The bizarre state of British Faith Schools & Creationism

[Rye]

I will start this (lengthy for me) post with a quick reminder of this petition:

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page14536.asp

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools."

Details of Petition:

"Faith schools remove the rights of children to choose their own religious, philosophical and ethical beliefs. They also sanction ethnic segregation and create tension and divisiveness within society. Schools should be places where children are given a free education, not centres for indoctrination. Creationism and other religious myths should not be taught as fact regardless of the funding status of a school. Abolishing faith schools will provide children with more freedom of choice and help to promote a fully multi-cultural, peaceful society."

Signatures: 19,107

The government's response was retarded:

The Government remains committed to a diverse range of schools for parents to choose from, including schools with a religious character or "faith schools" as they are commonly known.

Well, naturally, choice = good, or so the popular idea goes. Does "diversity" in this case mean parents can choose to have their kids sufficiently prevented from mixing with ideologically impure peers? Does it mean this means that a parent's wishes to have a child indoctrinated into Creationism and have Darwin censored outweigh the state's responsibility to make sure decent biology and science are taught to every child?

Before I continue, I point out that the LSE study, "the most extensive study of its kind" found the following problems:

• Faith schools were teaching creationism.
• They were causing social segregation and were selecting out problem children, children from care and poor children.
• Although faith schools tend to be located in less affluent inner-city areas, the research found pupils from ethnic minorities that are over-represented in such locations are largely absent. Just one per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils are educated in faith schools.
• 17 per cent of pupils at faith schools are eligible for free school meals compared with 25 per cent at non-religious schools.
• This of course gives them better marks that normal schools can't keep up with since they deal with all the kids.
• This study came out several months before the Government's response.

Religious Education (RE) in all schools, including faith schools, is aimed at developing pupils' knowledge, understanding and awareness of the major religions represented in the country. It encourages respect for those holding different beliefs and helps promote pupils' moral, cultural and mental development. In partnership with national faith and belief organisations we have introduced a national framework for RE.

I don't think any "militant secularist" of note is against RE or attempts to defuse religious difference as a source of conflict. Dawkins and Hitchens and Dennett aren't, as far as I'm aware and I certainly support it (as a matter of fact, my highest GCSE mark was in RE). The original petition had crap all to do with this, though, so God only knows why they included it.

In February 2006, the faith communities affirmed their support for the framework in a joint statement making it clear that all children should be given the opportunity to receive inclusive religious education, and that they are committed to making sure the framework is used in the development of religious education in all their schools and colleges.

This is like people voting for their own pay raises. I don't see what this is meant to prove other than religious people like their own causes.

The Churches have a long history of providing education in this country and have confirmed their commitment to community cohesion. Faith schools have an excellent record in providing high-quality education and serving disadvantaged communities and are some of the most ethnically and socially diverse in the country.

I remind you this was posted by the government several months after the LSE study showing many of these myths to be false, and the first sentence is an argument from tradition anyway. Right now, in another part of the UK (more specifically, Northern Ireland), the churches have a long history of providing education at the cost of cultural segregation, and just about everywhere on the planet that is highly religious and segregates its children based on religion is divided and causes all sorts of problems for homosexuals. There are, of course, studies that show the link between religiosity and lower quality of life, too.

Many parents who are not members of a particular faith value the structured environment provided by schools with a religious character.

I'm sure this is probably true to some extent. After all, as a culture, we buy into the myth that religion's goals are peace and love and community, and to some extent, that is often part of the message. I'm more sure, however, that parents want their kids in a privileged position, with peers that aren't from bad backgrounds, stricter teaching methods, less stressful learning from a reduced number of bad kids, etc.

Note, however, that the government didn't touch the word "creationism" with a ten foot pole. The claim that "Creationism and other religious myths should not be taught as fact regardless of the funding status of a school" sailed straight through and didn't even warrant a single sentence or reference in response.

Tonight, More4 News did another quick check into the situation. You can hopefully watch the video here: link

Interesting points:

• At least 40 (out of the 50 that responded) faith schools teach creationism as fact to the exclusion of evolution, in science, not RE.
• They all operate within the law.
• Jewish, Christian (Evangelical) and Muslim schools are all at it.
• 5 of those schools were state funded.
• 14 of 19 of the jewish schools that replied taught creationism.
• 21 of 21 of the evangelical schools that replied taught creationism.
• 5 of 10 of the muslim schools that replied taught creationism.
• The department for children, schools and families has said that this isn't good enough and is drawing up material to deal with it.

It should also be noted that regardless of the crap response from the government, it would seem that Gordon Brown's government is actually doing something right (or should that be Left?) in response to all this. A right wing thinktank called "the Centre for Policy Studies" is already moaning that the militant secularists in Whitehall are attacking faith schools unjustly, they maintain that the numbers used against faith schools to malign them are exaggerated.

The Telegraph:

Earlier this year, the Government caused controversy by claiming a "significant minority" of faith schools were breaking new laws designed to make the admissions system fairer. Jim Knight, the schools minister, said it was "shocking" that schools were using banned policies to weed out children from poor homes, including charging parents up-front fees for free education and failing to give priority to children in care.

But it provoked a furious response from faith schools who accused the Government of basing its claims on flawed evidence.

"The witch hunt is on," said the latest study.

"A Government obsessed with phoney egalitarianism and control freakery is aligning itself with the strident secularist lobby to threaten the future of faith schools in Britain.

Let's see what they're so worked up about:

Under a new admissions code, children in the care of social services are given priority places, schools are banned from asking for evidence of parents' employment, marital status or education - and rules prohibit schools asking for voluntary contributions from parents until their child has been accepted.

The new admissions code merely prevents them from discriminating based on parents' economic, educational or marital status, or demanding bribes up front (as pointed out in the LSE study, I emphasise again, the largest study to date), and they think that THAT is what a militant secularist attack to destroy religion looks like? Are they stupid? Well, of course they are, they take pride in being founded by Margaret Thatcher, but come on.

She also said faith schools are good for Muslim girls as they give their parents the confidence to keep them in school for longer and sharply raise the chances of going on to higher education.

Surely then, this is a problem with the muslim community in that they require either ideologically pure peer groups before they trust their own daughters enough to be educated. This speaks volumes about what the core problems of faith schools are; the division and demand for cultural purity.

But the report claimed the growing popularity of faith schools had created "suspicion" in Whitehall, inspiring a series of anti-faith school measures.

That's just downright hilarious. These tories think that it's the popularity of faith schools that makes people mistrust them, when there have been multiple reports on them teaching talking snake theory and generally being bastards to the disadvantaged every time someone bothers to do it. Maybe THAT is what people mistrust? Then again, conservatism in general is something that allies well with religion, since tradition and insular ideological segregation of the young go hand in hand. That's how you enforce a hegemony.

Richard Gold, of Stone King Solicitors, a firm specialising in education and charities, told researchers: "Over the past four or five years the admissions team of the [Department for Children, Schools and Families] have been steadily whittling back the freedom of faith schools... It is in my mind an attempt to shoe-horn the faith schools into a one size fits-all admissions policy."

There you have it, they're afraid of being made to educate kids who are sent to them instead of selecting the best ones to give themselves prestige that has nothing to do with "ethos" or teaching disinformation about fundamental biology.

