All posts by Adam Laats

Classical Education and Conservatism

What is “classical” education?  Is it a “conservative” thing?

The Heritage Foundation recently published a video lecture by Leigh Bortins, founder and leader of Classical Conversations.

Readers of ILYBYGTH may remember a recent guest post from Patrick Halbrook about the thought of classical education inspiration Dorothy Sayers.

Bortins’ talk at Heritage did not focus too much on Sayers’ work, but rather on teaching homeschooling parents  a classical approach.  Those familiar with the themes of classical Christian education will notice that Bortins mostly assumes the age-graded breakdown of the Trivium, though she does talk us through it.

Her organization, Classical Conversations, claims over 62,000 students enrolled.  Bortins says her program has trained over 8,000 parents, as well as over 16,000 parents who have attended three-day practicums.

Bortins herself now hosts groups of college-age people (currently 19) in her home.  She teaches them in the classical model at her home.

Young people, Bortins insists, must be challenged in age-appropriate ways.  Monotony and repetition, she says, are the right way to teach young people.  Older students must move into questioning and using knowledge to improve themselves and their communities.

Too many contemporary education systems, Bortins argues, focus on basics such as literacy and numeracy.  Instead, education must keep its focus on big questions of virtue and personal formation.  Education, she says, has been turned too often into an industrial processing of young people.

The talk runs for about an hour and is worth your time if you’re interested in understanding the spectrum of conservative ideas about education.  Bortins takes her audience through some exercises relating to teaching with a classical model.  How do we define a common thing?  Bortins uses the example of the Washington Redskins.  What makes the Redskins different from other similar things?  What defines the team?

Parents can learn to engage their student-children in a set of guiding questions like this.  There is no mystery to it, Bortins believes.  Classical education, she says, will allow everyone to enter into all the great conversations from across human history.

Critics might complain that this educational model is literally medieval.  Students in this approach spend time defining, comparing, and disputing, just as young Europeans learned for centuries.

But knee-jerk characterizations of “conservative education” might be thrown off by Bortins’ emphasis on the educational value of the humanization and individualization of education.  Caricatures of conservative education often don’t have room to include Bortins’ emphasis on young people freed to sit under the stars and ponder their existence, young people learning to knit as a way to connect themselves to past generations of civilization.  Bortins’ take on good education revolts against an industrial model that treats young people like widgets.

Yet Bortins also insists on the value of free-market values in education.  She implies a Christian grounding to all true and proper education.  In the American context these days, that puts her in the conservative camp.

Of course, Bortins’ vision of classical education can’t be taken as the last word.  Other classical educators might differ in their definitions and approaches.  But Bortins’ talk gives us at least one prominent classical educator’s explanation of the promise of classical education.

 

3 Comments
by Adam Laats on November 8, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Child Parent State, Freedom & the Free Market, What is school?
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 8, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/11/08/classical-education-and-conservatism/

Fundamentalism’s Roots: A Review

What does it mean to be a “fundamentalist?”

At his lively blog Leaving Fundamentalism, Jonny Scaramanga has offered a review of my 1920s book that puts this question squarely at the center.

Two Thumbs Up...

Two Thumbs Up…

As Scaramanga points out from his current work and from his personal life history, the term “fundamentalist” is often used as more of a bludgeon than a label.  People accuse each other of being “fundamentalist” about this issue or that.  People dither over whether this or that person is a true “fundamentalist.”

Scaramanga notes that unless and until we get a sense of the formative first decade of American fundamentalism—the 1920s—we’ll never wrap our heads around the contentiousness that has always been at the core of defining the term.  I agree entirely.

Best of all, he gave the book a thumbs-up.  As Scaramanga put it,

I was genuinely surprised how much I liked this book. I’m a longtime reader of Adam’s blog and he’s helped me out with research on numerous occasions, so I knew he’s an engaging writer and a top bloke, but I was still expecting to find this a dry, academic slog. Actually, I was riveted. Everything I’ve studied of fundamentalism makes so much more sense in the historical context this book provides. I’d recommend it to people with a casual interest in fundamentalism just as much as those with an academic interest.

