{"id":2490,"date":"2023-12-06T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/"},"modified":"2024-10-18T17:14:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T17:14:59","slug":"banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
\n
\n \n

There\u2019s a war on words and images out there.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

Book banning in schools is trending these days, supercharged with the twin engines of social media and political extremism. Banning has reached historic highs. Book challenges are local, school district by school district, but often coordinated and coached nationally. The targets are largely anything \u201cother\u201d \u00ad\u2013 other races, other sexualities, other perspectives beyond the mythos of the White, puritan ruling class.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

Outrage abounds, even as each news item\u2019s life cycle bores us with its repetition. Famous books  \u2013 the illustrated Anne Frank diary<\/a>, for instance \u2013 or mundane instructional volumes are barred from impressionable schoolchildren after pressure from a parent, or a group of moms. Rinse and repeat on titles<\/a> such as \u201cGettysburg Address: A Graphic Adaptation<\/a>;\u201d \u201cWomen;\u201d \u201cThe History of the Blues;\u201d \u201cAn Introduction to Watercolor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

How to get beyond the shouting?<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

Narrative lives in ambivalence and ambiguity. It celebrates complexity. It leans into emotion, but not in a superficial way. When it works, it is an antidote to the toxic and superficial political speech so common in our land. Good narrative celebrates the messiness that is lived experience. It takes us into the dimensions in which fear and hope and anger and love all coexist.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n \n
\"Washington
Hannah Natanson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

The Washington Post\u2019s Hannah Natanson<\/a> dives headlong into that muddy mess of humanity in her work on book banning. As a national K-12 education reporter, she has done deep dives on the people<\/a> (\u201cJennifer Petersen keeps 73 school books she detests in her basement\u201d) and issues<\/a> (Arkansas librarians face up to six years in prison for allowing obscene or harmful texts). Her portfolio in the past year is a lesson in how to own something that\u2019s on your beat.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

I particularly liked her piece this fall about an AP English teacher, Mary Wood, who faced deep ethical and practical questions<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 What can I teach? Who can I trust? What\u2019s my purpose?<\/em> \u2013 after being reprimanded for using a book that made at least two white students feel uncomfortable. In South Carolina, that\u2019s a legal no-no; teachers shouldn\u2019t subject their students to guilt or other forms of psychological distress. The book, by the way, is Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019s \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d<\/a> and I would highly recommend it. Yes, it should make all of us uncomfortable, because it describes systemic racism at basic, personal levels. And isn\u2019t that the job of teachers? To expose us to ideas and people who test our assumptions about life?<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

But Natanson\u2019s narrative is not my harangue. Instead, she takes us deep into the land of ambivalence. The piece is about journey that Wood, the teacher, has had to wade through the shoals of morality politics. It begins with the anxiety of that first step back to school this fall, then resets to that moment in the spring when two students turned her in to administrators. There is context along the way, like the uninformed social media campaign against Wood, that have a familiar ring, but they are told through the eyes and heart of this experienced teacher and mother of a teenager who will be taking her class.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

To gain a deeper understanding, Storyboard asked Natanson about the background of the book-wars series and her profile of Mary Wood. The Q&A is followed by an annotation of the story.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

What\u2019s the genesis of \u2018The School Book \u201c series title? Is there a war out there?<\/strong>
<\/strong>This is far from the first time America has seen book challenges. But the scope of this latest round is historic: Challenges surged to record-highs<\/a> in 2021 and 2022<\/a>, according to the American Library Association, which has tracked the issue for two decades. At the same time, states are passing laws that give parents more power<\/a> over library curation, circumscribe students\u2019 access to books<\/a> and even threaten librarians with years of imprisonment<\/a> and tens of thousands of dollars in fines for giving \u201cobscene\u201d or \u201charmful\u201d books to minors. School board meetings nowadays regularly feature speeches from parents and residents upset about the books children have access to, with the discussion sometimes devolving into a shouting match. Given all this, my editor, Adam Kushner<\/a>, and I felt justified in using the tag \u201cWars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

What are the challenges of covering a subject that\u2019s become so polarized?
<\/strong>One of the biggest challenges is convincing folks on all sides of the issue to trust me and speak with me. In every story I do, I aim to feature voices spanning all perspectives \u2013 but conservative-leaning parents can be especially wary. I recently profiled a woman in Virginia who challenges one school book a week<\/a>, part of a quest to rid school libraries of sexual content. It took me several weeks to gain her and her friends\u2019 trust. For the story on Mary Wood, I tried repeatedly to get in touch with parents and students who disliked and objected to her lesson on Ta-Nehisi Coates. One woman exchanged a few introductory emails with me before refusing to answer my questions and cutting off communication.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

How did you find Mary Wood?
<\/strong>My editor Slacked me a post on X sharing what happened in Mary Wood\u2019s classroom. He suggested there might be a deeper story there. Once I read a bit about her, I knew I wanted to tell her story in a narrative feature. I found her email online and wrote a long message explaining who I was and the kind of piece I wanted to write. After a few phone calls and a few weeks of considering the idea, she consented.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

In the Post Reports podcast<\/a>, you talk about scrambling to be able to be there on the first day of school. How important was that?
<\/strong>It was vital. I knew I had to witness that moment if I wanted to write a scene-based narrative about Mary Wood. My purpose in reporting the story was to capture what it\u2019s like to return to teaching after your own students report you for a lesson on race. I wanted to take readers inside Mary Wood\u2019s head. To do so, I had to be with her the morning before she left home and headed to her classroom again. In those last, vulnerable minutes, I guessed, her fear, anxiety and uncertainty would loom largest.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

