Privacy Protections Not TikTok Bans

When I was in the classroom (I’m retired), I wanted to keep up with my students’ technology trends. I wanted to know what interested and engaged my students. I was aware of social media when My Space, Friendster, and eventually, Facebook came out. However, it wasn’t until I signed up for an account on Facebook that I really understood what all the fuss was about. Reading about teen culture is one thing, diving in is very different. 

When TikTok came out, I didn’t hear kids talking about it. I had an account on Instagram and I found the “stories” slow and often duplicates of images and ideas from other posts. My students seemed more involved in other platforms like Snapchat.

Two years ago, on vacation, my twenty-something daughter (our family trailblazer) showed me the TikTok videos she was watching. We spent an hour or more laughing together. It was delightful. 

She showed me that TikTok was more than comedy videos. She was learning about smart homes, cooking, and other do-it-yourself skills. So, I signed up. I found TikTok the most entertaining of my social media sources. I like Facebook for personal connections, but TikTok was way more engaging and thus time-consuming. 

There, I said it. Despite the controversy, the fear of foreign manipulation, or the theft of my personal data, I like TikTok because it is the most entertaining, edifying, and enjoyable social media site I have found - and I have tried almost all of them. 

I like TikTok’s variety of content. I am following folks reviewing and talking about books, science fiction, Star Trek, theatre, education, religion, health, social issues – and, of course, politics. I hear about people’s perspectives and experiences. I learn about music, linguistics, science, education, and technology. 

While our lawmakers are worried about espionage, misinformation, and unethical use of my information, my concern is more about the way kids may be using social media (on any of its platforms). I am told that kids are using TikTok instead of search engines and it has become a mediator of the internet for them. Yet, this is a problem with many social media platforms, not just TikTok. Kids must be taught both critical thinking skills and how to seek and evaluate information they find online. 

And yes, I have Marshall McLuhan in my head at times asking something like, does viewing short, clever, and easy to digest videos about such important topics as race, religion, and the culture wars minimize and trivialize these complex issues? Is it also possible that this medium has made messages both more available and powerful to a new audience? 

Yet, when some legislators seem to want people to go to sleep rather than confront anything that might kick their complacency, worrying about quick videos seems the least of our troubles. The issue is not the form or the ownership. The issue is that social media can foment hate and violence. The issue is that kids can learn wonderful and wholesome lessons as well as destructive and dangerous ones. But that is a problem with all social media platforms, not just TikTok. In fact, that is an issue on and off the internet. 

Should we be concerned about privacy? Of course. At this point, it is more than a cliché statement that if you don’t pay for a service, you are the product. TikTok is getting my attention. But that, too, happens with every social media platform. 

Do I make purchasing decisions based on TikTok, Facebook or other online ads: not consciously. Will I? Perhaps. I am thinking about buying some of the products that the home automation guy on TikTok has been demonstrating (but I haven’t done it yet). I do go to some of the websites that I learn about from the people who demonstrate “useful websites I’ll bet you didn’t know about.” 

I know I am leaving digital footprints. They are far deeper than my use of TikTok. I find Facebook’s targeted ads creepy. But the use of my data is the price I am paying for this service. Should the government make sure that Facebook, TikTok, and others use my data ethically? Absolutely!  

Burying our heads in analog sand (or staying asleep) is not going to help either. Our world is now, at least in part, online. We must be informed and connected. TikTok has, on several occasions, informed me about important issues long before they appeared in my news feeds. Snapchat doesn’t work for me. I find Instagram slow and self-indulgent. Facebook is a way to stay connected to distant folks. I don’t go to social media to be angry or argue. I don’t go to feel good about myself or look down at others. I go to learn, connect, explore, and laugh. I hear authentic voices that I might not hear in real life (IRL). 

Banning TikTok doesn’t make us personally or communally safer. Creating legislation that protects users against inappropriate and unethical use of their data might. Like other industries, social media, and perhaps the internet in general, could use some consumer protections – in order to do this, lawmakers need to become much more knowledgeable about today’s technology! 

Nineteen Eighty Florida

“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink—greetings!”

Although written by Orwell’s 1984 protagonist, Winston Smith, this message might be a missive from the sunshine state, which is increasingly making certain that the sun only shines on what is state approved and those who get up in the morning must go right back to sleep. Big Brother is alive and well in Florida. 

The state government of Florida –and the states emulating it - are taking their cue from Orwell’s classic dystopian novel. They are rewriting history, stifling free expression, and creating hated scapegoats. All of this to strengthen and sustain the power of, using Orwell’s label, the Party. 