It seems that we have quite a problem with faith schools and they have been quite fairly (but in my opinion, not enough) maligned because of it. It also seems that Gordon Brown, despite his unpopularity at the moment, is actually doing something decent and this is being ignored in favour of wailing and moaning about the magic of the free choice and bizarre hatred for laws making things fairer for the poor. Perhaps the consumer age has infected our thought to the extent Labour and the Conservatives think that choice matters more to public education than good education for all. I find it truly bizarre.

I'll end with asking for ideas about where to send this, to try and spur some more anti-creationist action in education or government.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Huh, guess you and I share some traits in the whole being good at GCSE RE thing. I got such high grades, my mum was convinced I was going to join the clergy.

This petition has caught my attention before. But, what gets me more than this lame response, are articles like this which still try to portray the whole issue as an exercise in persecution against Christians.

[Rye]

Uh, I did cover that very story (albeit from the Telegraph). The people complaining are a right wing think tank founded by Margaret Thatcher, i.e. pro free-market, pro-tradition conservatives.

[Justforfun000]

Simple and comprehensive comment on this entire thread. I support your petition wholeheartdly. Faith 'schools' are nothing but an intellectual scam portraying religious knowledge as equal in footing to empiricism. It's fucking ridiculous, and SHOULD be illegal.

There isn't a single argument any of those faiths can make in favour of their professed religious curriculum that makes it superior or even remotely equivalent to normal, science based knowledge.

[pdf27]

Creationism/Evolution - from that More4 survey, 40/50 schools who replied teach creationism as fact in science, but only 5/50 were state funded. Did any of the state funded schools teach creationism as science? I rather suspect that the national curriculum, etc. will prevent this, and that in any case the more extreme schools will not be particularly wanting state funding. That implies that there is little the government can do about this other than somehow ban these schools. If there were state funded schools teaching creationism, this is something that the government can easily and appropriately deal with, as since it funds the schools it should have control over the curriculum.

If you're going ban the teaching of creationism as science, then you're going to have to prevent parents educating their children in anything but state-approved schools, because you have a dislike of something being taught by some schools currently (I'm deliberately and conciously not going into the rights and wrongs here). That gives government an awful lot more power than I'm comfortable with them having. The school I went to for instance would probably not have been approved, because it would be far too "elitist" to fit in with the mindset of the current government, and section 28 of the local government act springs to mind as another possible source of abuse too.
Fundamentally, it is a case of taking away responsibility for raising children from the parents and giving it to the state. Since the state will in most cases (not all by any means) have less of an incentive to put the best interests of the child first (not least because the state may well not have a clue what these are, not knowing the individual child!), this is never a situation I feeel comfortable with. There are certainly cases (child abuse, etc.) where the state should get involved, but I'd far rather deal with this via the courts than through ministerial fiat which is what would happen in this case.

[Rye]

Creationism/Evolution - from that More4 survey, 40/50 schools who replied teach creationism as fact in science, but only 5/50 were state funded. Did any of the state funded schools teach creationism as science?

Yes, 5 of the creationist schools were state funded.

I rather suspect that the national curriculum, etc. will prevent this, and that in any case the more extreme schools will not be particularly wanting state funding. That implies that there is little the government can do about this other than somehow ban these schools. If there were state funded schools teaching creationism, this is something that the government can easily and appropriately deal with, as since it funds the schools it should have control over the curriculum.

All schools have to submit to national standards, if not a strict curriculum. This applies to private and faith schools and homeschooling. The state funded faith schools' curriculum is probably not down to the government due to their status as a faith school, which will give them the leeway that being religious gets you in education. They likely got funding merely because they asked for it when Blair was in and he really liked them, and he believed the popular myth about faith schools having their league table success based in the fact they were religious, rather than merely selective.

If you're going ban the teaching of creationism as science, then you're going to have to prevent parents educating their children in anything but state-approved schools, because you have a dislike of something being taught by some schools currently (I'm deliberately and conciously not going into the rights and wrongs here). That gives government an awful lot more power than I'm comfortable with them having.

What, why? Education, especially science education, should not be able to include falsehoods and lies. All schools have a duty to provide accurate science education and that includes biology and therefore evolution. If they do not, they should not be accredited and should be seen as extra-curricular, not schools.

The school I went to for instance would probably not have been approved, because it would be far too "elitist" to fit in with the mindset of the current government, and section 28 of the local government act springs to mind as another possible source of abuse too.

Section 28 was scrapped by Labour, so what are you saying?

Fundamentally, it is a case of taking away responsibility for raising children from the parents and giving it to the state. Since the state will in most cases (not all by any means) have less of an incentive to put the best interests of the child first (not least because the state may well not have a clue what these are, not knowing the individual child!), this is never a situation I feeel comfortable with.

What makes you think parents know best what science children should be "allowed" to know? The state has an extreme interest in teaching children properly. Those kids make up the next generation and all the science-based jobs in industry and research, for example, nuclear power or wind turbine creation. This has nothing to do with "raising" children, it's everything to do with giving all children decent educational standards, which faith schools are flagrantly disregarding in favour of talking snake theory.

[pdf27]

Yes, 5 of the creationist schools were state funded.

To clarify, all the 5 state schools to respond to that survey taught creationism instead of evolution in biology classes? If so I'd be very surprised, mainly at the fact that they got away with it.

All schools have to submit to national standards, if not a strict curriculum. This applies to private and faith schools and homeschooling.

From memory, these standards aren't particularly rigorous - it's something like "all children must be receiving an education" rather than a list of things which must be taught...

The state funded faith schools' curriculum is probably not down to the government due to their status as a faith school, which will give them the leeway that being religious gets you in education.

Is that unique to being religious? From what I've seen the various "city acadamies" that TCB was so fond of also get a great deal of leeway in what they teach, and they are generaly not religious.

They likely got funding merely because they asked for it when Blair was in and he really liked them, and he believed the popular myth about faith schools having their league table success based in the fact they were religious, rather than merely selective.

I'm not sure selectivity is the only factor at play here - from memory the various religious organisations supporting schools supplement the school budget with their own funds, and tend to take an active interest in the governance of the school. Any school with governors interested in getting involved/helping and with an additional source of funding will tend to do better than one without either.
Selection here may also involve more than picking the brightest kids - it will also select for the pushiest parents, who will be more likely to get involved in their child's education and hence push their kids to work harder.

What, why? Education, especially science education, should not be able to include falsehoods and lies. All schools have a duty to provide accurate science education and that includes biology and therefore evolution. If they do not, they should not be accredited and should be seen as extra-curricular, not schools.

I was trying to dodge the specific point and keep things general there for a reason. As it happens I personally believe that creationism is both utter ****ocks and entirely superfluous to Christianity. The point I was trying to make is that I am by my nature suspicious of governments getting involved in what is taught as they will tend to do so for narrow political reasons that have little to do with reality.

Section 28 was scrapped by Labour, so what are you saying?

It's an example of restrictions on what may or may not be taught in schools being brought in by a government, and one that I think they should never have got involved in in the first place.

What makes you think parents know best what science children should be "allowed" to know?

