Schools Teaching Religious Fundamentalism Are Endangering Creative Thinking WORLD-WIDE

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

Out of 404,151 students, you're offering 6100 scholarships. Yeah Ok.

What, you expect them to offer 404,151 scholarships? Because, you know, everyone in Chicago is Catholic and wants to go to Catholic school.

You said there are zero scholarships, I cite one source that says that there are 6,100 and I'm the one who doesn't know what they're talking about. Mmmmmkay.

reply to post by Cuervo



I don't think you guys really understand. Im going to leave it at that.

reply to post by adjensen


No. My point is that private schools and home schooling isn't the answer for your average family. You say public schools aren't as good as private schools? But, most inner city kids can't get into private schools, so we either have to open more charitable private schools or fix the public school system. Adding the10 Commandments, creationism or any religious doctrine to the curriculum or any religious doctrine isn't going to help anything.

reply to post by adjensen

You said there are zero scholarships,

I never said any such thing. There's no need to lie or to degrade my charactor to get your point across.

Your suggestions are unrealistic and out of touch with reality.

It's all opinion...who gives a crap...you have all women colleges, all black colleges, religious colleges etc...I'm sure those too are endangering creative thinking...if people want to buy into religion so be it...people want to marry the same sex, who cares....

Most colleges/students are pro democrat and in a fair amount of instances you have college professors taking sides when it comes to politics and passing on their opinions to students....bottom line if people are to dumb to figure stuff out on there own don't expect the removal of religion to suddenly burst open the doors of creativity...

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

You said there are zero scholarships,

I never said any such thing. There's no need to lie or to degrade my charactor to get your point across.

Your statement:

How many inner city kids are going to get scholarships from parochial schools?

Implied that the number was zero.

Your suggestions are unrealistic and out of touch with reality.

What suggestions? All I said was that private schooled and homeschooled children are better educated, that I know people who have sacrificed of themselves to make that happen, and that scholarships are available to poor students who wish to attend parochial schools.

Prove any of that wrong.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

You said there are zero scholarships,

I never said any such thing. There's no need to lie or to degrade my charactor to get your point across.

Your statement:

How many inner city kids are going to get scholarships from parochial schools?

Implied that the number was zero.

Is that your answer to my question? Zero? I never implied zero. I do suggest that scholarships are far and few between, and out of reach for most students.

Prove any of that wrong.

Okay. You said:

While poor people are not likely to send their children to Ivy League prep schools, most parochial schools have scholarship programs, and there is nothing to prevent them from homeschooling.

There's nothing preventing (anyone) from homeschooling? BAH!

Not everyone can afford that materials needed for home schooling. Not everyone can afford to have a dedicated mother, sister, tutor etc. that is needed for home schooling. Not everyone is prepared for or up to the educational snuff required of today's student acadamia. Students need someone who knows more than they do about a subject and many parents don't. While a parent MAY excel in one subject they're most probably lacking in another. Many don't even come close to having the education required to home school effectively.

It's ridiculous to suggest that anyone can just home school their children!

I have known several families who are not well off, but decided to make the necessary sacrifices required to educate their children through means other than the public schools.

So what? There are millions of family that can't make those sacrifices.

However, I'd rather see religious folks take their kids out of school and home school them themselves than see them get a hold of public school curriculum and load it full of religious nonsense and historical revisionism Christian conservative style.

reply to post by windword


So, what is your solution to the core problem -- that parochial schools and home schooling are demonstrably more efficacious than public schools at educating children? Are you, like the author of the article that WildTimes posted in the OP, in favour of banning parochial schools and home schooling, so that all students will be equally handicapped by their underperforming schooling?

reply to post by adjensen


This thread is a discussion of the article linked in the OP called "Schools Teaching Religious Fundamentalism Are Endangering Creative Thinking".

Public education and free thought are under attack by both austerity programs and religious fundamentalism.

The problem is with the self righteous religious right imposing their dogma and morals onto school children, stifling free think and curious exploration. The solution, a clear and strong affirmation of separation of church and state, and get them out of public school's curriculum.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

The problem is with the self righteous religious right imposing their dogma and morals onto school children, stifling free think and curious exploration. The solution, a clear and strong affirmation of separation of church and state, and get them out of public school's curriculum.