The forces that are squelching any communication about topics that hurt the Party’s feelings are akin to the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s novel. In 1984 there are four ministries: the Ministry of Peace, which makes war, the Ministry of Love, which is the secret police, the Ministry of Plenty which rations resources, and the Ministry of Truth, which among other things, rewrites the past so it justifies and supports the party’s political and social goals. 

“Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is the past, and no different past can ever have existed. This holds good even when, as often happens, the same event has to be altered out of recognition several times in the course of a year.”

Like in 1984, Floridians have been given a menu of people to hate: Black people, Trans people, gay people, drag queens, immigrants, and anyone who disagrees with the Party’s views. All evils are attributed to those who are “woke,” although they struggle to define what that means. The world of 1984 has the Two Minutes Hate every day. Like Florida, all evils were attributed to the traitor Goldstein and his organization, the Brotherhood.  

“The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching.”

Hate, fear, and the manipulation of history are critical to sustaining the Party in the novel. But why would Americans, who value our freedoms, abandon them? How can they believe “alternative facts”, political spin, and propaganda that are obviously designed to manipulate them? They just need to defeat their own memories and morality. 

“The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed— if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.”

Republicans who vote for abortion bans (but make sure that their pregnant people get them), condemn drag shows (and then turn up in drag), and insist that banning guns will not protect anyone (and then ban guns from their gatherings) are hypocrites. But even more, they and their followers are also experts at “reality control.” They have mastered “doublethink.” 

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able—and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years—to arrest the course of history.”

Fox News's editing of the events of January 6th is a public expression of doublethink. It is a revision of the facts into a form that fits Florida and its followers. To admit that racism is built into the fabric of our country and history, to accept responsibility and deal with the real issues and challenges facing us, to protect children in their schools, people praying in church, moviegoers in the theater, and shoppers in the mall from gun violence is not important. Battling drag queens, sexy candy, and elementary school teachers is far more critical than any other social ill. 

There is more, of course. The society of 1984 is divided by class, insiders and outsiders, party and proles. Further into the book, the similarities to Florida intensify. Orwell took the Soviet Union as his model for this novel, just as many Republicans are big fans of Russia’s Putin. 

Spoiler: Orwell’s 1984 doesn’t end well for Winston and those who rebel against the party. The power of the party broaches no compromise and has no compassion. It is a state run by fear, hate, lies, and violence. To quote Winston (and Orwell), “Down with Big Brother.” 

Reading Makes Us Better

Can you remember a book that really stayed with you? Can you remember reading something that shaped the way you saw the world and yourself? Can you point to a piece of writing that opened your eyes and transformed your vision? Some of us can, but I am willing to bet that more of us cannot.

For some of us, that book is a form of scripture. For some of us, it is a work of non-fiction or science fiction, or one of the classics we studied in school. However, I am willing to bet that the books that stick with us, the books we hold dear, are mixes between seeing ourselves in the text and seeing the world in a new light. 

I taught high school for thirty-three years. When I selected literature to teach or plays to direct, there were many criteria. Of course, the work had to be accessible and appropriate for the age and reading level of the students. That doesn’t rule much out. It would also be great if it was something that would hold my students’ attention. That rules almost everything out. 

The truth is, most kids are not readers. Most people are not, either. There are a beautiful group of students who read for pleasure, but most high school and middle school students read only some of what they are assigned. Some of those books stick with them. Most of them wash away before they even turn to the next chapter. 

Being a high school English teacher is challenging  - for this and other many reasons. 

So to maximize student engagement, make reading more appealing, and help students grow intellectually, I chose books that both reflected my students’ experiences and gave them insights into the world outside our little suburb. 

I should probably also note that I taught in an overwhelmingly white school. There were non-white students, but no more than a few in each of my classes. Unlike many schools in America, my school had a significant non-Christian population, primarily Jewish. But we are far from diverse. Most teachers were white. A few, like me, were Jewish, but most were Christian. 

I grew up in a similar nearby community. I went to a local college that was more diverse than my high school but still primarily white and Christian. I taught briefly in a very diverse middle school and then took the first high school job I was offered: back in an affluent white suburb. 

It is critical that students learn to see the world through another person’s perspective and be able to take another person’s point of view. It is a mark of maturation. Small children only see things their own way. That is one of the reasons why it is futile to argue with a toddler. 

Yet, my high school students often struggled to articulate multiple sides of an argument. They sometimes could not understand why someone would interpret literature differently than they did. They could only see the world their way. Thus, the critical role of reading and analyzing narratives. 

