I, too, have crazy relatives. They've done things like protesting Target because they were "French," and football games because it is an "abomination to ruin God's paradise." They make my parents look like liberal Quakers! Their kids have had NO schooling, just Pentecostal pseudo-schooling to stay legit (knowing today's job market, that kills me) and have no friends.
The question of civil liberties of children will never be answered as long as adults hold all the power. I don't expect this Catch-22 to even be addressed in my lifetime.
Wasn't there a UN resolution addressing that? I thought I heard Bill O'Reilley tell lies about something to that effect.
Well, in my situation, the three victims' parents allow them to socialize with other kids that are just as religiously fanatic as they are. Does that count?
My friend's aunt raises her children like this. They're homeschooled, they can only watch bible movies, they aren't allowed to read anything except catholic literature, they can't play video games...It's depressing.
This is why I'm such an advocate of mandatory public schooling. If nothing else, it gives every child at least the chance to be exposed to rational thought and secular education. They can believe whatever they want as adults, but they need to be afforded the chance to escape the narrow worldview (whatever it may be) of oppressive parenting.
While I agree with you, that still doesn't mean that the public schools are much better. When I was in 8th grade my SCIENCE teacher told us that he didn't believe that humans evolved from apes. He said this because supposedly there isn't enough fossil evidence ( even though there is plenty), and because he thinks that mutation almost always result in the animal dying. What he didn't realize is that it is only minor differences that caused the change, not drastic mutation. When we had to write a paper on evolution (the more broad definition), I said that those that refuse to believe are ignorant. This caused him to get offended and he had a lecture in the class about it (he didn't mention it was me though). Ah Christians when will they learn.
Note: when I said christians I ment that certain type, not all of them. Like when Rym and scott talk about fat people.
Gawd. I want to cry now. I hate it when people do things like this - it hurts a lot to see people breeding close mindedness, and that there's more people out there being born and bred to hate others.. to hate me.
The times, they are a-changing. I grew up about twenty miles from where that first kid lives. Areas like Brookhaven, which make up at least ninety percent of MS, tend to be populated by families. When I say that, I don't just mean two adults and some kids. I mean Aunt Mary lives next door, MawMaw (Grandmother) lives one block over, and brother lives in the trailer at the back of the property. A lot of times, these people have only the most basic education. They were high school graduates, if that. I heard from so many people how black people were inferior, inter-racial relationships were wrong, and homosexuality was an abomination. I hated it. I wasn't raised that way, and for the longest time, I just wanted to get the hell out of Mississippi. Then, I went to college.
When I first moved to this city, I was sure it would be the same as where I'd lived before. After all, it was only about seventy miles from my hometown. As I progressed further in my education, though, I realized that the people that surrounded me, who had also been raised in Mississippi, were NOTHING like the people that I'd been raised with. They were much more open-minded than I'd thought possible for southerners. They weren't racist and had friends of a different race. Not just a black person they talked to now and then, but black friends who were invited to be best men in weddings and invited to homes to play video games. Homosexuality was no big deal, and the gay bars were often much funner and more interesting than those without that distinction. I was in shock.
I wondered how two places that were so close together could be so different. I believe it's because of the education. It is getting increasingly harder to make a living, even in Mississippi where people can and DO actually live on 15k a year, to find a job without some sort of education. It is assumed that most people will go to college after graduating high school regardless of race or gender. These kids will move away from their breeding grounds. They will enter worlds that challenge their beliefs and ideals, and a lot of what they encounter will be subtle.
The point I'm trying to make is that, even in a place like Mississippi, certain bigoted beliefs aren't as widely accepted any longer as the world may believe. Soon, people like myself and my friends will be the majority. We will be the parents, and we will raise children who (hopefully) will be open-minded and respectful of people. Unfortunately, most of the people that I know who would raise these types of children don't actually want to have kids, so I suppose we could still have a problem.
When I was in 8th grade my SCIENCE teacher told us that he didn't believe that humans evolved from apes. He said this because supposedly there isn't enough fossil evidence ( even though there is plenty), and because he thinks that mutation almost always result in the animal dying.