Who is your intended audience? Did you think about readers who might not be \u201cthe bluest of the blue,\u201d as Mary Wood is?
<\/strong>I almost never have a particular demographic in mind when I write. The reason I love journalism, and especially narrative journalism, is because it can inspire people to consider life from new angles: to ponder perspectives, happenings and truths they never would have encountered otherwise. That\u2019s always what I hope will happen with my stories.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n

ANNOTATION:<\/strong>\u00a0Storyboard\u2019s questions are in red; Natanson\u2019s answers in blue. <\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n \n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
\n
\n \n\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \nTHE SCHOOL BOOK WARS<\/a>
\n

Her students reported her for a lesson on race. Can she trust them again?<\/h2>\n

Mary Wood\u2019s school reprimanded her for teaching a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now she hopes her bond with students can survive South Carolina\u2019s politics.<\/em><\/h3>\nBy Hannah Natanson<\/a>
\n
\nSeptember 18, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
\n
\n\nCHAPIN, S.C.<\/strong> \u2014 As gold sunlight filtered into her kitchen, English teacher Mary Wood shouldered a worn leather bag packed with first-day-of-school items: Three lesson-planning notebooks. Two peanut butter granola bars. An extra pair of socks, <\/a>What a detail.<\/span><\/span>just in case.
\n
\nEverything was ready, but Wood didn\u2019t leave. For the first time since she started teaching 14 years ago, she was scared to go back to school.
\n
\nSix months earlier, <\/a>You jump back in time right away. What’s the thinking?<\/span>I wanted to explain the circumstances \u2013 what drove Mary Wood to this point \u2013 as soon as possible, so the reader could understand the heightened emotions, tensions and stakes of her return to teaching. This was not an ordinary back-to-school, and I wanted to make that clear.two of Wood\u2019s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition (AP Lang) students had reported her to the school board for teaching about race.<\/span><\/span> Wood had assigned her all-White class readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019s \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d a book that dissects what it means to be Black in America. <\/a>You explain Coates’s book in greater detail later, but here you leave it with the barest of descriptions. Had you considered more? “What it means to be Black in America” on one hand doesn’t seem to be much of a prompt for the reaction that follows, but these days it’s probably more than enough for readers to understand.<\/span>I didn\u2019t want to slow the narrative too much right at the top. I was already asking readers to jump backward six months, as you noted, and I needed to keep things moving as swiftly as possible \u2013 per advice from my excellent editor, Adam Kushner.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nThe students wrote in emails that the book \u2014 and accompanying videos that Wood, 47, played about systemic racism \u2014 made them ashamed to be White, violating a South Carolina proviso that forbids teachers from making students \u201cfeel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress\u201d on account of their race.
\n
\nReading Coates\u2019s book felt like \u201creading hate propaganda towards white people,\u201d one student wrote.
\n
\nAt least two parents complained, too. Within days, school administrators ordered Wood to stop teaching the lesson. They placed a formal letter of reprimand in her file. It instructed her to keep teaching \u201cwithout discussing this issue with your students.\u201d
\n
\nWood finished out the spring semester feeling defeated and betrayed \u2014 not only by her students, but by the school system that raised her. The high school Wood teaches at is the same one she attended. <\/a>This becomes a significant subplot. How did it strike you when you first met Wood?<\/span>One of the first questions I asked Mary Wood after arriving in South Carolina was where she grew up. It\u2019s often one of the first questions I ask; it\u2019s usually an easy starting point for a conversation and it helps me understand the person I\u2019m interviewing. I was astonished to realize Chapin was her hometown. Mary Wood didn\u2019t tell me she graduated from the high school she now teaches at until a little later, when she took me on a driving tour of campus \u2013 and that was even more startling.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nIt had been a long summer since. Wood\u2019s predicament, when it became public in a local newspaper, divided her town. At school board meetings, and in online Facebook groups, the citizens of wealthy, White and conservative Chapin debated whether Wood should be fired. Republican state representatives showed up to a June meeting to blast her as a lawbreaker. The next month, a county NAACP leader declared her an \u201cadvocate for the education of all students.\u201d The county GOP party formally censured<\/a> the school board chair for failing to discipline Wood.
\n
\nWood\u2019s case drew national, polarizing attention. Conservative outlets and commentators decried Wood\u2019s \u201crace-shaming against White people<\/a>.\u201d Left-leaning media declared her a martyr to \u201ccancel culture<\/a>,\u201d the latest casualty of raging debates over how to teach race, racism and history that have engulfed the country since the coronavirus<\/a> pandemic.
\n
\nSouth Carolina is one of 18 states to restrict education on race since 2021, according to an Education Week tally<\/a>. And at least half the country has passed laws that limit instruction on race, history, sex or gender identity, per a Washington Post analysis<\/a>. Wood is not the first teacher to get caught in the crossfire: The Post previously reported that<\/a> at least 160 educators have lost their positions since the pandemic due to political debates. Among them was a Tennessee teacher who was terminated<\/a> for telling White students that White privilege is a fact. A Texas principal<\/a> who lost his job<\/a> for allegedly promoting critical race theory. And a Wisconsin teacher who was dismissed after criticizing her district\u2019s decision<\/a> to ban the song \u201cRainbowland,\u201d which lauds inclusivity. <\/a>I’m always fascinated when writers break rules \u2014 in this case using a series of sentence fragments \u2014 to build emphasis or highlight tension. What’s your thinking here?<\/span>I like to break up long sentences with short, staccato ones; advice I got from a favorite English professor in college, as well as several great editors at The Washington Post. This just felt right \u2013 right rhythm, right emphasis \u2013 when I read the sentences back in my head. Cramming all of those details into one long sentence would have been a disaster!<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nThe months Wood had hoped to spend hiking, doing yoga and vacationing carefree on the beach turned into a summer spent avoiding people\u2019s gazes at the grocery store and the gas station.
