To Vouch or not to Vouch?

August 19th, 2007 RWA Posted in News |

One of our most recent discussions in the Darwin Central forums was about an article in Thursday’s National Post on how Quebec’s only Mennonite community, located in the small town of Roxton Falls, may move out instead of having their children attend the province’s public schools or be forced to have their private schools teach the provincially-mandated curriculum. According to community spokesman Ronald Goossen, “we don’t agree with the emphasis on evolution, which we consider false; we don’t like the morality standards; and we don’t like the acceptance of alternative lifestyles” .

Now, my own reflexive reaction was to say “this is not right”. Although Goossen does have a valid point about the sort of value judgements the public school system often imposes on students, when it comes to teaching science, there can be no compromise. You either teach the students the facts or you don’t. But as DC member Physicist noted, this particular religious community, no doubt in part because of their pacifist beliefs, are making no attempt to impose their values on others; they simply want to be able to preserve their cultural traditions by choosing the type of education they want for their children. Some creationists in both the United States and Canada are not waiting for public schools to allow for their views in the science classroom, and have taken the steps to either send their children to private schools or to homeschool them, where they are “free” of any challenges to their parent’s beliefs. It’s no wonder then that so many Evangelical Christians are in favor of private school vouchers.

As a conservative deeply concerned about science education, my views on vouchers for private schooling have shifted slightly and my views on homeschooling have shifted profoundly. Although critics of vouchers claim that they put public schools at a disadvantage, it seems to me that private schools disadvantage themselves when they don’t teach as rigorously and throughly as they should. Look at the recent controversy regarding the University of California system’s refusal to accept applicants from private Christian schools whose science curriculum did not meet the criteria for adequacy. It appears to me that even private schools will require some sort of oversight to ensure that science and other subjects are being properly taught; we may, perhaps, have to limit vouchers to those schools which meet a certain set of standards regarding teaching pedagogy. As for homeschooling, many of us here at Darwin Central have had frustrating on-line debates not just with creationist homeschoolers but homeschooled creationists, equipped with no actual scientific knowledge or reasoning skills, but who had been so skillfully brainwashed by their parents, that facts bounced off their brains like bullets off Superman’s chest. You don’t have to watch South Park to know that while homeschooled kids may be aces at spelling and other basics, their parents are more often than not ill-equipped to teach them more advanced subjects.

So to the Mennonites of Roxton Falls, and all other creationists: if you insist on having the schools your children attend teach religious myth instead of scientific fact, you may either pay for such a school out of your own pocket, or keep your children at home. But don’t expect me or anyone else to support you, and don’t be surprised if your child’s success as an adult winds up compromised by your own decisions as a parent, and if your own community further decays as a result of remaining anchored in the past.