What makes you think that the government is any more trustworthy? Parents at least have the advantage that they can usually be trusted to want what they think to be best for any given child based on knowledge of that child. Frankly I do not trust the state to act in the same way - there are far too many cases out there of government interference with e.g. the various "satanic child abuse scandals" which later turned out to be totally in the minds of the social workers involved out there.
The additional advantage of leaving it to the parents is that it guarantees at least some children will have knowledge of every type of viewpoint. While this leaves some children pretty much completely out of touch iwth reality, that's better than all of them as is the risk from government involvement (c.f. section 28 again).

Indeed, thinking about it this is somewhat of a strawman argument - these schools aren't preventing children from finding out about say evolution, but rather are failing to teach it and teaching something else instead. To prevent children from being "allowed" to know about this they would have to lock them up 24/7 in some sort of prison with controlled access to the outside world.
The usual definition of child abuse - relevant because it is the generally agreed point where the state should step in - is something along the lines of causing substantial physical or mental harm to a child, with the implication that the child will be caused pain or suffering (physical or mental) later in life. I'm struggling to see how teaching a child something which may affect their employment prospects in later life for some specific jobs qualifies under this definition.
If you want to extent state control over children substantially wider, that's a valid argument but one you should be making explicitly as such, rather than picking on the teaching of a particular subject to make the point.

The state has an extreme interest in teaching children properly. Those kids make up the next generation and all the science-based jobs in industry and research, for example, nuclear power or wind turbine creation.

No, the state should or ought to have such an interest. Even a cursory glance at the industrial policies of any government for the last 30 or 40 years shows little sign of them thinking of industry as anything other than a dirty smelly source of problems that ought to go away. If they were really interested in nuclear power or wind turbine creation then a whole series of policies (notably about planning) would be very different. Fundamentally it means little or nothing to them. Personally I think this is related to the fact that politicians are overwhelmingly ex-lawyers who are usually lacking even the most basic understanding of science.

This has nothing to do with "raising" children, it's everything to do with giving all children decent educational standards, which faith schools are flagrantly disregarding in favour of talking snake theory.

Is not education part of raising a child?

[Rye]

Yes, 5 of the creationist schools were state funded.

To clarify, all the 5 state schools to respond to that survey taught creationism instead of evolution in biology classes? If so I'd be very surprised, mainly at the fact that they got away with it.

Yes. It's not that surprising when you realise that Ofsted OKs creationism and as far as I'm aware have never marked down a school for promoting it, which speaks volumes for their standards.

All schools have to submit to national standards, if not a strict curriculum. This applies to private and faith schools and homeschooling.

From memory, these standards aren't particularly rigorous - it's something like "all children must be receiving an education" rather than a list of things which must be taught...

That may be the case, if it is, then it should be amended.

Is that unique to being religious? From what I've seen the various "city acadamies" that TCB was so fond of also get a great deal of leeway in what they teach, and they are generaly not religious.

If they teach evident falsehood anything on the scale of creationism, they should lose accreditation too.

I'm not sure selectivity is the only factor at play here - from memory the various religious organisations supporting schools supplement the school budget with their own funds, and tend to take an active interest in the governance of the school. Any school with governors interested in getting involved/helping and with an additional source of funding will tend to do better than one without either.

Also true. Also, all of that leads to conflicts of interest over issues like creationism.

I was trying to dodge the specific point and keep things general there for a reason. As it happens I personally believe that creationism is both utter ****ocks and entirely superfluous to Christianity. The point I was trying to make is that I am by my nature suspicious of governments getting involved in what is taught as they will tend to do so for narrow political reasons that have little to do with reality.

If they do it openly and transparently and are subject to independent third parties like the national academy of sciences, I see no conflict of interest.

It's an example of restrictions on what may or may not be taught in schools being brought in by a government, and one that I think they should never have got involved in in the first place.

Of course, but conservative christians not getting involved with indoctrinating children and treating gays poorly are as rare as hen's teeth. Section 28 would likely not make it in nowadays, both from the parliament side and the public side and the professional side, if it was done with transparency and independence as I outlined above.

What makes you think that the government is any more trustworthy?

Parents are inscrutable individuals, the government has a duty to everyone and is potentially accountable and ought to be transparent and independently moderated. You can't have any checks and balances on what parents believe and wish to censor. You can prevent officially accredited schools from being controlled by such interests, though, and we should do.

Parents at least have the advantage that they can usually be trusted to want what they think to be best for any given child based on knowledge of that child.

This has little to do with the professional standards schools should be accountable to, which are a matter of state intervention, not unprofessional parental wishes.

Frankly I do not trust the state to act in the same way - there are far too many cases out there of government interference with e.g. the various "satanic child abuse scandals" which later turned out to be totally in the minds of the social workers involved out there.
The additional advantage of leaving it to the parents is that it guarantees at least some children will have knowledge of every type of viewpoint.

That ...doesn't follow at all. Religious people tend to marginalise themselves from main society all the time. Just look at Christian Rock.

While this leaves some children pretty much completely out of touch iwth reality, that's better than all of them as is the risk from government involvement (c.f. section 28 again).

Why? Because you say so? How about you prove that a normal school teaches inferior quality knowledge to a creationism-spouting faith school?

Indeed, thinking about it this is somewhat of a strawman argument - these schools aren't preventing children from finding out about say evolution, but rather are failing to teach it and teaching something else instead. To prevent children from being "allowed" to know about this they would have to lock them up 24/7 in some sort of prison with controlled access to the outside world.

What a load of bullshit. Parents send their kids there so they don't learn about evolution. They send them there so they're taught the lies of the creationist movement which specifically includes anti-evolution propaganda. They have actively chosen to have their kids taught an anti-evolution screed, in other words, not allowed them to learn evolution like everyone normally would.

The usual definition of child abuse - relevant because it is the generally agreed point where the state should step in - is something along the lines of causing substantial physical or mental harm to a child, with the implication that the child will be caused pain or suffering (physical or mental) later in life. I'm struggling to see how teaching a child something which may affect their employment prospects in later life for some specific jobs qualifies under this definition.

I actually think an argument can be made for creationist beliefs being symptomatic of child abuse since they almost always involve the threat of Hell which can plague a person well into adulthood. Of course, judaism includes child abuse as a matter of routine in the form of ritual circumcision, but that has little to do with the schooling.

Nevertheless, the fact that faith schools aren't overtly traumatising children (when they're not teaching about Hell, anyway) is irrelevant; if they're teaching utter bullshit they are not good schools and should lose accreditation.

If you want to extent state control over children substantially wider, that's a valid argument but one you should be making explicitly as such, rather than picking on the teaching of a particular subject to make the point.

See above.

The state has an extreme interest in teaching children properly. Those kids make up the next generation and all the science-based jobs in industry and research, for example, nuclear power or wind turbine creation.

No, the state should or ought to have such an interest. Even a cursory glance at the industrial policies of any government for the last 30 or 40 years shows little sign of them thinking of industry as anything other than a dirty smelly source of problems that ought to go away. If they were really interested in nuclear power or wind turbine creation then a whole series of policies (notably about planning) would be very different. Fundamentally it means little or nothing to them. Personally I think this is related to the fact that politicians are overwhelmingly ex-lawyers who are usually lacking even the most basic understanding of science.

What a generic and stupid complaint. Even Blair's government laid down the plans to build a shitload more reactors and wind farms. What politicians are against a scientifically literate future population?

