Check out the lastest podcast of Michael Baker’s “Room 101” where he interviews Nancy Patterson and Prentice Chandler on issues of academic freedom in public school classrooms.
Tom Paine’s “Commonsense” was banned in an Alabama public school, as was Howard Zinn’s award winning People’s History of the United States. Do public school teachers have the right to teach the full history of the United States? Nancy Patterson, professor at Bowling Green State University and Prentice Chandler, a former high school history teacher and now professor at Athens State University in Alabama, discuss attacks on academic freedom and the case law that provides little protection for teachers to exercise professional judgment. Are teachers merely “agents of the state”? Can teachers be other than corporate drones for the status quo?