All I needed to know about democratic values, I learned growing up in Iowa
A Letter From Iowan Julie Flapan
Letters From Iowans is a part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. We encourage you, our subscribers, to share your perspective in this column. To make your voice heard, use this form to send us your essay:
As a kid, I could stare forever at the giant pendulum slowly swinging from one side to the other at the Des Moines Science Center in Greenwood Park. This recurring image came to symbolize the ways that growing up in middle America shaped my democratic beliefs — resisting opposite extremes, and finding common ground between them. Today, I worry that party loyalty has paralyzed us from prioritizing our shared democratic ideals designed to serve the common good, from our past to our future.
In the heat of the Fourth of July, we decorated our bikes with red, white, and blue streamers and paraded with neighbors to celebrate our patriotic pride at the potluck after. This wasn’t a partisan thing. We collectively honored the promise of a more perfect union and the role our government played in realizing it. Whether it was floods or tornadoes, we took for granted that help was there when we needed it. But with current cuts to FEMA and EPA, there’s a good chance that the next natural disaster will be human-made too.
When school started in the fall, our teachers experimented with innovative approaches to improve public education, like my elementary school’s open-space classrooms in the 1970s. Now, with cuts to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, we can no longer ensure that every kid and teacher gets the support they need for a well-rounded quality education – a basic right afforded to every American.
Spring comes with showers, sunshine, sowing and seeding, reminding us of the value of higher education at Iowa’s top colleges that equip future leaders with research in agriculture, climate science, and career opportunities that supply the local and global economy. With increased tariffs, defunding of the EPA and FDA, our physical and financial health are threatened too.
During the winter elections, I came to understand that democracy is not a spectator sport. Our community’s engagement in the Iowa caucuses’ unique process of public deliberation ensures that every voice and every vote counts. These basic democratic principles transcending partisanship is a message worth remembering today.
Now I live in California and I bristle at the reference to “fly-over” states since our Midwestern values are the envy of the East and West coasts. The current administration’s whole hog dismantling of science, civics, education and the economy is not the way to improve them, nor does it represent what matters to most Americans. Let’s protect our democracy - and the values that guide it - before it becomes another childhood memory.
Julie Flapan is a social scientist at UCLA School of Education and Information Studies studying the intersection of research, policy, and educational programs to ensure all students have access to a meaningful education that prepares them for college, careers, and democratic participation. Raised in Iowa and now living in California, she is a testament to the adage, “you can take the girl out of Iowa but you can’t take Iowa from the girl.”
Letters From Iowans is a part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. We encourage you, our subscribers, to share your perspective in this column. To make your voice heard, use this form to send us your essay:
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Julie, thank you, but tell us more about those Iowa values.. What is so special about Iowa values?
I am still struggling with how those Iowa values were so quickly & thoroughly transformed into the current Republican values for greed, cruelty and corruption.
Our shared memories of those times you describe - seem like a distant dream now.