Splintering our Education System based on FAITH

In another thread, poster Faith argued that the only solution to the problem of education within the US was to pull children out of public schools and teach them a fully Xian education at home.The reason she gave was that evolution and other nonXian ideas were pushed within secular public education. She argued that evolution was the same as teaching Xianity in public schools (a violation of church-state issues) because it violated their belief of what actually occured.I then asked if this would not result in the splintering of education based on all sorts of different beliefs, such that we'd have to allow flat earth belief, nonheliocentruc belief, Newtonian (vs Relativistic) belief, the Holocaust never happened belief, etc etc?Faith suggested that only the Xians (of one particular flavor) would be allowed to splinter.I would like Faith to outline her proposed educational system, and explain how it would not collapse into the shambles I detailed.(I think this should go in the Education forum, but I am open to it being funneled elsewhere)This message has been edited by holmes, 03-27-2005 04:35 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well I guess we have to let Faith outine exactly what she meant. From what she told me, she wanted homeschooling (Xian version) for all children, or at least all of those that were Xian.The idea of course is that their education would be accredited and they can move on to higher education from there, as if they attended a public school and got a similar education.Since the factor she identified as important was that the ideas taught in public schools were against the beliefs of Xians, that appears to open the door for everyone else to remove their children based on any other belief system.When I said "splintering", I was trying to capture the effect this would have on our overall educational "system". Right now it is relatively standardized. If Faith's suggestion occurs, then we'd be accrediting degrees with various different teachings, including wholly opposite facts and assessments of facts.Thus when a person was said to have a high school education, or equivalent, it would be wholly unknown what the person actually knows about any subject in general. There could be no expectation, including an expectation of preparedness for any future study in a specified subject area.I actually hadn't thought about what this might eventually mean for colleges, but I suppose if we allow divisions to occur at the high school level, there would be no reason for there to be an end to public (state run) colleges, as they too would teach subject matter beyond the belief system of somebody somewhere (like evolution in biology to Xians). I suppose we could then have total home-schooling.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Wow this thing really took off when I looked the other way for a sec... or maybe while I was sleeping. In any case, I am sorry for getting into this late.Faith, don't use this thread to prosyletize okay? Also, let's not get into fictitious accounts of how Xianity was the basis of higher education... snooze. And most of all, let's not pretend that we don't know what I was talking about.This entire thread was started because of a little exchange we had from the following comment you made in this post: IF communities have the RIGHT to pursue and teach their own beliefs, that means that ALL communities have the RIGHT to pursue and teach their own beliefs.Thus communities that disagree with round earth theories should be able to teach flat earth theories, those that disagree with heliocentric theories should be able to teach earth centered theories, those that disagree with "holocaust" theories can teach about the lies Jews perpetrated in order to frame the Nazis and gain power, etc etc.That is the LOGICAL result of your statement and what I immediately questioned. You said to open a thread, I did, and here I find you acting like you think the debate is on whether Xian schooling can provide a good education? Come on.So let's ignore all the blah blah on whether Xians can provide good schooling and address the actual question. If the premise is that all people's beliefs should be allowed into standard education, then how do you prevent the splintering of education into many different "truth factories"? How will degrees mean anything when they can cover much different theories and methodologies.How can employers and other educators know what to expect when they are looking at a degreed student from the US?I really don't mind if kids are schooled at home. I would prefer mine to be. The question is regarding standardization of curricula such that a degreed student is sufficiently knowledgeable in certain fields. Without that degrees are as good as monopoly money, and the idea that everyone gets to have their beliefs taught as an educational standard destroys any concept of a standard.If this is not the case, then make your argument why this is not the case.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes, to some degree it is true already. However we currently are concerned with unifying standards to remove these problems. I do not see Faith's argument helping things, only making the current problems worse. But you do see where this is heading, right? If we must allow schools to have their own standards, that is all standards now must comply with community belief rather than professional standards, it will not be long before it is compulsory for professional orgs to accept any standards, otherwise they will be exhibiting bias.Remember now the fact that you don't want to believe in X is good enough for you to say X really is not true, and you must be molly-coddled and your view accepted, otherwise it is being oppressed due to prejudice and not because you are evaluating their objective ability or knowledge of the field. It is both. Ironically Faith claims that she knows about the founding of universities, but then argues for moving backward in time. In the early days there was splintering of standards and it did not make for an easy time. The move was for standardization and accreditation.Science organizations could find themselves having to accept Bob U students and act as if they have true "knowledge" of the field, otherwise the sci orgs are simply enacting religious intolerance, rather than professional judgement.The move is pretty obviously meant to turn the tables upside down by sheer powerplay. We cannot meet standards, so we'll say the standards are biased and force them to accept ours by rule of law.And what's worse is that means anything can enter the playing field and turn knowldge over again. An official stamp on mere opinion.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well we're only talking hypotheticals in this case anyway. I do not believe that Faith's agenda will win out. I am merely trying to argue with Faith regarding its worth, and what its eventual outcome would be if accepted as "reasonable". They won't care as long as the YEC geologist knows the "rules" of where to find oil. The explanation of why it is there would be irrelevant.I personally know an ID drone who is well placed, and well payed, at an agricultural company specifically dealing with hybridizations. The irony of paying a guy top money to use genetics to create new crops, when they know he doesn't believe genetics is the way forms (speciation) are controlled by organisms, only God's plans do that, is astounding.I'm still not sure how he rationalizes it himself, except maybe he believes that he is doing the engineering work, or "laying on of hands", for God to create the hybrids.Bizarre. Just Bizarre.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This guy wrote one of his grad papers "debunking" Darwin (I was handed the paper being told he had actually proved a major tenet of Darwin's theories wrong), and disconnected genotype from phenotype. That latter fact would seem to be a problem for someone dealing in genetics to get new phenotypes within plant products.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)