Dear Parents, We’re Learning about Genetics This Week so Please Talk to Your Student About Whether or Not They Are Adopted
Dear Red Mountain North High School Freshman Biology Parents,
It’s the time of year again! We’re about to enter the wonderful world of genetics and learn about alleles, chromosomes, genes, and dominant and recessive traits. It’s an exciting unit where students will have the opportunity to observe and analyze their own genetic make up. So, if your student is unaware that they are not your biological child, please inform them before class on Monday when they will undoubtedly find it out for themselves.
We have a lot to work toward in the coming weeks, and the statewide biology assessment requires all scholars to have a working knowledge of this information. It is important that we keep class focused on individual learning and not the tragic obliteration of faith in familial unity.
This section of the textbook begins by teaching about chromosomes and how each individual inherits 23 chromosomes from their biological mother and 23 from their biological father. If your young learner is currently under a misconception as to his or her “chromosome contributors”, please take the next few days to remedy that situation so that we can spend our class time focused on learning and not on the slow unravelling of your child’s trust in everything they formerly knew to be true.
From there we will be looking at Punnett squares and learning about recessive and dominant traits. We will spend the first day talking about hereditary dominance, and that will be your absolute last chance to let your blossoming scholar know whether or not their perception of their family tree has been an elaborate ruse for the past 14 years of his or her life. Please respect the other future leaders’ discovery time by keeping our lessons about genetic mathematics rather than the soul crushing realization that the people we trust the most in the world can deceive us in the most consistent and nefarious of ways.
Finally, we we look at recessive traits paying special attention to double recessives. Knowledge seekers will identify which of their own traits are double recessive and must be shared with a parent. Traits such as normal hairlines, cleft chins, light-colored eyes, attached earlobes, tongue-rolling ability — the list goes on. If necessary, please talk to your young, moldable mind about whether or not you have been keeping their genetic identity a secret from them. The shocked and wounded sobs of the inner turmoil associated with having a sense of belonging haplessly stripped away in an instant prove incredibly disruptive in the classroom. That’s why we have a strict no cellphone and no crying about withheld lineage information policy in Freshman Biology.
Our young people of letters will be asked to visually demonstrate their heredity by identifying which traits that they are scientifically required to share with their biological parents. Please help me keep this a productive exercise about the wonders of genetics and not an attached-earlobe-induced breakdown by giving your pre-undergraduate a heads up if they do not actually know the two people from whom they are directly descended. Consoling paternally bamboozled children can distract from important study time!
Biology is a wonderful subject and I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all of you parents and your mini-human brain users over the course of this semester. Please help me make this class’ legacy one of wonder and exploration and not of the heart-stopping agony that accompanies the stings of paternal betrayal.
Sincerely,
Philipa Lowe
P.S. Please refrain from discussing sex with your budding intellectual during these conversations. Kansas State Law requires an abstinence-only curriculum and I really need that to hold them over until college.
