RE: [asa] Teenagers and Evolution

Bob, the articles you reference seem reasonable. However, that is not what I
am hearing being enforced. Some public schools blatantly ignore rulings by
having religious choir programs while others demand that teachers discourage
any reference to God. At the college level, I was told to do so - I taught
math so it wasn't an issue.

How does one make the article required reading?

  Debbie, on God in the public schools, once again let's get the facts
straight. Any school administrator who tells a teacher not to mention God in
the classroom is flying in the face of the Supreme Court's opinion that
schools may teach about religion. Not only may students speak about God in
the classroom, and even tell about their own beliefs, teachers may also
bring up religious subjects and as appropriate refer to beliefs about God.
The only requirement is that teachers be religiously neutral, i.e., they
cannot express a preference for one form of religion over another; and
students cannot proselytize when they speak of their faith. Neither could
say, for example, that if you don't believe in my form of religion you're
going to hell.

  As for science classes, there is no reason that a teacher cannot say that
certain scientific theories are held by certain people to be compatible or
incompatible with various religious perspectives; and do so in a
non-judgmental way. But they cannot teach as scientific any idea that has
been forbidden by law and court ruling, such as young earth creationism. I
agree that appropriate discussions about the historical relationship between
religion and science should be allowed in science classrooms.

  A widely circulated statement on Religion in the Public Schools drawn up
by thirty-five religious and public advocacy groups, that sets out the legal
dimensions of the issue can be accessed at
http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html. This statement should be
required reading for every school board, school administrator, teacher, and
PTA group; a lot of confusion might be cleared up.

  As for textbooks, the reasons that some of them have not included aspects
of religion in, say, history of science textbooks may be varied. If some
through a faulty undertanding of court rulings have not included them, that
is truly unfortunate. For example, it would be ridiculous to write in an
American history textbook about the abolition movement in the 19th century
without reference to the fact that most of the abolitionists were Christian
clergy and laity acting out of Christian convictions. Textbook writers
respond to pressures from the public, teachers, and legislators. It would be
entirely proper for the public to demand that textbooks give an accurate,
fair and neutral presentation of religious topics to publishers. I see no
reason why a science textbook should not include information on the history
and social developments of science, since it is a cultural force.

  One serious problem is local pressures. It happens regularly that a school
board will vote to include in the curriculum a course on world religions,
and the adherents of a particular denomination will pressure the course to
be dropped because they don't want their children exposed to any religious
ideas other than their own form of Christianity.

  Bob Schneider

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Received on Sun Jan 14 17:39:04 2007