Thanks, Jonny.  I don’t think I’ve ever been called a “top bloke” before.  A “top bloke’s” a good thing…right?

8 Comments
by Adam Laats on November 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible and Prayer in the Classroom, Child Parent State, Evolution/Creation, Higher (Power) Education, Tradition in the Classroom
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 5, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/11/05/fundamentalisms-roots-a-review/

Help! My Teacher’s a Girl Now!

Do young children need to be protected from transgender teachers?

Ryan T. Anderson thinks so.  And in his argument, he joins a long conservative tradition of insisting on special culture-war protections for children.

Anderson, a prominent voice in the anti-gay-marriage coalition, argued recently in the pages of the National Review that transgender teachers would force young people to wrestle prematurely with issues of sexuality and gender identity.

His argument came in the context of his opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would make it illegal for some employers to discriminate against gay or transgender people.

In Anderson’s opinion, this is not the latest civil-rights bill.  Sexual identity and gender identity, Anderson argues, are self-identified and self-defined, unlike race.

Perhaps most compelling, Anderson thinks, this bill might force elementary schools to employ men who used to be women, or women who used to be men.  It would force children, Anderson says, to know too much too soon.

As he put it,

Issues of sex and gender identity are psychologically, morally, and politically fraught. But we all ought to agree that young children should be protected from having to sort through such questions before an age-appropriate introduction. ENDA, however, would prevent employers from protecting children from adult debates about sex and gender identity by barring employers from making certain decisions about transgendered employees.

Although ENDA includes some exemptions for religious education, it provides no protection for students in other schools who could be prematurely exposed to questions about sex and gender if, for example, a male teacher returned to school identifying as a woman.

Anderson’s argument about age-exemptions for culture-war issues echoes a traditional theme among educational conservatives.  On the issue of evolution, for example, many conservative intellectuals of the first generation of fundamentalists argued that evolution could fairly be taught, but only at the college level.

As I argued in my 1920s book, this seemingly moderate view was held by some of the most vituperative anti-evolutionists.

William Jennings Bryan, for example, the Bible-believing man-of-the-people who stood up for the Bible at the Scopes Trial, repeatedly insisted that evolution should be taught, but with proper regard for the intellectual maturity of students.  In colleges, it should be taught as an influential theory about the origins of life.  But in primary grades, students must not be taught that evolution was the simple and only truth.

Even the hot-headed polemicist T. T. Martin, author of the relentless Hell and the High Schools, didn’t insist that evolution must be utterly banned from all schools.  In a 1923 speech, Martin suggested a new set of “graded books, from primary to university.”  These books could introduce evolutionary ideas gradually, until at last for the most mature students the books would present “fairly and honestly both sides of the Evolution issue.”

Martin's Booth at the Scopes Trial, 1925

As Anderson’s recent argument about transgender teachers makes clear, the notion that young people in school must enjoy special protection from threatening ideas still has punch in today’s culture-war debates.  Conservatives have long insisted that children must be protected from premature exposure to issues of sex and origins.

 

 

3 Comments
by Adam Laats on November 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Evolution/Creation, Teaching Sex and Sexuality
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 5, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/11/05/help-my-teachers-a-girl-now/

Hamas, Textbooks, and a Real Educational Culture War

What does a real educational culture war look like?  A recent story in the New York Times describes the way the Hamas government in Palestine’s Gaza Strip has pushed its all-out war against Israel into its textbooks.

The militant Hamas government has produced new histories that glorify the role of Hamas, that denigrate Israeli land claims, and that teach a self-consciously heroic history to youngsters in the Gaza Strip.

Will these textbooks change the way the next generation understands the Palestinian/Israeli conflict?

The director of the research study about the Hamas textbooks thinks so.

