Malik23 wrote:rusmeister wrote:There IS an attitude (worldview) publicly taught, and yet is couched in language that makes it difficult to define. Put simply, it is: You can believe whatever you want. But what you believe does not and can not reflect an absolute truth that also affects others. It is personal. Individual. In a word, there is no truth. There are only facts. Only what can be "proven" (in the scientific sense) is true.
Wow, for something that isn't taught, you are able to define it with amazing precision. You can deduce all that from what is left unsaid in every classroom? Are you sure that's what is being taught? Do you have evidence for this conclusion?
As a matter of fact, I do, Malik.
(Hi guys! Sorry about the building lack of response on recent threads - I'm sick, overloaded with work, and not up to much now.)
Malik, I fulfilled requirements for teachers in both NY and CA. I can certify from personal experience that it is REQUIRED that teachers profess the modern ideology that I have described (despite claims of 'tolerance') - most teacher candidates are 23-yr old females who have been brought up in this ideology and do not question it, and so, have no problem. But for people who believe in the freedom of thought to challenge conventional (mis)understandings of 'tolerance', 'diversity', etc, the path to teaching is barred. Teachers of public schools MUST comply with the requirements. If a course requirement (and it was a point in
every.
single.
course. in my
state teacher prep program) requires one to show how they will teach these concepts when the candidate fundamentally believes that they are wrong, they will be failed - on the basis of what they believe - not on any lack of academic merit. The case of Steve Head
www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_ed_school.html is just a case in point (PS - I, as an agnostic, made a similar challenge, but upon a similar response from the instructor, decided to shut my mouth and toe the party line - for me, getting the credential was absolute priority). These requirements are continued in the constant mandatory trainings, staff mtgs, etc. Point is, the teachers in the classrooms have no choice but to believe and profess those things.
Fact - those are state requirements, pretty much universal, as far as I know, across the United States. NY and CA I know from personal exp, TX and VT from research, etc. All teachers are required to profess that ideology on a regular basis.
It is true that much of what a math teacher deals with will not touch on moral/religious questions. But at the same time, is math, for example, completely isolated? Of course not. But whatever whys or motivations for learning the facts, as well as the context in which facts are to be understood, must ultimately refer to that particular worldview. Reference to any other - specifically, that one of them is actually true, or more true than others, is a risk to one's career.
Sorry I don't have time for more. I'm somewhat dismayed that people did not understand what I said and still speak of tolerance, etc as if it were an unqualified good, as if there were no such thing as something not to be tolerated, no such thing as a philosophy actually poisonous and destructive, or as if there were no such thing as negative impact from this enforced world-wide mixing of cultures. Also at the inability to see that the value of all things to be taught proceeds from a very definite worldview; the assumption that worldview can be completely divorced from what is being taught. Anyway, hope to clarify more over the next week!
"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one." Bill Hingest ("That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis)
"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." G.K. Chesterton