This has nothing to do with "raising" children, it's everything to do with giving all children decent educational standards, which faith schools are flagrantly disregarding in favour of talking snake theory.

Is not education part of raising a child?

Not in the way you're talking about when you speak of taking away responsibility from the parents. That would be equivocation. Otherwise you would want every kid to be homeschooled, since education is the parent's responsibility, not the schools'.

[pdf27]

Yes. It's not that surprising when you realise that Ofsted OKs creationism and as far as I'm aware have never marked down a school for promoting it, which speaks volumes for their standards.

That link wasn't quite as illuminating as I'd hoped:

The Emmanual foundation says its schools teach the theory of evolution, as required by the national curriculum for science.
Creation is taught in religious education. But the two concepts "touch" at points, it says.
This approach has the approval of the Department for Education and Skills and Ofsted, it says, so parents can be assured the issue is not presented as "certain more sensationalist commentators" suggest.

Both theories are "taught", which could range from "some people think the flawed theory of evolution says that" in a Science lesson to "some wacky fundamentalists believe this" in an RE lesson. In any case, the OFSTED report could be based mainly on excellence in other areas - there's insufficient information to draw any reliable conclusion from that, although I agree it's suspicious...

That may be the case, if it is, then it should be amended.

Largely concur, although I'd be wary of doing things too strictly - legislation is a blunt instrument and unless you're very careful will cause more problems than it solves.

If they teach evident falsehood anything on the scale of creationism, they should lose accreditation too.

I'd be tempted to argue that quite a few social theories popular in the teaching profession (along the lines of "knowledge doesn't matter, feelings do" and all that psychobabble) are worse, but nothing is being done about them.

Also true. Also, all of that leads to conflicts of interest over issues like creationism.

Among other things. Academies backed by particular businesses teaching things relevant to that business is actually not that dissimilar - it may not be the best subject for the child, but keeps the new employees/customers rolling in. One might almost argue that creationism serves a similar purpose for the various churches pushing it

If they do it openly and transparently and are subject to independent third parties like the national academy of sciences, I see no conflict of interest.

I have some sympathy for that. Selecting the bodies may be an issue though - see the various Kansas school board elections. You run the risk of either politicising education by handing it over to the electorate, or putting it even more firmly under government control.

Of course, but conservative christians not getting involved with indoctrinating children and treating gays poorly are as rare as hen's teeth.

From personal experience, left wingers doing the same thing and treating soldiers poorly are equally rare. Says the man who was thrown out of Sussex Uni Fresher's Fair last year for being an evil babykilling warmonger!
One of the reasons I'm rather lairy of your proposal is that - at least at first - it comes across as being rather specific to creationism rather than to tripe being taught in schools.

This has little to do with the professional standards schools should be accountable to, which are a matter of state intervention, not unprofessional parental wishes.

I sense a big disconnect between theory and reality coming here. Lots about the way things should be, not a lot about how they actually will be in reality. It's a real personal bugbear of mine - people saying "the worlds should be like this" without clear plans for how this would be achieved and a clear understanding of the likely side-effects.

That ...doesn't follow at all. Religious people tend to marginalise themselves from main society all the time. Just look at Christian Rock.

Some of it isn't all that bad, but the majority is flaming awful. The number of otherwise very musical types who listen to it just because the lyrics are "Christian" never ceases to amaze me.
Actually, I'm far from convinced that they do marginalise themselves very much. About half my group of friends at university are distinctly evangelical Christians, and while there is a tendency to associate with/marry others of their type I wouldn't rate it as being particularly any stronger than any other identifiable group one could name.

Why? Because you say so? How about you prove that a normal school teaches inferior quality knowledge to a creationism-spouting faith school?

Ummm... compare the OFSTED report you linked at the top to one from some random inner city sink comprehensive. The former may (depending on what they actually teach - the BBC report isn't clear) be inferior at Biological sciences, but going by the reported comments is probably superior in other areas.
That's not my point though - what I was thinking of was more some government minster having the idea of teaching some utter tripe in schools, and that being enforced on anyone. Kansas school board perchance? I have somewhat minarchist tendencies, hence my distrust of giving powers to government they don't currently have without good reason.

What a load of bullshit. Parents send their kids there so they don't learn about evolution. They send them there so they're taught the lies of the creationist movement which specifically includes anti-evolution propaganda. They have actively chosen to have their kids taught an anti-evolution screed, in other words, not allowed them to learn evolution like everyone normally would.

Some do. One particular school I went to was for a different faith to my own, and I was sent there by my parents because they thought it was a good school.
In any case, you're passing the responsibility for the behaviour of the parents on to the school. Kids are at school for what, 6 hours a day? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to legislate to ban parents from having crazy ideas.
I also suspect that no matter what the school taught, parental influence will normally trump this. The only real argument for banning the teaching of creationism in schools is that they would somehow not be exposed to evolution outside school otherwise, and I'm far from convinced this is the case. It would essentially involve isolating teenage kids (as younger ones probably wouldn't be doing much on evolution anyway - it's largely a story to them no matter what before that age) completely from all electronic media, print media and all but a small, selected part of their peer group.

I actually think an argument can be made for creationist beliefs being symptomatic of child abuse since they almost always involve the threat of Hell which can plague a person well into adulthood.

Would fairly stories that involve trolls, monsters etc. also qualify under this definition for making people scared of the dark? Where do you draw the line?

Nevertheless, the fact that faith schools aren't overtly traumatising children (when they're not teaching about Hell, anyway) is irrelevant; if they're teaching utter bullshit they are not good schools and should lose accreditation.

It is relevant - because that is where the line is currently drawn as to the damage to children done before the state feels it has a right to intervene in their life without their parent's consent. Changing the rules like you propose radically changes this line, with the associated consequences (c.f. fairy stories above - I've no doubt there are people who would think this is a good idea come to think of it).

What a generic and stupid complaint. Even Blair's government laid down the plans to build a shitload more reactors and wind farms. What politicians are against a scientifically literate future population?

Oh, they made loads of public statements about how they wanted to build them. They then bodged the planning process to make it almost impossible (it currently takes nearly 10 years to get planning permission for an offshore wind farm!) while causing major cuts in university-level science and engineering education with their higher education funding reforms. They may well say they're keen on it, but the reality is they do little or nothing to encourage it and often do things to actively make it harder.

Otherwise you would want every kid to be homeschooled, since education is the parent's responsibility, not the schools'.

Almost - I would phrase it that it is the parents' responsibility to see that the kid gets an appropriate education. If no suitable school is available then I would probably say that homeschooling them becomes their responsibility, but if a suitable school is available then I think this adequately fulfils the moral requirements on the parents.

[Melchior]

Would fairly stories that involve trolls, monsters etc. also qualify under this definition for making people scared of the dark? Where do you draw the line?

I'm not going to touch the rest, but this is flagrant intellectual dishonesty: fables are not told to indoctrinate, but to entertain and are not presented, in a final sense, as truthful. The fact that you will not easily find anyone believing in them, while finding a fundamentalist Christian is rather easy, proves that your line of argumentation is flawed.

[Justforfun000]

pdf27 Wrote:

In any case, you're passing the responsibility for the behaviour of the parents on to the school. Kids are at school for what, 6 hours a day? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to legislate to ban parents from having crazy ideas.
I also suspect that no matter what the school taught, parental influence will normally trump this.

