Golash courageous for openly discussing morals in D211 race

In your front page article Friday about Roman Golash, candidate for D211 school board, teacher’s union president and Fremd social studies teacher, Jason Spoor was quoted as saying, “... His morals may not be the same standards that other members of the community determine to be their moral standard.”

That is certainly a true statement. However, Mr. Spoor’s comments seem to suggest that our schools are currently morally neutral institutions upon which Mr. Golash will seek to foist his own personal brand of morality. Is that true? Are schools really morally neutral?

Consider the following: D211 students now read about and discuss men having sex with cows in AP English classes. The Fremd school library has over 100 materials dealing with homosexuality, yet there are NONE written from an exclusively traditional moral perspective. Sophomores read a book about the Vietnam War which flatly states, “A true war story is never moral ... If a story seems moral, do not believe it...”

And finally, the last time I was in Mr. Spoor’s classroom, I saw that the walls displayed several posters of Cuban mass murderer, Che Guevara, one of Malcolm X and Mao Tse-tung, but NONE of a conservative figure.

Morally neutral? I don’t think so. In institutions where decisions are made, neutrality is not possible. Our schools and the materials they use will always reflect someone’s version of morality and beliefs.

The really important question is, what moral values do our schools currently reflect? Whose values should they reflect? Thus begins a debate worth having.

I applaud Mr. Golash for having the guts to actually use the word “moral” when so many seem to be allergic to even hearing it spoken aloud. Morality should be placed back on the table as a topic for public discussion because, the fact is, one way or another, it is already being taught to our kids in public schools.

Teri Paulson

Hoffman Estates