Dinner Doodle: The Separation of Church and School

[John Dibble]

This week's dinner doodle is full of blatant lies that are standard to evangelical Christian propaganda. Let's analyze the Public School column, shall we?

1. Blatantly false. The subject of abortion isn't even broached in most public schools.

2. Blatantly false. At most schools are required to teach kids not to bully others for their sexual orientation. If anything most teacher tip-toe around the subject even in that case. Teaching it as God-designed is blatantly unconstitutional as well, as that goes into religion.

3. True in regards to science class, but this is because the Bible and God are not science and as such are not viable scientific alternatives to evolutionary theory. Religions are not allowed to be taught as fact in American public schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. However, they can selectively be allowed in other contexts. For instance in my senior year of English my school's textbook included the King James version of the creation story and the fall in Genesis - the point was to look at it as a piece of literature. You can also have a comparative theology class where you compare major world religions that can involve reading religious texts.

4. False. The teaching of history in high school is certainly flawed, but only because it is dumbed down. The religious character of the founding fathers isn't really even touched in most schools, let alone misrepresented. The founding fathers weren't all a bunch of evangelical Christians anyways. Some where Christians of various stripes and some were deists, with Thomas Jefferson being the most prominent example of the latter. The Treaty of Tripoli should also shatter any notion that America was founded as a Christian nation anyways.

5. Blatantly false. Public schools cannot prohibit students to pray, with the exception of when a student is trying to lead a prayer as part of an official school event. Students can even make prayer gatherings outside of class time if they so choose, as they often did around the flag pole at my school. What is prohibited is the school endorsing and encouraging prayer.

[John Dibble]

1. Blatantly false. The subject of abortion isn't even broached in most public schools.

how do you know this?  do you have children in school?

2. Blatantly false. At most schools are required to teach kids not to bully others for their sexual orientation. If anything most teacher tip-toe around the subject even in that case. Teaching it as God-designed is blatantly unconstitutional as well, as that goes into religion.

how do you know this?  do you have children in school?

4. False. The teaching of history in high school is certainly flawed, but only because it is dumbed down. The religious character of the founding fathers isn't really even touched in most schools, let alone misrepresented.

how do you know this?  do you have children in school?

I know these thing because I went to public school and I keep up with these issues.

What exactly is your evidence for the claims?

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that is exactly the point
[/quote]

No, the placemat says they "must not allow prayer" - that is a gross oversimplification and a child is likely to interpret it as the schools not allowing prayer at all.

1. Blatantly false. The subject of abortion isn't even broached in most public schools.

so, you're actually trying to tell me abortion is NOT even broached in sex ed class?

Not in most curricula I am aware of. Contraceptives such as condoms and the pill might be taught if it isn't an abstinence only curriculum, but given that abortion is a touchy subject most school boards and state governments prefer not to touch it.

[John Dibble]

I know these thing because I went to public school and I keep up with these issues.

What exactly is your evidence for the claims?

so, did you keep up with the public school that facilitated an abortion for a 15 year old in WA?

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/88971742.html#Two

Congratulations on finding one anecdote that isn't even inside the sex ed classes you mentioned before, but rather in the school clinic. Clearly one anecdote means that the policy of all public schools is the same, which is why this video of a public school assembly where the speaker talks against homosexuality and abortion must also mean it's a universal policy. So clearly public schools are are a bunch of abortion giving gay lovers who also preach against abortion and

Do you actually have some laws or outright stated policies for a state curriculum that reflect these views in regards to abortion?

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http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/House/H00597

Bill H.597
An Act to investigate the use of computed tomography (CT) scans in the Commonwealth.

Or are you talking about the what is "going on statewide" in the present year of 2007?

I went and found that bill, and I don't see exactly where the problem is. Could you point out explicitly which part of the bill offends your delicate sensibilities? Perhaps it's the part that lets parents opt their kids out of it?

http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/185/ht00/ht00597.htm

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The behavior of individual teachers is not a matter of policy and can be dealt with on a case by case basis.

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Well, when the school doesn’t allow anyone to pray publically, the message the kid gets is that school is opposed to prayer in schools.  Kids correctly extrapolate.[/quote]

You really should actually read my posts in full before responding to them. They are allowed to pray publicly. I gave a specific example where in the school I went to the students had regular prayer meetups quite publicly around the flag pole in front of the school.

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What curriculums are you aware of, exactly?[/quote]

I'm aware of the ones in Georgia that never mention abortion. I'm aware that many states have abstinence only sex ed. I'm aware that most curricula that teach contraception don't teach about abortion. (I'm not aware of a single one that does, in fact)

I could pose the same question to you - do you even know what the sex ed curriculum is at the school your kids go to?

[John Dibble]

Dibble, you seem to be saying that "if it is not offically mandated, then it is not going on."

No, I'm saying that the placemat grossly oversimplifies things and in some cases outright lies.

I'm damn well aware that teachers don't always adhere to policy. It goes both ways - 15 percent of biology teachers teach creationism even though it's well known to be unconstitutional to do so.

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And if you feel that any of this is in violation of some kind of policy or the Constitution, have you bothered to take yourself to the principal and voice your concerns? Or gone to the local school board meeting? Or talked to any lawyers if that failed so you can get the matter addressed by the courts to get the schools back into adhering with policy?

Or is your best effort giving your kids a dinner placemat?

[John Dibble]

the main problem with the school is many of the teachers are godless and do not represent the community at all, and many students, under attack from teachers, have to stand their ground on morals

notice I made this statement months before this dinner doodle was published...

I hardly doubt what is going on in our public school is an aberration...but I'm not going to waste time googling incidences in other parts of the country, for of all the examples that have happened just at our highschool, I don't think any ever made the news.  Most of the examples in our school happen in the classroom and are simply reported to parents like me by children like mine, and I assume that is the case in the vast majority of these instances throughout the country.

Your particular school is not necessarily representative of every high school in the country. I swear you're being almost as bad as BRTD in using anecdotes to determine what the world is like. There are schools which go the opposite way - I recall a story about a public school where both the staff and the students were mostly quite religious and when one student came out as an atheist things got so bad for her that her parents had to withdraw her and start home schooling her. The vast majority of Americans are religious, and I don't know of any statistic indicating that high school teachers greatly deviate from the norm.

Again, if you feel that the teachers aren't adhering to professional standards are you actually doing something about it other than griping about it on the internet and giving your kids a placemat?

[John Dibble]

1) How many godless, intellectually dishonest, incompetent “scholars” running universities have we dragged through the mud on this board over the years?  If that is what is running the universities (as well as the Hollywood, the media, and even many seminaries),

That you've managed to drag a number of people whose credentials are questionable that you learned about in sensationalist news articles is not a reflection of who is actually running universities.

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Our primary public education system have a few degrees of separation as Nathan points out. You have different groups running them, as well as different compositions among the groups attending.

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You still haven't pointed out exactly which part of said bill offends you so.

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The reason seminary grads often end up rejecting the Bible is because two of the big things they learn are the actual history regarding how the Bible was compiled and counter-apologetic arguments that they'll be expected to be able to defend against. That's the risk you take when you expose someone to facts and criticism that are counter to what they've believed to be true - they might change their mind.

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I assure you many of us are quite aware of the changes occurring within society, but at the same time your end of days paranoia blinds you to all the places where your "Christian values" still run rampant. This country most of all among Western nation is considered to be quite an oddity because of the sheer degree of religiosity that is present.