Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.”
For education to achieve its lofty purposes, teachers must be allowed to teach. Irrational claims of "indoctrination" handcuff teachers at the ultimate expense of students and our society. Perhaps no general subject area is more fraught with risk of such harm than social studies. Our nation's brief history is filled with subjects and events that are certain to cause discomfort to some, and the same is true of many contemporary issues. Teachers must be allowed to discuss these uncomfortable parts of our history and these uncomfortable contemporary issues with students. One need not take our word for that. The education experts – those who wrote the Tennessee Social Studies Standards – have said so.
For the sake of quality public education and the sake of our students, TEA has taken on a pair of important causes in the hope of freeing teachers from having to look over their shoulders for doing their jobs. We are currently in the midst of a federal court lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a legislative ban on teachers even mentioning a dozen "prohibited subjects." That law is so vague that teachers cannot reasonably understand how far it extends and what might subject them to disciplinary proceedings for violating the ban.
Even before that ban was enacted, TEA filed a lawsuit over the dismissal of Matthew Hawn, a highly respected social studies teacher in Sullivan County. Hawn taught contemporary issues, a social studies class covered in the Tennessee Social Studies Standards. During the tumultuous times of 2020-2021, racism and white privilege were among the subjects discussed in Hawn's class. That subject matter prompted a complaint by a parent, which eventually led to Hawn's dismissal. TEA filed suit on Hawn's behalf to challenge his dismissal as arbitrary.
While these two lawsuits are important to the named plaintiffs, they serve a much larger purpose. They will help to determine the extent to which Tennessee's public school teachers will be permitted to do their jobs without fear of reprisal because the subject matter they teach may have made someone uncomfortable. That does not mean a teacher should be free to discuss whatever they please. However, a teacher who is teaching what the standards and the curriculum call for should not have to worry that their livelihood and career could be in jeopardy for doing so, nor should students be deprived of the value of an education due to teachers' fear of such reprisals.
Matthew Hawn did not ask to be a standard-bearer in this cause. All he wanted to do was teach – a job he loved and excelled at. Still, TEA is grateful for his willingness to speak out for the benefit of teachers and students everywhere.
