Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash

Steve Peterson has been an educator for more than 20 years and currently teaches fifth grade at Decorah Middle School. He is a master teacher and the president of the Decorah Education Association. 

On December 29, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher blocked the state of Iowa from enforcing two parts of the wide-ranging education law Senate File 496: the ban on books depicting a sex act at all grade levels, and the prohibition on promotion or instruction relating to sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through sixth grade.

The court’s preliminary injunction is good for the students I teach and for my colleagues in classrooms around the state. But the hold also comes at a great time for me, personally—because I was just about to report to the Iowa Department of Education that I may have broken the law.

I wasn’t looking forward to finding out whether I would be punished, or dealing with my superintendent and school board (both great, by the way). But I felt I needed to get some clarification and highlight how untenable the law was for teachers in the K-6 public school setting.

MY POSSIBLE INFRACTION

My question was: what constituted “program, […] promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation,“ which was prohibited in grades K-6?

According to Governor Kim Reynolds, the Department of Education, and Assistant Attorney General Daniel Johnston, who defended Senate File 496 in court, the words of the law were clear and unambiguous. And yet, every teacher I know has been confused.

We knew the law had a discriminatory intent: to prohibit conversation about anything to do with LGBTQ+ in our classrooms. But the gaslighting about “neutrality” was intense. My goal with the complaint I drafted was to force the issue, so the state would need to clarify: would I be disciplined for violating the plain language of the law?

My complaint against myself to the Department of Education highlighted a recent incident when, as a reward for raising money for our school’s food pantry drive, I showed my students the movie Wonder, based on a book by Patricia Polacco. I thought its message of inclusion and kindness dovetailed well with the community-minded actions of our students. 

However, a subplot of the movie appeared to violate Senate File 496. A teenage girl (the sister of the main character, Auggie) and a teenage boy fall in love. The two hold hands at least twice in the movie, and even kiss! I know this doesn’t violate the ban on materials depicting sex acts, but it clearly violated the prohibition against “instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through grade six.” 

Could I show a movie where two same-sex people kiss or hold hands? Could I read a book to the class where gay parents provide the same support to their child as Auggie’s parents provided for him? 

Would I be punished for “promotion and instruction” of “sexual orientation” for one and not for the other? It would be up to the state to decide how to interpret this provision. Despite repeated requests from school librarians, my teacher’s union (the Iowa State Education Association), and the Iowa Association of School Boards, state officials weren’t giving any hints. The only way for teachers to find out what would be enforced was to risk discipline. Or, to self-censor and not read books or show movies with gay characters.

A “WILDLY OVERBROAD” LAW

As it turns out, Judge Locher interpreted the K-6 teaching restrictions the same way I did. From his December 29 order (emphasis added):

The statute is therefore content-neutral but so wildly overbroad that every school district and elementary school teacher in the State has likely been violating it since the day the school year started. This renders the statute void for vagueness under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the State will have unfettered discretion to decide when to enforce it and against whom, thus making it all but impossible for a reasonable person to know what will and will not lead to punishment.

In her response to the ruling, Governor Reynolds appeared to be flabbergasted: “Instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation has no place in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms,” her written statement noted. “The fact that we’re even arguing these issues is ridiculous.”

The governor’s comments showed she interprets the language of the law not at all neutrally—otherwise she would know almost all the books we read to students have characters with a sexual orientation and a gender. 

WHY DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM MATTERS

As I sat with this law since it was passed and mulled it in my mind, I saw another issue, one that gets to the heart of why I am a public school teacher and why the law is so bad.

And it gets to the heart of why teachers like me—a straight, cis-gendered, old, white guy—read books about people we aren’t, and talk about them with others. You see, for a democracy to function well, especially a complex multi-ethnic, multi-racial, pluralistic democracy, we need to develop the skills and habits and values that make our democracy work. Habits like perspective-taking, tolerance, inclusion, critical-thinking, and deep listening. Reading books and having conversations help us practice these skills.

Elementary teachers know this in our bones because our classroom communities must include these democratic values to function well. Our classrooms carry in them children with gay parents, siblings and friends of gay students, and some who are trying to figure out their own sexual orientation. We choose our books so the entirety of our classroom and our community is included, so they can be seen in the “story” we tell ourselves about who we are so we can better understand each other.

When things get uncomfortable or challenging, we can’t just up and leave, which is the “dream” of school vouchers and the reason given for their implementation. Rather, it is our job to make the space safe for everyone. We do that by recognizing each other, by helping everyone be seen and heard, and by practicing the skills we need to live together in a democracy.

Reynolds says it is “ridiculous” to argue about whether gay characters can be “seen” and talked about in school before seventh-grade. For her, the answer is obvious: No.

I say she’s missing the point of education. We must talk about our classrooms as they are in all of their diversity and messy delight. The beautiful question is how? We count on parents to partner with us, teachers and students, in this journey. Pretending the world and our classrooms aren’t what they clearly are, using the power of the state to embrace the existence of some and deny the existence of others is anti-democratic. 

For the many, many of us who think public education is so very important, we must (re)claim those democratic values—tolerance, perspective-taking, inclusion, critical-thinking, and deep listening—as values worth fighting for.