Liberal beliefs held conservatively
The middle of this last week was spent in Saskatoon at the UofR’s internship seminar. The seminar itself was nothing to get excited about; fairly routine procedural stuff. In the course of one of the discussions, however, an interesting debate was launched.
We were talking about the law in Alberta whereby teachers have to inform parents before a discussion of controversial material takes place in a classroom, so the parents might have the option of removing their child from the class. In the wake of the manufactured controversy in the US regarding Obama’s address to schoolchildren, the discussion had special significance.
The point of contention in the debate was whether parents have the right to refuse to have their child educated, or to what point educators and school divisions should accommodate such parents. In some respects, we as a society already allow this for those that choose to homeschool. Realistically, homeschoolers could be teaching their kids anything they want – as a matter of practice, they don’t, but they could. So the option evidently exist for parents who don’t agree with the provincial curriculum to opt out entirely.
There are also a couple of areas where school divisions have either allowed parental or student choice to dictate education: sex ed and biology dissection. In the former case, parents can have the student participate in some alternate activity, and in the latter case, it is the student’s responsibility to gain the knowledge they would have gained through dissecting an organism in another manner.
The question is, how far do we let this go? Alberta’s law (presently suspended, until practical considerations have been established) includes science instruction in evolution. Personally, I disagree with allowing students to skip this portion of the curriculum, but I can understand how school divisions would want to avoid courting controversy by disallowing students to skip it, nevermind the consequences this has for teachers planning evaluations (now I need a “God did it” version of the test). The problem is that they have enshrined the rights of one particular religious tradition in practice over the rights of other faiths. Do we let Scientologists pull their kids when we teach about psychology? Do we let 9/11 “truthers” pull their kids from a History lesson? Do we let anti-vaxx parents pull their kids from a biology class on immunology?
Basically, to what extent do we allow parents to determine the ignorance of their children? And this is where I differ from my colleagues in education – while I tend to hold scientifically verifiable beliefs in all the previous subject areas, I’m not liberal enough to grant that people who believe differently than I do have as much right to their opinion as I do. Granted, I’ve never been one to tolerate willful ignorance, but the equivalency doctrine enshrined by leftists where every opinion’s value is not based on any real-world criteria, but only by the fervour of its adherents, drives me up the wall.
I don’t think that every talk show needs to balance the point of view of an accredited professional in their field with someone who believes just as strongly in fairies or unicorns or homeopathy or vast right- or left-wing conspiracies. Some things are true, no matter how much people would like to believe otherwise. The corollary is, of course, that some beliefs are wrong, no matter how tightly held they are.
Now, a fair argument could be advanced that I feel this way only because my beliefs line up, on the whole, with the curriculum as written by the Ministry of Education. While that is undoubtedly true to some extent, I don’t feel a pressing need to champion alternate explanations to established scientific or historical verities, regardless of how I personally feel about them.
An argument could also be made that a teacher’s job is to develop critical thinking skills in their students, and the best way of doing that is to critically analyse beliefs advocated by “the establishment”. While that is possibly true, the people who most often use this argument are the ones who are least willing to follow it when it applies to their own belief systems. Further, the reason beliefs become codified and accepted by the establishment is because, by and large, they’ve been subjected to the kind of rigorous analysis advocated by those that want to throw them over, whereas the beliefs they would replace them with have not (see “truthers”, anti-vaxx, etc).
As a parent, obviously I’d like some say in what my kids are learning, but as a teacher, I simply can’t possibly think that any good would come of letting every parent dictate what their kid was and wasn’t allowed to learn. Possibly because the ones who tend to complain most vociferously about the established curriculum are the ones with the theories furthest removed from reality, but also just because of the massive headaches any attempt to appease every sensibility would entail.
As I mentioned above, if people really have a problem with what the school system is teaching, they presently have the right to withdraw their students entirely, as long as they make provision for the student to receive some kind of education between the ages of 7 and 16. For those of us who choose to keep our kids in the public school system, we’re going to have to accept the compromise that entails.
photo credit: peapodsquadmom
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Fascinating blog entry! I’ve thought a lot about this issue myself, and although I think you make some really good points, it seems that you’re also neglecting a very important part of the issue: WHY do creationist parents, as an example, want to withdraw their kids from a science classroom where they’ll hear about evolution? It’s because they think their children are passive beings with no minds of their own, unable to decide what they believe.
Let me explain. I believe in evolution myself, but if I were a creationist, this is what I would do: I would take little Suzie or Jimmy aside before school and calmly explain “Your science teacher knows a lot, but he’s going to tell you one thing that’s not true,” and then outline the theory of evolution and warn them about it. Then, since I’d been teaching my child to believe in creation since the day s/he was born, hopefully s/he would know to ignore the “lies” the science teacher told about evolution.