As I have pointed out, numerous times, including my first reply to WildTimes, I have no issue with keeping religion (even comparative religion) out of the public school curriculum.

That, obviously, has nothing to do with home schooling or parochial schools, which is what the article references, and WildTimes' beef was with imbeciles who were home schooling their kids and teaching them rubbish.

What is your solution to those "issues"?

reply to post by adjensen


If you read my first reply, then you would know that my beef is with the religious right inserting their beliefs in the public school system. www.abovetopsecret.com...

Home school? Have at it. I don't really care. My sister home schooled both her boys in the fundamentalist Christian traditional style. They're both married with kids now. One works behind the counter at Jamba Juice, the other works at Home Depot.

My daughter, on the other hand, was raised in a pagan, single mom household and went to public school. She has multiple degrees, including a PHD. She currently holds a professorship at a major state university and holds a management position in a globally recognized stem cell research and cancer/HIV lab. I know that public schools can work. So you tell me, what's the problem and where?

reply to post by wildtimes


The education systems throughout the planet destroy creative thinking. Not just religious fundamentalist ones. I do Agree they are a problem but come on....our kids are taught propoganda and how to relay information. Not how to think freely. Free thinking usually means you are labelled a conspiracy theorist or in the USA, a terrorist.

I thought free thinking was gathering all the information available and making a choice.

You suggest all the information but a Christian view?

Did you all miss the parts about the schools that are NOT IN AMERICA teaching their kids fundamental extreme Judaism (Zionism), fundamental extreme Islam, etc.?

Wow this thread didn't go anywhere near how I thought it would. Thanks for those of you helping bolster the point I am making -
REGARDLESS OF THE AUTHOR'S REPUTATION OR AGENDA, I selected some of her points that made sense to ME in the context of MY worldview and concerns. It's no secret that I am largely anti-organized religion - and thanks especially to Windword for pointing out the efforts of the Radical Christian Right Dominionist Evangelical Fundies Moral Majority to demonize ALL OTHER RELIGIOUS traditions as well as SCIENCE.

I have never said anything about purely Catholic private schools - MANY of them are open to kids from any (or no) religious leaning, and they DO give superior educations in many ways to MANY public schools. I completely understand why the families I worked with in the urban core sent their kids, whether Catholic or not, to the local Catholic schools - I'd have done the same given the choices. The public school system that my own kids went to was your basic well-funded, well-rounded type that is found in most more affluent suburbs, and they received quality educations - that district has won national awards for their outcomes multiple times, and turned out MANY very influential people.....

LOTS of young families, when shopping for a home or a residence, will base their decision on the quality of the school district. Those who do not have a choice - do not have the LUXURY of choosing - are left with the crummy inner-city public schools, or the (somewhat better) private and parochial schools, such as Catholic or Montessori....

Those schools vary dramatically in the quality of teachers, books, lesson plans, and ATMOSPHERE among themselves. I'd have chosen a Montessori school if pushed to avoid the public schools available.,

WHAT I OBJECT TO are the things like the clip from Jesus Camp Documentary (that windword posted for us - thank you), the homework paper that AfterInfinity added , the Texas revisionist texts, the Egyptian school which forced the teacher to TEAR OUT THE PAGES ON EVOLUTION, etc.

Otherwise, whew...I'm glad you guys found the thread. Thanks for pointing out what I failed to manage to point out - extreme religion is dangerous. Teaching malleable children extreme religion is likewise dangerous - those kids will be our LEADERS one day. Makes me cringe to imagine what will happen as they get older - and shudder to think it's a possibility that some people want them ALL taught such nonsense...

Originally posted by borntowatch
I thought free thinking was gathering all the information available and making a choice.

You suggest all the information but a Christian view?

If you are addressing ME, borntowatch, the answer is a resounding NO.
But since I've made that clear from the OP, perhaps you are not addressing me.

Cuervo also pointed out that "Christian views" are loooong predated by Babylonian and Egyptian views - I would add in Zoroastrian views - a kid needs to KNOW about ALL of those past and present religions - how they came to be, from where they arose, where they are now prevalent, the history of strife related to religious intolerance, etc. COMPARATIVE RELIGIOUS studies are CRUCIAL. Leaving out Christianity would be not only stupid, but wrong.

reply to post by greavsie1971

I do Agree they are a problem but come on....our kids are taught propoganda and how to relay information. Not how to think freely. Free thinking usually means you are labelled a conspiracy theorist or in the USA, a terrorist.