As quoted in the NYT story, Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor at Tel Aviv University, explained,

When a leader says something, not everyone is listening. But when we talk about textbooks, all the children, all of a particular peer group, will be exposed to a particular material. . . . This is the strongest card.

Fair enough.  Textbooks matter.  As Professor Bar-Tal carefully put it, textbooks “expose” children to a certain perspective.   As we’ve seen in the American context, every conservative group from the American Legion to Accelerated Christian Education has attempted to introduce patriotic or religious textbooks that will transform schooling and culture.

But “exposing” children to a certain worldview is not the same as imposing that worldview on them.  Textbooks make up only one part of education.  As we’ve seen with evolution/creation battles in the USA, the way teachers use textbooks is significantly more important.  As political scientists Eric Plutzer and Michael Berkman argued, teachers function as “street-level bureaucrats,” making important decisions about what to teach and how to teach it (pg. 149, see also pps. 160-169, 219).

As the NYT article argues, Hamas certainly seems to understand this.  The education policies of Hamas have ranged far beyond altering textbooks.  Hamas sends morality police to patrol school campuses for proper behavior between boys and girls.  They have also made important structural changes in schools in the Gaza Strip.

Most of all, we see in this case the central importance of schooling and education in culture-war battles far beyond the shores of the United States.  It seems whenever two groups come into drawn-out conflict, schools become an important battleground.

 

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by Adam Laats on November 5, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 5, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/11/05/hamas-textbooks-and-a-real-educational-culture-war/

Faith & Physics, Part II

ILYBYGTH is happy to continue our series of guest posts from Anna.  In her first post, Anna described her shift from creation science to mainstream science.  Today she tells us a little bit about the way she learned her creationist science as a kid.  Anna blogs about her experiences leaving the fundamentalist subculture at Signs You Are a Sheltered Evangelical.  She holds an M.Sc. degree in Astroparticle Physics and currently lives in Virginia with her fiance Chelsey and a cat named Cat.

Creationist Curriculum

I am a conservative, anti-government-educator’s dream.  Because I was homeschooled, my family had the unique opportunity to control every aspect of my education completely.  Part of this included being taught with a Christian science curriculum that supported Biblical 6-day creation, denied Evolution, described scientific evidence for a global flood, and opposed modern environmental policies.  When I tell my secular peers this, the reactions of shock, horror, and amazement are often rather comical.  Very often, I am told that I must be remarkably resilient or intelligent to be able to make a successful science career for myself after being handicapped by my early education.  As much as I’d love to accept the accolades, I simply don’t see it that way.  My seemingly-bizarre education did not hamper me much at all, and in some ways, I must credit it for inspiring me to become a scientist in the first place.  Although I cannot defend the inaccuracies in the curriculum, I still have fond memories of it, and I can highlight both the shortcomings and successes of the book series.

My formal science education, I believe, started around age 10 or 11 (since I was homeschooled, I did not progress through formal grades, so it is sometimes very difficult for me to track the passage of time without these milestones to help.)  I was started on an A-beka book, which I remember little of besides loathing.  It was spiral bound with wire and the pages were made of cheap paper, meaning that they were constantly tearing out, scattering across the floor, and getting lost.  Besides that, the text itself was dry, the pages were cluttered with illustrations that illustrated nothing, and the quizzes (aptly named “brain drains”) never seemed to pertain to the actual text and would often quiz you in facts only found in the illustration captions.

For the rest of my pre-college education, I used Apologia‘s Christian-centered curriculum by Dr. Wile, and I loved it.  Over the years, I worked through Exploring Creation with General Science, Exploring Creation with Physical Science,  Exploring Creation with Biology, Exploring Creation with Chemistry, Exploring Creation with Physics, and Advanced Physics in Creation.  I wish that I had a copy of some of these books still with me… especially the 1st edition of General Science and Physical Science (if anyone feels like getting me an early Christmas present… I won’t say no) because I recall those two books having the most absurdities in them.  Obviously, I cannot cover all of the curriculum in detail, but I can shed some light on the divergences from science that I recall.

