If you go to Dr. Diane Ravitch's blog post, the conversation is rich. I posted a few of the comments and exchanges below.
Everybody needs to hear this statement by Arnold Shwarzenegger. I have a blog on this—Arnold Schwarzenegger has a Powerful Message for Those Who Have Gone Down a Path of Hate [Youtube Video]—where I post his video.
His main point is that fascists are losers.
-Angela Valenzuela
Florida: Where Fascism Thrives
by Diane Ravitch
Please, don’t make make America Florida! Fascism starts with book censorship. In this case, a world history must remove his personal books because they are not on the state’s approved list. A book without an ISBN number can’t be in the list. We may assume that The Constitution, the Bible, and The Federalist Papers do not have ISBN numbers.
This dedicated teacher’s HIGH ALERT 🚨 is beyond sad and frightening.
Cooperate or being fired & a career damaged and lost.
#TeachingInFlorida
Today Florida, tomorrow the Nation!
Hearing knee-high black boots marching and goose-stepping
along cobblestone streets
and BOE knocking at our classroom doors.
Where to go?
“Fascism rests on four pillars of charismatic leadership, Single party rule under dictator, terror and economic control,” according to some scholars.
DeSantis lacks charisma, thank God, but he does have an unyielding, iron fist. He is hyper-partisan. He vilifies Democrats and would not meet with Biden even though he was offering support for Florida residents suffering from the impact of Hurricane Idalia. We have all witnessed the terror and economic control he has foisted on public education. He has stripped school boards of most powers. Instead of using librarians to help students, DeSantis is tying them up in an unreasonable, gargantuan task so he can censor reading material in public schools. It is all part of his plan to control that which he despises.
DeSantis is never the bigger man. That would be Joe Biden who knows how to conduct himself like a statesman. DeSantis is always the smaller, self-serving, mean-spirited tyrant. DeSantis is unfit to lead this nation. He is simply another con man.
It’s easy to see that DeSantis has the makings of a dictator. He doesn’t believe in democracy. I once saw a comment where he boasted that the Democratic Party in Florida was “road kill.” His goal is a one-party state with no dissent.
Time for some collective disobedience. Find the list of banned books. Organize “shelve-in’s” where teachers deliberately place banned books on their shelves. Invite the news. Get arrested.
Most of my English teaching compatriots had extensive libraries. Asking for this type of oversight is both silly and unnecessary. Any student wanting to know about almost any perversion can access it on the net before FeSantis can say “liberal.”
GREAT idea.
Also you can do silent disobedience. Will anyone notice if you do not scan all the book? Really? Librarians have done this in the past when certain books were considered scandalous.
One good thing is that DeSantis has let everyone outside Florida know who he is.
And as a result,he will never be elected President.
He’s just another loser relegated to a long list of loser governors of Florida.