> Many Protestant Christian schools I'm aware of teach ICR-type young-earth
>creationism. When I was in Champaign, IL Ken Ham and Gary Parker brought
>an "Answers in Genesis" seminar to town and they bussed in students from
>local Christian schools to learn how dinosaurs rode Noah's ark (I'm not
>kidding). I'm not sure Christian high schools are the answer.
>
For awhile I was on the board of a Christian school. The high school
science teacher was a godly man, smart, creative, liked by the students,
and taught TE as an option. Parental complaints ensued, and the board
wanted to fire him. But he had signed and continued to affirm the
doctrinal statement, had committed no misconduct, and so could not be
fired, but his contract for the next year was not renewed. A colleague of
mine, who happened to be a past executive director of the ASA, and I tried
(unsuccessfully) to defend the teacher, only to be accused ourselves of the
usual YEC litany of charges from being materialists to not believing
Scripture.
Unfortunately the next teacher was poor. However, as I soon found out when
we moved and put our kids in public junior high and high schools, the level
of science education there was equally low (with one notable exception, who
came too late to save their science training). As a result, much to my
great disappointment, none of my three kids have more than a rudimentary
understanding of science (and, I should add, for the same reasons, their
math skills are poor as well).
The point is this: Given the sorry state of science education across the
board in this nation (Canadians--is it different up there?), perhaps the
ASA should devote more attention and resources to encouraging Christian
undergrads to pursue degrees in science education at the jr hi (or middle
school) and high school levels--for the good of the church as well as the
good of the country!
Garry DeWeese