Image Source: Apologia

Image Source: Apologia

I have to laugh now recalling that one of the books (General Science, I think) had an entire chapter devoted to attempting to validate the Bible as an accurate scientific and historical record.  This would seem grossly out of place in any standard science text.  For a creationist, however, it is perfectly reasonable and, indeed, necessary to discuss this in depth.  I recall in my early years of college, seeing my peers and professors laugh at the absurdity of creationism.  “Scientists start with evidence and draw a conclusion from it.  Creationists start with a conclusion and draw evidence for it,” was posted on my professor’s office door.  I felt a little defensive.  “We all tend to accept conclusions that come from reputable, repeatedly-tested sources,” I thought.  “If the Bible were not reputable and repeatedly-tested, then obviously accepting claims from it would be absurd, but that is not the case.”  Much of my conviction on the validity of the Bible originated from the early Apologia texts.  It’s important to remember that Creationists do not see themselves as anti-science… they want to find compelling evidence for their claims.  As a result, I waded through a chapter discussing the accuracy of Bible translations, similarities between different Biblical manuscripts, refutations of Biblical contradictions, etc.  The purpose of this was to prove that the Bible could be reliably used as a basis for scientific theory.  To exclude this chapter would be grossly negligent if claims in the Bible are indeed the basis of your theory.  Even so, the whole conversation bored me; I wanted to learn science.

The Physical Science textbook spent an inordinate amount of time condemning modern environmental policies as fraudulent.  I recall the book passionately opposing the ban on CFC’s, claiming that the ozone hole was a scare tactic used by politicians to promote a hysterical agenda, and predicting that people would suffer from increased rates of infection now that medical tools could no longer be sterilized by the chemical.  These political discussions now irritate me more than any of the other inaccuracies in the books.  I had been raised when I was young in a very rural area and had developed a great love of nature.  I was fiercely protective of the environment, and all of the flora and fauna in it.  I wrote an article to my local newspaper about reducing litter when I was 11 years old or so which I was very proud to see published.  As such, it angers me in retrospect that I was taught so many lies about proper stewardship of the environment and that I believed them for so long.  I have never fully understood why Christian Fundamentalism is so opposed to environmental protection, and yet it seems to be a common theme.  Apologia science chose to start kids on that path early.

The Biology text book focused on disproving Evolution.  Of course.  In all honesty, as silly as 6-day-creation seems to me now, my Bible-based text book really did not deprive me of a decent education on evolutionary biology.  Because of the sheer amount of information I was provided with to refute Evolution I came away with a pretty darned good understanding of it.  I disbelieved it, of course, but once I came around to accepting true science, I was no further behind in understanding than any of my secular peers.  This is why the shock-and-horror response to my anti-evolution education makes me chuckle a little.  If one truly wants to argue effectively against an opponent, one must know his position at least as well as he does.  Thus, I truly believe that my anti-evolution text served me surprisingly well.

Now that I’ve discussed all of these lies, distortions, and absurdities, you might wonder how I can have a favorable memory of Apologia at all.  Well, for one, the books were very well written.  Their style was conversational, without sacrificing content.  The illustrations were meaningful and placed sparingly to complement the text, rather than cluttering the book.  Learning felt like learning… like you were truly on a road to discovery, rather than simply memorizing information for a test.  And, perhaps most awesome of all, if you emailed the author, he would email you back within 24 hours.  If I ever found myself confused by a concept or curious about some theory, I would write to him and eagerly await his response.  He was always friendly and informative with his replies.  Perhaps my enthusiasm over this simple email contact seems exaggerated but, remember, I was homeschooled.  I was almost entirely in charge of my own education by the time I reached higher sciences.  My mother did not have the education to help me in science or math, and none of the other homeschooling moms in my group were any better.  Whenever I was uncertain about something, I would have to figure it out myself.  Thus, having an authority figure to direct my questions to was amazing.  I felt like I was talking to a celebrity.  My childish enthusiasm aside, I think that it also highlights Dr. Wile’s admirable dedication to education.  It meant a lot to me at the time, and I still think back on it fondly.

