The Empowering Of The American Mind
This country is becoming a nation of human soggy diapers, with no remark too minor or accidental to keep from using it to try to ruin someone. (But not just ruin them: "cancel" -- that is erase them. Does it get smaller and uglier?)

Loved this piece by Greg Lukianoff of the free-speech defending organization theFIRE.org:

Since co-authoring "The Coddling of the American Mind" (the article in 2015, then the book in 2018) I have heard disturbing reports of K-12 programming that shows little respect for the principles of a liberal society, for the individuality of young people, or for the diverse points of view of students and their families. These programs also show a fundamental misunderstanding of the paths towards mental health, and a lack of interest in measuring their psychological effects on students.

A few of his ideas "to guide what education in a liberal society is supposed to look like":

Principle 2: Respect for individuality, dissent, and the sanctity of conscience.

American First Amendment law is replete with powerful statements about individual uniqueness, and respect for such uniqueness. For example:

•"[F]reedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order." West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) (Jackson, J.).

•"One man's vulgarity is another man's lyric." Cohen v. California (1971) (Harlan, J.).

•"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought." Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) (Kennedy, J.).

If K-12 education is to include moral education, it must allow students to question or dissent from the moral education it provides, without fear of punishment. Otherwise, it is indoctrination and thought reform, not education. When students disagree with moral instruction, they should be graded on how well they argue their counterpoints; they should not be treated as if they had committed a sacrilege. There is a realm of personal conscience that those in authority have no right to invade. If we are to have a truly free, diverse, pluralistic society, the most K-12 educators should do is to try to persuade; they should not force adherence to any ideology.

Principle 3: Teachers & administrators must demonstrate epistemic humility.

"No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made. Particularly is that true in the social sciences, where few, if any, principles are accepted as absolutes.... Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die." Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957) (Warren, C.J.) (emphasis added). This was true in 1957, and there is no reason to think that we have anything close to perfect knowledge in 2021.

Heavy-handed ideological programs always show epistemic arrogance. To believe that students must be inculcated with specific political or ideological beliefs is to assume the infallibility of those beliefs and the omniscience of the instructors or the curriculum designers. This is not the way we educate people to become critical thinkers. Our collective knowledge is incomplete, no ideology has a monopoly on truth, and to tell young people otherwise leaves them ill-equipped to live in a society in which questions are always open, debates are always to be had, and new discoveries are always to be made.

There might be some pushback:

Finally, I'd like to address what I think will be two common responses to my calls for less thought reform, ideology, and politics in K-12 education.

1. "K-12 education has always included some amount of inculcation of values. Why is this any different?" First, I believe that in a pluralistic, democratic society, inculcation of values by educators should be minimal, as morality and norms are decisions best left up to a child's family until the child is of the age and ability to begin to think for themselves. When moral values are inculcated, they should be the ones that are most relevant to education, should be general, and arguably of universal (or near-universal) support.
I do not object to schools advocating for general behavioral values like being honest, courteous, or kind, for example. However, there is a distinction between advocating for some general behavioral values as opposed to telling students, "You should believe in your heart of hearts that kindness is the paramount value in society." Students can, of course, be asked to act in a kind and honest way. But the realm of personal belief, even for young children, should be considered an area outside of coercive control.

2. "Everything is political, so how can you argue that K-12 education can separate the inculcation of political ideas from education?" First, the idea that everything is political is a very academic argument that would seem foreign to most Americans. It is true that in making such decisions there may be gray areas and tough calls, but in general, the more specific the political belief you are trying to inculcate in a student, the more suspect it should be. As a practical matter, this is often not a very hard call. Coercing students to make statements affirming approved political stances, for example, is not a close call. That is training a student for an authoritarian ideology. A teacher expressing some of his or her own political views is acceptable, while a school requiring students to participate in approved activism that advocates for a particular viewpoint is not okay.

I think we are in serious need of becoming a free-speech respecting and fostering society again, and I hope this thinking is a start that will help take us there.