THEN, if my kid came home and said “I’ve thought about what you said and what the teacher said, and I think evolution makes more sense,” I’d be very unhappy, but at least I’d know my kid had a mind of his/her own! Of course, being myself, I have no idea what it’s actually like to be that religious, but I would hope that even as a fundamentalist Christian parent, I would still want my children to develop the strength of personality to independently decide what they believe and then hold onto it, no matter what.
Can you (“you” being a hypothetical Christian parent) really claim that you’ve raised your kid to be a “true believer” if all they ever knew during their formative years was Christian dogma? It’s like claiming that America is your favorite country on Earth, when you’ve never been out of the country at all! (Bad metaphor, I know, but I hope you get my meaning.) Or it’s like keeping your kid in an air-tight space suit all their childhood, and then being proud that they’ve never caught a cold. Well, obviously they won’t catch a cold – if they’ve never been exposed to germs, they can’t develop any immunities! And then if they ever leave their space suit, they’ll immediately come down with every sickness in the book.
I know I’m not extremely eloquent, but your post really got me thinking, and I’ll be happy if my comment makes someone think as well!
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think you’re on to something which definitely came to the fore in the debate surrounding Obama’s school address. The White House pre-published the text of the speech to show how non-political & non-partisan it was, and people still complained that he was trying to brainwash kids into leftists. What does it say about your kid if he’s that easily brainwashed?
~Interesting discussion…thought I’d share just a few of my own thoughts~
The point of contention in the debate was whether parents have the right to refuse to have their child educated, or to what point educators and school divisions should accommodate such parents.
~Any parent sending their child to a public school is allowing them to be indoctrinated by that school and teachers.~
There are also a couple of areas where school divisions have either allowed parental or student choice to dictate education: sex ed and biology dissection. In the former case, parents can have the student participate in some alternate activity, and in the latter case, it is the student’s responsibility to gain the knowledge they would have gained through dissecting an organism in another manner.
~Yeah! For choices!! Education should be about choices not about being force fed! Many of our greatest thinkers and inventors were not schooled…. but educated.~
The question is, how far do we let this go?
Do we let Scientologists pull their kids when we teach about psychology? Do we let 9/11 “truthers” pull their kids from a History lesson? Do we let anti-vaxx parents pull their kids from a biology class on immunology?
~The reason alternate education is on the rise is precisely this…parents feel they have less and less say in their childrens education.~
Basically, to what extent do we allow parents to determine the ignorance of their children?
~By not wanting your child to attend a certain questionable class are you really creating ignorance? I would say you are creating a person who WILL be able to think for themselves and not one who feels the pressure to go along with the flow.
My children at young ages know so much more about life then I did at their age…because I am not afraid to speak about it….I am a creationist and my children know about evolution and Buddhism and idol worship. And the choice is theirs as to what they will believe when they are older and even now…but I as a parent to these young children will certainly voice what TRUTH is.~
WHY do creationist parents, as an example, want to withdraw their kids from a science classroom where they’ll hear about evolution? It’s because they think their children are passive beings with no minds of their own, unable to decide what they believe.
~Isn’t that why parents send their kids to public school in the first place because they think their child is a passive being with no mind of their own, so let the government educate them??~
hopefully s/he would know to ignore the “lies” the science teacher told about evolution.
I would hope that even as a fundamentalist Christian parent, I would still want my children to develop the strength of personality to independently decide what they believe and then hold onto it, no matter what.
What does it say about your kid if he’s that easily brainwashed?
~Exaclty! Question everything my child…even public eduction!~
Erin, thanks for your comment. I wonder, though – if you’re so opposed to the “agenda” that public education has, why would you want your child to attend that system? I’m not trying to be antagonistic, just curious.
Also, I’m not sure that removing children from learning situations promotes thinking for themselves – quite the opposite, I would think… they learn that there’s certain subjects that their parents believe are off-limits to them thinking for themselves, otherwise they’d be presented with both sides of the dialogue: one from school and one from home. By removing a voice from the dialogue, what you are telling kids is that they are not allowed to think for themselves, and that the only acceptable way of viewing the subject is the one voice that’s presented.
Ian,
Thank you for your reply.
When you remove a child from a classroom discussion you are removing them from ONE learning situation!
One who knows they can find information on a topic i.e. evolution by other means than that of a school classroom is far from ignorant!
I fully support the rights and decisions of the parent over and above that of the public school.
I found out just today that the high school here is now teaching evolution and creation…