Dr. Wile was one of my inspirations to become a scientist.  I loved his enthusiasm for the subject, I loved his dedication to the students using his books, and I wanted to emulate that.  Honestly, I still do.  As an instructor, I strive to let my enthusiasm show, to infect others with it, and to always make myself available to my students for questions and assistance.  But what about the science-denial?  It is still a bit difficult for me to look back on authority figures and members of my community that I looked up to and respected and wonder: are they just ignorant, or are they purposely deceptive?  How can a scientist be completely honest with him- or herself and still make the claim that ALL evidence points to a 6-day creation, without question or doubt?  I give myself a lot of grace for my early ignorance because I was young and had little access to any information outside of the pre-approved worldview that I was being fed.  But creationists like Ken Ham, Dr. Wile, and others have no such excuse.  So, without being able to see inside their minds, can I offer them the grace of assuming that they are truly honest in their seeking and have just been misled?  I think the answer is both yes and no, and it is greatly complicated by a wide array of cultural factors involved in the creation/evolution debate.  In order to begin to tackle this, I need to first discuss the factors and pressures that surround a creationist belief in the first place.  For that, however, you will have to wait for the next installment.

 

 

8 Comments
by Adam Laats on November 3, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Child Parent State, Evolution/Creation, What is school?
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Posted by Adam Laats on November 3, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/11/03/faith-physics-part-ii/

Public Schools and the Culture of Death

Do public schools disregard the sanctity of life?

That’s the charge recently from Answers In Genesis’ Ken Ham.  Ham responded to an article in which a public-school textbook author wondered about when life begins.  Ham’s argument can tell us a few things about religion, creationism, and public schooling.

Ham, arguably America’s leading young-earth creationism advocate, argued that Dr. Ricki Lewis failed to promote a Biblical vision of the beginnings of life.  Lewis argued that science could not offer a simple explanation of the point at which life began.

As she wrote,

that is a question not only of biology, but of philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, technology, and emotions. . . . textbooks list the characteristics of life, leaving interpretation to the reader.

Dr. Lewis offered seventeen common interpretations of the beginnings of life, from pre-conception to birth to puberty.  In her opinion, the best answer was somewhere in the middle.  Life became life, she thought, at roughly week 22 of pregnancy, the point at which most babies can survive outside the mothers’ wombs.

Ham disagreed.  “Sadly,” he argued,

Dr. Lewis’s conclusion is false. She reaches it using human reasoning rather than the Word of God, and that’s likely how biology writers and teachers across the country are instructing their students to determine when life begins. No wonder so many think that abortion is not killing a human being—or really murdering a human being!

For those of us who follow the educational culture-wars from the sidelines, Ham’s argument can tell us a few things.  First of all, it helps us understand that many creationists care about more than just evolution.  They have much broader religious visions for schooling.  Second, it shows us that many religious conservatives have already given up hope for public schooling.

For those new to the creationism/evolution scene, it may seem surprising that a young-earth creationist such as Ken Ham would be interested in issues such as abortion and the beginnings of life.  But Ham and other creationists are first and foremost conservative evangelical Protestants.  Creationism may be the issue for which they garner the most attention, but other issues such as gay marriage and abortion remain of central interest.

Also, Ham’s post shows the attitude shared by many religious conservatives about public schooling.  Ham takes it as a given that public schooling is fraught with perils to faith.  He opens his argument by reminding readers that public schools have been traveling down a dangerous road for some time.  As he puts it,

One of the major trends many of us have witnessed over the years has been the way God has basically been thrown out of the public education system, including secular colleges and universities. Students often have to contend with teaching that is contradictory to God’s Word—especially when it comes to the origin of the universe.

