Be here. Im thrilled to be here. And i thought that i havent done this elsewhere, but i wanted to just because i realize that for many people this all comes like, maybe not you guys so much, but this is all a big you know, new thing. So but i thought i would just read just very beginning opening of one of the chapters. And this is set in eastern tennessee. I specifically did not do the central bucks one because you guys can do that yourself. So this chapter is chapter four. Its about how weaponizing crt disrupts learning and let me just read this a little bit. Matthewteacher who, between classes at Sullivan Central High School in Sullivan County, tennessee, would be in the hallway bantering with fellow teachers and with students about tv music. He wore a pearl jam t shirt when we first met and nonsense such as what exactly . Qualified as soup. He coached baseball and taught courses on personal finance and for juniors, seniors, two sections of a class titled contemporary issues horn as students called or coach john would pause a lesson to let a kid show off a new tattoo. When he taught, he pulled up a chair or sat at a school desk. O is nbout podiums and lectures but converse sation even about private creation, he nudged, but also listened classes about learning to question, to research and to evaluate what you kids wanted to take that class because. They wanted to talk. They want to learn. They want to argue in an academic setting one student who took harlems contemporary me a former student who was studying to be an Early Childhood educator, said, he was our teacher, but he was our friend, too. You could talk to him about anything. And students did. When i visited horns home, a ranch house in kingsport tennessee, was jammed with vinyl records, posters of rock bands books and family photos. The dining table was crowded with artwork and notes from students. One thanked him for being the one teacher i can imagine being a real person outside of school and joked that ill remember you when i start cult. Some notes were humorous or flip. One student with a difficult home life wrote that he was a blessing. You were truly a role model in curly black ink letters long story short, thank you for positively impact my life. It means more than you know. Another thanked him for always being the one to invoke important conversations to help everyone understand each other a little bit more conversations i had with students about horns class reminded me of a conversation i had a decade, decades earlier, with walter beavers, the head of the English Department and a beloved teacher at Western High School in massachusetts since after watching him conduct a class like a piece of music leading an experience that was fun and fizzy, it also layered. I interviewed him as he explained his job is to have a relationship with the students, he said. Shakespeare is what comes up in conversation. Hemingway is what we talk about. But my job is the relation and ship. It is one of the most true things ive ever heard about how education should work. Learning happens in the context of relationships with may look like the trust in a teacher, in a culture that she builds among students in a class. It is within the shared time and space. That understanding evolves. It lets students test ideas and even to change theirl minds which is what kyle simcox, who graduated from Sullivan Central High School in 2018, did in her class. Raised in a conservative christian household where he sat with his grandmother each night and watched bill oreilly on fox news as she drank decaf instant coffee. When simcox took kleins class, hed joined the Tennessee Army national guard. In class, they discussed president Donald Trumps fascination with a display of French Military hardware during bastille day. Trump then sought to have a really great parade to show our military strength down pennsylvania avenue. Simcox liked the idea, but hard pressed him to notice which countries north korea, china russia embrace such displays. As simcox grew furious and stormed out of class, i end up leaving class and calling a snowflake, and to get the hell away from me, simcox recalled. Then he said, i did a Little Research and found that it was not veryfree for democracies to do military parades. Now, he said, he and hohn look back and laugh. But that is the whole point of having that kind of class. In fact, as someone who grew up in Sullivan County, which is nearly all white where 75 of voters in 2020 cast ballots for trump, horn believed a class that exposed students to varying perspectives was valuable. It prepare them for college and life. After all, as a High School Student himself, a haunted embrace, the confederate rebel flag and listened every day to Rush Limbaugh and then parroted his views. He this that changed as he became friends with people different than him, including black students in his dorm at college. He heard fresh perspective on life in history, racism and racial equity, and even the black experience in the United States wasnt anything i had ever. He said hed grown up believing the lost cause interpretathewar, including the myth that slavery benefited both blacks and whites by the time he graduated first as a f years later, after earning a teacher certification, he was eager to return to Sullivan County and teach students like himself. In 2005, he began teaching at sullivan central high by by he. Im skipping a little bit. By the time in 2008, he began teaching contemporary issues. It had priests prescribe syllabus or standards and standards and tech, no syllabus or standards and tackled current hot button issues, which is what, in 2021 became a problem he was teaching both online and in person and the things he was teaching about, including racism and white privilege, were the very animating far right activists in tennessee. This showed up in the state legislature in the form of ating the teaching of quote unquote, divisive concepts in k12 Public Schools around race and sex