Let’s look for common ground, even if we agree to disagree

Don Coble

FLEMING ISLAND – There are three certainties in life: death, Donald Trump indictments and Taylor Swift recording another break-up song.

Unfortunately, there’s a fourth thing we can’t seem to escape – the lack of common ground.

The Oversight Committee for the Clay County District Schools Oversight Committee just finished pouring through a pile of paperwork submitted in July by one man who wanted 45 books removed from school libraries.

Nearly half of the books didn’t comply with the obscenity guidelines of Florida Statute 847 and would have anyway. Bruce Friedman’s objections sped up the process.

But some of Friedman’s other complaints were curious. He wanted the cartoon book about a brown aardvark in “Arthur’s Birthday” by Marc Brown pulled from shelves because it mentioned the Spin the Bottle game.

On the other side of the spectrum are those who oppose the state’s ban on teaching gender identity to kindergarten through third-grade students.

One side wants a harmless mention of kissing taken out of schools; the other wants transgender studies and drag queen story hours.

Let’s be honest. Both sides are extreme and don’t represent what most parents want their children to learn. And it’s time we let both sides understand that.

“This becomes very subjective,” said District Chief Academic Officer Roger Dailey. “We have to make sure I’m not superimposing my value system on your value system. We get pounded by both sides who don’t understand the process. We follow a very strict interpretation of Florida law.”

The District doesn’t deny that since the new law was enacted, it has objectable materials in its media centers. It also vowed to go page-by-page, if necessary, to ensure its reading materials conform with the law.

“We have 100,000 different copies roughly in our media collections that have been procured over the years,” Dailey said. “There are millions of pages. Are there things that are objectionable and under the new law? Absolutely.”

A kissing aardvark cartoon isn’t one.

We don’t need schools to ban harmless cartoons. We also don’t need gender studies – straight, gay, transexual or drag – taught to our youngest students who’d rather hang upside-down from the monkey bars than be a pawn for an adult’s political stunt.

District attorney J. Bruce Bickner said it best a year ago during a school board meeting when he told Bickner the District is committed to teaching children to think, not what to think.

Lost in the debate is the fact parents have control over what their children are taught. A parent can block a child from reading any book. According to Dailey, a plan has been on the books for more than a year. Only six families of the District’s 42,000 students have requested such restrictions. Six.

Friedman made national headlines last year when he attempted to read what he described as pornographic material he found in school libraries. The school board muted his mic because the meeting was being live-streamed. The national media was ready to pounce and exaggerated the facts to suit their political slants.

Having been in the media business for half a century, I can tell you that doesn’t happen by mistake.

On the flip side are those who continue to call the state’s laws against teaching gender identity kindergarten-through-third grade students the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. That’s another political ploy, and it didn’t happen by mistake, either.

Lost in these misguided, if not delusional, beliefs on both sides are the children. According to the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, only 35% of fourth graders are currently reading at or above grade level, and only 36% of eighth graders are reading at level.

That’s why we need to get back to educating our children, not making them the expendable tools of someone’s discontent.

As parents, we should be very involved with our children’s education. There’s no greater assurance our children will learn than when we encourage and are engaged in their progress. It’s up to us, not outsiders, to decide the best course for our children’s future.

Growing up and learning is difficult enough, especially when children are subjected to extremist whims. So let them listen to Taylor Swift songs, read the Arthur series and learn without the commotion.