"Science" textbook for Christian schools can't even explain electricity

[Quintease]

Christian Science books?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Quintease

Christian Science books?

Oh, the chapter on the moon is just FANTASTIC! Did you know that the reason why the moon is dark on one side is so that it isn't too bright for nocturnal animals and plants? LOL

Cheers
Aj

[Corkey]

This is what happens when the ignorant are put in charge of education. Scares the crap out of me.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Quintease

Christian Science books?

It's an oxymoron...

[imperfect_cupcake]

Is there no government standard test that the kids have to take each year to progress? Do they not have a government agency like OFSTED http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/ to grade each school on how they are performing, regardless of it being private or public??

Purpose of OFSTED

Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. We report directly to Parliament and we are independent and impartial. We inspect and regulate services which care for children and young people, and those providing education and skills for learners of all ages.

Every week, we carry out hundreds of inspections and regulatory visits throughout England, and publish the results on our website. To find an inspection report (for a school - my edit), go to the Find an inspection report page.

The aim of all this work is to promote improvement and value for money in the services we inspect and regulate, so that children and young people, parents and carers, adult learners and employers benefit.

[Linus]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Is there no government standard test that the kids have to take each year to progress? Do they not have a government agency like OFSTED http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/ to grade each school on how they are performing, regardless of it being private or public??

Purpose of OFSTED

Problem is there is no national standard in the US that I've been able to determine. In Canada, each province sets the standard but it's pretty rigorous to keeping religion out of making decisions on books unless they are religious class (there are a lot of Catholic school boards and such).

The book is published by Bob Jones University, a Protestant Christian university out of South Carolina.

I think the fact that religious schools are allowed to push this out as acceptable is what is unfortunate. Religion, for those who believe and want to study it, has, IMO, it's place in a religious class. It should not be allowed, however, to transverse over to non-religious classes.

[Dominique]

I hope this isn't a derail. The city of Pittsburgh puts its school board meetings on the public television channel. So while I sit and watch and listen, I am using the lap top to check the credentials of our school board members. Some are very qualified. Without going into what each brings to the table, not one was a former teacher. I found that alarming. And how about this. One was a high school drop out. It did not say if he picked up a GED along the way. But still......what does this say about public schools?
So as to not make it a sweeping statement, I'll add in my city?

These are elected positions.

[Abigail Crabby]

My daughter attended a Christian School from grades 1 - thru 8.

She was never fed this drivel.

She learned the same georgraphy, history etc etc ad nauseum as did her cousins that attended the local public school, yes her faith was also explored on several levels as well, that's why I enrolled her there. To be sure she saw both sides of everything. Being Christian I wanted her to know that in my opinon that God has a hand in everything.

To say that all Christian schools teach this adgenda is IMHO predjudical and ludicrous. It's like saying all Preachers picket soldiers funerals.

Of course this is my opinion,and I don't support what I've read this particular school teaches, and no one in my family would attend such a school.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Abigail Crabby

My daughter attended a Christian School from grades 1 - thru 8.

She was never fed this drivel.

She learned the same georgraphy, history etc etc ad nauseum as did her cousins that attended the local public school, yes her faith was also explored on several levels as well, that's why I enrolled her there. To be sure she saw both sides of everything. Being Christian I wanted her to know that in my opinon that God has a hand in everything.

To say that all Christian schools teach this adgenda is IMHO predjudical and ludicrous. It's like saying all Preachers picket soldiers funerals.

Of course this is my opinion,and I don't support what I've read this particular school teaches, and no one in my family would attend such a school.

No one is saying ALL Christian schools. However, what one is taught in a sectarian school may very well depend upon which religion runs the school. Catholic parochial schools, just to take one example, are *less* likely to teach this kind of thing than some Southern Baptist or Seventh Day Adventist Christian Academy. If the school is run by some evangelical sect in the United States, the chances are high that students will get a *very* skewed science education that barely rates being called either scientific or education.

The larger point is not about the specific school it is about the fact that Christian schools are using texts written at Christian universities where the faculty either does not realize that electricity is a rather well-understood phenomena (in which case they have no business writing a science text) or they know but are lying in the text to further their religious agenda (in which case they should not be writing *any* academic text). If they can't get the small concepts correct, how are they going to get the big concepts correct? The simple answer is, they aren't.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Linus

Problem is there is no national standard in the US that I've been able to determine. In Canada, each province sets the standard but it's pretty rigorous to keeping religion out of making decisions on books unless they are religious class (there are a lot of Catholic school boards and such).

The book is published by Bob Jones University, a Protestant Christian university out of South Carolina.

I think the fact that religious schools are allowed to push this out as acceptable is what is unfortunate. Religion, for those who believe and want to study it, has, IMO, it's place in a religious class. It should not be allowed, however, to transverse over to non-religious classes.

Linus:

There are no national scientific standards. There are *barely* national standards on reading and mathematics. One could reasonably go from kindergarten to 12th grade without *ever* having to demonstrate that you understand what an atom is or what it's constituent parts are (I'm not talking about the really small stuff like muons and gluons or quarks, I'm talking about proton, electron, neutron). One can go all the way through college in the United States without *ever* encountering the equation F=ma (Force = mass * acceleration) or having to explain the three laws of thermodynamics.