Abortion, climate change, evolution, gay marriage…all are of central interest to conservative activists.  And, most important for these pages, all issues in which schooling and education will continue to play a central role.

 

1 Comment
by Adam Laats on October 31, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Evolution/Creation
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 31, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/10/31/public-schools-and-the-culture-of-death/

BioLogos: Comments Are Back

Good news for those who want to see more open dialogue on vexing questions of God, creation, and evolution.  The “evolutionary creationist” group BioLogos has reinstated its open-comment policy on its blog.

As we reported recently, BioLogos decided to nix those comments.  After reader uproar, they’ve decided to put them back.  As Content Manager Jim Stump explained,

While we want to introduce new paths for dialogue via a “Letters to the Editor” feature, we see now that we didn’t need to shut down an existing forum for communication. We’ve heard stories of how the comments section has been a haven for gracious dialogue, and of how it continues to be a key part of our witness to the church and the world. We want to build on that dialogue, not close it off. So the comments section is back.

Hear hear.  As Stump explained, the comments on a site such as BioLogos provide a unique forum.  In his words,

There are too few organizations that allow the free flow of discussion about these issues; we want to continue to be one of them.

Let’s give the folks at BioLogos credit for being willing to change their policies.  Too often in these kinds of discussions, petty resentments and stiff backs prevent sensible shifts like this one.

 

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by Adam Laats on October 31, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Evolution/Creation
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 31, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/10/31/biologos-comments-are-back/

Should Adults Lie to Children?

I’ll say it: Lying to children is a vital part of a good education.

Adults lie to children all the time.  Santa Claus. Easter Bunny. Tooth Fairy. Daddy will eventually come home again…

But can such lies be considered “education?”  Our attitude toward this question might tell us a thing or two about the continuing culture wars over American education.

The question came up again in Professor Jerry Coyne’s review of Jonny Scaramanga’s Salon article.  For those of you who just joined the party, Professor Coyne is an irascible atheist and scientist.  He is an inveterate campaigner against creationism and delusional religionism.  Scaramanga is a recovering fundamentalist, blogger, and sometime contributor to these pages.  Scaramanga’s Salon article decried the repackaged fundamentalist curricula that are being taught in some publicly funded charter schools in Texas.

In response, Coyne thundered,

Adults have the right to be as stupid as they want, but I don’t think they have the right to tell lies to children. Those lies include not only religious dogma, but the antiscience attitudes that come with it. How sad that a group of bright and curious children can become ignorant, superstitious ideologues simply because they were born into the wrong families.

Professor Coyne is not the first science pundit to take this position.  In his 1964 anti-creationism book This View of Life, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson blasted the lies that had thwarted evolution education.  “Even now,” Simpson argued,

a hundred years after The Origin of Species, most people have not really entered the world into which Darwin led—alas!—only a minority of us.  Life may be considerably happier for some people in the older worlds of superstition.  It is possible that some children are made happy by a belief in Santa Claus, but adults should prefer to live in a world of reality and reason.

But as anyone involved with education knows, adults lie to children all the time.  Doing so is a vital part of every good education.  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1.) “This is what we believe.” 

Every education, in every culture, whether it means formal schooling, apprenticeships, or informal instruction, includes the passing along of central ideas.  Professor Coyne meant that adults should not tell young people things that are untrue.  But what if the adults believe it fervently?  Is that a lie?  Or, to complicate the matter, what if the adult isn’t sure if she believes it fervently, but is convinced that it will be good for the young person to believe?  For example, in the world of religious faith, an adult may have had serious doubts about her faith, but decide that a young person is not yet mature enough to consider those gray areas.  She might then tell young people that certain religious mysteries are simply truths, knowing that later the child will and should wrestle with the more complicated questions about it.

2.) “You can do this.”

