The New Hampshire legislature recently passed a bill to enact a new law allowing parents to decide which lessons their children are taught in public school. If the parent objects to any course material or method of teaching in the classroom, the teacher is required to teach an alternative to that parent’s child.
Now I can definitely see where a parent may consider this bill an option. Subject matter in classes, such as sex education and science, may not fit every person’s ethical, moral, and religious stances, but this bill is equally as broad as it is ridiculous.
As a public school attendee, I can remember a few times in which I thought the subject matter or a teachers methodology were not up to par. But worthy of being probed and rejected based off of individual opinions? No, not really. Sure there were things that I did not enjoy or agree with, but what student enjoys or agrees with everything they are taught or the ways it is taught to them?
This New Hampshire law not only allows parents to veto lesson plans at their whim, it does not require them to give a reason for why they are objecting to it in the first place. If they wish to, parents can effectively object to lessons if they think the material is too hard, unfair, or incorrect, as long as they provide a reasonable alternative. Meaning students can opt out of public speaking, math topics, history facts, entire books, or anything else they don’t want to do, as long as their parents sign off on it and give the district another idea.
Somebody tell me how the teacher is supposed to write and deliver several different lesson plans at one time for several different students? It’s just not logistical or logical. The loss of efficiency and time would cause the students to suffer. So much for well-rounded individuals. How unfair it is to deprive students of class time because of one or two parents that couldn’t “go with the flow,” so to speak.
The point of learning is to be knowledgeable on an array of subjects. After you learn the facts and theories, you are able to then decide which ideas you agree with or disagree with. Education is for anyone wishing to do just that. The purpose of public school is not for parents to object and intervene on every topic they personally don’t agree with. The purpose is for a mass of young individuals to seek knowledge and growth.
If a parent really thinks they know what is best for their student education-wise, they should probably sign their child out right now and start homeschooling before public school completely rots their minds with terrible ideas – or worse – facts.
Education is not Build-a-Bear or Burger King. You can’t pick and choose parts and you certainly cannot have it your way.
Yes, there are rights and we all have them, but why disrupt the course of a teacher’s lesson plan over personal theories and opinions? These personal theories and opinions are the parents, not the students. Let the children learn.
A teacher must be qualified to teach. Parents, not so much. Let’s leave the educating to the people who earned the degree for it.
