School Courses on Nuclear Issues Are Proposed

A examination of nuclear issues ranging from war strategies to medical technology would be added to the San Diego city schools curriculum next fall under a proposal offered Tuesday to the Board of Education.

A 25-member task force of school and community officials urged the board to adopt a “Nuclear Education Program” designed to give objective information and a variety of viewpoints to students. The school board will vote on the matter Tuesday.

The task force, which mixed retired Navy officers with members of peace groups such as Women for Nuclear Disarmament, took nearly four months to write the broad themes that will be written into the city schools’ curriculum if the board accepts the idea.

If adopted, the plan would make the San Diego Unified School District the 16th school system in the state to offer comprehensive education on the effect of nuclear technology, said Harvey Prokop, program manager for the district’s social studies department.

The courses would emphasize a “hopeful, objective, problem-solving kind of curriculum, rather than a problem-creating kind of curriculum,” he said.

The most controversial aspect of the plan is the study of nuclear warfare and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. A majority of high school students believes that nuclear war in the next decade is inevitable, according to some polls cited in a 1984 amendment to the state Education Code that encouraged the development of nuclear age curricula.

School officials hope to counteract that sentiment.

“We will try to establish that, yes, there may very well be some solutions to this dilemma. And part of the solution may be you,” Prokop said.

Gwen Ickstadt, a social studies resource teacher, said the instruction would attempt to convince students that they are masters of the future, not victims of it.

The intent is not to frighten students. But educators acknowledge that children already have access to foreboding predictions that have forged attitudes of fear and pessimism.

The curriculum would “neither deliberately incite anxiety nor avoid difficult issues inherent in the subject matter,” the task force agreed. At the same time, “the curricula will reflect, without advocacy, . . . diversity (of views) as a basis for development of critical thinking skills.”

Under the guidelines written by the task force, elementary school students would study concepts such as conflict resolution and the interdependence of people around the world.

“Very early grade level information will deal with conflict resolution, how a child can be instrumental in settling an argument or resolving a situation before it comes to fisticuffs,” Ickstadt said.

Junior high school students could be expected to take up the U.S. role in the world during the nuclear era, how and why weapons are used, the issue of nuclear power and nuclear medicine technology, she said.

High school students would expand their examination of those issues to include nuclear-winter theories, the economics of nuclear technology, deterrence strategies and the environmental impact of nuclear power, Ickstadt said.

The task force asked the school board for $5,519 to fund curriculum writing and teacher training for the 1986-87 school year but warned that training may cost more in future years.

Because next year would be a largely experimental period for the new courses, parents would be more deeply involved the year after, Prokop said, adding that the courses would be refined over two years with the help of outside organizations concerned with the issues.