AFAIK the "missing link" has not yet been found.
Saying man evolved from apes is not a very good argument. Saying man is a genetic relative of apes with a common ancestor somewhere back in time is a better argument to make.
The very idea of a "missing link" is unfounded. Transitional fossils are plentiful and well-studied. There is no one "piece" necessary to prove the absolutely solid theory of evolution.
The very idea of a "missing link" is unfounded. Transitional fossils are plentiful and well-studied. There is no one "piece" necessary to prove the absolutely solid theory of evolution.
Think of science like a jigsaw puzzle without edges. There are infinity pieces, and you can never have them all. However, like a jigsaw puzzle, even when you don't have every piece, it is obvious what the picture is going to be.
Let's say someone gives you a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a boat. They throw away the box, so you don't know it's a boat. They also take out a few random fist-fulls of pieces. If you work hard at putting that puzzle together, you will at some point be able to say for effectively certain that the picture is a boat. The fact that you don't have the box, and a few pieces are missing, is not a big deal. The chances of those missing pieces completely changing the picture to be something besides a boat are incredibly slim. The puzzle will reach a stage where anyone who actually looks at it seriously will have to agree that it is a boat, despite there being a chance that it is not. In fact, as long as you have enough pieces, it will reach a point where you will think there is something wrong with anyone who doesn't recognize that the puzzle is a picture of a boat.
It's impossible for us to get every fossil ever. Many of those fossils have become, eh, fuel. However, from the puzzle pieces we have found and put together, it is obvious that the picture is evolution.
When I was in 8th grade my SCIENCE teacher told us that he didn't believe that humans evolved from apes.
My 6th grade science teacher said a similar thing. She went to crazy church and didn't believe in evolution, so when she had to teach about it, she acted like it was very distasteful and said, "Now some people say this, but I don't believe it." like it was some sort of lie she was forced to teach. I think the example she used was whales evolving from a wolf-like ancestor which lived on land. "How ridiculous!" She said and meanwhile 10 year old Emi is thinking [Wolf kinda looks like a --->Seal which is like a ---->Dolphin which is basically the same as a---->Whale? Hey, it could work!] and in my head I was thinking all the things I had read in my science books that my parents bought for me but I was too shy and didn't say anything even though I really disagreed. I still regret that. It's weird, in this case it worked the opposite the case you suggest. The public school teacher was spreading ignorance and the parents were bestowing the science knowlege.
Creationists are always happy when we find a fossil that fits in a gap in our knowledge, because then they have "two" missing links around the new fossil. ^_^
10 year old Emi is thinking [Wolf kinda looks like a --->Seal which is like a ---->Dolphin which is basically the same as a---->Whale? Hey, it could work!]
I saw a picture of that in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. My mind was completely blown. It also exlained to me how these creatures are also warm blooded sea creatures came to be.
I'm at Stuyvesant high school in NYC, which is billed as the best science high school in the city. My biology teacher just last year had to teach evolution, and she made clear she didn't believe any of it. At one point I asked a 'why' question, along the lines of "why is this structured that way." My teacher responded with "I'm not the creator, why are you asking me? you should ask the creator." As for the child abuse, training kids to spout religious propaganda is certainly very exploitative. EDIT: Forget exploitative, at 3 years old the first kids father told him he was going to hell, that's psychologically abusive. These parents walk an extremely thin line in the best of cases.
My friend's aunt raises her children like this. They're homeschooled, they can only watch bible movies, they aren't allowed to read anything except catholic literature, they can't play video games...It's depressing.
This is why I'm such an advocate of mandatory public schooling. If nothing else, it gives every child at least the chance to be exposed to rational thought and secular education. They can believe whatever they want as adults, but they need to be afforded the chance to escape the narrow worldview (whatever it may be) of oppressive parenting.
Ah, but we also need the choice to escape the zero-tolerance policies, mandatory subject-taking and drop-of-a-hat homework assignment that is forced upon children in public schools. It's very easy to make one option mandatory, eliminating whatever problems there might be in specific situations on the other side.
