Re: Living and Worshipping in the Real World

I realize this isn't a complete response to your entire post, but I'll
pick up on a couple of things here.

> Michael Roberts writes:
>
> Mervi, how do you teach the age of the earth in science?
>
I tell it like it is, -- that the weight of evidence right now seems
pretty overwhelmingly old-earth. (If you read further below, though,
you'll see that I don't necessarily announce this up front.) Given that
the only section of geology that I teach is a sweeping overview to 9th
graders in a physical science class (about three chapters out of the
entire text), the subject isn't exactly central to our material. We
haven't reached the geology section yet this year. But when I do
discuss such things in this class (or when it may come up in physics or
chemistry) I don't necessarily have to divulge any of my personal
convictions -- at least not in an obvious manner. You would be
surprised how far a teacher can go using phrases like "... this is what
this group of people argue .... and this is what many scientists now
think ..." and so forth. Unless students want to get pushy, and ask
the teacher "but what do YOU think" (and I am delighted when some care
enough to do this) but apart from that I could conceivably get through
an entire semester without students necessarily getting much of any hint
what my own convictions actually are. But since I don't have anything
close to the self-discipline that would be needed to keep these things
to myself I usually volunteer something of my convictions anyway whether
solicited or not. This is a fine line for a teacher to walk, because
many class 'discussions' at the high school level tend to degenerate
into crafted diatribes that students are guessing a teacher would like
to hear. I see it as counter-productive to class discussion to always
"weigh in" with my opinion since I am not among peers and many students
will latch onto this as a pronouncement from "on high" that stops
discussion rather than starts it. While some of you may think it my job
just to shovel into students heads sweeping cosmologies or evolutionary
maxims as if they were Newton's laws, I would like to think that real
educational experience even at the high school level is just a bit more
substantial than that. (Have you heard the adage: "give a man a fish
and he eats for a day, but teach him to fish and he eats for life"?
I'll extend that to education: teach a student a fact, and he may be
'educated' for a minute. Teach him to think, and the facts will take
care of themselves.) Now -- Wouldn't it be cool if it were really that
easy!!?

> Also the only way you can criticise YEC arguments for a young earth is
> to imply that they are either stupid, self-deluded or dishonest.
>
You must have an extremely dim view of the discipline of debate if you
think that any criticism of a position is equivalent to calling its
adherents stupid, dishonest, etc. I thought I was suspicious of
debative types ... that they could make anything sound reasonable
regardless of its actual merit. But I still hold out more hope for that
process than perhaps you do in these matters.

--merv
Received on Mon Jan 23 22:08:39 2006