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Letter: Rendering educational topics taboo fails to prepare students for the future

Natalie Cline

A 9th grade English teacher was harassed when school board member Natalie Cline posted her name in a post stating the teacher, “taught her students that communism is better than our form of government.” What is her source? Cline said “it is ‘not hearsay’ ... she heard it directly from a student, herself.” That is Cline’s source for the teacher to be fired and parents to demand to see the teacher’s lesson plans and PowerPoints.

Not talking to the teacher, but “a student said.”

The unit was on social justice that Cline wrote, “included discussions about gender issues, prejudice in law enforcement, privilege and marginalization ... and many other volatile issues.” Cline has also stated, “schools need to be neutral in the classrooms concerning racial issues, politics, morals, values, sexuality and gender programming. These topics and issues are polarizing, and they are fueling more societal and cultural division and hate when they are taught inside the schools.”

Discussion in school doesn’t keep parents from talking about them at home and expressing what they believe and why. It simply prepares students for the bosses, professors, classmates and/or coworkers from different races, religions, sexual orientations, political views, etc. they will be exposed to once they leave the nest. Understanding that others see things differently doesn’t mean you have to change your views. My issue is that Cline is on the state school board, making policies for all students – not just students from straight, two parent, conservative, religious families.

It is easy in areas of Utah to only be exposed peripherally to races, political thoughts, morals, values, sexuality, gender, etc., peripherally or on television. For someone on the school board to consider these taboo educational topics does not prepare students for the future and is my definition of indoctrination.

Karen Loveridge, Salt Lake City

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