Wait a minute, "passing the responsibility for the behaviour of the parents on to the school"? What kind of nonsense is that? Kids are already mandated to be properly educated. It's considered a fundamental right and even parents can not just choose to keep their children from learning.

Of course you're passing on TEMPORARY responsibility for the child in their care, but their curriculum is the issue here and anything being taught as public education should be held to high standards of truthfulness. You seem to be suggesting that ultimately parents should have the final say on what their children are taught. Why the fuck should they? They aren't always qualified to do so. Hence the need for community standards.

On top of this your last line is completely opposite from what I normally saw. Peer experience and knowledge kids have learned from school at the very LEAST causes arguments and conflicts at home when the teenagers start saying "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about dad, I learned THIS is true and what you believe is ridiculous."

Since when did you start seeing kids listening to their parents first and foremost? Maybe up until the age of 8.

[Justforfun000]

The only real argument for banning the teaching of creationism in schools is that they would somehow not be exposed to evolution outside school otherwise, and I'm far from convinced this is the case.

Jesus murphy. I didn't even notice this.

The only real argument? Are you on crack? You argue that the REAL problem would be them not being exposed to the alternate "theory" of Evolution along with Creationism and so this would be the issue?

The 'real argument' is that Creationism is a fucking fairy tale that doesn't have the slightest shred of credibility as a bloody philosophy, let alone a scientific fact. That is why it should not be taught in ANY 'school' who dares to claim to be a source of educational truth.

If you set up a deliberately religious school that says flat out that what they teach is not based on empiricism whatsoever and must rely on faith contrary to reason, then fine. Fill your boots...and you head with idiot nonsense if you're so inclined, but a public educational system should be based on the highest standards of fact.

[Rye]

Largely concur, although I'd be wary of doing things too strictly - legislation is a blunt instrument and unless you're very careful will cause more problems than it solves.

It's not that difficult. "Creationism and variants thereof should not be taught in science." There.

I'd be tempted to argue that quite a few social theories popular in the teaching profession (along the lines of "knowledge doesn't matter, feelings do" and all that psychobabble) are worse, but nothing is being done about them.

I'm unaware of the part of GCSE science that it would be appropriate to teach that. If it was taught in art or english for writing a story or some other creative endeavour, I wouldn't give a shit. Similarly, I wouldn't care if creationism was mentioned in RE.

I have some sympathy for that. Selecting the bodies may be an issue though - see the various Kansas school board elections. You run the risk of either politicising education by handing it over to the electorate, or putting it even more firmly under government control.

What a load of rubbish, it is not difficult to nominate decent referees in academia for science textbooks.

From personal experience, left wingers doing the same thing and treating soldiers poorly are equally rare. Says the man who was thrown out of Sussex Uni Fresher's Fair last year for being an evil babykilling warmonger!
One of the reasons I'm rather lairy of your proposal is that - at least at first - it comes across as being rather specific to creationism rather than to tripe being taught in schools.

It is specific to creationism, when it's being taught in science, because it's inappropriate and misleading. What's wrong with that? I'd support the same reasoning being applied elsewhere, but all of those can be taken individually.

I sense a big disconnect between theory and reality coming here. Lots about the way things should be, not a lot about how they actually will be in reality. It's a real personal bugbear of mine - people saying "the worlds should be like this" without clear plans for how this would be achieved and a clear understanding of the likely side-effects.

It wouldn't require that much change to implement, the system is largely there, it is just being soft on forceful faith positions because we expect all the religious people to be like the CofE.

Actually, I'm far from convinced that they do marginalise themselves very much.

Are you fucking kidding? In this very thread, we have schools saying the world is 6000 years old, religious people sending their kids there to prevent ideological contamination, and you don't understand that as religious people marginalising themselves from the mainstream?

Ummm... compare the OFSTED report you linked at the top to one from some random inner city sink comprehensive. The former may (depending on what they actually teach - the BBC report isn't clear) be inferior at Biological sciences, but going by the reported comments is probably superior in other areas.

That school will be good at training unthinking obedience (the point of religion) and therefore the rote memorisation required for passing tests. This of course will look good in exam results. The problems with saying a world wide flood occurred or the world is 6000 years old are in the quality of information, not the quality of teaching/funding. And these schools have truly retarded educational material mentioning God on every page; there's an example of such in Dawkins' documentary "Root of all evil?".

I have somewhat minarchist tendencies, hence my distrust of giving powers to government they don't currently have without good reason.

Why don't you have the same distrust for rich religious people?

Some do. One particular school I went to was for a different faith to my own, and I was sent there by my parents because they thought it was a good school.
In any case, you're passing the responsibility for the behaviour of the parents on to the school. Kids are at school for what, 6 hours a day? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to legislate to ban parents from having crazy ideas.

Aha, so you're a moron, I see.

I also suspect that no matter what the school taught, parental influence will normally trump this.

Irrelevant. The state still has a duty to ensure all accredited education passes certain standards; for instance, teaching science in science classes. You're opposed to that because you are paranoid and stupid.

The only real argument for banning the teaching of creationism in schools is that they would somehow not be exposed to evolution outside school otherwise, and I'm far from convinced this is the case.

No, the real argument for banning it is that it is a set of anti-scientific distortions, lies and idiocy that does not belong in a science class. Stop being a fucking moron.

Would fairly stories that involve trolls, monsters etc. also qualify under this definition for making people scared of the dark? Where do you draw the line?

It depends, are they being taught that the rejection of fairy stories as science will lead to them being killed and tortured? If so, yeah, that's abusive. That's not happening, though.

It is relevant - because that is where the line is currently drawn as to the damage to children done before the state feels it has a right to intervene in their life without their parent's consent.

Man, you just don't stop with this equivocation thing, do you? Okay, firstly, having a national curriculum and standard of education is not anything like intervening in an abused child's life. That's just fucking dishonest of you.

Almost - I would phrase it that it is the parents' responsibility to see that the kid gets an appropriate education.

You don't think there is such a thing as an appropriate education beyond what the parent can be bothered doing or what they want their kid to learn. Anything else is unwarranted government intrusion, you say.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Uh, I did cover that very story (albeit from the Telegraph). The people complaining are a right wing think tank founded by Margaret Thatcher, i.e. pro free-market, pro-tradition conservatives.

Oh... yeah. Sort of forgot it was the same. I recall that's the same woman who gets bent out of shape over loads of things and wanted to give that atheism bashing speech at Xmas, but the Church told her to cram it.

[pdf27]

Wait a minute, "passing the responsibility for the behaviour of the parents on to the school"? What kind of nonsense is that?

Sorry, that was unclear. I was thinking of in the sense that the school are In Loco Parentis - and the school are substitute parents taking on that responsibility while the children are there.

It's not that difficult. "Creationism and variants thereof should not be taught in science." There.

At which point they'll come up with a new theory - exactly as they did with Intelligent Design in the states when this sort of thing was contemplated. You can either mandate that something be taught, or continually ban new ways of repackaging the same idea when it crops up again and again.

I'm unaware of the part of GCSE science that it would be appropriate to teach that. If it was taught in art or english for writing a story or some other creative endeavour, I wouldn't give a shit. Similarly, I wouldn't care if creationism was mentioned in RE.