This can be a flat-out lie.  Teachers and parents often work to inspire confidence in their children and students, even when the adults are very unsure of the truth of their statements.  Adults may have serious doubts that young people can, indeed, accomplish certain goals.  Yet the adults might tell the children that such goals are definitely, absolutely, 100% achievable.  It’s a lie.  But it is something good parents and teachers do.

3.) “I hate phonies.”

In our culture, many of the biggest truths are best understood through lies.  I’m no Salinger fan, but I still remember reading Catcher in the Rye in high school.  I remember Holden’s struggle with phonies.  It taught me important truths about the ways people interact with one another.  None of it was “true,” of course.  It was all fiction, all lies.  But my teacher taught me those lies.  And I’m very glad she did.

Our attitude about lying to young people can tell us a lot about our positions on key educational culture-war issues.  Professors Coyne and Simpson think it is not okay for young people to learn creationism or other religious falsehoods.  But that position doesn’t include room for the complexities of real education.  Adults lie to children all the time, for the children’s benefit.  Sometimes they do so deliberately.

But more often, adults tell children things that the adults think are true.  Creationists don’t set out to deceive their children; they hope instead to protect their children from the deceptions of mainstream science.

But what if we don’t agree that creationism is true?  Are those creationists guilty of lying to children?  Professor Simpson said yes.  Professor Coyne says yes.  Jonny Scaramanga, I’m guessing, would say yes.

I disagree.  Teaching children our core beliefs is not lying.  Even if I think those beliefs are untrue (and I do think young-earth creationist beliefs are untrue), parents who teach such things to their children are guilty of nothing more than educating their offspring.

There is no parental right more fundamental than that.

 

3 Comments
by Adam Laats on October 29, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Child Parent State, What is school?
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 29, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/10/29/should-adults-lie-to-children/

What Do Conservatives Want from Public Schools?

We often hear of conservative attacks on this or that curricular item in public schools.  Conservatives want sex ed out.  They want evolution out.  They block this and they block that.

But many conservative school activists also have a strong idea of the kinds of things they want IN public schools.  The Texas Freedom Network Insider shared recently a review form from the Texas State Board of Education.  The questions asked by the SBOE tip readers squarely in the direction of conservative, traditionalist textbooks.

These Texas conservatives might take a page from their grandparents’ playbook.  In the 1920s and 1930s, conservative activists promoted their own textbooks in America’s public schools.  Tired of seeing books that bashed capitalism or traditional family values, conservatives in those decades took matters into their own hands.

The tactics from today’s conservative activists seem more modest.  As the TFN Insider points out, the review form used by the Texas SBOE asks reviewers to respond to “politically loaded” questions such as the following:

“Does this lesson present positive aspects of US heritage?”

“Does this lesson present unbiased materials and illustrations?”

“Does this lesson present generally accepted standards of behavior and lifestyles?”

“Does this lesson promote respect for citizenship and patriotism?”

“Does this lesson promote the free enterprise system?”

These questions hint at the kinds of things conservatives would like to see in textbooks and classroom materials.

Conservatives in Texas might find inspiration from their grandparents’ generation.  There’s nothing new about conservative hopes for textbooks that promote capitalism, patriotism, traditional lifestyles, and a good attitude about the USA.  But in the past, conservative activists did more than just ask reviewers to look for such things.

In the 1920s, for example, the American Legion sponsored a new textbook that promised to give students a patriotic yet accurate story of America’s roots.  When Charles Hoyne’s The Story of the American People appeared in 1926, conservatives lavished praise upon it.  The Klan-backed governor of Oregon, Walter M. Pierce, sent Hoyne a gushing letter.  Pierce called the volumes “the finest history of early America that we have ever had.”  Other conservatives agreed, calling the book a blessing to “the loyal and liberty-loving people of our country” and books that defended “the spirit of American patriotism.”

Unfortunately for Hoyne, for the American Legion, and for the conservatives who jumped to embrace the new textbooks, other readers had different opinions.  A Legion-appointed review committee found the books to be full of errors.  Writing in the pages of Harper’s, critic Harold Underwood Faulkner called the books “perverted American history.”

