Hi,
As you know Brian I'm not a literalist but I think that equating the teaching of YEC to kids with child abuse is just more than slightly over the top.
But we are not talking abut just teaching YEC, we are talking about teaching the whole of the Bible as being literally true in a fundamentalist environment.
I sometimes think that people underestimate just how influential a teacher can be on the life of our children. Children (most anyway) literally think that everything their teachers say is true, some cannot imagine that there teacher would be wrong about something.
This is where the problems will come in. Children are entitled to a balanced education that will equip them with the skills to survive and cope in the adult world when they are ready to leave school. This places a lot of responsibility on teachers to ensure that their subject knowledge is of a decent standard and that they teach their subject as objectively as possible.
I teach five different faiths in my classes, and each one is given the same respect, I never bring my personal beliefs into the classroom. In fact, as I have said before here, if I did promote one faith over another I would be warned to be more careful in the future. If I persisted in promoting one faith then I would be eventually shown the door. Children at school should be shown the facts and figures and then be allowed to come to their own conclusions, that is what education is all about. We want to help equip youngsters with the skills that enable them to make informed choices. To do this, the teacher has to be as impartial as possible and just deliver the information in a suitable fashion for their students to understand.
There is no way on Earth that a fundamentalist teacher will give equal respect to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity.
Can you imagine a fundy Christian teacher telling a class that Jews, generally speaking, do not believe that the Messiah has been born yet, and then giving the reasons why and then leaving it at that? No danger, we all know what the lessons in Religious Education would consist of. This particular one would be about how wrong Jews are and that Jesus fulfilled all the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, this is not a fair and balanced education that the child is getting. They would NOT be allowed to come to their own conclusions, they would be TOLD what is true and what isn’t, they wouldn’t be told just how many Old Testament prophecies Jesus didn’t fulfil, they wouldn’t be told that most of the prophecies mentioned in the New Testament aren’t really prophecies at all.
What would their history classes be filled with? Would they get a fair and balanced view of certain historical events? Would the ‘history’ in the Bible be the focus of all of the history courses? Would they be told that most of the history in the Bible is actually false history? Would they be told that miracles are outside the spectrum of historical enquiry? I don’t think so. They would be told that every word in the Bible is true and that it is all historically accurate, any child that asked a question would be given a Bible verse to look at, there would be virtually no external references for the child to consider.
Can you imagine a child who has a keen interest in Egyptology informing their history teacher that the Egyptian history goes back uninterrupted for nearly 7000 years? They would be given a Bible and asked to count up the years from Adam’s birth to Jesus birth, then told that Egyptian chronology is flawed, and when they ask why it is flawed they would be told because it doesn’t fit with what the Bible says!
It would go on and on throughout the entire curriculum. Geography, there was a world wide flood 4400 years ago, a child asks How do we know?, they are told, because the Bible says so.
Even with evolution kids were taught until recently that one of our ancestors was Neanderthal man. DNA has shown that not to be the case. Some how I don't think it's done any lasting damage.
But there is a huge difference here. I am not a scientist, but my colleagues inform me that the Neandethal Man — Human link was only ever taught as a theory, it was never taught as a fact. As far as I am aware, no scientific theory is ever taught as a fact, that is why it is termed a ‘theory’. For example, evolution is a fact, probably the most authenticated fact in the history of the world, but the reasons for evolution are taught as theories and not facts. Theories are only taught as the best possible explanation given the evidence that we have at the moment.
YEC has NEVER had ANY evidence to support it, in fact the only ‘evidence’ presented are ancient folk tales, and even then the followers don’t agree if it present an old or young universe! So, how can something that is so clearly a myth is taught in a science class?
Anyone attempting to do this is corrupting the intellectual development of the child, as it is tantamount to abuse.
My biggest fear with kids and the teaching of YEC is that eventually they will look at it and come to the conclusion that it isn't true and as a result discard their faith entirely.
Here is another problem, and one where my idea that the child is being abused comes in to play. Children are very impressionable, and during their years as ‘concrete’ learners all the foundations for the way they think is laid down. Constantly bombarding a child in the stages of concrete learning with utter crap will lead the child to believe that the utter crap is accurate. When you say that they will come to the conclusion that it isn’t true you are forgetting the ones who have been so brainwashed that they will never come to that conclusion. Even the ones that do come to that conclusion will not do so overnight, it is often a long drawn out process, how tormented will the child be when they find out that their parents have deliberately been feeding them bull for X amount of years? This torment is a result of being psychologically abused.
Yhat being said however if we are to start turning over our kids to the state in an Orwellian fashion
But no one is suggesting that. The Scottish Education system was the envy of the world at one time, I am not so sure anymore, but what is wrong with the system we have now? I am not familiar with the USA education system, but from what I read here it appears to be in some sort of crisis, there obviously was a time when it was running well and producing well-balanced, highly intelligent people, but, trust me, the rest of the world is beginning to think that the average American is some sort of half-wit. This is the image that is projected on TV screens around the world. On one channel you have Bush staring vacantly at a camera, unable to string two words together, he must be an embarrassment to all Americans. Turn to another station and you have the ‘God Channel’, and yes, Oh MY God, what a shower of morons on there, and almost all are Americans, what is happening to the USA?
we are going to cause a lot more damage to future generations than are a few home schoolers teaching YEC.
One child being abused is one too many.
Brian.
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