That sort of thing tends to come up in the artsy type subjects - there is nowhere for it to come in in science. I fail to see why science is uniquely vulnerable and should be uniquely protected however - I would have thought the reverse as it is uniquely suited to exposing false ideas for what they are. No other subject is inherently a set of tools for demonstrating truth and exposing falsehood.

I'd support the same reasoning being applied elsewhere, but all of those can be taken individually.

Fair enough, that's consistent.

Are you fucking kidding? In this very thread, we have schools saying the world is 6000 years old, religious people sending their kids there to prevent ideological contamination, and you don't understand that as religious people marginalising themselves from the mainstream?

I have a number of friends (who did Science or Engineering degrees at Cambridge so are more than averagely bright) who believe exactly this. Unless you start talking about the subject with them, you would never know they believe this. In what way are these people isolated from the mainstream of society?

That school will be good at training unthinking obedience (the point of religion) and therefore the rote memorisation required for passing tests. This of course will look good in exam results.

If we have an exam system - particularly in the sciences - which enables you to pass having simply learned things by rote, we have a massively bigger problem than a small number of creationist schools. The whole point of science is that it is a method which enables the divination of truth, not a page of formulae and results.

Why don't you have the same distrust for rich religious people?

I do, with the caveat that Governments tend to be richer than most rich religious types.

Aha, so you're a moron, I see.

Charmed, I'm sure. How so?

You're opposed to that because you are paranoid and stupid.

More of the personal insults. Care to substantiate either of them?

It depends, are they being taught that the rejection of fairy stories as science will lead to them being killed and tortured? If so, yeah, that's abusive. That's not happening, though.

Sorry, that was unclear. What I was driving at was that taking both hell and some suitably scary monster to be imaginary and telling children about them is not dissimilar. The differences are:
1) The monster is deliberately being told as a story, so will be less real to most children.
2) Far fewer adults will believe in the monster, reinforcing (1)
3) In most cases the children will be told that the monster isn't real (although probably not in all cases - Santa Claus?)
The point being that once they reach a certain age - generally younger for the fairy stories funnily enough - they are capable of distinguishing for themselves between fact, belief and make-believe, and deciding for themselves which category each belongs in. Thus no lasting harm is done by either to my mind.
What I was trying to do was give an example of a case that nobody seems to consider abusive, and point out how it had many of the same characteristics as teaching about hell. I suspect I didn't explain it very well however.

Okay, firstly, having a national curriculum and standard of education is not anything like intervening in an abused child's life. That's just fucking dishonest of you.

First off, I am NOT claiming moral equivalence between intervening in a case of child sexual abuse and making a change to the school curriculum - that would be patently ridiculous so I never thought I would need such a disclaimer.
What I am trying to say is that introducing legislation to say that children must be taught certain things at school is introducing coercion to a whole new area of their lives. Right now coercion only comes in if they are being abused and to ensure that they receive a pretty basic education. If you are going to extend this, where do you stop? Do you force their parents to feed them an approved diet? Clothe them in a particular way (and where would you draw the line then - anything from banning a Hijab to introducing a national uniform for schoolchildren)?

You don't think there is such a thing as an appropriate education beyond what the parent can be bothered doing or what they want their kid to learn. Anything else is unwarranted government intrusion, you say.

Hardly - I have a pretty specific idea of what I think should be taught, and my definition of "appropriate" is somewhere along the lines of "to the highest standard they can practically attain". However I am naturally loath to prescribe from on high - partly because I mistrust governments by their very nature, politicians being inclined to do what will make them popular rather than what is right - and partly because I see law as a very blunt instrument which should accordingly only be used where necessary. Accordingly I take a higher than average amount of convincing before I think a new law is appropriate, and you have yet to convince me here.

[Hillary]

So, pdf27, let me get this straight. In your opinion parents should be able to send their children to any type of school they wish. You feel that the state should not be able to interfere with the ciriculum whatsoever, regardless of whether this includes creationism in science classes, flat earth theory in geography or text speak, as standard, in English classes. The school can teach 2+2=5 if they wish.

Does the state not have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive a quality education, based on truth and reality, regardless of how unintelligent or brainwashed the parents may be?

Your system disadvantages children with idiots for parents. This is simply not right. [/quote]

[pdf27]

So, pdf27, let me get this straight. In your opinion parents should be able to send their children to any type of school they wish. You feel that the state should not be able to interfere with the ciriculum whatsoever, regardless of whether this includes creationism in science classes, flat earth theory in geography or text speak, as standard, in English classes. The school can teach 2+2=5 if they wish.

More or less, with some exceptions. The major one is state funding - where a school is in recipt of state funding, it is entirely legitimate for the government to control the curriculum (and yes, I agree this should include banning the teaching of creationism outside of RE lessons in the context of "Christians believe that"). Another is where teaching is sufficiently at variance at society that it is likely to cause trouble in future - a good example of this would be teaching that women or black men are substantially inferior and should be enslaved. I can see an argument for banning creationism on these grounds, but I don't yet see it being sufficiently strong.

Does the state not have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive a quality education, based on truth and reality, regardless of how unintelligent or brainwashed the parents may be?

At present, with the law as it stands, it does not. Right now I would suggest that a substantial number of children in state schools with no religious affiliation do not receive a "quality education", and these are in schools the state has sole responsibility for running.
Ultimately this debate comes down to who should have responsiblity for the upbringing of children. I am arguing that it should rest with the parents almost entirely, others are arguing that the state should ensure that their upbringing conforms to certain defined standards.

Your system disadvantages children with idiots for parents. This is simply not right.

Agreed. However, these children will be seriously disadvantaged no matter what, and I am of the opinion that children whose parents are not idiots will be disadvantaged under your proposed system in the majority of cases. I'll happily concede that there may possibly be a system which does not disadvantage those children without idiots for parents, but I have yet to be convinced that it is practical and so cannot support it.
In the trade-off between a serious disadvantage to those with idiots for parents compared to a less serious one for the far larger number without idiots for parents, I'd have to say I think the majority are more important here.
I think a far better solution would involve dealing with parental idiocy, but I don't have a practical system to propose to solve that particular problem.

[The Spartan]

Ultimately this debate comes down to who should have responsiblity for the upbringing of children. I am arguing that it should rest with the parents almost entirely, others are arguing that the state should ensure that their upbringing conforms to certain defined standards.

Wait, wait, wait. This, I had to respond to.

Do you honestly not get it? The state is not taking over the upbringing of children; you can take that strawman, turn it sideways and cram it right up your sorry ass. The state is providing a service to itself, i.e. to society at large, by providing a consistent set of standards by which to educate children.

It's the idiot parents, whom you seem to place so much faith in, through their religious leaders, who are trying to undermine those standards. The fault lays, not with the state, but with the assholes trying to undermine the standards the state is trying to achieve, the vast overwhelming majority of whom have no business educating their children.

For Christ's sake, I have no business teaching children, unless we're talking about math or basic physics, et al., because I'm simply not qualified to do so. And I'm well educated!

[Rye]

Sorry, that was unclear. I was thinking of in the sense that the school are In Loco Parentis - and the school are substitute parents taking on that responsibility while the children are there.

Schools have a duty to provide a decent education. This does not include outright lies in science.

It's not that difficult. "Creationism and variants thereof should not be taught in science." There.

