The difference between teaching and politicizing

This is in response to several letters to the editor and comments I have read berating the parents who voiced their concerns to the school board.

One comment I read online called it cowardly that the names of the parents weren’t released.

Well, I am one of the concerned parents, now what? I assure you I’m not a coward. I would be glad to sit down and talk with anyone about my concerns and guess what, I wont even stoop to name-calling. You see, I’m OK with different opinions. And despite what many have penned, I’m also OK with the school sharing different opinions about climate change. The concern comes when they try to make political soldiers out of our kids.

That’s not their job.

I have to draw a line when my 12-year-old son comes home in fear that the world is going to end in a few years because that’s what his teachers are teaching him.

Again, that’s not their job.

We want our son to be a freethinker and that’s why we aren’t dogmatically shoving our opinions down his throat. I expect the same from our teachers.

It’s very important to me to support teachers. It’s also important to me that they support us as parents. That said, I feel undermined and disrespected when they preach their political jargon as the Gospel.

Lastly, and for the record, we teach our son to be responsible and take care of the world. We recycle. We walk. We bike. We rarely drive, but when we do we get 50 mpg. In fact, I would put our “carbon footprint” against any one of the hundreds that gathered outside of City Hall demanding the Green New Deal.

Conservatively yours …

Trinity Terry

Aspen