Re: [asa] Rubber Meeting Road -- My Kid in Public School

One approach is to accept it as a valuable part of your daughter's education.
She is being exposed to various authorities she respects who are telling her
contradictory things. It's going to happen to her anyway --- what better time
& place for it to happen than under the loving parentage of a father who has
become familiar with those issues and has himself, developed the nuanced
balancing practice of relating in a Christian manner to various parties and
resolving to his own satisfaction the appropriate relationship between science
and the larger faith domain. Of course, there is no guarantee that she won't
fly off the handle and disasterously reject one or both authorities involved,
but you don't have that guarantee anyway, and she will face it sooner or later.
 Might as well be now. Far from trying a different Sunday school, you can use
this opportunity to show her that most authorities in this world are highly
fallible -- but that you have not, as a result, rejected all authority. I don't
mind that my kids (in a Christian school with some YEC texts) are exposed to a
minefield as well, but partly because of my influence they have learned that
just because something is in glossy print doesn't mean it's true (and almost
never the whole truth) --- a very valuable lesson (bring on any kind of
textbooks you want!) So, while it may be painful to watch her be disturbed,
hopefully it will, in the end, be a growing experience for her to have to relate
to both places, and to do so with grace.

--merv

Quoting David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>:

> This afternoon was one of those "rubber meeting the road" times. My
> 11-year-old daughter, who goes to public school, adores her science
> teacher. Today, however, she came home very upset. It seems they've begun
> to study evolution, and my daughter is feeling an enormous conflict with
> what she's been taught in Sunday School. This is so difficult and delicate
> a thing to have to start navigating. One the one hand I don't want to nip
> her respect for the church and her Sunday School teachers or to bring her
> into conflict with any of her Christian friends; on the other, I don't want
> her to be afraid of science; and on yet another, I don't want her to think
> scientists necessarily have the last word. I did my best to start
> explaining how there are different ways of looking at how God created the
> heavens and the earth, and that some things -- like that there is a God and
> that God is the creator -- are primary while others -- like how old the
> earth is or what natural processes God used to create -- can be discussed.
> Anyone have any tips, resources, etc. for helping a kid this age start to
> navigate this minefield?
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Web: http://www.davidopderbeck.com
> Blog: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
> MySpace (Music): http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
>

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Received on Fri Jan 5 17:27:49 2007