At which point they'll come up with a new theory - exactly as they did with Intelligent Design in the states when this sort of thing was contemplated. You can either mandate that something be taught, or continually ban new ways of repackaging the same idea when it crops up again and again.

See bolded part.

That sort of thing tends to come up in the artsy type subjects - there is nowhere for it to come in in science. I fail to see why science is uniquely vulnerable and should be uniquely protected however - I would have thought the reverse as it is uniquely suited to exposing false ideas for what they are. No other subject is inherently a set of tools for demonstrating truth and exposing falsehood.

Science is where it'd matter. It doesn't matter if someone teaches you that in English because it has nothing to do with decent reading comprehension or writing, and in the context of creativity, it may be useful. Even if someone taught you that, how fucking authoritative is an English teacher on the nature of reality and human interaction? Not at all.

I have a number of friends (who did Science or Engineering degrees at Cambridge so are more than averagely bright) who believe exactly this.

Sure you do. Personal anecdote to the rescue!

Unless you start talking about the subject with them, you would never know they believe this. In what way are these people isolated from the mainstream of society?

They have ideologically pure counter-science curricula and schools to segregate themselves from society. They have their own variants of popular culture. They have their own modern myths and stock views that the rest of society doesn't have.

If we have an exam system - particularly in the sciences - which enables you to pass having simply learned things by rote, we have a massively bigger problem than a small number of creationist schools. The whole point of science is that it is a method which enables the divination of truth, not a page of formulae and results.

Of course this is a problem. Not much to do with the thread subject, however.

I do, with the caveat that Governments tend to be richer than most rich religious types.

They're also more accountable.

Charmed, I'm sure. How so?

Your stupid assertion that I should suggest thought control to make sure parents choose decent science curricula for their kids instead of just giving all kids a decent education by law.

More of the personal insults. Care to substantiate either of them?

Yeah, every one of your fuckwitted posts in this thread where you say we can't trust the government to deal with a national curriculum.

Sorry, that was unclear. What I was driving at was that taking both hell and some suitably scary monster to be imaginary and telling children about them is not dissimilar. The differences are:
1) The monster is deliberately being told as a story, so will be less real to most children.
2) Far fewer adults will believe in the monster, reinforcing (1)
3) In most cases the children will be told that the monster isn't real (although probably not in all cases - Santa Claus?)

Santa being fearsomely scary.

The point being that once they reach a certain age - generally younger for the fairy stories funnily enough - they are capable of distinguishing for themselves between fact, belief and make-believe, and deciding for themselves which category each belongs in. Thus no lasting harm is done by either to my mind.
What I was trying to do was give an example of a case that nobody seems to consider abusive, and point out how it had many of the same characteristics as teaching about hell. I suspect I didn't explain it very well however.

Yes, and it's contradicted by the vast number of adults, let alone children that believe in and fear going to Hell.

What I am trying to say is that introducing legislation to say that children must be taught certain things at school is introducing coercion to a whole new area of their lives.

No, it's not. It's enforcing a level of quality in education.

Hardly - I have a pretty specific idea of what I think should be taught, and my definition of "appropriate" is somewhere along the lines of "to the highest standard they can practically attain". However I am naturally loath to prescribe from on high - partly because I mistrust governments by their very nature, politicians being inclined to do what will make them popular rather than what is right - and partly because I see law as a very blunt instrument which should accordingly only be used where necessary. Accordingly I take a higher than average amount of convincing before I think a new law is appropriate, and you have yet to convince me here.

When your position is "we shouldn't teach our kids what their parents don't like, we mustn't trust any national body that governs the curriculum because no matter how transparent it is, it might be a conspiracy for political gain" I am not terribly bothered about convincing you.

[Justforfun000]

pdf27, I already addressed you with a response of mine that dealt squarely with the problem of having parents controlling the standards of education their children receive. As I said before, they are not usually qualified to make such choices.

I thought that would be enough to remind you where priorities should be laid, but your most recent points make it very clear that you are one of these people that innately tend towards the belief that children are 'owned' by their parents and they should have the major arbitrary say over what goes on in that child's life until adulthood, definitely not the government.

I think this is a load of shit, and I despise this attitude. I've seen it used to justify religious indoctrination, child abuse, circumcision (and don't even get me started on that one), and every other questionable action that pits a parent against social conflicts.

Most of us have the ability to procreate and bring offspring into this world. This confers a certain amount of expected responsibility on YOU as the parent to raise the child to adulthood in an ethical manner. Most parents love their children and so by the benefit of the doubt, basic control is usually ceded unconditionally until circumstances suggest abuse is evident and needs to be addressed to determine fitness of the guardian(s).

It's well accepted by the moral majority that society has a duty to step in and protect children from what we consider inappropriate raising and that is why child protective services are in existence. We have to remember that children do not live in a vacuum. The way they are taught is directly responsible for how they are going to interact with the rest of society. This is why it IS our business to be concerned about how people are raised. They are going to become members of our society and what they believe and how they express their beliefs, directly determines how they are going to fit in with the rest of the world.

Now that I've laid out the far side of parental control and the circumstances that can lead to the rescinding of that right, I'll try to link the argument together here.

Education in public school is based squarely on empiricism and it is expected to be held to a factual standard that is not politically motivated or influenced by any partisan policies like religion. Religion is blatantly faith based and has no place in public school as a course subject unless it is being studied as a faith-based system, NOT taught as if the core tenets are on an equal footing with math and geology.

So by you suggesting that parents should be placed first on the totem pole of how their kids become educated, you do a total disservice to the needs of their children. If the parents beliefs were indeed considered to be the most important wishes to be respected, then we would not have already mandated by law that children must be educated by a proper school curriculum. We do not let parents say "Well, I reckon I don't want Billy learnin nuttin in school....he'll learn all he has to from the TV and besides, he can help me on the farm during the day where he'll do more good then sittin at a desk listening to some suit jawing about how we came from monkeys..." <HAWK>..*spit*

See what I mean? This could EASILY happen with many families if it was not illegal to pull that kind of attitude. Parents are the natural caregivers of children, but society is set up to be the secondary safety net that either affirms or challenges the family circle. This is how it should be because we are social beings and to earn the right to join society, you have to learn how to live in society.

A school teaching Creationism on an equal or worse yet...superior footing with Evolution, is doing a total disservice to the children AND society. It is intellectual dishonesty that the poor children do not usually have the critical thinking skills to detect or refute. It's blatant indoctrination. That is what makes it completely wrong. Nothing to do with the parent's will and their choice of what should be taught. This shouldn't even be a consideration. The merit of the subject matter that comprises the public school curriculum is the only argument to be concerned with.

[pdf27]

Most of us have the ability to procreate and bring offspring into this world. This confers a certain amount of expected responsibility on YOU as the parent to raise the child to adulthood in an ethical manner. Most parents love their children and so by the benefit of the doubt, basic control is usually ceded unconditionally until circumstances suggest abuse is evident and needs to be addressed to determine fitness of the guardian(s).

It's well accepted by the moral majority that society has a duty to step in and protect children from what we consider inappropriate raising and that is why child protective services are in existence. We have to remember that children do not live in a vacuum. The way they are taught is directly responsible for how they are going to interact with the rest of society. This is why it IS our business to be concerned about how people are raised. They are going to become members of our society and what they believe and how they express their beliefs, directly determines how they are going to fit in with the rest of the world.

