Posted on 03/06/2010 4:00:10 PM PST by metmom
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons.
Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory.
"I thought she was going to have a coronary," Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. "She's like, 'This is not true!"'
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It’s not entirely accurate to day that Abeka and BJU and others *dismiss* evolution. They do address it. They just don’t arrive at the kinds of conclusions some people like.
They’re entitled to their opinion that the books are wrong, but it makes no sense to make an issue of it like this that requires a AP article on it.
What do they think they’re going to accomplish?
Buyer beware. You should ALWAYS check out curriculum you buy before purchasing it.
ping
And so what? Evolution is a ‘theory’ - far, far from being proven science!
Go ahead and flame - I’m ready!
Ahh the beauty of homeschooling... if you do not like how a text addresses a particular topic you can use a different one.
exactly.
“I thought she was going to have a coronary,”
Same thing occurs to little mush-heads when you inform them that global warming is a hoax.
Imagine the shock a Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Animist/Wiccan/ child gets when he opens his public school textbook and finds that he is being taught evolutionary theory as fact!
It’s interesting that this thread should have just been posted....
Theories, Facts, and ‘Denialism’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2465335/posts
“A world-class scientist on the listserv claimed in the course of an unrelated debate that gravity was a fact, not a theory. This struck me as fundamentally wrongheaded, and it still does. It is, of course, a “fact” that unsupported objects fall. What explains this observable fact is the theory of gravity. Gravity is the theory; the falling object is the fact. The theory explains the fact, but the theory never becomes a fact.
This scientist was quite adamant on the point, going so far as to assert that we inquisitive laymen on this listserv should just take his word for it, since he is an expert and we aren’t.”
Well, it’s a good thing we have precedent with governments at all levels interfering in families and personal decisions. I won’t be happy to see even more restrictions placed on homeschooling as I think the government school system should be abolished. But a government that is big enough and powerful enough to do unto the people you don’t like will get to you some day.
Boo frickin' hoo. If I only allowed my children to read books or watch movies that agreed with our worldview, I'd lose out on the majority of teaching aids!
Why not instruct them to read the book/watch the movie, then take a few minutes to talk abut the offending bit and explain why we disagree? Isn't that what homeschooling's all about, more interaction with your children? Geez...
Try announcing from in front of the classroom that Jesus is LORD! I think they’d send in the SWAT team.
Yet they announce in the front of the classroom all the time that the Bible is not literally true. Every time they teach evolution, that is what they are teaching.
Why is the one ok and the other not?
I’ll answer my own question: There is no neutrality.
Oh, but that’s just teaching them the “truth” instead of brainwashing them, dontcha know?
I mean, really, if you want them to accomplish nothing more in life than being a burger flipper at McD’s, then teach them creation instead of evolution.
Some people feel obligated to make sure our kids learn what they think the kids should instead of what the parents want.
If there's something that's way overrated, it's the teaching of science. If you're going to be a biologist, what you believe about the creation of life might matter.
Teaching the scientific method as a way to problem solve would be helpful to people in careers where they find themselves with problems to solve or new things to learn often. Not so much for learning the results of experiments that don't have a lot of bearing on your job. Is it really important to a welder to know how the kinetics of the reaction that occurs when they cut steel with an oxy/acetylene torch? How important to your average person is it to know quantum mechanics?
I have a degree in chemistry.
The beauty of homeschooling is that you teach your kids how to think, not just regurgitate statements made in books that may or may not be true.
Instead of having a coronary and running to the AP and getting all kinds of attention for being a crybaby, just discuss the issue and move on. And find some other source for your biology books.
So what if the homeschool market is dominated by Christian worldview curriculum? That’s the great thing about the free market. What are they going to try to do now? Force the Christian books distributors to print non-Christian material?
Why blame them that there’s not much out there in the way of any other choices? It’s not their fault that no one else is providing secular curriculum.
My three children were taught organic evolution as proven truth in government schools. I taught them to question. None of them believes the theory of evolution to be the incontrovertible explanation for the presence of living matter and its incomprehensible diversity of form and function.
This article is such a piece of garbage.
Of course many homeschool texts teach creationism. That’s why a lot of Christian people homeschool - because they don’t feel evolution is biblical, and they have alternate opinions about the science. They WANT to have texts that address biology differently.
The anti religious left is vastly insulted about it and their fabled tolerance does NOT extend to allowing people to form their own conclusions on the matter.
I teach biology to a homeschool coop and I can tell you after reading many secular texts and biblical ones, IMHO nothing tops abeka or BJU. However, because of antireligious activists some colleges won’t accept those texts for homeschoolers. So I have to “flesh out” so I can document that the kids are getting their healthy (or unhealthy) dose of evolutionary theory.
This woman is clueless. What is she doing homeschooling if she isn’t even checking the curriculum out?
I think that learning the scientific method is essential to being able to understand and do science.
Requiring adherence to the latest scientific consensus only stifles learning and the ability to think that makes the application of the scientific method a useful tool to use.
Global warming is true.
And the world is flat.
All intellectuals know this as FACT.
You're not just stupid, you're willfully stupid.
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