Expansive culinary palates arenât exactly trademarks of your average middle-schoolers. They may have moved on from the chicken nuggets and peanut butter and jelly of their formative years, but the range of what they eat still tends to be on the less adventurous side.
According to Today, an assignment at Spring Canyon Middle School in Springville, Utah, was designed to challenge the way the students think about food sources and potentially tempt their taste buds. The essay assignment was entitled, "Why America Should Be Eating Bugs," and was a culmination of a unit the students completed on bugs as a good protein source. The students and some faculty were given the option to up the âewwâ factor and try eating bugs. But not everyone was enthusiastic about it.
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The assignment challenged more than the students' taste buds.
Sixth grader Saige Wright was more uncomfortable than enthusiastic at the prospect of writing about and ingesting bugs. Her mom Amanda Wright approached Fox News saying that the educators were âindoctrinating students into a âdark climate change religionââ through the writing assignment.
The kids were learning to discern fact from opinion.
The schoolâs website explains that the purpose of an essay is to âExplore different sides of an issue, find and sort through evidence.â It further explains that one of the key tenets of essay writing is discerning fact from opinion. It's a critical part of the Utah state standards writing core.
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The Wrights had concerns and hit record.
Mom and daughter shared with Fox News that they were so put off by the subject matter that they recorded conversations with educators and the assigning teacher, respectively. Amanda told the administration that Saige wasnât given the opportunity to offer an argument.
In Saigeâs recorded exchange, according to Today, she asks, "How come we can't state our opinion of why Americans shouldn't be eating bugs?" Her teacher Kim Cutler responded that there was no evidence to support it. Writing an evidence-based essay in this case meant that there was one supportable topic.
Bugs are eaten globally, just not here.
In the video, Kim said, "We donât want to eat bugs and itâs gross. But should we be eating bugs? Yeah, because weâre killing the world by raising cows and animals. So we need to just, not get rid of cows, but like, try to balance our diet so that not so much of our land is being used to raise cows, cause itâs killing the ozone layer.â She referenced that bugs are eaten all over the world and says it's healthy for the environment.
Eating bugs was reportedly optional.
The teacher confirmed that the students would have the opportunity to try grasshoppers, but that it wasnât mandatory. A Nebo School District spokesperson told Today that Kim did not know that Saige was recording their conversation.
"This student recorded this teacher and used only snippets of what she actually said and used them out of context," the spokesperson said.
They found a palatable solution.
Saige was offered the chance to choose her own topic for the essay. According to what the spokesperson shared with Today, in the video, when the teacher said âthere was only one answer,â it was in reference to a specific article, and not her opinion.