Totally agreed thus far.

Education in public school is based squarely on empiricism and it is expected to be held to a factual standard that is not politically motivated or influenced by any partisan policies like religion. Religion is blatantly faith based and has no place in public school as a course subject unless it is being studied as a faith-based system, NOT taught as if the core tenets are on an equal footing with math and geology.

Concur - see ^

So by you suggesting that parents should be placed first on the totem pole of how their kids become educated, you do a total disservice to the needs of their children. If the parents beliefs were indeed considered to be the most important wishes to be respected, then we would not have already mandated by law that children must be educated by a proper school curriculum. We do not let parents say "Well, I reckon I don't want Billy learnin nuttin in school....he'll learn all he has to from the TV and besides, he can help me on the farm during the day where he'll do more good then sittin at a desk listening to some suit jawing about how we came from monkeys..." <HAWK>..*spit*

See what I mean? This could EASILY happen with many families if it was not illegal to pull that kind of attitude. Parents are the natural caregivers of children, but society is set up to be the secondary safety net that either affirms or challenges the family circle. This is how it should be because we are social beings and to earn the right to join society, you have to learn how to live in society.

The point I've been trying to make is that there is a continuum here - with say sexual abuse at one end and buying them silly clothes on the other. On this line somewhere there is a point beyond which the society (in the form of the state) intervenes. In a case where parents are "first on the totem pole", you're back with the Roman Paterfamilias - with the literal power of life and death over the family. I'm nowhere near that point - rather it's a discussion over where exactly society should intervene, and in absolute terms I suspect we're actually pretty close.
I tend to play Devil's Advocate whenever I want to test the strength of an argument, as I am partly of doing here. I am somewhat on the parents-rights side of you on this line, but not all that far so far as I can tell.

A school teaching Creationism on an equal or worse yet...superior footing with Evolution, is doing a total disservice to the children AND society. It is intellectual dishonesty that the poor children do not usually have the critical thinking skills to detect or refute.

Depends on the age of the children and what else they are taught. If any child leaves school incapable of finding out the basis for evolution and making up their own mind about it I would suggest that there are more fundamental flaws with the teaching at the school than merely the teaching of creationism rather than evolution.

It's blatant indoctrination. That is what makes it completely wrong.

Define indoctrination. That's actually a serious question, as I'm strugging to come up with a clear objective definition. I'm not saying that teaching creationism isn't indoctrination, but rather that if indoctrination is wrong then it should be banned - in which case you need a clear and unambiguous definition. This may be possible in the case of maths and science, but outside that so far as I can see things get very murky. If you can think of a clear definition I'd be interested to hear it.

[madd0ct0r]

If any child leaves school incapable of finding out the basis for evolution and making up their own mind about it I would suggest that there are more fundamental flaws with the teaching at the school than merely the teaching of creationism rather than evolution.

I know many University students (engineers and dentists) who either believe wholesale in Creationism or "have an open mind."

They know the basis of evolution, they understand and use the scientific method every day, they just treat their religion as being in a seperate, sacrosanct catergory.
Yes, they've "made up their minds," but in reality they had their minds made up when they were children, they just continue in those beliefs.[/quote]

[Justforfun000]

Depends on the age of the children and what else they are taught. If any child leaves school incapable of finding out the basis for evolution and making up their own mind about it I would suggest that there are more fundamental flaws with the teaching at the school than merely the teaching of creationism rather than evolution.

But this is the entire crux of the argument. What they should be taught at school. Creationism is unfalsifiable and completely unsupported by any empiric evidence we possess. This throws it quite definitively in the realm of fantasy. Schools should not be teaching a fantasy like this as the basis of any of their subjects unless it is presented as a treatise on religious thought, or possibly a comparative look at cultural creation beliefs.

Of course there would be fundamental flaws at the school. I get the part of your point where you are trying to say it's not that Creationism isn't a problem or that we shouldn't be able to block it and favour Evolution, you just want to see a more generalized criteria of standards proposed so that Creationism would automatically fall into this judgement and not go head to head by trying to block it as a specific exclusion.

This actually does have some merit and maybe it would be a lot better to simply draft up something that just says that anything not based in empiricism will not be seriously considered as course material unless put in the context of speculative discussion.

However, it probably will not happen this way because people will quibble over generalities of words and the thing would probably be killed before it got implemented. Creationism being more specific in essence makes it much easier to deliberately challenge. So we may have no choice in the matter.

Define indoctrination. That's actually a serious question, as I'm strugging to come up with a clear objective definition. I'm not saying that teaching creationism isn't indoctrination, but rather that if indoctrination is wrong then it should be banned - in which case you need a clear and unambiguous definition. This may be possible in the case of maths and science, but outside that so far as I can see things get very murky. If you can think of a clear definition I'd be interested to hear it.

When I use the word indoctrination in this instance, I'm using it as meaning being taught something that is a belief system that is not or cannot be verified with empiricism. That makes it unprovable. Therefore deliberately teaching children that a story like creationism is factual is indoctrination into a system of beliefs that they cannot support with reason. On top of that, it's intellectually dishonest because you CAN'T present something as fact that is indeed NOT fact. It's a lie. But that is exactly what happens in Sunday Schools and very likely, many faith-based schools.

Don't be too hung up on the word indoctrination itself. It matters in the context of it's usage and all that matters is that you make the argument with the terms fully defined so it makes sense. What I described above is a full explanation of the what, why and how indoctrination matters in relation to belief systems. That's all that matters. Understanding specifically what the core issue is addressing.

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This actually does have some merit and maybe it would be a lot better to simply draft up something that just says that anything not based in empiricism will not be seriously considered as course material unless put in the context of speculative discussion.

However, it probably will not happen this way because people will quibble over generalities of words and the thing would probably be killed before it got implemented. Creationism being more specific in essence makes it much easier to deliberately challenge. So we may have no choice in the matter.

If there is no way around being specific I can sort of live with it, but it does make me very uncomfortable. My part of the world has a long history of persecuting anyone who believes the "wrong" things, and that leaves me very uncomfortable at the idea of banning one specific idea. Setting up an objective framework that is not there merely to ban an idea held by one group of people but rather will ban the teaching of anything which does not measure up to a given objective standard is much less problematic for me.

When I use the word indoctrination in this instance, I'm using it as meaning being taught something that is a belief system that is not or cannot be verified with empiricism. That makes it unprovable. Therefore deliberately teaching children that a story like creationism is factual is indoctrination into a system of beliefs that they cannot support with reason.

On that basis, I have no problems. It's a little way from the dictionary definition of indoctrination, which I had more problems with trying to ban.

On top of that, it's intellectually dishonest because you CAN'T present something as fact that is indeed NOT fact. It's a lie.

I personally tend never to use the word "lie" unless something is verifiably and knowingly mendacious. That's a situation I really don't think applies here.

[bobalot]

The state should ban these moronic schools. The long term effects of these schools indoctrinating these kids with fairy tales would be disastrous to society.

You only have to look at the Maddrassas of Pakistan to see the outcome of that.

I truly wonder at the intelligence of people who question the merits of a secular state based education system. Every developed country in the world has one. Everyone that doesn't is pretty much universally a shithole.