including limiting teaching about institution and racism. It like similar laws being passed around the country, was widely described as an anti crt law. It passed both houses of the legislature on may 5th, 2021. It was signed into law by governor bill lee on may 25th. Horne had felt the charged climate all year long, but on the day the bill was signed law, he was called into a meeting district leaders. It was handed a draft of a document dismissing him. In the document he was charged with quote, unprofessional conduct and quote, in subordination at the june 8th 2021 School Board Meeting, trustees voted 6 to 1 to proceed with dismissal marking the start of a long and painful legal battle. Dozens of horne supporters with signs, then packed the room, clad in light blue t shirts with hashtag. I stand with horne in white lettering after the director of schools, dr. David cox, detailed the charges, he addressed the anger around hornes firing the had expressed online. He insisted that he did not oppose discussion of white privilege, that hornes dismissal was unrelated to the new law and had no relationship to that bill or that language. Yet it was hard to see how the claims of unprofessional conduct and insubordination suddenly arose. This academic year, wholly independent of a heated political environment and coincidentally, i was actually just texting and emailing with him before i came here today. He is going to be at south by southwest edu and he is still battling for his job and his hearing is on april 23rd. So i chose that because it specifically is the kind of thing that we are seeing happening around the country and you do such a great job in the book of using you know, stories and interviews to sort of exemplify so many of the issues that many communities across the country are facing. And when i read that chapter, i took some notes and if i could just read a few things that you you said that i think will really apply to our community as well. And you say regarding crt instead of inquiring about why and how racism persisted, the focus was on how talking about it was divisive and how that might make white children feel. And then you say suddenly history was not about history but about how history might be received by those with the most power. And that is really what feels like took hold in so many communities, was not about looking at the issue, but really more about how it would those who had the most power and then you go on to say that it really you know, this whole issue left teachers across the country afraid of talking race and class, which we call soft censorship. The chilling effect. And and again, its something that for those of us who are familiar with this that is pervasive nationally at the moment, whether you have policies in place or not, actually, you were the one who said to me when i was here in fall of 2020 to you, was it . Yeah. And you said and we were talking books. Censorship was starting to catch on. And you said, well, you dont actually need any laws or policies if in place because when people become afraid its de facto happening. And then i was looking at the Library Journal which you know, did an Anonymous Survey of librarians and at that time 42 of libraries admitted kind of preemptively removing books from the library. And is 2022 the latest one that was out looking at 2023, had gone up to 47 . But one of the very cool things i found about that survey was that this year a third of librarians said they had considered leaving the profession because of all of the, you know, trauma, fault froth, whatever you want to describe it around book banning. But then two thirds said that that only made them more determine not to stay involved and fight. And i think thats kind of what were seeing, you know, happening is that that pushback that determination, thank goodness so we didnt really hear this in the introduction. But you have been an education for how many years . 20, 30, 33 plus. Its actually even more. But im trying to like, pretend. Im like little younger, but needless to say, a long time are very experienced in the field. So why this book and why this moment for this book so exacti, i did not plan to write this book. I didnt even want to write. I wasnt like looking to write book, but after covering education, k12 and higher ed for 30 plus years for the new york times, Hechinger Report watching a whole boston globe, i i saw so much happening in schools that was not about education. And in fact, there is a part of the book towards that. In the last chapter where i actually go into a classroom because i missed it so much doing all my reporting because i was not doing the kind of reporting that was accustomed to doing. I was accustomed to saying okay, why are we you know someones got a new idea for teaching math or reading or and is it working. And what are the things that people said were going to happen . Are they really happening . I would dig into pedagogy i mean, a cool study out of harvard in which i learned that if you cant decode fast enough by the end of the sentence youve forgotten which at the beginning a set. Theres so much cool stuff in education that we need to dig into and think about. None of that was happening. And so i felt absolutely compelled to connect the dots. And not only were we not talking about the stuff we needed to talk about, but the stuff that we were talking about that i was hearing about was complete misinformation social learning. I had written about that when it was first becoming a thing and i was at the moms for liberty summit in july 20, 22, and i learned from them that it was actually marxist indoctrination. And i was like, no, no, no, no. That is not how this is not how it works. And the things that i was hearing were just complete misinformation. And that led that led me to hit the and hit a road right interview. So we can credit the moms for liberty summit in july. 2022. And i was there inregistered under my name and Laura Pappano and i. But i decided i