Creationists and Public Schools

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Do you know what I'm sick of? I'm sick of creationists who whine about how evolution is taught in public schools. If you don't want your kids to learn evolution send them to private school or homeschool them. If anyone tries to ban private school or homeschool I will gladly stand by you.

How do you feel about the roles assigned socialization, attitude formation, basic skills / concepts, database building, physical training, and mental flexibility in the state curriculum?

Private schools are prohibitively expensive and generally both parents either work or children are being raised by a single parent. Creationists feel their children are being taught something that teaches against religion, and hence the public schools overstep the bounds between church and state.

I went to a private school. My biology teacher gave us a sort of caveat before the first lesson. The idea was primarily that she didn't feel it was her place to tell us what to believe in terms of faith vs. science. However, the theory of evolution is accepted in the scientific community and is taught in universities, virtually a required "doctrine" of sorts. We have to learn it as a necessary part of the curriculum and to adequately prepare for higher education. How we make up our own minds about it exactly is our own business, and whether we accept it or not has no bearing on our grades. But we STILL have to learn the information.

Whether you ACCEPT evolution for personal (religious) reasons or not really isn't the point. Like it or agree with it or not, you still have to learn it. The problem of public schools is there are no realistic alternatives and thus students are compelled to learn things their parents may not approve of, which could be for ANY reason (we don't have to be limited to creationism vs. evolution here. It could be sexuality discussions/presentations that someone may have moral objections to, abstinence vs. "safer" sex, and so on). I'd say homeschooling is the ideal, since while parents are "technically" required to teach evolution, they CAN teach creationism alongside it. Private schools and public schools don't always necessarily have that luxury. As an example, I teach a private piano studio at a private school. However, lack of funds does funny things to people. In order to get gub'mint funds, they had to show that they weren't a religious institution. Which means they have to teach the same curriculum as OR BETTER than public schools. From the perspective of creationist parents, even our trusted private schools are capable of selling out.

Merely telling creationist parents to homeschool or private-school their kids is outright cruel. Basically you're calling them second-rate citizens who don't have a right to free speech or a right to adequate education. But since schools do NOT have the right to tell students what to believe, there is no harm in, say, bringing in a hard evolutionist and a creationist, holding a debate, and inviting the students to discuss who they felt won the debate and why. That takes the responsibility away from science teacher (who may or may not agree with one side or the other), encourages critical thinking of the students, and allows the students to express their own thoughts and ask questions. It also avoids the legal debacle because no one can say that the approach is unbalanced or that it crosses church-state lines.

For what it's worth, evolution can be observed in certain insects and bacteria. The real discussion is not whether evolution occurs, since anyone willing to take a little time to study what evolution actually IS can figure that out and accept it. Rather, the real discussion is whether creationism occurred, since creationism isn't even necessarily incompatible with evolution. It only becomes a problem for creationists when Darwinism is used to say "for sure and for certain" that God didn't create anything. Now we move from a scientific discussion into a religious discussion, and science does not have the right to "preach" on religion. Galileo learned this the hard way.

Homeschooling is actually academically more challenging than government run schools in my opinion. You know all that time wandering around, gossiping, being caught up in fights or whatever other drama? Trying using it for studying instead. Also, the sermon style classroom lectures during which most people are unable to pay attention after a few minutes of continuous speech, replace that with reading the textbooks for yourselves and see how much more you can remember of what you were trying to learn.

Every group of lunatics with a non-scientific cracker barrel take on reality will want their moment in front of the kids.

M - Old Earth Creationism
T - Astrology debate / 2012 symposium
W- Young Earth Creationism
Th - Aliens seeded Earth
F - Free period to shovel all the sh*t out of the classroom.

Not all that hard to do.

True.

They have the duty to teach science correctly. And in a science class, that involves saying that creationism is not even a scientific theory. So it is irrelevant. If kids want to believe in something despite of evidence, let them. But that should not impair everyone else's science education.




Oh God, NO. It is not a political matter, we are talking about scientific facts.

Creationists would love your debate idea, simply because in a debate arena, rhetoric, appeals to emotions (Why would your parents lie to you?) , charm and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with science would come into play. A debate evens the field because people watching the debate are not trained to spot the BS creationists spew.

Creationism deserves as much consideration in the class room as the amount of evidence it has for. And that amount is 0. More so, schools are , like you said, unable to tell you what religious belief to have, so it would unconstitutional to let them an open ground for Creationism 'debate'.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 22 Jul 2011, 8:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

What do you intend to do about it?

But what do you intend to do about it?

... and do what?

You point out a situation that you do not like, and your best solution is to "stand by" while someone else does something about it.

Are you a Democrat?

Excuse me? That is EXACTLY what public schools are empowered to do! They have every right to tell students what to believe every time a teacher gives a lesson, whether in maths, sciences, history, language, or gym; this is called "Education".

On the other hand, students have the right to disbelieve anything and everything the teachers tell them; this is called "Failing".

Students also have the right to quit school after a certain age; this is called "Dropping Out".

Finally, the parents have the right to take their children out of public school and give them an education at home; this is called "Home Schooling".

Believe it or not.

Not in terms of religion, though.

As a former classroom music teacher with my first three years in "predominantly minority" schools, I was able to take certain liberties since I knew nearly all my students came from deeply religious families (Christian). This meant that I could cut loose around Christmas time, break from the usual curriculum, and do a "unit" on holiday music. It ended up being a balance between secular and sacred traditional Christmas music, the students could relate to it, I could tie it in with a curriculum standard, and the kids got to have a good time with it...