\n
\nNow she had to go back to school. Which meant confronting the conundrum she had avoided all summer.
\n
\nWood believes trust is fundamental to the classroom. She has to trust her students. They and their parents have to trust her. But trust, she believes, is impossible without authenticity. And for Wood, teaching authentically means assigning writers like Coates \u2014 voices unfamiliar, even disconcerting, to students in her lakeside town. Because of what happened last year, though, Wood now worried anything, from the most provocative essay to the least interesting comment about her weekend, might be resisted, recorded and reported by the children she was supposed to be teaching.
\n
\nAnd if she couldn\u2019t trust them, how was she supposed to make them trust her? <\/a>These two paragraphs make a powerful nut. How did it develop? Trust is such a powerful concept, way at the top of the ladder of abstraction, yet you have laid the foundation upon a series of concrete actions in the grafs above.<\/span>In narrative stories, it\u2019s always better to show than tell \u2013 to lay out details and scenes and allow readers to draw their own conclusions, rather than writing prescriptively. Still, it\u2019s important to have at least one paragraph that outlines the central theme, question or tension of a story. This was my attempt at that \u2013 but I didn\u2019t want to place it too high up, nor to end the first section with my own words. I wanted the beginning and end of the introductory section of the story to be pure scene.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n\u201cI should probably head out,\u201d Wood said to her husband, Ryan Satterwhite, glancing at the time on her oven\u2019s digital clock: 7:38 a.m. But she didn\u2019t move. \u201cI just don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d
\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019ll be fine,\u201d Satterwhite told her, setting his mug down and crossing the room.
\n
\nShe looked up at him and placed a hand on his chest. They stood framed in the front window for a moment. He bent down to kiss her.
\n
\n\u201cHopefully,\u201d she said. Her mouth quirked into a half-smile, half-frown.
\n
\nShe readjusted her bag, gripped her car keys and walked out the door. <\/a>You can reconstruct a scene like this, but there’s nothing better than literally being there! The understated quotes reveal high emotion. Great dialogue, great scene.<\/span>Thank you! This is why I worked so hard to be with her on the day she left for school.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n* * *
\n
\nThe first complaint didn\u2019t alarm Wood.
\n
\nIt was early February. A day after she gave out copies of \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d a mother emailed asking to speak about \u201can assignment.\u201d Wood didn\u2019t see it as different from the parental objections she was used to fielding in Lexington-Richland School District 5, which serves roughly 17,000 students and is about two-thirds White<\/a>. In interviews, several teachers recalled dealing with opinionated Chapin parents who pushed back against lessons or for better grades.
\n
\nWood emailed, phoned and left a voice mail with the mom. \u201cPlease call me back,\u201d she remembers saying. She figured they would chat and that would be the end of it.
\n
\nWood thought she was on safe ground. She had taught Coates\u2019s book \u2014 and accompanying YouTube videos titled \u201cSystemic Racism Explained<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Unequal Opportunity Race<\/a>\u201d \u2014 the year prior. No one complained.
\n
\nShe also counted on the fact AP Lang is supposed to be a high-level class. The College Board curriculum says it can address \u201cissues that might, from particular social, historical, or cultural viewpoints, be considered controversial, including references to \u2026 races.\u201d Wood\u2019s supervisor, English department chair Tess Pratt, had signed off on Coates\u2019s book. Plus, Wood had required AP Lang students to read a speech from former president Donald Trump<\/a>, a balancing conservative voice.
\n
\nAnd Wood believed the school district had come to accept her \u2014 respecting her students\u2019 80-plus percent AP exam passage rates year after year, above the national average \u2014 even if not everyone liked her methods. Chapin was her hometown. Chapin High School had been her school, the place she began to question the conservative, Christian views espoused by her classmates, friends and family.
\n
\nNo teacher ever assigned her someone like Coates, Wood said, but her father Mike Satterfield, a teacher and later principal at Chapin, encouraged her to pursue whatever outside reading she found interesting. That led her to left-leaning authors. By the time she graduated from University of North Carolina Wilmington, she was a self-professed liberal. <\/a>Ba-bing! Her political leaning is strongly implied above. What led you to this sentence in this place in the story?<\/span>Given the allegations against Mary Wood, I felt her politics was a subject I had to address in the piece. I placed it in this section because it seemed to fit most naturally here \u2013 this part of the story is meant to give the reader background on who Mary Wood is and how she came to be that person.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nSatterfield capped his long career in education by winning a seat on the school board<\/a> in November 2022 \u2014 and that made Wood feel safe, too. (Satterfield declined to comment beyond writing in an email that said: \u201cI love my daughter very much and respect her for the person that she is.\u201d)
\n
\nShe knew most students leaned right and guessed that many of her colleagues did, too, based on their social media presence and offhand remarks. The popular circles at school are red, current and former students said.
\n
