RE: [asa] Homeschooling and Creation Science

In some off-list conversation, I've thought of a few ideas to take the ASA
message to a younger audience, in particular the homeschool audience which
is pretty much monopolized today by YEC.
 
What if ASA'ers around the country were to get up a coordinated effort to
put together a well presented booth for homeschool fairs and other venues,
talking about science and faith issues, have curriculum available, and even
encourage students to sign up for the PSCF newsletter? A series of talking
points could be put together to answer questions people would ask. The
problem is that the ASA doesn't have any curriculum, per se, but there were
several booths at our local convention which dealt with a lot of education
related subjects which didn't have actual curriculum texts. There are
probably other venues, but the homeschool conference is just one that comes
to mind for me because that's been a recent experience. But it could be
potentially used elsewhere.
 
and,
 
Even though ASA doesn't have much material geared toward K-12 age audience,
I think a sufficiently well-instructed homeschooler could make it through a
number of the available publications. Certainly Francis Collins' book,
maybe even Perspectives on an Evolving Creation for those a little more
science-inclined, probably many articles in the PSCF as well. The biggest
challenge is to make the Christian public aware that they exist, and why
they should care.
 
In fact another project I would suggest for the ASA is a children's version
of PSCF, taking subjects and even extant articles and portions of books, and
boiling them down to a simple read for the upper elementary and middle
school reading level. For someone who had the interest and ability to spend
the time on it, this would be an excellent project for some ASA member or
group, to take the education down to a younger level and start providing
that sort of resource. There are already some youth and homeschool links on
the ASA Web site. These are a good start, but where are they publicized or
used except for the lucky who stumble across them online?
 
The real problem, as I see it, is the mentality that I myself have had in
the past. It's only been in the last year since receiving ASA e-mail that
I've been willing to consider evolution or local flood or a non-simplistic
reading of Adam and Eve as a scientific fact, and even then I don't like the
implications. We are very careful as Christian parents what our children
take in, and what worldview it's representing. If a children's publication
were to be started, it would have a steep uphill battle against the parents'
concerns over Biblical integrity and lack of science education in the
parents. If the children's PSCF were to take on subjects like, was the
Biblical flood global like we learned in Sunday school, or is evolution a
scientific fact (as inevitably it would have to take on these subjects),
parents who themselves haven't come to understand or be comfortable with
these subjects may pull it out of their kids' hands in suspicion that it's a
"worldly plot" to indoctrinate their children toward atheism. I don't know
how to get past that, except to draw the parents into the magazine itself,
and engage parents as well as children to consider the evidences, and also
to make the magazine very clearly Christian in the sense that Perspectives
on an Evolving Creation has tried to do, to mix an attitude of wonder at
God's creation together with the scientific evidences. As such, it would in
many ways have to focus probably 70-90% on non-controversial subjects of
teaching children the wonder of creation, and mix in some overt and covert
references to the controversial issues to begin the process of education.
 
 
Jon Tandy
 

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Jon Tandy
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 2:19 PM
To: 'ASA Discussion Group'
Subject: [asa] Homeschooling and Creation Science

The other day I mentioned a book which we picked up at a homeschool
conference. It was a bit discouraging walking through the many vendor
aisles, looking at all the various booths and seeing what seemed like all of
them packing various YEC-slanted materials on the sciences (it would be
impossible to tell without looking through them all, but that's a good
guess). I realized that this is going to be (and probably already is) a
formidable force, as the homeschooling movement has picked up steam over the
last 20 years.
 

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Received on Mon Apr 30 18:41:49 2007