Moving beyond ‘winter holiday’ controversy

By Emily Richmond

Friday, Dec. 11, 2009 | 2 a.m.

A mother who was upset that her fifth-grade son’s writing assignment on a winter holiday tradition excluded “American Christmas” says she resolved her issues with Clark County School District officials.

It took some back and forth, however.

Holly Sweetin said her son was told Wednesday by his teacher at William Wright Elementary he would be excused from the “winter holiday” assignment as long as he completed extra math homework. That didn’t seem like a logical substitution to Sweetin, who continued to press her case with the district region office.

Sweetin spoke Thursday with Paul Garbiso, an academic manager for the area that includes Wright. Sweetin said Garbiso apologized for the confusion over the teacher’s original instructions, which had been intended to encourage students to explore cultural traditions in other countries.

Sweetin’s son will be allowed to turn in an essay on the history of the Christmas tree in the White House, a tradition that dates from the 1800s, and Garbiso assured Sweetin her son’s essay will be graded fairly.

Garbiso also suggested the incident would serve as a “teachable” moment for district educators as they look at ways to craft assignments related to the holiday season.

“I told him I appreciated hearing that,” Sweetin said. “I have no problem with multiculturalism. What I didn’t like was multiculturalism that required kids to ignore America.”

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Sun readers, including many who commented on lasvegassun.com, were divided on whether it was appropriate for a teacher to limit a holiday writing assignment to traditions outside the United States.

Many people suggested Sweetin was the one at fault for injecting conservative politics into what was an otherwise routine homework assignment. Others sided with Sweetin’s view that the assignment represented a troubling trend: multiculturalism resulting in exclusion.

Some district educators suggested written instructions from the teacher might have cleared up some of the confusion. Others endorsed the Nevada America Civil Liberties Union’s option, which would have been to have students write about a wintertime tradition they don’t practice at home.

District regulations allow discussion of religious topics in the classroom, provided it is for educational purposes and not indoctrination.

In an e-mail to the Sun, a Rancho High School English teacher wrote that dealing with potentially controversial issues such as religion doesn’t get any easier in the upper grades.

“Teaching high school students bears an even stronger role in attempting to be unbiased toward subjects such as religion, sexual orientation, politics, and many other issues that can have one wrong thing said and be blown totally out of proportion,” Karlana Kulseth wrote. “We are not trained to actually know how to steer these conversations toward neutral territory. Instead, we are told to just ignore and avoid these sorts of subjects at all costs.”

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Just five months into his tenure as UNLV president, Neal Smatresk has announced landmark partnerships with the Lincy Foundation and the Brookings Institution and the successful completion of a $500 million fundraising campaign. But the gratifying response to those significant events pales in comparison to the crush of phone calls and e-mails he’s received in the past few weeks.

“I’ll know academics have truly arrived in Nevada when the search for a new science or law school dean attracts as much public interest as the search for a new athletic director,” Smatresk told the Sun with a laugh.