Teacher forced to remove bible quotes from classroom

[shaggnix]

i feel like we've been through this, more than once. i think she knew what was going to happen and deliberately crossed the line, with her 1st amendment speech in the holster, locked, loaded, and ready to fire. the man can force her to conform, BUT YOU CAN'T STOP JESUS!!!

[Brill Weave]

Nobody fucks with the Jesus...

[Obev]

If you're going to go for inspirational quotes, it's really best to have a wide variety of sources, not just to satisfy the whole "not being blatantly Christian to the exclusion of all else" condition, but for the sake of turning students into well-rounded and curious individuals.

If your school's only source for inspirational bullshit is Jebus, the meta-educational outcome is that your students may become predisposed to favour Christian sources over non-Christian ones. Throw up a quote from the Quran, the Ramayana or even (holyshit) a secular philosopher, and not only do you remove your employer's excuse to fire your Christian arse, you key your students in to the idea that a love of learning is universal, and the dangerous concept that brown people might occasionally have important things to say.

My classroom has Carl Sagan quotes on the wall. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

[Ashmada]

A quote seems fitting: "You can trust the americans to do the right thing. After they've tried everything else."
You've tried creationism in science classes, now you do the right thing! Freedom of speech doesn't (or shouldn't) equate to freedom to indoctrinate children.

All this teacher was trying to do was lessen the violence in our schools. Had a shooter appeared, the ghost of Ronald Regan would have sprang to life from his portrait, infused with the power of the holy spirit and smite any who would dare harm children while God is in school.

Exception made of the atheist children, of course, since those are neither citizens nor patriots.
Wait, that's daddy Bush. Guess I tend to get theocrats mixed up.

[noblemountain]

I almost got expelled in high school, a looong time ago, for doing an art project with various atheist quotes on it. Was a fun fight at least. :D Me and the one muslim kid vs. principal and teacher. Only reason I got away with it was because it was football season and I was QB. lol

[Kaslo]

Reading the letter, I can only see one area where it went wrong: the prayer box. The Box was the property of a student group, of which the teacher was only the faculty sponsor. The group's box needs to be somewhere, and the sponsor's classroom makes sense. The rest of the stuff needed to go though.

[kuronosan]

Talking about Adam and Eve has no place in a biology class. It would be like someone coming into a Christian History class and saying "So God doesn't really exist and we all know science is absolute. Here's a quote from Stephen Hawking".

[shaggnix]

Talking about Adam and Eve has no place in a biology class. It would be like someone coming into a Christian History class and saying "So God doesn't really exist and we all know science is absolute. Here's a quote from Stephen Hawking".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatio...blic_education

Globally, evolution is taught in science courses with limited controversy, with the exception of a few areas of the United States and several Islamic fundamentalist countries. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled the teaching of creationism as science in public schools to be unconstitutional, irrespective of how it may be purveyed in theological or religious instruction. In the United States, intelligent design has been represented as an alternative explanation to evolution in recent decades, but its "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions" have been ruled unconstitutional by a lower court.

i remember hearing about creationism and evolution being taught side by side as competing theories, but i guess that teaching either creationism or intelligent design in a public classroom has been ruled unconstitutional.

[shaggnix]

.... and now i'm confused, from the bottom of that same page :

In the United States, creationists and proponents of evolution are engaged in a long-standing battle over the legal status of creation and evolution in the public school science classroom.[66]

There are states that teach the criticisms of evolution, such as Kansas and Ohio. And others who teach Creationism along with evolution, including Kentucky. Colorado and New York are two states that do teach evolution, but it is up to the schools, teachers, and counties on how this subject is taught and portrayed to the students. (Boyle 2005). There are several factors that decide what is taught in public schools. Texas tends to set the standards for textbooks throughout the country. The Institute of Educational Sciences is the research part of the Board of Education. They also help decide what will be taught in schools

[Eurell]

Reading the letter, I can only see one area where it went wrong: the prayer box. The Box was the property of a student group, of which the teacher was only the faculty sponsor. The group's box needs to be somewhere, and the sponsor's classroom makes sense. The rest of the stuff needed to go though.

Kuro beat me to it, but you can't seriously think a biology lesson with Adam and Eve in it is ok lol.