\nBut amid a red sea, Chapin\u2019s English department was a blue island. <\/a>A stark contrast. Did you and your editor discuss whether to use the red\/blue construct? It certainly seems apt here, but your story also bends beyond such sharp lines.<\/span>I don\u2019t remember discussing this beforehand with my editor, Adam Kushner, but when he read the draft he liked the metaphor. I settled on this image because, throughout all my interviews with educators and students at Chapin High School, I kept hearing about a sharp, partisan divide between the English department and the rest of the teaching staff \u2013 and the image of a blue island amid a red sea just swam (ahem) into my head.<\/span><\/span> And Wood was known as the bluest of the bunch \u2014 conspicuous for decorating her classroom with posters of Malcolm X, Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotes and LGBTQ pride stickers.
\n
\n\u201cShe had that granola-crunchy vibe,\u201d said a former Chapin teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional and personal retaliation. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be difficult to guess how she votes walking into her room. I think that\u2019s what made her a sort of lightning rod.\u201d
\n
\nAubrey Hume, a recent Chapin graduate, recalls seeing the Malcolm X poster and immediately clocking that Wood thought differently from most people in town. She also taught Black, female and queer voices that most students never heard in other classrooms nor at home \u2014 which Hume said she liked. But other students didn\u2019t.
\n
\n\u201cIt was like, \u2018Oh, I got Miss Wood, and now I have to scoff and roll my eyes because she\u2019s going to teach me things I don\u2019t want to learn,\u2019\u201d Hume, 18, recalled. \u201cA lot of kids did not like her.\u201d
\n
\nElizabeth Jordan, now 20, was one of those students. Raised in a conservative, Christian household, Jordan was unhappy to learn Wood would be her AP English teacher back in 2019, Jordan\u2019s junior year.
\n
\nAt first, Jordan found Wood\u2019s lessons unsettling \u2014 especially the classes focused on mass shootings or transgender rights, during which Wood held up left-leaning viewpoints for students\u2019 inspection. Jordan could not understand why Wood was asking high-schoolers to discuss controversial current events. <\/a>This is such a telling sentence, suggesting the deafening silence in high school education.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n\u201cAll I was thinking was, \u2018This isn\u2019t allowed, this just isn\u2019t allowed,\u2019\u201d Jordan said. \u201cJust because it was a complete 180 from anything I had known.\u201d (South Carolina had not yet passed its legal restrictions on what teachers can say on these topics.)
\n
\nOver the course of the year, though, Jordan\u2019s opinion shifted. She noticed how students seemed to pay more attention in Wood\u2019s class. She noticed that Wood never pushed students to adopt viewpoints but challenged them to account for their convictions. Now a junior in college, Jordan still remembers the debate that followed after a popular boy, the student body president, said transgender athletes should not be allowed to play sports.
\n
\n\u201cOkay,\u201d Jordan recalls Wood saying, \u201ccan you explain that a little bit more?\u201d
\n
\nBy 2023, when Wood assigned Coates, her strategy hadn\u2019t changed: She still gave difficult texts about hot-button issues, convinced it was the best way to keep students\u2019 attention \u2014 and teach them how to argue, an AP Lang exam requirement. She still demanded students consider novel perspectives, setting the essay question: \u201cExplain Coates\u2019 problem with America\u2019s tradition of retelling history. Explain your support or disagreement with his position.\u201d
\n
\nFor the two days Wood got to teach \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d classroom discussions were lively and open, said Connor Bryant, 17, one of the students who took AP Lang last year. Bryant, whose father is a Chapin English teacher, said his peers debated systemic racism and what it\u2019s like to be Black in America, agreeing and disagreeing with Coates, without Wood picking a side.
\n
\n\u201cShe did a really good job of keeping things not boring,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cPeople spoke up and they had different opinions \u2014 I honestly didn\u2019t hear a single complaint about the book from anyone.\u201d
\n
\nStill, Bryant did remember a handful of disengaged students in the back of the room. They whispered to each other during class.
\n
\nAs in years past, Wood\u2019s style of teaching had left some students feeling uncomfortable. But this time, they didn\u2019t come to respect her.
\n
\nThey reported her. <\/a>Terrific transition. A very chapter-ending sequence. Did you get this on the first try?<\/span>Thank you! I did, actually \u2013 but I also have to give credit to Lynda Robinson, a superb narrative-focused editor<\/a> at The Washington Post. She and I worked on a narrative several years ago about Matthew Hawn, a Tennessee teacher<\/a> fired for telling White students that White privilege is \u201ca fact.\u201d One of the sections of that story ends in a similar way: \u201c \u2026 the school system argued in a filing submitted to the independent hearing officer that it was not Kingsport that had grown less tolerant of opposing political views. \/ It was Hawn.\u201d Lynda suggested that ending to me at the time, and I loved the rhythm and drama of it. When I was writing this piece on Mary Wood almost two years later, I recalled those two sentences and suddenly knew exactly how I wanted to close this section of the story.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n* * *
\n
\nThe student email arrived in school board member Elizabeth Barnhardt\u2019s inbox at 8:51 p.m. on a Sunday, four days after Wood assigned \u201cBetween the World and Me.\u201d The student thanked Barnhardt for \u201clooking into this matter.\u201d
\n
\n\u201cI understand in AP Lang we are learning to develop an argument and have evidence to support it, yet this topic is too heavy to discuss,\u201d the student wrote, according to school records obtained by The Post. \u201c<\/em>I actually felt ashamed to be Caucasian.\u201d
\n
\nAnother student email followed at 9:35 p.m. \u201cI feel, to an extent, betrayed by Mrs Woods,\u201d the second student wrote. \u201cI feel like she has built up this idea of expanding our mind through the introduction of controversial topics all year just to try to subtly indoctrinate our class.\u201d
\n
