[Editor's Note: The following has been adapted from an interview with former teacher and pastor Dave Runyon on the "Navigating Your Child's Education" podcast for parents. Make sure to check out the full conversation here.]

The term "cancelled" is quite common in American culture nowadays. It no longer refers to things like a TV series that has run its course or a meeting that is not going to take place--it's frequently used to describe a person of influence or an organization that has been publicly called out and outcast for (perceived) wrongdoing. It could be as simple as one bad tweet or comment, either past or present, but the effects can be catastrophic. Celebrities can all but lose their careers, and companies can suffer extreme economic impacts. The phenomenon of being "cancelled" is not necessarily a new one (think: McCarthyism from the 1950's), but it has certainly become a widespread and accelerated experience largely thanks to social media.

A school board in southeast Tennessee recently decided to remove the Pulitzer-prize winning Holocaust graphic novel "Maus" from its language arts curriculum, deeming its content unsuitable for eighth-grade students. Another local school district outside of Nashville decided to remove the book "Walk Two Moons" from its elementary curriculum following parental complaints about its content. These two decisions have received national attention, stirring controversy about what content is appropriate for students to read, when, why, and who is responsible for making those decisions.