[Ragnus]

i remember hearing about creationism and evolution being taught side by side as competing theories, but i guess that teaching either creationism or intelligent design in a public classroom has been ruled unconstitutional.

Unfortunately all of the textbooks that "teach them side by side" push creationism while trashing the ideas of evolution as they're presented. That may have been part of the problem along with the separation of church and state thing.

[Ksandra]

Kuro beat me to it, but you can't seriously think a biology lesson with Adam and Eve in it is ok lol.

Unless I'm mistaken, kaslo agreed that the adam and eve lesson should go. In the letter they demand her to remove the prayer box, which is the part kaslo said wasn't right for the school to demand. I agree with him. A lot of schools have a student-run prayer club, and many require a teacher to be a facilitator for any club held at school.


I think it should be ok to post inspirational quotes as long as they aren't like "you're going to hell if you don't believe in god!" Like the one she used about staying true to oneself should be allowed.

I definitely think she crossed the line, but I don't think it should get so extreme that, say, I couldn't wear my cross anymore.

[Eurell]

Unless I'm mistaken, kaslo agreed that the adam and eve lesson should go. In the letter they demand her to remove the prayer box, which is the part kaslo said wasn't right for the school to demand. I agree with him. A lot of schools have a student-run prayer club, and many require a teacher to be a facilitator for any club held at school.


I think it should be ok to post inspirational quotes as long as they aren't like "you're going to hell if you don't believe in god!" Like the one she used about staying true to oneself should be allowed.

I definitely think she crossed the line, but I don't think it should get so extreme that, say, I couldn't wear my cross anymore.

ah ok, that makes much more sense. I took what he said as "where she messed up" not as "where the school messed up". Reading over it, not sure how I made that mistake now.

[ronin sparthos]

Her goal was clearly to indoctrinate rather than facilitate any meaningful thought or insight on behalf of her students.

If you want to pull some Bible quotes out for History/Cultural Studies fine and the Reagan bit doesn't even bother me since you're free to plug your favorite president because that's an opinion but shoehorning Jesus into class is like me walking into Bible Study and quoting Hitchens or Dawkins. If you're so inclined to quote the Bible in class how about pulling passages from other holy texts to appear at the least unbiased?

Oh right, it's always better to embrace the victim complex and claim that you're being oppressed by those pesky secularists. We have religious schools for a reason.

[Obev]

Talking about Adam and Eve has no place in a biology class. It would be like someone coming into a Christian History class and saying "So God doesn't really exist and we all know science is absolute. Here's a quote from Stephen Hawking".

Amusingly, you kind of have to remove god from the equation when you're looking at Christian history, otherwise you end up with deus ex machina reasoning all over the place. "Why'd they win?" "BECAUSE GOD, CASE CLOSED."

[ronin sparthos]

The number of these comments spewing vitriol at people for having a high school or above education is shocking.

The GOP has equated knowledge with elitism and it's far easier to accept that intelligence is poisonous when you've been indoctrinated to believe all you have to do is follow someone (like Glenn Beck or your local preacher) to collect your eternal reward.

Just another example of the far right poisoning society.

[Kaslo]

And yet they say Obama is indoctrinating our kids.

[ronin sparthos]

And yet they say Obama is indoctrinating our kids.

"Religion claims to have supreme power in the next world but obsesses over power in this one."

That's me poorly quoting Hitchens.

[Jaybar]

Speaking of inspirational quotes and pulling from several sources - I took an Old Testament class and our teacher started the class by writing 10 quotes (no citations) and asked us which ones are in the Bible. Needless to say only two of them were in the Bible and no one in the class (all Christians/thumpers) chose them because of how radical they were. They all liked the ones from the Quran and other Confucian thoughts, though!

Seriously need to start every Bible class like that - show kids the parallels of narratives and authorship.

[Soa]

The GOP has equated knowledge with elitism and it's far easier to accept that intelligence is poisonous when you've been indoctrinated to believe all you have to do is follow someone (like Glenn Beck or your local preacher) to collect your eternal reward.

Just another example of the far right poisoning society.

My hard core Conservative dad constantly rips the education system here in the US, yet is totally cool with all our jobs going to India because "they promote education over there". I just can't even.