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Anyone who sends their kids to a government school is out of their mind.
Religious or not.
Some states, like my own, have excellent public schools, some of the best in the country and top 1-5 overall each year by state. We were completely secular in my district. Never had issues or debates like this, when I was there at least, because our teachers knew better.
As someone who lives here an doges to school here their are plenty of "hardcore" Christians/ Muslims/ Buddhists/ Hindu's etc. in this area of Katy, as anyone who has lived here knows going around putting on paper god is a myth and having a discussion about how god is a myth will usually get you fired here. Unless it is the debate team, you might as well quit your job after putting that on the paper in Katy ISD.
It should get you fired, or at least reprimanded, from any public school in America because it is not a topic that is allowed to be discussed.
People here mostly seem to be debating whether or not the teacher was right in her answer she assigned to the question - the common assertion. That is irrelevant because whether the answer was right or wrong is not the issue at hand. It's that the question was in there in the first place. Again - separation or church and state. You cannot ask students, essentially, to assess the existence of God and declare the belief in God a fact, opinion, or common assertion, or whatever it was. You cannot essentially force students to say whether or not he is real, and have there be a single correct answer. That is basically what she was asking in this question.
Whether or not God actually is a fact, opinion, or common assertion is not relevant at all. I don't care if she was technically right in her answer, she was undeniably wrong to ask it. That discussion does not belong in a public school.
The teacher should never have included any kind of strongly held beliefs in a test for 7th graders--that was simply poor judgment. As others have noted, she should have used Santa Claus or some other character.
It's never poor judgment to challenge belief systems.
The reason Slavery in the US ended is in part due to the fact that people's belief systems were being challenged.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lhpartridge
Maybe in literature? Paradise Lost? The Crucible? The Lottery? Much of English and American literature was written within a Christian context. Explaining the contexts of each work would logically include a discussion of the beliefs of the author and his/her audience so that all students could understand, even those with no beliefs or beliefs different from their classmates. The students' religious beliefs are not the point here, but those of the author and the audience for which he/she was writing.
Or would you suggest that students not study the great works of English literature for fear that they may be exposed to beliefs other than their own? Is Beowulf all right because of course the Norse gods are just old-fashioned mythology, but we must avoid Dante's Inferno because it may cause students to be influenced for or against Catholicism? What do you want from public education?
Okay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
"Quid est veritas?" There is no true/false answer.
Epistemology is not a 7th grade level discussion.
You're right....it's actually 6th Grade for most school curricula.
I wonder what the response would be in the "God" question would be replaced with "Is someone truly a Transsexual if the chromosomes they were born with are not altered?"
It is amazing where people decide it's okay to present God or take God out in public schools. Wonder how these people would be reacting if she said, "God is real."
That would still be considered a common assertion.
I wonder what the response would be in the "God" question would be replaced with "Is someone truly a Transsexual if the chromosomes they were born with are not altered?"
Or ask the question, "Johnny has a penis. It is a fact or a commonplace assertion that Johnny is a male?"
That would still be considered a common assertion.
Not if one has evidence to support it.
Now, my evidence may not be convincing proof to you...but that exact kind of issue gets hashed out in thousands of courts every day. What's convincing evidence to one person is not necessarily so to another. Yet they both claim to have the "facts."
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