It's really quite remarkable if one thinks about it.

Cheers
Aj

[tapu]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Linus:

There are no national scientific standards. There are *barely* national standards on reading and mathematics. One could reasonably go from kindergarten to 12th grade without *ever* having to demonstrate that you understand what an atom is or what it's constituent parts are (I'm not talking about the really small stuff like muons and gluons or quarks, I'm talking about proton, electron, neutron). One can go all the way through college in the United States without *ever* encountering the equation F=ma (Force = mass * acceleration) or having to explain the three laws of thermodynamics.

It's really quite remarkable if one thinks about it.

Cheers
Aj

Historically it has been states that set their standards in all content areas. (In accordance with the doctrine of "States' Rights.") It is true that recently a set of National Standards for math/LA have been developed. These are called the "Common Core." States may decide whether or not to adopt the Common Core. It is projected that, eventually, there will be National Standards mandatory for all states. One of the reasons Science Common Core lags is precisely because of Christian vs. Scientific disagreements among states and among various Boards of Education within a state. It is very doubtful that private schools' leeway in teaching religious alternatives would ever be affected by public school curricula, at least in those areas. The standards, National or State, will have to be met, but "add-ons" like religion will remain privately determined in those schools.

[betenoire]

Meanwhile, back in Ontario, I don't even like the Catholic school board. They are publicly funded by property taxes just like the public schools are (in Ontario) and so far as I am concerned no school that gets government money should be allowed to teach religion.

I want to know, during that hour a day that kids are in religion class, what education are they missing out on that Ontarian public school kids are getting?

(Threads about education in the US always confuse me. I don't get what is so bad about public schools. In Canada hardly anybody goes to private school (why would they?) and the few private schools I'm aware of are either religious, french, or all-girl. And I don't know anybody who went to one.)

ETA - I actually want to know, during that hour (or whatever a day) that kids are in religion class anywhere in North America - what education are they missing out on that non-religious schools use that hour for?

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Linus

Problem is there is no national standard in the US that I've been able to determine. In Canada, each province sets the standard but it's pretty rigorous to keeping religion out of making decisions on books unless they are religious class (there are a lot of Catholic school boards and such).

The book is published by Bob Jones University, a Protestant Christian university out of South Carolina.

I think the fact that religious schools are allowed to push this out as acceptable is what is unfortunate. Religion, for those who believe and want to study it, has, IMO, it's place in a religious class. It should not be allowed, however, to transverse over to non-religious classes.

The article is about a Christian (Protestant) School. Parents send there kids there because they WANT Christianity to permeate all areas of learning.

For Protestant Christian schools, I think the religion piece is a big part of the reason that parents send their kids to these schools. I think that this is not always the case for Catholic schools (at least around here people of all religions send their kids to Catholic schools for the academics. Parents decide if their child goes to religion class and religion is much less commonly carried over to other subjects in the Catholic schools).

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

The article is about a Christian (Protestant) School. Parents send there kids there because they WANT Christianity to permeate all areas of learning.

For Protestant Christian schools, I think the religion piece is a big part of the reason that parents send their kids to these schools. I think that this is not always the case for Catholic schools (at least around here people of all religions send their kids to Catholic schools for the academics. Parents decide if their child goes to religion class and religion is much less commonly carried over to other subjects in the Catholic schools).

The problem becomes when kids educated in these schools either leave the warm womb of Christian education and suddenly have to sit in a science class where actual science is being taught OR they wind up going to an evangelical university and then get out and only then have to actually deal with people who didn't have the same education. Then you wind up with adults who are, for any practical definition, scientifically illiterate.

We really need a rethink of educational standards in this nation. We are too large, too powerful and have altogether too much technological sophistication at our disposal to have any significant portion of our society so dramatically illiterate about science. We are the *only* major industrialized nation where denial of climate change is in the least bit intellectually respectable. We are also the only major industrialized nation where denial of evolution is in the least bit respectable.

We desperately need national science standards for students k - 12 and, quite honestly, I would like to see the universities and colleges require a full year of physics, chemistry and biology regardless of major but that's probably a pipe dream.

Cheers
Aj

[tapu]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

The problem becomes when kids educated in these schools either leave the warm womb of Christian education and suddenly have to sit in a science class where actual science is being taught OR they wind up going to an evangelical university and then get out and only then have to actually deal with people who didn't have the same education. Then you wind up with adults who are, for any practical definition, scientifically illiterate.

We really need a rethink of educational standards in this nation. We are too large, too powerful and have altogether too much technological sophistication at our disposal to have any significant portion of our society so dramatically illiterate about science. We are the *only* major industrialized nation where denial of climate change is in the least bit intellectually respectable. We are also the only major industrialized nation where denial of evolution is in the least bit respectable.

We desperately need national science standards for students k - 12 and, quite honestly, I would like to see the universities and colleges require a full year of physics, chemistry and biology regardless of major but that's probably a pipe dream.

Cheers
Aj

So... where do you come down on freedom of religion?