\nEspecially troublesome, the student wrote, was one of Coates\u2019s sentences stating: \u201cIn America, it is traditional to destroy the black body \u2014 it is heritage.\u201d
\n
\nThe student names were redacted from the emails obtained by Wood through a records request and provided to The Post. A parent who complained about Wood\u2019s course to the school board did not answer a list of emailed questions. Barnhardt, who was endorsed by Moms for Liberty<\/a> last year, did not respond to a request for comment.
\n
\nThe following Monday afternoon, Wood had finished teaching and was preparing to leave school when she received a call from a school secretary. The woman told her she had an unscheduled meeting with Chapin\u2019s assistant principal of instruction, Melissa Magee, and the district\u2019s director of secondary instruction, Neshunda Walters, at 4 p.m.
\n
\nThe woman didn\u2019t say what the meeting was about, but Wood guessed. <\/a>At this point, she hadn’t been told of the complaints to the board, right? Was there something more going on that would have taken the reader on a tangent here?<\/span>No, she hadn\u2019t heard about the complaints. But she had gotten that phone call from a mother referenced in the previous section, in which the woman complained about \u201can assignment\u201d right after Mary Wood set students Coates\u2019s book. So she figured this meeting had to do with complaints about \u201cBetween the World and Me.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0She grabbed Pratt, the English department chair and one of her best friends, hoping for protection. And she pulled up the AP Lang course description on her laptop, figuring she might need it.
\n
\nWood and Pratt were kept waiting outside a conference room for over half an hour, they later recalled. Through a window in the door, Pratt said, she could see Magee and Walters sifting through pages of documents in a manila folder. Around 4:30, Wood and Pratt said, they were let into the room \u2014 but Walters dismissed Pratt over her protests, the department chair said. She kept waiting outside as Wood underwent what the English teacher later described as an interrogation.
\n
\nA set of administrative talking points prepared ahead of the meeting, obtained through Wood\u2019s records request and given to The Post, show that Magee and Walters were supposed to start by telling Wood her teaching had sparked \u201cconcerns.\u201d <\/a>I generally caution writers against one-word quotes. Why did you think it appropriate here?<\/span>I am also generally opposed to one-word quotes: whatever the writer\u2019s intention, it can come off as sarcastic. In this case, though, I wanted to take readers inside that room \u2013 inside the moments when school officials are reprimanding Mary Wood \u2013 as much as I could, given I wasn\u2019t there when it happened. The set of preparatory administrative talking points I obtained was a real gift from the journalism gods. To better reconstruct the meeting, and capture the precise nature of administrators\u2019 objections to \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d I quoted closely from the planned language laid out in the talking points.<\/span><\/span>They were supposed to mention the South Carolina policy against making students uncomfortable because of their race. They were supposed to remind her of school rules stipulating that \u201cteachers will not attempt, directly or indirectly, to limit or control students\u2019 judgment concerning any issue\u201d \u2014 and that \u201cthe principal must approve supplementary materials\u201d for classes.
\n
\nThey were supposed to \u201clet her talk\u201d about Coates\u2019s book and her reason for assigning it. But the verdict was already determined: \u201cThis assignment could run in conflict with proviso and policies,\u201d the talking points said. \u201cWe need to cease this assignment.\u201d (It is unclear who wrote the talking points; the school did not answer a list of emailed questions about the document.)
\n
\nWood said the meeting proceeded almost exactly as the talking points laid out. She tried to defend herself. She cited the AP Lang course description, quoting the part that said it was okay for teachers to assign controversial texts. She said the purpose of the lesson was for students to hear a stimulating argument they could explore and critique.
\n
\nMagee and Walters let her talk. After she finished, Wood recalls, Walters delivered a two-word order: \u201cPause instruction\u201d related to Coates\u2019s book. <\/a>Such stilted, bureaucratic language! I’m glad you decided not to paraphrase here.<\/span><\/span> The district did not answer questions about the meeting nor make Magee or Walters available for interviews. Superintendent Akil E. Ross Sr. declined to discuss any aspect of Wood\u2019s lesson or its fallout, noting the district does not comment on specific staff members or incidents. <\/a>You sprinkle the refusals to talk throughout the story. Did you discuss the approach before writing, or did it just fit naturally?<\/span>With a narrative, you want the story to flow as smoothly as possible. Chunky refusals to comment or statements can interrupt and bog down the story. As soon as I realized the district was going to give me a statement, and not make anyone available for interviews, I planned to cluster the district statement at a relevant, far-down point in the story.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nRoss wrote in a statement that \u201cwe want our students to be critical thinkers with the ability to develop their own understanding of the world.\u201d He added, \u201cThere will be times when students or parents disagree with issues discussed in class. The best way to resolve these matters is communication between the family and the teacher.\u201d
\n
\nThe school gave Wood two days off teaching for \u201cprofessional development,\u201d she said, so she could come up with something to replace Coates\u2019s book, which she was supposed to teach for the next three weeks. A substitute taught her classes in the meantime.
\n
\nWood struggled to figure out what to do. It was bad enough that she was supposed to overhaul a whole unit in two days. Worse, Wood said, Magee and Walters had revealed the complaints came directly from students \u2014 not parents, as was more usual. They wouldn\u2019t say who, Wood said. They wouldn\u2019t provide copies, not even anonymous ones.
\n
