The late July heat beats down as participating students in Arkansas Governor’s School are rushing to class at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. However, the heat isn’t the only thing raising tension. New stringent legislation has prompted some uncomfortable situations for both teachers and students alike.
This past summer, senior Ivy Shacklett was given the opportunity to attend an exclusive four-week residential program offered to rising seniors. The program also exposes students to all sorts of perspectives. However, Shacklett admits that she, along with other students in attendance, experienced a sense of censorship when they discussed their experiences.
“We discussed all of these things knowing that our teachers technically weren’t allowed to discuss any of these things with us,” Shacklett said. “And if the state legislature had its way, we wouldn’t even be allowed to talk about these things with each other.”
The curriculum has three areas: Area I imitates a college major, where students focus on one of nine fields of study. Area II allowed students to examine sources of knowledge and justify belief as students would in an epistemology class. The final area, Area III, deals with social development and social issues. The fragmentation is intended to provide students with the time and resources to focus on their areas of interest.
“People ask what your Area I is,” Shacklett said. “It’s like asking what your major is.”
However, some of the areas were limited, like English—the Area I that Shacklett specialized in. Shacklett recounts a discussion with one of her instructors and a group of her peers after students were asked to submit an assessment form of their teachers. One of the students critiqued the class for its lack of diverse authors; however, the instructor revealed that most of the content that was diverse was flagged before the program even started. Much of this was because of an executive order that prohibited the teaching of critical race theory in grade K-12, signed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders on January 10th of this year.
“And so pretty much any conversation about race, you don’t know whether you’re breaking the law or not,” Shacklett said. “I mean, students aren’t, but in terms of teachers giving material, because Critical Race Theory isn’t defined in the law, teachers genuinely just don’t really know if what they’re teaching is illegal.”
In another case, students analyzed a documentary about Japanese internment camps in Arkansas. Co-director, Dr. Peter Dykema, led a short lecture after the end of the film. Shacklett enjoyed his message at first, but her appreciation quickly changed. His lecture was meant to take the lessons from the documentary and apply them to the current world. He references a German phrase,“We’re not guilty, but we are responsible.” Shacklett appreciated the sentiment because it implied that while people with privilege were not personally responsible for the actions of their ancestors, they still had the obligation to work towards a better world for everyone. However, the way Dykema used the phrase watered down its meaning to cater to white students in the audience. He particularly because he suggested that responsibly ended after discussion and acknowledgement of the issue rather than action. Shacklett describes the lecture as redefining what responsibility was. Dykema also managed to distance the events of the documentary from the present when in reality internment of Japanese citizens was less than a lifetime ago. Ultimately, the phrase did not convey the originally powerful message that Shacklett had hoped for.
“In his talk, he told us that the word “responsibility” doesn’t necessarily mean we have a duty to make things right,” Shacklett said, “But that we must be able to respond, or talk about the past.”
Despite this, Shacklett says that her experience at AGS was a positive one, and she recommends current Har-ber juniors look into applying. She does, however, wish that she came at a better time. New legislation affected what teachers could include in their classes and overall just affected the speeches of speakers provided for students. In addition to the environment created by current events, this was the first session since COVID-19 and there had been controversy over a campus change in 2018. This overall added to the weird environment at this year’s program.
“I wish I could have gone at a time when public education and educational freedom weren’t under attack in Arkansas,” Shacklett said. “In the wake of the repeal of Teacher Fair Dismissal, Critical Race Theory, the challenges against LGBTQ books, and more, there was a very strange energy about the place.”