The State of My State’s Education

For those of you who aren’t regular Shack readers, I live in Maryland, not all that far from Washington, DC. Let me tell you, it can be a pretty interesting place to live sometimes.

Take our school system, for instance. Inn my home county – Charles County – the school board is pondering a series of changes in the schools, including teaching creationism alongside evolution.

This, as you can imagine, has caused just the teensiest bit of controversy. Now, in another post tomorrow, I’ll have more on schools and the creation vs evolution brouhaha – centering on a competing theory called Intelligent Design which’ll feature another great essay from Mr. Science Guy. But that’s tomorrow (Hey look! A Teaser! Who says that we’re not sophisticated here?).

But before you call us all fundamentalist troglodyte rubes (but hey, we honestly don’t care if you do. We’re used to it down here in the “sticks”) let’s also consider another story that came out today about Maryland schools.

Maryland public school students are free to thank anyone they want while learning about the 17th century celebration of Thanksgiving (search) — as long as it’s not God.

And that is how it should be, administrators say.

Young students across the state read stories about the Pilgrims (search) and Native Americans, simulate Mayflower (search) voyages, hold mock feasts and learn about the famous meal that temporarily allied two very different groups.

But what teachers don’t mention when they describe the feast is that the Pilgrims not only thanked the Native Americans for their peaceful three-day indulgence, but repeatedly thanked God.

“We teach about Thanksgiving from a purely historical perspective, not from a religious perspective,” said Charles Ridgell, St. Mary’s County Public Schools curriculum and instruction director.

Let’s put aside that if Mr. Ridgell would have his way, children in St. Mary’s County school would never, ever be able to learn about the name of their own county. I want to look at something a bit broader here.

Extremism.

As surely as it’s extremism to want to crowbar religious beliefs like creationism (which, regardless of your belief, doesn’t have anything close to a firm scientific footing) into schools, it is equally extreme to purge religion from all school teachings.

Worse, it cheats children of the complete education they need to actually understand the history of our country and the motivations of its central figures.

For instance, without religion, we would have to believe that the Pilgrims came to the New World just for kicks. We couldn’t tell children that they were religious refugees from a country with a government that was oppressive and persecutory toward anyone who did not practice the state religion. We certainly could not then neatly segue into the reasons for the First Amendment.

We couldn’t explore some of the greatest writings of our founders, our great thinkers, or our Presidents without getting knee deep in religious references and statements of personal and public faith.

But anti-religious extremists don’t want that. In many ways, I believe they can’t allow that because to do so would irreperably damage their worldview. They are not critiziced in our secular media, certainly, but the damage they do is every bit as real and certain as the damage done by forcing one religious viewpoint on our schoolchildren.

(hat tip: Michelle Malkin, on the second story)

UPDATE: I did the story first, but the Llama Butchers did it funnier.

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Category: General