\nWood agonized over how to face her classroom again. She wasn\u2019t angry with her students, she said. She expected high-schoolers to get upset about some of the things she taught. But before, teenagers and their parents had always brought their complaints to her. And she had always defused the situation.
\n
\nWhat frustrated her now was that she\u2019d been skipped over: The students had gone directly to the school board. And school officials were listening to the teens, not her.
\n
\n\u201cTaking the word of a couple of students over the professional integrity of a seasoned educator is damaging to the relationship between all parties involved,\u201d she wrote in an email to her principal and the superintendent on February 8.
\n
\nBut most of all, she was scared.
\n
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t know who did it,\u201d Wood said. \u201cAnd I \u2014 I didn\u2019t know how to talk after that.\u201d
\n
\nShe decided the safest course was to teach examples of old AP exam questions for the rest of the semester. <\/a>As a teacher, my heart hurts here.<\/span><\/span> She wouldn\u2019t allow debate anymore. She wouldn\u2019t so much as mention \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d a decision reinforced by the letter of reprimand, which arrived in early March.
\n
\nBut her students still had copies of Coates\u2019s book.
\n
\nSo, on her first day back, five other English teachers \u2014 including Pratt \u2014 walked with her to first period, AP Lang, which all of them had free. <\/a>The following scene of collecting the book was obviously important for you to include, even though Wood isn’t in it. Can you take us through your thinking on including it?<\/span>Wood actually was in the classroom, although she didn\u2019t help gather the books. I asked about what happened when she had to take the books away because I\u2019m always curious about the physical logistics of book removals. Once I found out that five teachers had teamed up to collect the books \u2013 and that some students had difficulty parting with their copies, lingering over pages they\u2019d marked with sticky notes \u2013 I knew I had to include the scene in the story, because I was riveted hearing accounts of it. My editor Adam Kushner and I went back and forth a few times discussing how to write this scene in the clearest way, given Mary Wood cannot function as a narrator the way she does in the rest of the piece. I\u2019m happy with the final version which, at Adam\u2019s suggestion, draws heavily on student and teacher perspectives to recreate the moment.<\/span><\/span> At a regular English department meeting that morning, Wood\u2019s colleagues had decided to gather the books on her behalf. They also wanted to collect the titles as speedily and professionally as possible, Pratt recalled, to minimize stress and awkwardness for Wood and her students. They figured more teachers would pick up the books more quickly. The five teachers lined up near the door as students filed in. Wood sat behind her desk.
\n
\nOnce the last teen had sat down, Wood delivered three stilted sentences, screened and scrutinized by most of the English department in advance. Stripped of all possible controversy.
\n
\n\u201cWe will no longer be reading this book,\u201d she said, according to six people in the room and a contemporary, written account of the day\u2019s events provided by Pratt. \u201cWe will be collecting it now. Please look at the Smart Board so that I can direct you to today\u2019s lesson.\u201d
\n
\nThe five teachers walked up the five aisles between students\u2019 desks. They lifted copies of \u201cBetween the World and Me\u201d from desks as they walked. Some students began rereading underlined or favorite passages as teachers approached, said Bryant, the AP Lang student.
\n
\nA boy sitting next to Bryant had plastered his copy with what looked like five sticky notes per page. A teacher, Pratt, stood and waited until the boy had pulled out each note. It took almost half a minute.
\n
\n\u201cLooks like you wrote a lot,\u201d Pratt remembers telling him.
\n
\nA teacher placed the collected copies of the books on a shelf in the classroom. They remained there, untouched, until the last day of school.
\n
\n* * *
\n
\nOn a steamy Monday afternoon in late June, Wood pulled up the live stream link for that month\u2019s school board meeting. Her golden lab mix, Saint, and Yorkie poo, Happy, jumped onto the couch as she cast the meeting onto the television screen. <\/a>Hooray! You got the name of the dog. Both, in fact.<\/span>Yes! Always, always, always ask people their pets’ names. And what they’re carrying in their purses or backpacks. And why!<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nNews of Wood\u2019s canceled lesson had broken two weeks earlier in regional newspaper the State<\/a>. She had mostly stayed inside the house since. She figured the board meeting, with its opportunity for public comment, was one way to take the temperature of the town.
\n
\nThe first speaker was a woman in a white striped dress, her blonde hair piled into a bun. She said South Carolina was making the news for the wrong reasons: \u201cWe now know that there have been teachings in a school, here in this district, of systemic racism. \u2026 This is not only inappropriate and divisive, this is illegal.\u201d
\n
\nThen came another woman, who declared herself \u201csurprised to learn that this teacher is still employed.\u201d Still another, who said she was a grandmother in the district, began by thanking the board: \u201cYou opened this meeting with a prayer. That was awesome. I hope that means we\u2019re all Christians.\u201d She, too, called for Wood\u2019s firing. Watching, Wood recognized none of the women.
\n
\n(The district declined to answer questions about Wood\u2019s employment, but board members have previously said<\/a> the power to punish teachers rests with school-level administrators. Wood said she has received no discipline beyond the reprimand letter.)
\n
\nThe fifth speaker was South Carolina State House Rep. Robert J. \u201cRJ\u201d May III (R), who had driven 30 minutes from his home near South Congaree to reach Chapin. In an interview with The Post, he said worried parents and students, some of them in Wood\u2019s class, contacted him asking him to speak at the meeting.
\n
\nHe was happy to do it because he thinks Wood broke state law and acted outside the parameters of her job by assigning Coates\u2019s book \u2014 which May said presents the author\u2019s biased views of history as fact. <\/a>Had he read the book?<\/span>In an interview with me, May said, \u201cI have read some of this book.\u201d<\/span><\/span>He said books that deal with systemic racism should be taught in social studies, government or politics courses. If they are taught at all.
