Thank you, IB teachers

I am a parent in the Coeur d'Alene School District. My kids attended Lake City High School and participated in IB courses there, and I mourn the passing of that challenging, controversial, thought-provoking program.

IB classes allowed my kids, and all students who chose to participate, to take a closer look at American history, culture and literature, as well as the history, culture and literature of other nations.

Yes, IB classes allowed these young adults to question the party line - even the party their families belong to. That exercise is healthy. It is the exercise of freedoms we claim to cherish: to think and speak freely, to engage in informed debate, and to question authority.

We all complain that we don't have enough leaders - or citizens - with the strong critical thinking skills required to analyze and solve continuously morphing, ridiculously gnarly, increasingly complex social and political problems. IB classes offered our kids the opportunity to exercise and strengthen those skills.

Understanding and insight require investigating the issues from several angles, and that is the frightening, beautiful, rarefied, freedom-bolstering job of citizens in a democracy. It is our joy and our responsibility. You can't have a strong republic without informed citizens ready to support it, and equally prepared to thoughtfully question it and all other forms of government and ways of life.

How, I wonder, can our kids authentically reach the conclusion that our nation is great, unless they know about other nations of the world? We have to have some notion of other countries' almost-as-goodness, really-trying-hardness, idiocy or evil in order to understand what greatness is made of, and ultimately, how to perpetuate it.

Scholars, writers and historians from around the globe can teach us important lessons. As part of his IB class work, my son read "Dr. Zhivago." He calls it, "The Anti-Communist Manifesto." Its author, Boris Pasternak, was a Russian who wrote about the birth of the Soviet Union. Pasternak's book made my son appreciate his own country profoundly.

Unlike IB detractors, I do not believe that gaining knowledge of our world diminishes the love for our country. On the contrary, I believe nothing can make us appreciate our country more.

Thank you IB teachers, for giving my kids the opportunity to read broadly, think critically and clearly articulate their ideas. That challenging work is the very heart of meaningful education and engaged citizenship.