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Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back



Of course it depends on the private school. In general the Catholic schools
do not place restrictions on the English teachers and in the past the nuns
would teach the evolutionary model of species development in a no nonsense
fashion. Indeed many of the teachers are not even Catholic, and sometimes
they even have Jewish teachers. Of course they would censure a teacher who
advocated pre-marital sex, abortion, or drug use, but I would hardly call
that an unreasonable position. The teachers were personally responsible for
screening movies for obscenity or nudity. However in the library they had a
movie of the life of David, and it had a brief full frontal nude scene of a
woman bathing, and it was shown in religion class. I subbed during the
movie.

One English teacher even allowed some students to wear "cod pieces" on the
Elizabethan dress up day. Of course they had to wear them over the normal
uniforms. They made them out of jock straps and decorated them. And of
course Halloween is not a problem, but they banned costumes in class because
it was disruptive. Harry Potter would also just be treated as a harmless
fantasy. Now that it is revealed that Rowling is religious, maybe the
Potter banning may go away.

The one restriction that I saw was that the principal, a nun, did not want
the boys to go shirtless during gym or practice. But I think that
restriction has actually gone away in the last couple of years. They
certainly have reasonable uniform restrictions, no gum, no cell phones in
classes...

The previous theater teacher even got away with some fairly daring plays,
but he did them in a conservative fashion. He was asked not to do Chicago
after someone had seen the movie. He had been planning to do it more like
the stage production which did not have the revealing costumes and was much
more conservative. He bowed to the request.

I think that Catholic schools can actually be less restrictive than public
schools in many ways.

But one thing that I think may happen in very restrictive schools is that
students may be slower in developing formal operational thinking patterns.
There was some testing that showed that students in Berkeley were much more
likely to have formal operational thinking than students in conservative
communities. Students at the lower thinking levels will not do as well in
college, and will be less likely to be able to understand the evolutionary
model. And we do know that standard didactic teaching produces lower
thinking levels than the learning cycle approach with its guided inquiry.
After all that is why the learning cycle was invented.

But of course most private schools are exempt from the state exams, so they
can freely omit "objectionable" material.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



But, in the U.S. a parent can always have a child excused from specific
parts of a course that offends the parent's religious beliefs. I've
never
heard of a case, however, where the excused portion was required for the
child to graduate.

If the so-called excused portion (assuming it is evolution) is in
the state science standards, which in most states are, and all teachers
are responsible for teaching to those standards in preparation for the
state mandated *exit* test in science, then there would most likely be
specific questions on any test pertaining to those standards. Now, the
child who was excused from the evolution part would still have to answer
those questions because I never heard of a state test that is altered to
accomodate specific individuals who may object to a certain part of the
test. What is the child going to write... I refuse to answer on the
grounds it is against my religion? The child should hope he or she has
enough of the other questions correct to make up for those he or she
refuses to darken in the bubble.

This whole issue opens up a new can of worms... what about the
English history or literature course that teaches the druids or Beowulf?
(Gods and goddesses other than the *accepted* ones) or MacBeth
(witches); the Health or Bio course on the reproduction system? the
history course that teaches Salem witch trials? music... The Ring
Cycle (Norse Gods), *Night on Bald Mountain* ("unGodly music with
suggestions of spirits") Silly? To us it may very well be, but you
would be surprised how many people object to course contenc we would
never think twice about.

Private schools are especially protective about what their students
get to read, hear, see, or experience. That's their right, but it
mirrors the public school teacher's nightmare taken to the extreme.