\n
\n\u201cWe should be a colorblind society,\u201d May said that night.
\n
\nOn her sofa, Wood shouted at the screen. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding me!\u201d <\/a>I absolutely love that you recreated “dialogue” even though it was through the TV set.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nThe front door banged open behind her, admitting Summit, her 16-year-old son and a student at Chapin High. Turning to greet him, Wood saw his lips pressed into a line.
\n
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d she remembers asking.
\n
\n\u201cMom, did you break the law?\u201d he said, according to his and Wood\u2019s recollection of that night. \u201cMy friends called you racist.\u201d
\n
\nWood told him that, sometimes, good people get bad information from the wrong places \u2014 like Fox News, popular in Chapin. Summit nodded, face tight. <\/a>Wow. What a teacher and mom. Not sure I could have been so …. measured.<\/span><\/span>He said he\u2019d tackled one of the students who called her racist and didn\u2019t want to be friends with those people anymore.
\n
\nWood knew the friend group he was talking about. They were all boys she liked: They\u2019d eaten lunch in her classroom many times the year prior. She swallowed the hurt and told her son what she knew she should say.
\n
\n\u201cYou can be friends with them,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just have to talk to them about it.\u201d
\n
\nSummit considered. \u201cAll right,\u201d he said after a moment, and went upstairs to play video games.
\n
\nThe board meeting on TV stretched onward. Speaker after speaker denounced her.
\n
\nWood didn\u2019t sleep well that night. Or most of the summer.
\n
\nA bright spot was the next school board meeting, in mid-July. This time, a dozen teachers and residents spoke out in Wood\u2019s favor. Coates himself traveled to Chapin to meet her. They went out to dinner. Coates came with her to the board meeting, sitting silently in the back. He signed her copy of \u201cBetween the World and Me.\u201d He told her he appreciated her courage, she said. (Coates did not respond to an interview request.)
\n
\nShe went on vacation to Ocracoke Island, N.C., in late July, where she tried to sum up her feelings in a journal entry. <\/a>How open was she in sharing her journal? It suggests her level of trust with you was pretty high.<\/span>Before coming out to South Carolina, I spent weeks talking to Mary Wood on the phone and Zoom, showing her past stories I\u2019d written and explaining the kind of piece I wanted to write about her \u2013 how it would require being open about intimate parts of her life, including showing me things like text messages, journal entries and emails. We also talked through potential consequences, good and bad, of being featured in The Washington Post. I told her I couldn\u2019t guarantee anything but that I wanted her to be prepared for the kinds of outcomes I\u2019d seen with sources in the past. I also explained to her my fact-checking process: For a narrative feature like this, I call back everyone I interviewed to go over the facts I\u2019m including about them in the story (name, age, etc.) to ensure accuracy. I also go over people\u2019s quotes, although of course I cannot alter those. My motto as a reporter is \u201cNo surprises.” Sources might not always like what\u2019s appearing in my story, but they certainly won\u2019t be surprised by it. By the time I arrived in South Carolina, Mary Wood trusted me.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n\u201cTeachers are afraid,\u201d she wrote. \u201cTeachers are silent. Teachers cave.\u201d
\n
\n* * *
\n
\nAs Wood pulled into the Chapin High parking lot on Aug. 7, her stomach twisted.
\n
\nShe wouldn\u2019t have to face her students. It was a \u201cprofessional development\u201d week: Time for teachers to knock out trainings, organize their classrooms, prepare their lessons. But she did have to see her colleagues, many for the first time since her debacle went public.
\n
\nSeven minutes before the start of school, sitting in her car, Wood texted another English teacher: \u201cWill you walk in with me? I\u2019m scared.\u201d <\/a>Such telling detail!<\/span><\/span>
\n
\nThe day went okay. At a welcome-back teacher breakfast, Wood nibbled on casseroles as her English department friends shared details of their summers: playing pickle ball, hiking in the High Sierras. She joked in reply that her own summer had been \u201cpretty boring.\u201d
\n
\nShe would be teaching AP Lang again. Her son, Summit, would be taking the class. She wasn\u2019t sure how she felt about that.
\n
\nShe saw two students had requested to switch out of another English class she was teaching without sharing why. She wondered if it was because of what happened. A few teachers who she knows disagree with her politically didn\u2019t respond when she said \u201cHi\u201d to them in the hallways. She wondered, again, if it was because of what happened.
\n
\nA week later, on the day students returned to campus, her phone buzzed with a text during morning assembly: \u201cI love you,\u201d Summit wrote. Then a second message: \u201cThanks for always doing what is right.\u201d
\n
\nWood\u2019s AP Lang class met in the early afternoon. At 1:15 p.m., as the last students settled into their chairs, Wood rose and introduced herself. She looked out at the 25 teens, spotting her son, three of his good friends, two children she\u2019d taught before and three others who went to preschool with Summit. She told the room she grew up in Chapin, too.
\n
\nWood pulled out a plastic sandwich bag filled with shell fragments she collected on the beach in during her Ocracoke vacation. She gave the bag to a student and asked him to pass it around the room. She told each teen to take one.
\n
\nThe shells had once been whole, she said. Like a promise kept. A trust fulfilled.
\n
\nBut they broke. Maybe in stormy waters, or when they were dragged across the bottom of the ocean, or because a beachgoer stepped on them.
\n
\nSometimes, \u201cwe start to feel broken,\u201d she said, \u201ctossed around kind of like those shells. We\u2019re chipped away at \u2026 broken from each other.\u201d
\n
\nShe watched her students plunge their hands into the bag and fish for shells.
\n
\n\u201cBut the thing is,\u201d Wood said, \u201cthat\u2019s not true.\u201d
\n