Schools' main function is SUPPOSED TO BE teaching children HOW TO LEARN - how to continue to learn via proper research, where to find quality information (for example 'peer reviewed' journals rather than People Magazine or TheBlaze) after they EXIT the public school system, and how to discern between good material and crap. THEN they can make up their minds whether the author of this article, or the Texas textbooks, or TheBlaze and People Magazine are worthwhile.

I lament the fact that not many people keep hard-copy libraries in their homes. Some have ONLY a Bible and maybe a couple of Reader's Digests lying around.... some do not know how to read AT ALL ... and thanks to the burnings of entire libraries held in palaces, monasteries, etc., that knowledge is now LOST, and all we have left is the stuff that some guys with a sword and a flaming torch decided to leave us.

Tragic.

Free thinking means one is claiming freedom to make up their own minds, change their minds, add to and subtract from previously acquired knowledge, and continued thought into maturity.

Any child who learns about ALL religions and the available history of the bloodshed and never-ending strife that MANY of them (especially the Abrahamic variety) have caused, will then be equipped to decide if - or whether - any of those religions resonates with THEM. Forcing Creationism as Fact on them - whether or not it has ANY valid basis - and leaving out evolution (a FAR MORE LIKELY but still "theoretical" and so "dismissed" as "propaganda" or "Satan's doing") is,

sorry to say,

RETARDING the development of those kids into functioning, educated, capable adults in the real world.

reply to post by wildtimes


can you elaborate on how exactly they stifle creative thinking?? What exactly are they teaching that lead people to believe that?? not snark retorts but actual evidence and facts.

When it comes to climate change.. what part of climate change are they refuting?? the part where they think all climate change is caused by man?? or the climate change that has existed on this planet and our solar system since before we came along.

last i heard there was mass climate change LONG before we started driving SUVs.

Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by wildtimes

 

Well, you're not going to like this post very much, my friend, but here are my thoughts.

First off, let's have a look at the bio of the author of your article, one Meredith Tax.

And so, the well educated and reasoned rebuttal, is - attach the character of the author not the content of the argument.

Yep - Great reasoning skill.

Great thread - no real time to comment I'm afraid - but thank you for the links and article.

reply to post by votan

can you elaborate on how exactly they stifle creative thinking?? What exactly are they teaching that lead people to believe that??

You asked these questions, which I will attempt to answer from my own point of view. As for 'snark retorts' I don't know what you mean.

But before I answer, I will say that "climate change" is not an issue that I debate about. It's happening - and I personally believe it is a natural cycle of the Earth similar to ice ages, etc. That said, I don't like the way humans treat the Earth or the rest of life on it. It is however, something our kids will BE FORCED TO DEAL WITH - and therefore they need the skill-set and problem-solving ability to think up ways to do so.

THINKING UP THOSE WAYS TO DO SO is the challenge for the future of the human species. And that's where I'll focus my answer to your above questions.

IF a child is taught that Man has "dominion over the earth and animals" AND that "Jesus is coming back anyday now anyway so it doesn't matter what we do" -- the foul treatment that the planet DOES receive at our hands - pollution, poisoning, stripping away of forests, puncturing and fracturing of the crust, leaking oil all over the damn place, radiation issues -- will not be addressed. It's a defeatist as well as an arrogant worldview. Also, PEACE will not be the main focus of those with apocalyptic thinking (particularly those who hope to "Bring it on").

We, in my opinion, need to work IN HARMONY with the Earth, all that lives on it, and EACH OTHER, not wrestle things from the planet, or kill other living things, to get the things that we "think" we "need."

]

www.daytondailynews.com...

My own experience was similar. I went to a Catholic school for K-12 and it was much more academically rigorous than the local public schools, even with an hour a day dedicated to theological studies.

And one more thing, if public schools were truly outperforming their private counterparts, why do nearly all politicians send their children to private schools?


What do you consider out preforming.....Deigning evolution? Believing the earth is 7,000 yrs old? Or that humanity is the center of the universe? I don't see how a religious indoctrination can even be compared to the education based on facts...