A country is in one sense a geographical space where a collective story is told and retold to its people so they have a shared foundation. A school, in this same sense, is the place where we as a country pass this story into the minds of our children. It is where accounts of grand, brave, heartwarming and yes, the terrible acts that occurred to define our history as a country are passed not as a tale of saints but as a clear accounting of how we got to where we as a nation are today. As examples and in some cases and cautionary accounts in others. We do this so that the country can move forward united. By understanding our past we together form a blueprint of what we want collectively as a future. But what happens when the tellers of the story must first pass a test of allegiance, a loyalty oath to a story purposefully made not to reflect the full truth of the past? A story that does not to reflect the past unchanged, unfiltered and most importantly un-skewed to cover up an unflattering fact. The state of Oklahoma has moved to answer this question.
This article posted on USA Today puts their flawed purposefully divisive plan on display. They are now, through a new teacher certification test, demanding that newcomers from the Democratic led states of California and New York affirm a skewed flawed and purposefully misleading version of the history of America. One that is not a story of struggle, conflict, growth seen through a lens of honest reflection, acknowledgement leading to growth. Instead, it is a story of arrival, of finality, and of political purity.
This test, an “America First” certification, is not a measure of teaching ability or skill. It is instead, a measure of ideological fealty. The requirement to know “the biological differences between females and males” is a hint of a larger fear a fear of a world in which the old, hard lines of gender and identity have softened, a fear of a mirror in which the American body is no longer a monolith. The demand to accept as fact a conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump was a victim of a stolen election is not history. It is a faith, a sacrament, and to be admitted to the classroom, a teacher must prove they are a true believer. This is not the education of children. It is the ritual cleansing of the classroom, a forced removal of “inconvenient” truths in favor of a comfortable false narrative. In doing this it is the children who will pay the cost. They are not being taught to navigate a complex world of contradictions. They are being taught to live in a small and protected space where the only stories allowed are the ones that soothe and affirm.
The Oklahoma superintendent, Ryan Walters, says this test is to prevent “indoctrination.” But the very act of filtering for political conformity is the most blatant act of indoctrination of all. It is a slow, methodical suffocation of dissent. It is a quiet rejection of the very principles that are supposedly at the heart of this America. The freedom of thought, the messy contest of ideas, the right to hold and to teach a view that is not the one held or more importantly approved by the people who hold power. This is not about the children; this is about the power, and the use of it to shape the minds of the next generation in the delusions of the previous. It is a theft of truth and freedom from the most vulnerable and trusting. It is the theft of a child’s right to a mind of their own.
And what about the system of education in Oklahoma, which is as the article says, is in a state of crisis? That teachers union leaders from across the country have declared the new certification as a “huge turn off” and a “political stunt” that distracts from the “serious teacher shortage.” Oklahoma has a deficit of some 30,000 teachers who are not working in the profession. The fear and confusion created by a political climate that demands ideological purity is a glaring contributor to their education shortage. The state is offering bonuses of up to $50,000 to attract teachers, and in the same breath, they are setting up an ideological checkpoint designed to scare them away. It is a contradiction so obvious it clearly shows the true purpose. To do what they claim they fear, indoctrinate political views and religious ideologies in the minds of children.
This test, with its narrow focus and its partisan agenda, is a setback for the very idea of free thought. While questions based on bible lessons will not be on this test, in June of 2024 Walters did order school districts statewide to integrate the bible “as an instructional support into the curriculum” for grades 5 thru 12. This shows it is about demanding that all who would teach in a public school must first affirm a singular, state-sanctioned belief system. The entire project from the curriculum that teaches a contested theory of COVID-19 to the removal of Black Lives Matter from the classroom is an attempt to codify a particular set of values into public education. It is an assertion of conservative Christian moral authority over all others.
This move by Oklahoma is only widening the deepening of a rift that already runs like the Grand Canyon through the American landscape. It is not just a test for teachers; it is a declaration of war against anyone opposing their ideology. By targeting teachers from California and New York, the state of Oklahoma has made it crystal clear it has no problem bringing the children into the culture war where they do not understand the stakes and clearly do not belong. This is not an act of union, but of secession. What they are doing does not serve the children, it does not serve the education system, and it does not serve America. It only further divides a nation that is, in the end, only as strong as the trust it can have in the stories it tells itself.
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