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SALT LAKE CITY — We hear a lot in the news about the “culture wars.” Most often, recently, this term refers to disagreements over issues such as gender identity, sexuality, racism, morality, and family. Some commentators have suggested (see this article in the Deseret News) that our public schools are ground zero for the culture wars.
What does this mean for teachers. What do culture wars do in the classroom?
I sat down with three teachers in Utah to ask them.
“It's like a weed taking over the garden.”
Kim Gardner has been an elementary and middle school mathematics teacher in Utah for 33 years.
“This type of plant has been thriving over the past few years, and it hasn't turned into a beautiful flower,” Gardner said. “It's more than weeds.”
While Gardner explained that she doesn't have as much first-hand experience with the challenges of culture wars in the classroom because she's a math teacher, she sees her colleagues who teach history and English going through it.
“Our English teachers will have books that they find very helpful, and then a small portion of the community thinks those books are politically or morally divisive,” Gardner said. “This is a difficult thing to work through. It makes life more difficult for our teachers.”
These issues are compared to weeds in the garden.
“I think it's like weeds taking over the garden, like morning glories do,” she said. “It wraps around everything we're trying to do in education.”
Gardner has confidence in students' ability to see beyond the culture wars. “Kids can recognize what is valuable to them. They can go back and talk to their families and say, 'Hey, this is what I heard in class.' What do we believe? It's about understanding that it's okay to be different.”
“Fear-based fears”
Dr. Delaina Tonks is the Executive Director of Mountain Heights Academy and a former teacher at Pleasant Grove Junior High School.
“There has been a long line of fear-based concerns from parents since I started teaching in 1991,” Tonks said. “When I first started as an administrator, it was an evolution.”
Tonks explained how the culture wars have changed, but they are the same fear-based concerns.
“It's books, sex, bathrooms, all kinds of things.”
Her focus as a teacher is to “meet the needs of the individual. One student at a time. Name by name. One at a time.”
“My heart goes out to the teachers because it is difficult to meet a person's individual needs when people come from such disparate backgrounds,” Tonks said.
Culture wars in the classroom: “This is an adult problem.”
Jill Atwood is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Utah.
“The ones who really suffer are the children,” Atwood said. “This is an adult problem. It's not a child problem.”
She shared that when she talks to her high school kids, they have no cultural bias. “They don't care about transgender issues. (Children) can search for sex on their mobile phones. They all love each other. They are very different from previous generations that caused this problem.”
Atwood feels for teachers “stuck in the middle trying to fight this battle, but mostly for the kids who maybe look at us and think we're ridiculous.”
Amanda Dixon He is the co-host of Utah Morning News And Seeing a woman on KSL News Radio. follow her Facebook and Instagram.
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