Teach Creationism and Evolution!!!!!!
The latter has plagued the minds of all college students as they prepare to cross the threshold from fun loving college to the harsh, grim reality of what is so eloquently dubbed, “The Real World.”
But what about the first? Some believe we came from a higher power, a God, Intelligent Design; others have pondered that we merely stumbled to where we are today through years upon years of evolution; from prehistoric muck and ooze to the business suit.
And the two sides have been in a heated debate since, well, the dawn of the thinking man. Now, the debate has crawled itself into the classrooms, each trying to influence and lobby what should and shouldn’t be taught to their beloved children.
The religious believe that it is not feasible to assume that we, humans, just came from monkeys through millions of years of evolution, while the secular and atheistic hypothesize that it is illogical to think that we just appeared here from dust, and sculpted by an invisible creator.
Even on this campus the conversation and debate rage on, as it should. The many Christian and other religious organizations, I imagine, hold the belief that we came from the dust crafted by the hands of a God, while groups such as the Pastafarians and other “free thinking,” secular groups reference
Both are a microcosm of the Nation’s opinions in regards to public school teaching of the “Origins of Man” (and woman).
So why can’t teachers teach both? Students are taught differing methods of how to solve the same math problem, and are instructed to read books with differing philosophical standpoints on the same issues in English, why not teach two differing theories of where we came from?
How has our society gotten to such a “my way or the highway” mentality, instead of a “meeting in the middle” mindset that our founding father’s used to pen The Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
If the bickering continues, then neither theory will be taught, and the future students will never have the opportunity to agree or disagree with theories and hyperboles.
It is after all a teachers’ job to teach, to impart knowledge, so others may think for themselves.
Even the greatest teacher, Aristotle, followed this method. He didn’t instruct Plato on what to put in his Apology; he merely instructed him how express thought in writing. That is the idea we should take in regards to the teachings, in pubic schools, of our origins. Present both Creationism and Evolution as ideas, neither of which has been fully proven, and let the student decide for themselves where they think we came from. Who knows, maybe one of those students will be inspired to think of a way to find out where we really came from.
But truly, where we come from and how we got to where we are is a miniscule matter. What we should be most concerned with is where we are going.
After a lot of misplaced anger towards the religious for trying to invade public school science classes, I've come to the conclusion that it would be ok to teach creationism...in an elective religion class.
ReplyDeleteOne of my friends is a homosexual atheist and when I asked him what he was majoring in he said religious studies. I asked him why HE would study that and he said just because he found it so interesting.
Never-the-less, this applies to secondary education only. Public schools, though they try to ignore it, are bound by the rules of the U.S. government, which is bound by the constitution. And that says that you can't force the teaching of religion to all students, because not everybody is christian. The most underlying issue is, however, that no matter how much spin is put on it, creationism is NOT a scientific theory and shouldn't be taught in science classes.
Therefore, religious studies electives in highschool would help solve the problem. That way, at least, the students, not the parents (and I stress that...NOT the parents) can truly decide whether or not they want to learn the theory of creationism.
- Big Fred