wanted to not a lot of attention to myself. So i wore a red blazer with it, lapel pin, the American Flag lapel pin. And i did buy two moms for liberty tshirts. And i attended. And as a journalist, ive been in a lot of settings in which you know, things were not the way i might think about them, but i would listen. Id be okay. I hear where youre coming from. When i went that summit, i was completely stunned by how was within the first period of time. James lizzie was on the stage telling us that for if youre sending your to Public Schools for 30 to 35 hours a week was like sending them to a maoist reform prison camp, i had not expected that. And not only did i not expect that, i did not expect four days of really the same message. One of the curious kind of things that was happening the same time. So, you know, when i check into the marriott hotel, the woman at the desk says, oh, im with you all, im upgrading everyone. So i suddenly found myself with a high floor water view, which was quite a treat that i had not expected. And but more to me was that kitty at the Tampa Convention center at the same time was floridas Largest Anime convention. So imagine the surreal experience of going to the moms liberty summit and, then going out onto the street or in the lobby, and youre seeing horns and wings and, glitter and cologne neil garb. It was just it was it could not have been more perfectly scripted. Do want to talk a little bit now about that emotional appeal that you saw taking place. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, kate and i were talking right before this. I know we were talking about the emotional piece of it. And i guess the thing that surprised me then and got me to then go up to harvard and look into the history of red scare on the education side, was that the moms about the 500 mostly moms in that room were the message was that your children are in danger, your children are in grave danger, are being harmed and it may be uncomfortable for it may feel like a stretch or a reach, but you to defend them and that means taking slings and arrows. It means speaking up at School Board Meetings. It means running for office there were moms who were running for school board and repeatedly throughout the summit were asked to rise and receive applause when ron desantis was speaking at the podium, he said, he said for the first time ever, im going to endorse School Board Candidates. And you think, okay, governors and boards endorsing a School Board Candidate is different. And and and then and and the moms seemed just very glowy about the idea that this was happening. And yet its very clear. It was clear to me then what desantis was doing was actually creating support for him and for a whole far right agenda. And we saw that in texas, where at cpac when steve bannon, after those races and many of you are nodding your head when Patriot Mobile spent more than 400,000 on 11 School Board Races and flipped for boards, he school ards, the key that picks the lock. This is how we take over district by district, town by town. And the the frustrating and kind of troubling thing me when i was sitting in that room was that nobody was question winning what they were hearing and i felt that particularly when there was a conversation about the dont say gay law that had just recently passed and one of the moms liberty board members, a lawyer stood up to describe the law and in terms of a metaphor, and he said its like if you have an ak 47, we need to do more. It its like if you need a flashlight, if you need a laser on it, this is not done. This was a number of weeks after evolving and i just couldnt believe that. I just heard a metaphor that an ak 47. But even more stunning to me was the fact that there was nobody in the room reacted. So i felt and and saw over the course of the four days it is if the moms entered this room and on this kind of crazy conveyor that kept sharing the same distraught id message and groupthink and never any questions raised about why social how how do you get that social Emotional Learning is marxist indoctrination. I mean, a lot of this stuff just doesnt make sense. You know today i was at a class at swarthmore and we were having a conversation and one of the students asked like, what is gender ideology anyhow . What is ism . And i said fantastic question. So you take Something Like gender identity and you just change the words a little bit and it becomes this scary thing that really knows what it is. And i think that that is, you know what we have seen and because we get very fast and sloppy with language. I mean, who knows what woke means . I mean, i certainly dont really know what it means. So we have this we have these kind of boogeymen that we are that people are and were and its lagging were lacking a clarity of conversation. And thats why i wrote the book to just connect these dots and say, well, this really this is social Emotional Learning. This is the red scare. This is this is what crt actually is. Right. Mm hmm. And youre looking at those in different communities across the country. So youre in texas quite a bit. Ee. She florida, pennsylvania sylvania, new hampshire. And i have my approach as a journalist is. Ive continued to write about this. And really pass this law. What are the consequences . What are the. Thats my question. Okay. Were going to pass this law. How does this out . So one example is in keller, texas, the you know that when the school board took over and they decided that one of the things they were going news rather than have librarians be in charge of curating their collections and choosing the books, which i my reporting for this book i had several librarians just walk me through how youre trained, what you learn, and what you don keller, texas, this far right school board decided, they were going to be in charge. And the new policy was that they would approve every purchase of every book and that it would be 30 days out in the community. And then they would addre