As a Teacher, I Agree With Mitch McConnell: Parents Should Tell Schools What to Teach

“Mitch McConnell on Saturday told Attorney General Merrick Garland that parents ‘absolutely should be telling’ local schools what to teach amid a debate over mask and vaccine mandates, the role of racial equity education and transgender rights in schools.” — CNN, October 9, 2021

The hardest part of my job is deciding what to teach my students every day. Six years of higher education, endless professional development requirements, and two advanced degrees have all left me with absolutely zero ideas. I wish the parents would just tell me what to do.

I’d love to avail myself of the knowledge of people wholly untrained in my discipline who believe that the natural intersection of Common Core and the coronavirus pandemic is deciding to hate critical race theory. It just makes sense.

I want the folks who are losing their shit at school board meetings to be offered greater opportunities to influence the emotional development of our young people. I want someone like the anti-vaxxer screaming about good little Nazis to be put in charge of, say, sex ed or financial literacy.

I want the dad who clawed the mask off his kid’s teacher’s face to advise on topics such as civics, philosophy, and the social sciences.

I want the group who got into a fistfight over mask mandates at a Florida school board meeting to weigh in on the power of logic and intellectual discourse.

Another perk about letting parents dictate curricula is that parents never agree about anything, so there will be SO many new and competing ideas; it’ll be dynamic. Some parents might want us to introduce more voices of color into our classrooms or focus on practical math, while others will just scream about Jesus. What a wonderful patchwork it will be!

While we’re at it, we should ask these anti-masking, anti-vaxxing crusaders to advise in other professions as well. They seem to know a lot about medicine, so maybe they could assist in childbirths or serve as psychiatrists; perhaps they could even perform vasectomies and brain surgeries. Everyone would be cool with that, right?

It’s time we abandon this ridiculous leftist notion of arming teachers with intellectual autonomy and get back to arming them with guns. As a liberal, peace-loving hippie teacher, I’ve always been strongly opposed to such measures, but suddenly I feel different.

I believe I’m ready for my gun now.