Kansas Bill Could Send Teachers to Jail for Six Months for Teaching "Harmful" Materials

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/28777-kansas-bill-could-send-teachers-to-jail-for-six-months-for-teaching-qharmfulq-materials

A lawmaker in Kansas is seeking to criminalize the distribution of “harmful” materials to minors in schools, lifting an exemption for teachers using approved materials. Advocates working against the bill worry it will have a “chilling” effect on teachers in the state.

“It’s purely a reaction to this instance of this one particular sex ed poster,” said Micah Kubic, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, who testified against the bill. “This poster must be the most impactful poster in the history of the poster.”

The text-only poster, displayed in Hocker Grove Middle School in Shawnee, Kansas, in 2014 was titled, “How Do People Express Their Sexual Feelings?” and included the words “hugging,” “grinding” and “anal sex.” Kubic said the bill is unnecessary. “The teacher who put that up was disciplined by the school almost immediately after that parent complained,” he said.

“There was a list of sexual acts, some of which were highly offensive,” Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook told KMBC 9 News. Pilcher-Cook previously introduced a bill that would criminalize surrogate parenting, saying “you are creating a child purposely that you know is not going to have a biological mother.”

The bill would criminalize displaying material to minors that is “harmful,” including “any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse when the material or performance.” The bill looks likely to pass the state Senate this week, and carries a penalty of up to six months in jail. Kansas already has a law that protects minors from “harmful” material, mainly to prevent adults from distributing pornography to minors. As it is written now, the law includes an exemption for teachers, but this bill aims to remove that exemption. Pilcher-Cook has not yet responded to ThinkProgress’ requests for comment.

[PoliticAverse]

1. What about evolution?... n/t

[Demeter]

2. Kansas is the Land of Over-Reaction

The Last Puritans

[chillfactor]

3. Kansas already crying for teachers....

more teachers will leave if this bill is passed.....legislators who have never taught make very bad decisions regarding education...

[egold2604]

4. if more teachers leave the state, they will privatize and build charter schools

[newfie11]

5. Sharia law has come to Kansas

Freedom of speech????

[Sancho]

6. This would be funny if the Kansas legislature wasn't serious...

I still remember my days as a middle school teacher. Good luck getting them to NOT think, talk, write, text, and sometimes engage in sex. Even in the 70's, we caught middle school students engaging in sex and all kinds of hugging, grinding, petting, etc. It was much easier to deal with it instead of trying to ban talking about it.

As a science teacher, I sometimes had to participate in sex education depending on the curriculum du jour. In our school, parents could opt out, girls and boys were separated, etc. Well designed sex education was usually appreciated by most parents. Believe me, even at the HS and college level I've seen plenty of misinformation, pregnancies, and harmful exploration - mostly because young adults still need lots of guidance as they become more independent.

Sometimes hilarious things happened, like the time the rising 8th grader middle schoolers had HS visitation day to get ready for the next year's move, and it happened that the HS was handing out condoms that very day! They were going, "wow, we can't wait to get to HS!" I think that snafu ended up being discussed at a school board meeting.

As the annual and newspaper advisor, I approved the kids (creative ones) desire to get staff t-shirts. They wrote things like "Photographers do it in the dark" (we developed film in those days) and "Editors lay it out". The principal had to rule if the shirts were "obscene". Actually, he let them wear the shirts as long as the parents approved and there were no curse words or explicit language. He was well aware it was typical behavior for 13 to 15 year olds.

Honestly, you wonder if parents really raise their kids in a closet. Putting teachers in jail for presenting material to minors that is “harmful,” including “any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse when the material or performance”...is pretty insane! With rare exceptions, people should thank middle and HS teachers for all the guidance, tasteful instruction, moral education, and counseling that the state and parents never knew happened that helped their kids grow up informed and making safe choices.