By Marcus Hatfield
Journal Inquirer
ENFIELD — A Board of Education member objected on Tuesday to proposed changes to high school biology and philosophy classes, saying the new curriculum could promote a specific political agenda.
The board member, Kevin Fealy, a Republican, said he was concerned that a biology unit about the effect of human activity on ecology and biodiversity highlighted only the negative aspects of certain types of power sources, such as nuclear energy and petroleum. He said the curriculum should show “both parts of the argument” about those issues.
Fealy said that the revised curriculum as written could afford teachers enough latitude to “create a climate that espouses a specific political agenda.”
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| Kevin Fealy |
“I’m not trying to negate this from the classroom,” Fealy said at Tuesday’s board meeting. “I want a clear delineation between what teachers can and cannot teach.”
One of the units Fealy criticized seeks to teach students that “human activity can have positive and negative environmental impacts.” Students would also “explore how oil spills affect ocean/marine life” and “examine the potential harm or threat of nuclear energy” using the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union as an example.
Fealy said those lessons seem to teach the subject from a certain point of view. He said he has children in the school system and doesn’t want any children to be in a “tug of war on these issues.”
“For two years, I’ve been dealing with teachers in the schools that have agendas that have nothing to do with the curriculum that they are putting forth to my children,” he said.
Board Chairman Timothy Neville noted that the summary the board was considering highlighted only revisions to the curriculum and that he felt the topics went both ways.
When asked how the school system could balance the biology units, Fealy said that both sides of issues should be explored. That should be the schools’ policy on all controversial issues, such as climate change, saying that on that issue, “I don’t think the science has been settled.”
“There are conflicting points of view on climate change,” he said. “If we want to raise the issue of climate change in a classroom with a high school-age child, then I think we should approach it from the position of ‘here is one point of view, here is another point of view.’
“Based on one point of view, they back it up with this logic, this reasoning, and on the other side is the other point of view and you back it up with this logic, this reasoning. Then I believe you as a teacher have done your job.”
School Superintendent John Gallacher said that the system’s curriculum director, Linda Cavanaugh, would review the revisions with department heads and teachers to see if any changes were warranted.
“We’re not just saying ‘you’re the teacher, you can teach whatever you want,’” Gallacher said.
Cavanaugh said that, because of constantly changing state standards, “the curriculum is always in a state of revision.”
She said that after administrators and teachers review the concerns highlighted by Fealy, it “may or may not be revised” before they bring it back to the board.
Fealy also asked for changes to proposed revisions to a philosophy class. He said he wanted a list of the philosophers the teachers planned to discuss because he is concerned with the latitude afforded to teachers. They could, for example, use Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara as a philosopher.
The board ultimately approved the philosophy curriculum by a 7-1 vote with Fealy voting against.
Board member Charles Johnson said that while he understood where Fealy was coming from, he wouldn’t want to undermine the students’ ability to discuss other unconventional figures some people might not consider philosophers such as “Peanuts” creator Charles Schultz.
Neville also said that producing a complete list of sources for any curriculum would be difficult.
Fealy said that some of the proposed discussions in the philosophy curriculum, such as a discussion about the existence of God, would be “treading on thin ice.” Neville said that a major goal of the school system is to teach students critical thinking skills.
“I think we’re treading on thin ice if we try to set an agenda about what we can and cannot teach,” Neville said. “In my mind, that’s censorship.”
This is not the first time Fealy has made a public call for political balance. Last January, Fealy was the first of several residents to ask that the Enfield Public Library cancel a planned screening of the film “Sicko,” filmmaker Michael Moore’s 2007 Academy Award-nominated documentary that critiqued the American health care system.
Enfield made headlines all over the world after the screening was canceled under pressure from the Town Council. The film was eventually screened as part of a revamped film series that included additional films offering opposing political viewpoints.
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