Evangelical schools ordered to teach Darwin. Quebec crackdown

[Desertdog]

This is just one thing that the First Amendment should prevent in America with the Separation of Church and State Clause.
 
Evangelical schools ordered to teach Darwin
Quebec crackdown
 http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=c5715990-a9eb-45f2-9c66-26d3ea3c56fa&k=4546
David Rogers; with files from Joanne Laucius
National Post; CanWest News Service





OTTAWA - The Quebec Ministry of Education has told unlicensed Christian evangelical schools that they must teach Darwin's theory of evolution and sex education or close their doors after a school board in the Outaouais region complained the provincial curriculum was not being followed.

"Quebec children are legally required to follow the provincial curriculum ... but these evangelical schools teach their own courses on creationism and sexuality that don't follow the Quebec curriculum," said Pierre Daoust, director-general of the Commission Scolaire au Coeur-des-Vallees in Thurso, Que.

Mr. Daoust's complaint sparked the province-wide investigation.

Quebec law requires school boards to assure the Ministry of Education that every child between the ages six of and 16, with the exception of home-schooled children, receives an adequate education, he said.

But the 20 elementary and high school students who attend a school operated by Eglise Evangelique near Saint-Andre-Avellin, Que., are being educated according to a Bible-based curriculum and their high school diplomas will not be recognized anywhere in Canada, he said.

Supporters of Eglise Evangelique, part of the l'Association des eglises evangeliques du Quebec, counter that the school teaches a "world view" that is essential for their students.

"We offer a curriculum based on a Christian world view rather than humanistic world view," said Alan Buchanan, chairman of a committee that reorganized the school's administration this past summer, as well as a former Quebec public school teacher.

Mr. Buchanan said Eglise Evangelique teaches evolution as well as intelligent design.

"We want the children to understand what they're going to meet in the outside world, and also what's wrong with the theory," he said. "We also teach that a better theory -- that God created the universe and so on."

While the school doesn't teach sex education, it does teach biology, he said.

"You have the Christian world view that says sex should only be in the marriage and a public school system that teaches kids about sexuality," Mr. Buchanan said. "We believe students should be taught abstinence."

He said the school met provincial guidelines during two reviews conducted in the 1990s, although they were asked to add a Canadian history course.

Ministry spokeswoman Marie-France Boulay said yesterday the province will negotiate for several weeks with an unspecified number of evangelical schools to determine whether they can meet provincial standards that include the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Ms. Boulay said two or three unlicensed evangelical schools in the Outaouais are affected.

In addition to the 20 students at Eglise Evangelique, another 40 students attend an unlicensed evangelical school in Gatineau, Que., which falls under the jurisdiction of the Commission Scolaire des Draveurs. There is a third in Hull, Que., Mr. Daoust said. The other school boards haven't complained.

The Quebec government knows of about 30 unlicensed religious schools in the province, including Hasidic schools and several evangelical Christian schools in Montreal, said Dermod Travis, who served on Quebec's Comite sur la langue d'enseignement, a tribunal that hears special cases from the province's educational system.

Other religious denominations may operate faith-based schools as well, but no one really knows where they are.

The Quebec government has known about unaccredited religion-based schools for years, but has tolerated them for fear of offending the denominations sponsoring them.

Members of the Pentecostal Eglise Nouvelle Alliance in Gatineau, which operates a school for about 40 students, refused to discuss the Ministry of Education investigation because their minister, Charles Boucher, is out of Canada until Nov. 1.

Ontario schools are not required to teach either evolution or sex education, said Elaine Hopkins, executive director of the 900-member Ontario Federation of Independent Schools, which has 120,000 children attending schools with a few as 10 students and as many as 1,000.

Many parents send their children to independent schools because they object to the teaching of certain subjects in the public schools, she said. "These are issues that should be decided by the parents, not the province."

At the elementary level in Ontario, there are no curriculum requirements for independent schools at all, although Ms. Hopkins points out that the industry is market-driven.

"It's called direct accountability to the parents," she said. "If you're not going to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, the parents aren't going to pay for it."

