This year we celebrate the country's 250th birthday, but some Utah civics teachers are tiptoeing through lessons about the constitution because of the current political climate.
SALT LAKE CITY — This year we celebrate the country's 250th birthday, but some Utah civics teachers are tiptoeing through lessons about the constitution because of the current political climate. Several U.S. government teachers and an instructor who teaches those teachers said many in Utah feel like they're 'walking on eggshells' when they discuss the constitution.
'They're nervous,' Savannah Eccles Johnston, from the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, said. 'They feel a sense of, not fear, but anxiety.' Savannah Eccles Johnston from Utah Valley University’s Center for Constitutional Studies talks about education. 'I think we're much more cautious about what we say,' teacher LeNina Wimmer said.
'Some are feeling very much that they are walking on eggshells,' teacher Cheryl Jindeel said.
Some, but not all, teachers we spoke with said they worried parents might misconstrue lessons as biased, especially in an age when complaints can go viral.
That sentiment was echoed last fall by a small survey from the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute. About three-fourths of the two dozen teachers surveyed said they self-censored their lessons.
'I'm much more guarded, much more cautious about what I do, and I feel like I've had to take some things out that maybe were not controversial,' Wimmer said, 'but were just in that idea of 'we're not gonna go there.''
She said she has fewer open classroom discussions, no longer shares an online ideology self-quiz during class and doesn't plan some classroom debates she has in the past.
'You want to encourage conversation and discussion in a class like this, but you have to be so careful,' she said. 'Something that was so innocent before now has a lot of charge to it.'
'Teaching about constitutional principles like separation of powers and rule of law now start to have a political ring to them,' said Donna Phillips, of the Center for Civic Education.
'I want to focus less on current events. I'd rather talk about, let's look at this historically,' Wimmer said. LeNina Wimmer teaches at Farmington High School. This year we celebrate the country’s 250th birthday but some Utah civics teachers are tiptoeing through lessons about the constitution because of the current political climate.
Johnston, who teaches civics teachers, said she recommends they focus their lessons.
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