Indoctrination is the wrong word. Exposure to ideas is eduction. Indoctrination, which is not exposure to ideas but brainwashing of them in one way or another, is what religious cults do.
Another way to express the difference is that education is learning about ideas and
understanding them, whereas indoctrination is being told what you are supposed to believe and being compelled to believe it.
Quoting from the
Science Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, 1990, pg 206, the Anti-Dogmatism Statement:
quote:
"State Board of Education Policy on the Teaching of Natural Sciences, adopted 13 Jan 1989 [emphasized in original]:
Nothing in science or in any other field of knowledge shall be taught dogmatically. A dogma is a system of beliefs that is not subject to scientific test and refutation. Compelling belief is inconsistent with the goal of education; the goal is to encourage understanding."
Later, the Framework makes this statement:
quote:
"We repeat here the fundamental conviction of this framework:
Education does not compel belief; it seeks to encourage understanding. Nothing in science, or in any other field, should be taught dogmatically. But teaching about something does not constitute advancing it as truth. In science, there is no truth. There is only knowledge that tests itself and builds on itself constantly. This is the message that students should take away with them."
I've quoted that here before regarding teaching creationism in the public schools to point out that "balanced treatment" instead DOES try to compel belief; after having misinformed the student, it repeatedly urges the student to choose between the Creator and "godless evolution". Not only is that inconsistent with the goals of education, but it also works against those goals. All that "balanced treatment" is trying to do is to proselytize. Furthermore, the principal tools in that proselytizing is the use of false claims and deception. And one of the effects of "balanced treatment" has been to turn some of those students into atheists.
To emphasize the difference again:
Education encourages understanding; indoctrination compels belief.
Sources:
What you say here is a little ambiguous, but it seems to imply that the pastor is upset that he wasn't able to exercise his religious authority in a secular context. Doesn't separation of church and state say that that's exactly the way it should be?
There's a reason the education provided by public schools is described as secular. It means it is free of religious influence. Once that's no longer true then public education would no longer be secular.
Let's subject this to a little Gedankenexperiment. Let's assume that that pastor gets his way and is given the power to impose
his religion on all the students in the public schools -- that
is what we're talking about, aren't we? Furthermore, this is done
without the parents having any say in the matter.
So in his district's schools, all the students will be indoctrinated in his own particular brand of fundyism
regardless of the students' actual religion; eg, Catholic, Muslim, Methodist, Presbyterian, other fundamentalist sects (fundies hate other fundies lacking the exactly "correct" stripes perhaps more than they hate non-fundies), and atheists. Then school districts in predominantly Catholic communities would require all students to practice Catholicism -- I'm sure that that pastor would
love to see that. And I'm sure he would be ecstatic when school districts in Utah would make all its students be
Mormon.
The fundamental mistake that the pastor's ilk makes when calling to impose religion on the public schools is that they assume that it will be
their religion being imposed. When it turne out to be somebody else's religion being imposed, then they will start screaming louder
for the First Amendment than they're screaming now to have it torn up.
Is there a history of such a situation? Yes. In particular, where do we think that the parochial school system (ie,
Catholic schools) came from?
In the creation of the public schools in the early 1800's Protestants quickly took over and introduced prayers, Bible readings, etc. The problem was that those prayers and Bibles were
Protestant. As the number of Catholic immigrants increased, increasing numbers of Catholic kids entered the public schools and were required to say
Protestant prayers and read from a
Protestant Bible and learn the
Protestant Ten Commandments. Needless to say, this distressed their parents greatly, but the schools refused to listen to them.
In the second half of the 19th century there was an incident in Philadelphia in which the bishop or archbishop politely asked the school board if maybe the Catholic students mightn't be allowed to say Catholic prayers, read from the Catholic Bible, etc. That resulted in about three days of virulent anti-Catholic rioting which injured many and killed several.
Faced with the impossibility of redress, the Catholic Church set up its system of parochial schools so that the Catholic children could receive an education that was not antithetical to their religion (ie, no Protestant heresies, thank you very much!). Immediately the Protestants moved to disqualify those schools from any tax-payer support through "
Blaine amendments", state constitutional amendments, state laws, court decisions, etc. They succeeded in constructing a network of ramparts to block Catholics from any government aid or support for Catholic schools.
The irony of that Protestant success is that when the Protestants themselves decided to leave the public schools, formed their own religious private schools, and sought government aid and support for their own schools, those exact same protections against aid for the Catholics had the same effect on themselves.
School prayer advocates like to blame atheists like O'Hare, but we should remember that one of the first school-prayer lawsuits was filed in the late 40's in New York City by a Jewish father because Christianity was being imposed upon his Jewish children against his will. The problem is not atheists nor Jews nor Muslims, but rather religious zealots seeking to use the government to impose their own religion on everybody else.
Those are cases of Catholic and Jewish parents having to stand up to religious tyranny in their children's education. Ironically, MAGAtry is using their current buzzword, "Parents' Bill of Rights" and "parental rights", in order to violate the rights of parents in the schools.
Refer to my web page,
BILL MORGAN'S QUESTION: Should Kids be Taught About God?. Local creationist activist Bill Morgan, a legend in his own mind, tried to hit me with a gotcha question and then proved that he did not understand his own question. Indeed, his reaction to my "what are you talking about?" question was to abruptly cancel his email account and go into hiding for two years (he published his email address in a creationist newsletter, but when he fled it was nearly two years before he published his new address).
As I wrote in that page's introduction:
DWise1:
This page is about my answer to one of his questions, one that wasn't really an "unanswerable question":
"If God exists, should the kids be taught about Him?"
I gave him a very thoughtful answer, one which he rejected completely for no reason whatsoever. At least he refused to give any reason at all for rejecting it despite my repeated requests for an explanation. At first he simply repeated his question over and over again, ignoring my responses that I had answered his question and could he please explain why he thought I hadn't. His final "reply" was to run away and cancel his AOL subscription.
On this page, I present his question and my response. You can read the entire email exchange on the original page, BILL MORGAN'S QUESTION: Should Kids be Taught About God?.
My answer addressed the fact that whether "God" (whatever
that is supposed to mean) exists or not is totally irrelevant and has no effect on the answer and the ambiguities of his question. I discuss the different meanings of "taught about Him" in terms of education versus indoctrination (Education ¡sí!, indoctrination ¡no!) as well as who would be authorized to do that teaching and under what circumstances (eg, no government involvement in indoctrination).
The basic bottom line reply is:
A child's religious indoctrination is entirely up to the parent(s)!
Which is why religionists' efforts to use the government (which includes public schools) to impose their religion on all others is an abomination.
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