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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I wouldn;t be so sure about that. The main reason
there was a lot of shift to private education had to do with silly things they
were starting to do in school - especially the propensity for teachers to
automatically assign an unfocused child the label of ADHD and send them to a
doctor to get them on ritalin. There was also the "whole word" method of reading
being taught (which my daughter was subject to and is just now pulling out of).
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My daughters still attend a public school and
recently my daughter joined the school choir. Shortly after joining she came
home to tell me that she felt uncomfortable because they were making them sing
all these religious songs. I spoke with the music teacher and the principal and
found that of 12 songs, 10 were clearly christian and two were "prouod to be
American" type songs. I was told that if she didn;t like it, she didn't have to
be in the choir because choir was an optional activity.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think something else is at work here besides
private education. Something far bigger, yet more subtle. My thought is that
over the last 20 years, christians who were feeling isolated and alarmed by
the pace of scientific discovery decided to move into the public education
system so that they could directly affect the education of children in that
direction. Sometimes I feel I missed my calling and I should be there on the
front lines as well because that is where the battle is. Changing the curriculum
will have less of an effect than increasing the number of secular leaning
teachers. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>With respect to the discussion involving "public" education, Dennett's
perspective was interesting. He thought a public education about
"religions" in the broadest sense -- i.e. one has to learn about *all* religions
(sufficiently well to pass 'standardized' test about them) was the solution to
current paradigm of religious brain washing. I know that for myself it was
an education in science that forced a direct confrontation between
evidence-based reasoning (science) and Catholic indoctrination around the time I
was 13-14 years old. An education in a variety of religions at an earlier
age would quite likely have facilitated the realization that one set of beliefs
that I had been taught had some major problems. I would suspect that I
would have stopped believing in a "savior" around the same time I stopped
believing in Santa Claus. <BR><BR>It seems that the removal of ones children
from public education is perhaps playing a major role in the revival of
Christan fundamentalism (in the U.S.). It is the ability to brainwash
children and limit their exposure to other "realities" which allows the
manufacture of irrational mind-clones. It is easy to say that one (as a
list member) would educate ones children "properly" (in rational thinking, etc.)
-- but what is to guarantee that everyone else will do that?
<BR><BR>Robert<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>extropy-chat
mailing
list<BR>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<BR>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat<BR></DIV>
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