Image Source: Amazon.com

Image Source: Amazon.com

In the end, despite high hopes for schoolbooks that would finally put a positive—but accurate—spin on all things American, the Legion withdrew their support and Hoyne’s books went nowhere.

The National Association of Manufacturers had much more success producing capitalism-friendly school materials.  Starting in 1939, NAM sent educational literature and classroom posters to roughly 17,000 classroom teachers and school administrators.  Being savvy businessmen, the leaders of the NAM wanted to know if this investment was a good one.  They wanted to know if the pamphlets made people like capitalism better.  To find out, they hired pollster Henry Abt to survey the schools.  Abt reported that most of the teachers considered the NAM-produced books “primarily as an informational service; an authoritative source of economic and social data.”  From the NAM’s perspective, nothing could be better.  Students read NAM’s paeans to capitalism and took them as authoritative social science.

Perhaps the book reviewers in Texas might take a page from the lessons of the 1920s and 1930s.  If conservatives really want to see more conservative textbooks, they might have to publish them themselves.  Of course, they’d want to watch out for the Hoyne trap.  Any classroom materials must be more like the slick, glossy pamphlets and posters distributed by the National Association of Manufacturers.  Anything else will end up just an embarrassment.

 

 

 

1 Comment
by Adam Laats on October 27, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Freedom & the Free Market
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 27, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/10/27/what-do-conservatives-want-from-public-schools/

Commenting, Evolution, and Public Forums

Another prominent website in the evolution/creation debates has changed its comment policy.

As you may recall, Popular Science announced recently that it was shutting off public comments entirely.  Now BioLogos has decided to vet, edit, and publish only select comments, along with author response.

For those new to the scene, BioLogos has made itself the leading voice for theistic evolution, what its leaders often call “evolutionary creationism.”  Founded by evangelical scientist Francis Collins, the organization has hoped to spread the idea that good science and good religion do not need to conflict.  Bible-believing Christians, BioLogos believes, can still embrace evolutionary science.

But that does not mean, apparently, that good manners and blog commenting can go together.  BioLogos’ Content Manager Jim Stump explained their reasoning for changing their public comment policy.  Too much of the online discussion, Stump said, was dominated by a few voices.  Instead of merely leaving comments open, editors will solicit email comments.  Those comments will be organized into a more coherent back-and-forth between commenters and original authors.  The hope is that this model will encourage more participation from more people than the open-forum approach.

Will it work?

If it does, is it worth the price of restricting open dialogue?

Ferocious critic Jerry Coyne called this a “desperation move” by an organization foundering on the shoals of reality.  Too many commenters, Coyne argued, were asking awkward questions and making persuasive arguments.  The real questions—about how God interacts with the world—proved threatening to BioLogos’ position on the compatibility of science and faith, Coyne said.  Too wide a chasm yawned between real science—which recognizes the extremely unlikeliness of humanity deriving from only two people—and evangelical religion—which insists on an historical Adam & Eve.

I don’t share Professor Coyne’s contempt for the BioLogos mission.  I believe the evolution/creation debates have plenty of room for scientific belief that rubs along with religious belief.

But I agree with Coyne that shutting down comments to preclude dominance by a few voices doesn’t make much sense.  The purpose of this sort of online publication is precisely to allow a free flow of ideas and discussion between people who might not otherwise meet one another.  If a few vociferous voices dominate that discussion, so be it.

A better way to include the unincluded would be actively to solicit short columns and opinion pieces by a wide spectrum of readers.  That way, more voices could be included from people who might shy away from the hurly-burly of an active and combative open-comment forum.

 

5 Comments
by Adam Laats on October 27, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Evolution/Creation
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Posted by Adam Laats on October 27, 2013

https://iloveyoubutyouregoingtohell.org/2013/10/27/commenting-evolution-and-public-forums/

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