At the high school level in Ontario, independent schools are inspected by Ministry of Education officials to ensure that they meet curriculum and hours-of-instruction guidelines for credits to be accepted by the ministry.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Darwin has a theory of sex education? 

[grampster]

I have a hardcover from PF Collier and Son, published in 1902.  "The Descent of Man and selection in relation to sex"  by Charles Darwin.  I have never read it as it is in a very delicate condition, but it appears he delved into sexuality.

[Marnoot]

I have a hardcover from PF Collier and Son, published in 1902.  "The Descent of Man and selection in relation to sex"  by Charles Darwin.  I have never read it as it is in a very delicate condition, but it appears he delved into sexuality.

Project Gutenberg has the text of said book if you're so inclined:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2300

[CAnnoneer]

This is just one thing that the First Amendment should prevent in America with the Separation of Church and State Clause.

Are you suggesting that a scientific theory is religious or that gov has no right to interfere in education? Please clarify.
 

[mak]

Evolution is the accepted scientific theory. If you are creationist and dont want your child exposed to it I guess you should home school. And along with that I would say you should not have to pay taxes for public schools if your child is not attending. And that opens up a can of worms because people with no children pay taxes for public schools because they also enjoy the benefits of an educated society instead of a third world cesspool where 99 out of a 100 people are illiterate. Just like everyone pays taxes for roads and infrastructure so we dont slog through that cesspool to the outhouse. AND this leads us into the subject of redistribution of wealth which I am sure is a real favorite subject with the conservatives that post here.

[Perd Hapley]

CAnnoneer, I would suggest both, although local government would probably need to be involved in education in some way.  We would have a lot less trouble, and pay less in taxes, if the fedgov stayed out of education. 

As a six-day creationist, I must say any school worthy the name would teach students the prevailing "scientific" theory of evolution and include the challenges thereto where appropriate.  Teaching Christian creationist ideas would also be useful.  When I say "teach," I mean the student should be made familiar with the ideas that obtain in society, not indoctrinated on a controversial subject. 

[AmbulanceDriver]

I attended a small Christian High School.  By small, I mean that my graduating class was 13.  No, there's not a digit missing there. 

That being said, we were taught some basic sex ed (primarily "This is how the human body works.  Now abstain until marriage."  That advice worked for about 80% of the student body) as well as Biblical Creationism (six-day Creationism).  However, we were also taught Darwin's Evolutionary Theory, and the flaws with it.  And that adaptation, or micro-evolution if you will, is something that is clearly going on even today.  However, we were also taught that macro-evolution, the true Darwinian evolution is seriously flawed and completely unsupported by objective science.  Now, before someone starts getting hot under the collar, this is what we were being taught.  It is not an attempt to debate the merits of creationism/evolution, simply a statement of how we were taught.


My opinion is that this was a very good way of exposing us to the "real world" as it were.  I suspect that a plan such as this would not satisfy the pols in Quebuec.  They want evolutionary theory taught as fact, without any of those inconvenient facts that *don't* support evolution left unmentioned.

I think that quite frankly, .gov has very little need to get involved with religious schools.  Especially on controversial subjects where church beliefs are clearly different from what the public school teaches.  That's the reason that parents send their students to such schools. 

[Desertdog]

Are you suggesting that a scientific theory is religious or that gov has no right to interfere in education? Please clarify.

I am suggesting that the Government should not go into the religous schools and tell them what to teach and how to teach it.  That's all.

The resuls with this is they cannot go into Muslim schools and tell them what to teach either.

[Nightfall]

Hoo-boy, hope they don't have to try this in a Muslim school... if a cartoon could cause what it did, I can't imagine what an effort viewed as a direct attack to prevent their teachings would cause!

[Sergeant Bob]

Hoo-boy, hope they don't have to try this in a Muslim school... if a cartoon could cause what it did, I can't imagine what an effort viewed as a direct attack to prevent their teachings would cause!

But of course, we know they wouldn't try it in a Muslim school.

[Guest]

Hello.  Newbie here.  I'm over on THR and decided to visit.

The Koran allows for evolution to be the method "Allah" used when creating man.  It doesn't say that's how it happened, but it's worded in a way that it is accepted.  Interesting when you consider the parts I read supposedly were written back in the 11th century.