We were on alert when New Hampshire lawmakers went after not allowing teaching children about the facts of racism in our country. Bury reality saying we were trying to “stir up the pot” by teaching the truth of history.
Now, we have HB1671, whereby New Hampshire lawmakers want to remove teaching art, health, physical education, computer science, digital and world language from the core curriculum. Will they even be taught? This could cut down school budgets and force the math, English, history and science teachers to incorporate the unfunded courses into their classroom learning. We are in the digital world, with much of our data floating in outer space and we are wrapped into worldwide interaction, but we want to decrease our educational involvement. Our students will be at a major disadvantage in operating in the real world without computer/digital learning and without foreign languages. Health and physical education are as important as academics if we expect to have a healthy society. Art and music are mainstays in society without which people are deprived of enrichment.
Money cut from educating our children will be put into charter, private and religious schools for select groups of students to be educated as is deemed appropriate by the rules of those schools. What happens to the students at large? How uneducated will they be? What does that say for our state and our role in the country and the world? If students in all schools are taught without the extras beyond math, English, history and science, we will be back treading into the 1600s. I do not believe we want to disintegrate our country. Call your state lawmakers and say no to HB1671.
Kath (Kathleen R.) Allen
Peterborough