about the district curriculum and have used the word CRT before, but I haven't gotten any direct backlash just yet, but I know it's always around the corner. I always have this feeling that it just takes one parent really to throw my name out there. Actually, on an unrelated thing when I requested to have masks for my chorus, my email requesting mask got posted to an anti masking Facebook group, and then I got a few emails, but so far on the race issue I haven't gotten anything yet.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, thank you for sharing. Richard in Elmwood Park you're on WNYC. Hi Richard.

Richard: Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? I'm on speaker.

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine. You're very clear.

Richard: Okay. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Which by the way, everybody else is not blanket permission to talk on the radio on your speakerphone, because it usually is not good, but Richard must have a really good speaker phone.

Richard: That better.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, go ahead. No, no, you're doing fine, Richard. You're fine.

Richard: Right. Okay. My name is Richard, I live in Elmwood Park and the reason I'm calling is I've taught social studies in the lower grades preschool to kindergarten. I worked in West Orange, which is a suburban area and I also worked in York, New Jersey and I have a background in social studies from Rutgers. The reason I'm calling is because I've been retired for a few years, but I've been following the curriculums and state. Right now the New Jersey system is attempting to refocus the health concerns in terms of social studies.

Okay. The, he, she they, them come up to be an issue.

With young children, I'm not saying that should not be done, but what I'm saying is they should be offered an opportunity to hear the information. Okay. I don't feel that in a kindergarten class it's really appropriate to talk about gender, but not talk about sexual content. I think above that it's really important. I worked with kids that in a high school setting in social studies, I was one of the counselors and a lot of kids when I was there were quite intimidated by both the curriculum in terms of there was no gender related, or also LGBT related.

I'm also involved in a gay group called Gaymic, and they've done a lot to put in what's called Gleason groups in all of the high schools. What they want to do is they want to have a club related so that kids can talk about their own history, their own social backgrounds. The question before them is who am I, where do I come from, and how do I relate to the curriculum? I think that's where we're coming from.

Brian Lehrer: That's the central question, and to include as many people as possible who are in your class or even not in your class, but are in our communities or in our country. Richard, I would be curious to ask you, since you retired now if you had a whole career in education for a little historical perspective and how much has changed. Like is there more centering of the stories of traditionally marginalized groups, people who are enslaved or native Americans who are killed on mass or displaced in the New York, New Jersey region?

Do your students know who the Lenape peoples were?

Have you said the word Lenape hoking in your classroom to identify what much of our region were known as to those people? Do you do that in elementary school where local history is often taught? That's just one example. Since you brought up LGBTQ stuff, at what age do you teach the Stonewall Uprising, they certainly didn't intend for any grade for most people to teach social studies today as they were coming up as students. How much has changed over the course of your career?

Richard: When I started out in the early 1970s, there was what I would call polarized teaching. When I worked in Newark the focus was pretty much on revolutionary and evolutionary characters in the black community and a lot of the white folks were left out. As time went on, the curriculum became more integrated and they talked about historical black folks and also people in the arts. I worked on integrating saying the people were in the arts Harlem, for example.

Harlem has a history of LGBT people and also music and poetry and art, and that's part of the experience. I related that to them. Also the Newark experience. How has it changed? It's changed three ways. One is that it's become less polarized. Two, it has ended up being more class related, meaning that in the schools that are, I would say more wealthy or more affluent, there tend to be more of a balanced curriculum.

Number three in the poorer communities, they have a limited curriculum. It's up to the teacher to provide the integration into the present situation. As I told one of the folks there, I'm a member of a group that helps support the LGBT community in public schools. What they're trying to do is relate it to the child, relate it to the family, and relate it to the community.

Many times kids study about national characters. They have no idea what their representative is in terms of Congress or their mayor, or even what we used to call the, not the board of directors, I think what you call take care of the parks and the roads, they changed their name here in New Jersey. What I'm trying to say it's I'm trying to say that, it's important that they know both local, county and state, because by do and national, by doing that they realize that we're in a democracy.

Brian Lehrer: Richard, I'm going to leave it there so I can get one more caller on before we run at a time, but thank you for all of that. We really appreciate it. Robert in Manhattan in our last minute or so is going to take us back even further for some historical context I think. Robert, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Robert: Hi, my father in the '50s was an art teacher in Los Angeles. At that time I think the chief of police was Parker who used to recruit in the deep south for his officers. Los Angeles felt like an extension of the deep south and there was a newspaper article that came out about my father's teaching in John Adams Junior High School and the south side of Los Angeles, which was a primarily black neighborhood. Most of his students were black and he managed to interest the students in his art program and use them as subjects for portrait painting, which gave them a great sense of dignity that they probably lacked in most of their other educational settings.

Brian Lehrer: We just have about 15 seconds left. Was there a backlash?

Robert: Yes, there was, he got fired for being a lefty, which he was, but the reason that he had that negative attention attracted to him was that he was treating his black students with dignity.

Brian Lehrer: Robert, that has to be the last word, because we are flat out of time, but thank you very much. There's a McCarthy Euro story from the '50s and fired for being a lefty as he was perceived. Social studies teachers, thank you for that today. Tomorrow, we're going to take this to the realm of climate and other science education and political pressure there.

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