My daughter did a wondrous thing. Because of her science experiment, a lot of people have talked with their children about race. I am proud of her, I respect her, and I thank her.
First of all I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to a number of people. First, thanks to the community for their support. The magnitude of that support has renewed our faith in humanity and made this a positive experience for our daughter.
Thank you to the faculty and staff of Mesa Elementary, which has remained a nurturing supportive environment for our daughter even in the midst of this controversy. Being wrong on this issue does not make them bad people. The faculty and staff at Mesa are, and remain, dedicated caring educators.
Thanks to James Madison and our other founding fathers. The system works. And thanks to the media for covering this in a reasonable and evenhanded manner. Their coverage was comprehensive and balanced.
Thanks to the ACLU for putting in a great deal of time answering our questions and explaining why this was illegal.
And finally, a huge thank you to MEAC. There is not enough time to describe all that they have done.
I first want to speak to two issues that have recently been raised. First, some have said that this experiment was not science. It is. Several psychology professors have said it would be acceptable as a freshman research project - in college. It closely mirrors the experiments performed by Dr. Kenneth Clark that were one of the prime pieces of evidence for the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Second, people have claimed that this could upset children. Yes, it could. Field day upsets those that are not athletic. Multiplication competitions have the students failing them in tears. To prepare our children for the world, schools need to, and do, prepare our children to handle things that upset them. If they did not, they would be totally unprepared for life.
What would we like to see happen? During the past two weeks a great deal has transpired and what we think needs to happen has changed.
We are not asking for an apology and we are not asking for anything to be done with her experiment. In fact, we want to thank the school system for what they did. If they had left the experiment, maybe 2 or 3 kids would have had a question or two. Ten or 20 parents and teachers would have felt uncomfortable about the results - and remained silent. And that would have been it.
Instead, this has led to a lot of people realizing that they do need to talk with their children about race. A lot of people realizing that we do avoid racial issues. A lot of people deciding to do something positive to address this difficult issue.
So out of something very wrong, something very, very good happened. And for that we thank them.
So what do we want? First, we feel the issues brought up by this situation need to be decided by the school board, not the central administration. These are political questions that need to be decided by the elected representatives of our community.
Second, the school board should take a strong stand that they enthusiastically support our children's constitutional right to free speech. How can we teach our children to treasure the constitution if at the same time the district is losing a battle in court due to their abrogation of those same rights?
Third, rumor has it that the district is considering disallowing social and behavioral science experiments and will require detailed descriptions of all experiments. This is wrong. True discoveries come from unfettered scientific inquiry. The present system is good and the board should take a strong stand to leave it as it is. Please do not pervert the very idea of what science is. We continue our request of the school board to state that experiments of this nature be encouraged and not removed.
Fourth, race remains a huge issue in this country, and clearly one that is very difficult to talk about. However, we cannot limit discussions about race merely to the sterile, controlled environment of a set lesson in the classroom. We must discuss it whenever it arises, in any context. The world is not neat and ordered. It is messy and chaotic and only in the context of the real world can we address all the aspects of racial issues we ourselves face today.
We, as a society always talk about how important it is to encourage our
young people to be free-thinkers and how to question everything. But this situation
is an example of how when it comes to backing our words with convictions, we falter.
That said, just as Floyd Mann and John L. Lewis found common ground during the freedom rides, we believe the answer is to concentrate on finding solutions rather than continuing to focus on our points of disagreement.
People of good intentions can disagree about how the school reacted to this one experiment and still work together toward a better community. One of the truly great things about living in our democracy is freedom of speech, but we must acknowledge that the issues brought forth are not always resolved without pain.
The biggest tragedy would be if the end result of this disagreement is a continued conflict over one single experiment, rather than working together to open our eyes to racial issues that exist today, within our own community, and to create learning opportunities for our children when they arise.
Our hope is that people in Boulder will stop and think about what we need to do as a society to eliminate race as an issue. And we can only do that by discussing racial issues that exist here and now. Not just history and international education. Not just pre-planned lesson plans. Not just in school. We need to talk about the racial issues we face right here. This is the hard fight.
Studies have shown that children start making distinctions about race at age three and if we make this subject taboo it means that they make their decisions on their own, without our guidance. We talk to our children about drugs. We talk to them about sex. Shouldn't we also be talking to them about race?
Our society has been stuck on the issue of race for the last 30 years. Perhaps our children can show us the way.
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