Indiana: House Bill 1134

I came across House Bill 1134 of Indiana over this past week thanks to Tik Tok, of course. To be honest I was surprised about this Bill because I feel like teachers have so much on their plate already without being scrutinized more. Yet, here we go…

Why should we care as teachers? Because one state passing this could start a new trend of laws scrutinizing teachers even more. The jist of the bill is that:

• A committee would be compromised of teachers, community members, and parents

• Teachers would be asked to turn in their lesson plans to these committees

• Schools would give parents to decline certain lessons from the teachers plans they submitted

• See the full details here

Now, I don’t know about you but in the realm of special education, lesson plans are much different than general education so I don’ have as much experience as a gen ed. teacher when it comes to lesson planning for the entire year because our IEP goals make up a large portion of our lesson plans and goals for the year. I see the point of this for parents but do think that this is taking it a step too far because the point of education (in my opinion) is to provide information and a safe space for students to become lifelong learners. As a teacher, I want my students to learn about it all and form their own opinions and become their own person. Sometimes these topics are hard and awkward to talk about from history topics to politics but all information is important to give students a well rounded education (they need all view points: the good, the bad, and the ugly). Allowing parents the ability to pick and choose what their student learns does start to soundddsss a little bit like a dictatorship and the whole point of the United States is that we don’t censor information.

I do see where some parents are starting to become concerned with certain topics in education ( I personally am not worried about it but could see more religious families wanting to opt out of certain things like the stereotypical sex ed talks), that is where other schools or homeschooling is definitely an option if the family wants to have more of a say in their students education and is a great alternative for their goals. Public school as a system though is going to be extremely hard to ensure that: lesson plans are done a year in advance, talked about in a committee, and sent to parents for approval or opt out all in time. Also, is this something teachers will have extra prep time they are paid to do this work (I’m assuming not).

While I see both sides to the conversation I would have to opt that this may end up being just more expected free work put on teachers plates that will burn them out. Teachers work extremely hard and are experts in education and their grade level so saying they may need to change each lesson per each kid based on what the parent says is unrealistic (if every parent were to opt out of something).

Also, for the most part, the teachers are using a curriculum given to them and chosen by the school. So if the lesson plans based off of the curriculum is not satisfactory to parents that sounds like a district and parent community issue that has absolutely nothing to do with the school and I could back teachers and parents with much more than this bill.

Update: House passed the bill and now it is on the way to the senate.