Except ONE student...

And she happened to be a Jehovah's Witness. We openly discussed what we were going to do IN CLASS, and that was when she made known her objection to what we were planning. I met with her after class, and we mutually came to an agreement on an alternative we could both be happy with.

People either participated because they wanted to, or they just didn't care. I took diversity and religious differences into account, offered alternatives, everyone had a good time, got good grades, and I got to cross off 2 or 3 objectives for my year of lesson planning.

Not once did my supervisors threaten to fire me. Not once did I or the school get threatening calls or visits from lawyers. Not once did even a student accuse me of pushing religion, and every parent I spoke to about it LOVED the idea of what I was doing.

I would not--and I repeat NOT--recommend that every public school teacher engage in blatantly observing a religious holiday as such. I happened to be in a situation in which I knew I could get away with it. But I also had to be very careful because all it would have taken was just one dissenter making a federal case about it and my whole career would have been over. It's not uncommon, even when I was still teaching, to hear about teachers getting in trouble because either they overstep their bounds (like doing what I did but perhaps with less tact or sensitivity) OR they really have no idea what rights the students really have. I couldn't have done what I did if the students hadn't already been either unified in their beliefs or just simply apathetic. Mainly I was just using what was already there.

But I'd also have been remiss if interested students brought it up and I told them, "Oh, no, we can't do holiday music. That would just be stupid. And, oh, btw, ya know how Santa doesn't really exist? It's just a made up, cute little game to make you smile on December 25? Well, that's not Jesus' birthday, and there's no point anyway because God doesn't exist, Jesus is not God's Son, and your faith is just stupid." They can't get me for continuing with the regular music curriculum, which is my responsibility to design and implement, anyway. But they CAN complain that I'm trying to alter what kids believe about God and that my job is to teach music, not religion. I'd have been just as guilty doing that as I would have been making my class learn "Silent Night" with an atheist or a Muslim in the classroom (and, btw, if the Witness had said, "Absolutely not, I will not take an alternative assignment during those two weeks," I would have shut the whole thing down, gone on with my original schedule, and nobody's grade would have been affected).

Otherwise, the only part religion played in my course was simply the fact that Christian sacred music played a HUGE role in the development of western music. No honest music scholar who knows what he or she is talking about is going to dispute that. But one does not have to preach a sermon or persuade students to repent and follow Christ in order to demonstrate the historical significance of the Missa Papae Marcelli.

Similarly, the role of science is NOT to prove/disprove the existence of God. It is out-of-place and inappropriate to even bring it up UNLESS you are open to discussing alternative views. There are ways of doing this so that teachers can avoid liability, and I've mentioned a possible approach. Even with my music class, I never once told them what to believe--but many of them wanted to sing Christmas songs and I successfully worked it into my lesson plans. Not ONCE did we even broach the topic of Christian theology, but rather I approached it from a performance perspective.

@Vexcalibur: Who says it has to be political? There are some scientists who have no problems with creationism and see no difficulties reconciling a denial of macroevolution with what they do. It is possible to argue objectively over origins within a scientific context, citing evidence one way or another, or refuting evidence. If the attitude of one is anti-religion from the start, then all the creationist really has to do is point out the obvious biases of his opponent, reminding the audience that high standards of scientific inquiry require that it be free of bias.

And that's merely only one possibility. The loophole is that the actual teacher steps out of the way and only moderates an open discussion among the students as to who is right. There is then no liability to the school or the teacher, and the kids learn a little bit more about spotting the BS (as you put it). An honest intellectual is not going to appeal to emotion and rhetoric, so what is important here is that representatives from both sides be known to be trustworthy and knowledgeable. By focusing the teachable moment on the students, rather than advocating one side or another, you teach children to think for themselves and make up their own minds. It doesn't guarantee that they'll make up their minds the way maybe you'd LIKE them to, but that's not your job as a teacher anyway.

BTW: Thanks for agreeing with me that schools are unable to tell you what religious belief to have. I think there are some educators who mistake their roles or they're just flat-out confused by a lot of non-sense going on about what teachers are and aren't allowed to do. I've never preached to nor tried to convert a student. Everything I did had an academic point to make, even with Christmas music. I wouldn't dare advocate teaching religion or anything about religion (unless it really was relevant, like the history of the Crusades and Salem Witch Trials--kinda hard to leave religion out of that one). As a Christian, I wouldn't want a teacher teaching my children Islam or Wicca.

Cool story Rho.

no religion should trump scientific fact, period.

there are plenty of ways to reconcile the two without sacrificing either theology nor science,
science can be independtly verified by anyone so we have to accept it as truth unless you think you dont exist in the physical world in which case you migth as well stay out of everything.

I guess that rules out creationists. Problem solved.

Well, home schooling is great when you have parents who are self-sufficient to the point that they CAN do it. I have some musician friends who homeschool, but mom is a busy piano teacher and dad has good-paying weekend gigs. They have the option of supervising their kids at home.

A single-parent family won't have that option. Having two parents who work is not an option. I personally wouldn't have a problem home-schooling. After all, I do have an education degree and have somewhat an advantage when it comes to knowing the educational process from the inside. I'm one trip to the state department of education away from getting a new license since, after all, I do continue to take periodic college courses. Most parents who DO homeschool lack that advantage, though they do just fine. But while the option does exist, in practice it's not really that easy.

All my children were reading phonetically before they ever set foot in a tax funded illiteracy mill.

I taught them how to read the right way. I also instructed them in math and physics my self. I would not trust a creature from a "teacher's college" to get their hands on my children's minds.\

ruveyn