“We must keep history, the Bible and police in our schools. Throw out the socialist Democrat teachers who are brain washing our childre (sic). I am running for the Gastonia school board. This message is approved by Jim England for board of education.“

Rep. Larry Pittman once called teachers “communist democrats.” Remember what he said about the Stoneman-Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, FL in 2018?

Rep. Mark Brody called teachers “thugs.”

And, teachers are “losers” according to our own president’s son. From a 2018 rally in El Paso, Texas:

“You know what I love? I love seeing some young conservatives because I know it’s not easy. (Crowd applauds and shouts.) Keep up that fight. Bring it to your schools. You don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth. You don’t have to do it. Because you can think for yourselves. They can’t.” 

Someone recently posted this to Facebook that comes from a man running to be on the Gaston County, NC school board. The headline speaks for itself.

Within that article, other Facebook postings from this candidate are referred to.

Here’s one that is still posted from last month. It says, “We must keep history, the Bible and police in our schools. Throw out the socialist Democrat teachers who are brain washing our childre. I am running for the Gastonia school board. This message is approved by Jim England for board of education.”

That post has 1 “like” and it’s a public post. The racist messaging that exists in this man’s campaign is for anyone to witness. Nor is it hard to guess that the Black Lives Matter Movement, the move to take down Confederate monuments in many towns and cities, and the actions by teachers to advocate for public schools has hit a nerve with this person.

That is not the point of this particular post.

It’s that whole baseless argument of “brain washing” or indoctrinating students that will be addressed because for a man who wants to run for a school board seat which is probably the largest “social” service that the county and state budgets help fund, he sure has proven himself as someone who has no idea of what happens in schools.

When I see a claim like this I have to laugh out loud because as a teacher I don’t even have the time to properly “indoctrinate” my students with grammar or the parts of speech, much less prepare them for the tests that measure a curriculum that I barely have any input.

State and local school boards dictate the curriculum and many of the tests that are administered. Local school boards are elected. The NC SBOE is appointed by elected officials. The NC General Assembly has an incredible influence over what is taught in public schools and how those get resources. They are elected.

Teachers are not elected.

Plus, if Mr. England is going to blame school teachers for what seems to be ailing his worldview, then he must believe that teachers have an incredible ability to shape society and its values. But ironically, teachers don’t usually get that the respect for having that “power” from the people who dictate the laws and mandates that define the teaching profession.

And Mr. England wants to get rid of teachers whom he claims does something that he disagrees with based on no evidence at all. Then he might need to come up with a platform that addresses how he is going to be able to fill those empty positions because unless Mr. England has not noticed, there is a serious shortage of teacher candidates in North Carolina.

But back to that “brain washing” comment.

Funny that a man who accuses “socialist Democrat teachers” of brainwashing students offers his own version of history and politics on his Facebook page.

This was posted six days ago – a memory from 2016.

Nope. No “indoctrination” there at all.