Stretching that perspective is powerful and sometimes challenging, difficult, and stressful. We talk about growing pains when our children’s bodies mature. Their minds and intellectual capabilities also grow. Just as their bodies can be damaged if they are not eating nutritious foods, their abilities to think critically, and see others’ perspectives must also be nurtured and supported. Some growth happens no matter what we do. Some growth won’t happen unless we water and cultivate the soil. 

Literature is a great vehicle to foster this kind of maturation. When a story is compelling and well written – and the reader is engaged – we are transported to another point of view. We see a new world and experience it from the inside out. We can’t claim that we didn’t know those words would hurt, the narrator both tells and shows us their effect. We get a kind of guided tour of other people, fictional, real, and shades in-between. We truly walk around inside another person for a while. It goes much further than, “How would you like it if they did that to you?” 

This is why some groups see certain books as dangerous. Books immerse the reader in the complexity of personhood. They complicate hate. They provide vicarious experiences and give them context. They are more powerful than any slogan or dogma. This is one reason why many religious figures taught using stories and parables. 

A professor with whom I studied said that human beings should be classified as homo narras because we are the creatures who tell stories. Telling stories, trying them on, living inside them, and learning their meanings and messages makes us better humans and makes us more humane. Movies, television, and other forms of stories can do this, too, but they lack the inner voice, without the perspective and feeling from our point-of-view character, they will never be able to reach our hearts and minds like a good book! 

This is why reading stories, whether they are children’s books, fiction, biography, scripture, or other forms of written narrative, helps to develop us into more empathetic and mature people. It is certainly not the only way to foster these critical skills, but it is a tool we must promote and protect!

Reading For Treasure: Education Issues

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Earlier this month, I spent two days back at school working with teachers and librarians and talking to kids about books. It was wonderful, rejuvenating, and exhausting! One of the reasons I started this list of articles was I didn’t want to keep sending my not-yet-retired colleagues articles that I thought they would find interesting or useful. So I post them here instead. My mind is on all the different aspects of education: grading, social and emotional health, classroom practices, athletics, safety, and many other topics. Since my list is long this month, I am limiting myself to a very short description of each article.  

First, some articles that focus on teaching and the teacher experience: 

“I No Longer Grade My Students’ Work — And I Wish I Had Stopped Sooner” in Blavity. “I’ve been teaching college English for more than 30 years. Four years ago, I stopped putting grades on written work, and it has transformed my teaching and my students’ learning. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.” 

“The Case Against Zeros in Grading” in Edutopia. I am shocked that some teachers still need to hear this argument. This article and the accompanying video make it clear: zeros demotivate students and count more than their successes! 

“Why So Many Teachers Are Leaving, and Why Others Stay” in Cult of Pedagogy.. Jennifer Gonzalez shares eight teachers’ stories: four who are leaving and four who are not. These are critically important voices that need to be heard.  

“Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron And, no, “self care” isn’t the answer” in Education Week. Katy Faber paints a vivid picture of what it is like to teach during this difficult time in America. 

"Why is America the Only Country in the World With Regular School Shootings?" in Eudaimonia and Co via Medium. Umair Haque has gone to school all over the world and shares how American schools are horribly unique. The issues we are having are not functions of adolescent development but of American culture. 

"Pandemic Shadow Syllabus" in Sonya Hubor's blog. This is a short and wonderful teacher struggling with the pandemic point of view piece. Teachers – if you read only one of these, let it be this one. 

A few articles that deal with education’s social context: 

“Young people need power.' Southern students on safety, accountability, and what they need from adults” in Scalawag.  This is a series of statements from young people about what it is like to be in school now. Read what the kids say about their experiences! 

"Is Your Child Too Popular for Their Own Good?" in Lifehaker. While some parents are clueless and others are ruthless, there are many kinds of popular in school and this article explores what some studies say about how popularity in middle and high school translates into adulthood. 

“OP-ED: When It Comes To Book Bans, America Could Learn From Apartheid South Africa” in NewsOne. The comparison is eerie and frightening – and right on the money: book challenges in America today are frighteningly similar to those in South Africa during Apartheid. 

Two pieces that focus on equity in college admissions from The Atlantic: 

"College Admissions Are Still Unfair" Colleges are eliminating legacy admissions, but this will not make things much better. At Amherst, there is a greater percentage of white athletes than in the general student body – and many play sports like crew and squash. Sounds like white affirmative action to me. 

"Colleges Can Fix the Broken Admissions Process They Created" This is a great list of ways colleges could improve the admission process to benefit everyone! 

