John Horgan asks a key question today in a Scientific American blog post: What should teachers say to religious students who doubt evolution?

He asked groups of students to describe their feelings about evolution.  Of thirty-five students, twenty felt that evolution allowed religious belief.  Six said that science made religious explanations unnecessary.  Nine said they rejected evolution due to their religious beliefs.

It sounds to me that his students reflect the beliefs of Americans as a whole.

Horgan reflects,

“I feel a bit queasy, I admit, challenging their faith, from which some of them derive great comfort. Part of me agrees with one student who wrote: ‘Each individual is entitled to his or her own religious beliefs… Authority figures teaching America’s youth should not be permitted to say certain things such as any religion being simply “wrong” due to a certain scientific explanation.’ On the other hand, if I don’t prod these young people into questioning their most cherished beliefs, I’m not doing my job, am I?”

This short paragraph sums up the toughest dilemma for those who want to teach evolution.  In no other case would we say that a student’s background should be belittled or dismissed.  In no other case would caring teachers suggest that they wanted students to reject their family backgrounds in order to fit in to the modern world.

But in the case of evolution, as Horgan laments, teachers seem to be stuck precisely in that position.  If teachers encourage students to remain true to their home cultures, teachers must allow students to ignore a fundamental premise of science.  But if teachers insist their students learn evolution, teachers must accept the role of hostile imposition against that home culture.

There are models out there.  Lee Meadows, a science educator at the University of Alabama Birmingham, has offered an inquiry model for evolution education that suggests “accommodations” for “resistant” students.  As Meadows argues in The Missing Link,

“From my view, science teachers trying to drive out students’ beliefs is just as inappropriate as teaching creationism or intelligent design.  This is true whether that intention is overt or subtle.  Public schools must embrace diversity of all kinds, including students from all religious backgrounds.”

Meadows does not suggest teaching a watered-down evolution curriculum.  Nor does he suggest that “resistant” students be allowed to pass through without really learning evolutionary concepts.  But he applies a basic truth of good teaching to evolution education.  Namely, we must start by caring about our students as people; we must first seek to understand them in all their complexities before we set out to teach them.  When we get to know our students as individuals, we can then talk to them about important ideas, many of which may be unsettling or difficult.

Is that an easy job with a single student?  No.  Even harder when we have 150 students every day.  But that’s why teachers earn the big money, after all.