muffy@lll-crg.ARPA (Muffy Barkocy) (12/17/84)
> > Of course, if textbooks had to include all of the half-truths > > and wild assertions needed to support creationism, the teachers would > > find it difficult to be heard over the laughter of all the students. > > > > > Unfortunately, not. Students, especially grade schoolers, believe what their > teachers tell them. Critical thinking is something that must be taught, it's > not instinctive. Indeed, the instinctive response is to accept what the > authorities tell you. Creationists are focusing their attacks on the schools > because they realize that that is where the mind of our nation is most > vulnerable. hmmm...well, as to teaching. I like to hear about everything, but I obviously cannot learn everything at once (at least, not that I *know* of...*grin*), so I have had to trust to the school authorities to filter what I am taught, such that I get it at a reasonable rate. Of course, this is not such a good method. In fact, I lived in Richmond, Virginia for a while, specifically while I was taking high school Biology. Turns out that, in the county of Richmond that I was in, we learned about all the systems in the human body. In the other county, they felt that the pictures in the chapter on the reproductive system were offensive, or some such, so they removed the entire system from the book. (*laugh*...this makes me wonder about a few things, but I won't get into it). Anyway, I see no reason why children shouldn't be exposed to both views under discussion, except: 1) I believe that people should not shove their ideas into someone else, although they should always feel free to present them. This doesn't seem to work too well with education. There tends to be bias in favor of personal points of view, both on the part of the teachers and administration of the school, and on the part of the authors of the textbooks. 2) As stated above, there is not *time* to learn everything. I'm not sure that it's good to present all points of view on a topic, since this *does* take up time, and there is so *much* to learn. Of course, since the absolute truth of things is hard to determine, there is no way to surely select the "best" view to teach. I have no answers, sorry. 3) I think that it would be very confusing for people to have all sorts of views suddenly presented to them. I know *I* would be confused, although I trust in myself to sort the mass of information out eventually. I've only just started reading this topic, and I still don't know much about the ideas being presented, although I'm digesting it (give me time, I just read this stuff today). Again, there are no answers to this. A related problem is the *order* in which to present the views, since this might have something to do with the acceptance of one view over another. I'm not presenting any solutions, I'm afraid. I'm not too fond of education in general, but I haven't figured out how to improve it... yet. All I know is that people shouldn't be restricted. I wish more people would teach children *HOW TO LEARN*. If everyone knew how to learn things, how to go find information for themselves, and how to be careful not to just believe everything they hear/read/whatever, then we could just say, "okay, there are these five major points of view, why don't you check them out..." ----------- ^We can't return, we can only look Behind from where we came And go 'round and 'round and 'round in the circle game...^ --Joni Mitchell, "Circle Game" M *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***