Two very different focuses on kids and youth sports: 

“Do youth sports really build character? What kids gain from sports depends on adults”  in KQED Mindshift. The benefits of sports participation for kids are entirely dependent on coaches and contexts. This article spells out clearly the nature of adult’s influence, for better or worse, on children. 

“Guys, I Swear I’m Only Transitioning So I Can Cheat at Girls’ Sports” in McSweeny's. This older McSweeny’s satire makes the point well: the controversy over trans students in sports is an invented issue that fans the flames of hate at the expense of kids who really need to be part of the team!  

I am currently reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds 

Reading for Treasure: Consider These Articles and VOTE!

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Your vote is critically important. The polls are probably wrong. Here are some articles to think about as we move toward the November elections. I present them without introduction or commentary: 

Mother Jones (Video): “If Republicans Retake Congress in November, Here's What Their Agenda Will Look Like” 

NewsOne: “2022 Midterm Elections: Filibuster, Senate Control And The Importance Of Black Voters” 

Reuters: “Pro-Trump conspiracy theorists hound election officials out of office”

Financial Times: “Ukrainian officials ‘shocked’ as Republicans threaten tougher line on aid” 

The Guardian: “Republicans aim to pass national ‘don’t say gay’ law”

The Bulwark: “Attack Ads Are Darkening the Skin Tone of Black Candidates”

Atlantic:  “We need to take away children” 

New York Times: “Voters See Democracy at Risk, but Saving It Isn’t Priority” 

Wired: “The US Needs to Recognize Intimate Privacy as a Civil Right” 

The Washington Post: “Trump charged Secret Service ‘exorbitant’ rates at his hotels, records show”

CNN: “What could happen if an election denier is running elections” 

NBC: “Johnson's campaign is paying the law firm of a Trump attorney allegedly connected to Jan. 6 fake elector plot”

NPR: “Borrowers who were cut out of student loan relief describe 'a gut punch'”

CNN: “'I'm my own man': Colorado Republican Senate nominee fires back at Trump” 

Scientific American: “U.S. Lost 26 Years Worth of Progress on Life Expectancy” 

I am currently reading Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

Watch Out Parents: Big Conservative is Not Just Coming After Teachers and Librarians

We need to talk about how you are interacting with your children at home. What are you teaching them? How are you modeling well? Are you making the right choices - the best choices? Would your legislators and political leaders approve of how you are raising your children? Do you talk about CRT? Are you too accepting of gender non-conforming behavior or ideas? Would you allow your child to use they/them pronouns? If so, Big Conservative might knock on your door for this kind of thought crime. 

We hear about parents’ choice. That is the rationale for a slew of censorship across more than a dozen states. However, which parents? What choices? For the most part, these book-banning (and sometimes burning) movements are aligned with a far wrong wing political agenda. They do not reflect ALL parents’ choices, just a specific conservative religious and usually white one.  

So this isn’t just about parents having a say in what their kids read in school. This is about ideologues having control over your children’s educations. Teachers and librarians were the first to experience this intense scrutiny and vitriol, but this movement will not end with them. 

You may think, what I teach my children in my own home is not anyone’s business but my own – and you would be right as long as what you were doing was aligned with Big Conservative. But if it is not, your behavior might be labeled child abuse and you as a negligent parent. 

Several states banned children who identify as a gender other than the one assigned at birth from receiving any interventions. They criminalized the act of assisting these children from even exploring anything beyond their gender at birth – even if their parents did it! 

So if you are looking at teachers and librarians and thinking, just pick less controversial texts, just make your lessons about the subject area and not about social issues, know this: that same message will be tailored for parents who don’t agree with the censors and extremists. 

Let’s go one step further: How will these wrong wing censors know you are veering away from their prescribed curriculum? Your children will tell them. The idea that children would “turn in” their parents was common in totalitarian and fascist regimes. Whether it was the Hitler Youth, the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers, or Communist Youth reading Mao’s Little Red Book, this technique has deep roots in authoritarian governments’ control of parenting. 

So as you are confronting those who don’t want their kids to “feel uncomfortable” in school because topics deal with parts of our past that are problematic, this is just the first battle in a larger war for who decides what your child learns – in and out of school. 

As with abortion, immigration, and elections, choice just means sticking with Big Conservative’s point of view; freedom means the right to express opinions that echo specific politicians in a specific party. They are not advocating for freedom and choice, they are creating vehicles to coerce and control – and their reach will not end at the schoolhouse – if we don’t stop it, it is going to ram through the door and enter your house!