\nShe hoped she was right. <\/a>A five-word ender, full of hope (naturally) and fear and ambivalence. Can you take us through how you came up with this scene as your ender. Did you know it would be that from the moment you heard it, or did it evolve?<\/span>I always knew I wanted to end the story back inside Mary Wood\u2019s classroom, recounting what she said to this year\u2019s students \u2013 perhaps describing her hopes for the year to come. Once she told me what she said (the district wouldn\u2019t let me inside her classroom to hear for myself), I knew this had to be my kicker.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n* * *
\n
\nTom Warhover<\/strong> is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, where he served several years as executive editor of the Columbia Missourian. He previously worked as a reporter and editor at the Virginian-Pilot.<\/em>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Education reporter Hannah Natanson profiled a teacher facing a divided classroom as part of the Washington Post’s “School Book Wars” series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"topics":[],"authors":[270],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annotation-tuesday","authors-tom-warhover"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans - Nieman Storyboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans - Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Education reporter Hannah Natanson profiled a teacher facing a divided classroom as part of the Washington Post's "School Book Wars" series\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-12-06T13:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-10-18T17:14:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"commonmedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"commonmedia\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"37 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"commonmedia\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226\"},\"headline\":\"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-12-06T13:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-10-18T17:14:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":7375,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Story Annotations\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/\",\"name\":\"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans - Nieman Storyboard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-12-06T13:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-10-18T17:14:59+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/03\\\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg\",\"width\":750,\"height\":500,\"caption\":\"Author Ta-Nehisi Coates sat with Mary Wood, a South Carolina high school teacher, at a July 2023 meeting to discuss the removal of his book, \\\"Between the World and Me,\\\" from her advanced English class. Joshua Boucher \\\/ The State via AP\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/06\\\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/\",\"name\":\"Nieman Storyboard\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Nieman Storyboard\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/02\\\/NiemanKOLogo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/02\\\/NiemanKOLogo.svg\",\"width\":1,\"height\":1,\"caption\":\"Nieman Storyboard\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226\",\"name\":\"commonmedia\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"commonmedia\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/wp\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/niemanstoryboard.org\\\/author\\\/commonmedia\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans - Nieman Storyboard","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans - Nieman Storyboard","og_description":"Education reporter Hannah Natanson profiled a teacher facing a divided classroom as part of the Washington Post's \"School Book Wars\" series","og_url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/","og_site_name":"Nieman Storyboard","article_published_time":"2023-12-06T13:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-10-18T17:14:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":750,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"commonmedia","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"commonmedia","Est. reading time":"37 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/"},"author":{"name":"commonmedia","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/person\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226"},"headline":"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans","datePublished":"2023-12-06T13:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2024-10-18T17:14:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/"},"wordCount":7375,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg","articleSection":["Story Annotations"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/","name":"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans - Nieman Storyboard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg","datePublished":"2023-12-06T13:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2024-10-18T17:14:59+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP23200583464909-1-e1701797224317.jpg","width":750,"height":500,"caption":"Author Ta-Nehisi Coates sat with Mary Wood, a South Carolina high school teacher, at a July 2023 meeting to discuss the removal of his book, \"Between the World and Me,\" from her advanced English class. Joshua Boucher \/ The State via AP"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2023\/12\/06\/banned-books-schools-education-reporting-profiles\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/","name":"Nieman Storyboard","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#organization","name":"Nieman Storyboard","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/02\/NiemanKOLogo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/02\/NiemanKOLogo.svg","width":1,"height":1,"caption":"Nieman Storyboard"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/#\/schema\/person\/ad131fac9b2e8136d6171c8575cfc226","name":"commonmedia","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7a67dac1d5145031a5e3f8bcb411f86c4aed5a7ebe4244392196080637ed18af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"commonmedia"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp"],"url":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/author\/commonmedia\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11968,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions\/11968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}