However, I think you'd find other, just as serious problems emanating from that decision. Parent-child bonding is difficult when the kid spends most of his day at school, in his room doing homework, and idly sitting in front of a screen, so we'd probably see a nominal increase in child rebellion. Also, parents tend to take a "it's not our problem - let the schools deal with it" approach when the kids spend most of their day at school. How does that affect the kid? It certainly couldn't have a positive effect on their emotional growth.
It's a really tough issue. There are problems with some homeschooling parents forcing their beliefs on the children, but there are plenty of happy homeschooling families out there - I interact with them every day. Of course, there are downsides and upsides to public/private schools as well. Assuming that one option should be mandatory is, in my eyes, foolish and narrow-minded. I don't want to turn this discussion into another homeschooling flamewar, but I just want to make my point clear.
From a child-psychology point of view, the general lack of socialization most (not all) home-schooled children receive means that some sort of group education is going to come out on top. Be it a public, private, boarding, or charter school, or an organized group of parents teaching a group of children (who are not related, having a litter of children yourself doesn't count)), that child is going to do far better in the general public than one who has little or no socialization with the outside world. Keeping a child in a mental and social box is a horrible thing to do, and part of the reason most parents turn to such drastic anti-social behavior is paranoia based in religion. You could draw an analogy to animals that are raised by humans form birth. Most can not be released into the wild because they do not have the survival and social tools to get along outside of the artificial environment they grew up in.
I'd also argue that the parents who wash their hands of any responsibility in regards to their children's education are equally as stupid as those who think they can teach everything, and teach it better than all the teachers at a school.
Your completely right. It has been proven that most kids do better in groups, whether its because the kids start challenging each other to get ahead, or some other reason. Unfortunately many homeschooled kids don't get this sort of experience, and that's where the whole stereotype of the socially inept kid comes from. There are exceptions, but for the most part I do agree, again, unfortunately.
Comments
Note: when I said christians I ment that certain type, not all of them. Like when Rym and scott talk about fat people.
When I first moved to this city, I was sure it would be the same as where I'd lived before. After all, it was only about seventy miles from my hometown. As I progressed further in my education, though, I realized that the people that surrounded me, who had also been raised in Mississippi, were NOTHING like the people that I'd been raised with. They were much more open-minded than I'd thought possible for southerners. They weren't racist and had friends of a different race. Not just a black person they talked to now and then, but black friends who were invited to be best men in weddings and invited to homes to play video games. Homosexuality was no big deal, and the gay bars were often much funner and more interesting than those without that distinction. I was in shock.
I wondered how two places that were so close together could be so different. I believe it's because of the education. It is getting increasingly harder to make a living, even in Mississippi where people can and DO actually live on 15k a year, to find a job without some sort of education. It is assumed that most people will go to college after graduating high school regardless of race or gender. These kids will move away from their breeding grounds. They will enter worlds that challenge their beliefs and ideals, and a lot of what they encounter will be subtle.
The point I'm trying to make is that, even in a place like Mississippi, certain bigoted beliefs aren't as widely accepted any longer as the world may believe. Soon, people like myself and my friends will be the majority. We will be the parents, and we will raise children who (hopefully) will be open-minded and respectful of people. Unfortunately, most of the people that I know who would raise these types of children don't actually want to have kids, so I suppose we could still have a problem.
Saying man evolved from apes is not a very good argument. Saying man is a genetic relative of apes with a common ancestor somewhere back in time is a better argument to make.
Let's say someone gives you a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a boat. They throw away the box, so you don't know it's a boat. They also take out a few random fist-fulls of pieces. If you work hard at putting that puzzle together, you will at some point be able to say for effectively certain that the picture is a boat. The fact that you don't have the box, and a few pieces are missing, is not a big deal. The chances of those missing pieces completely changing the picture to be something besides a boat are incredibly slim. The puzzle will reach a stage where anyone who actually looks at it seriously will have to agree that it is a boat, despite there being a chance that it is not. In fact, as long as you have enough pieces, it will reach a point where you will think there is something wrong with anyone who doesn't recognize that the puzzle is a picture of a boat.
It's impossible for us to get every fossil ever. Many of those fossils have become, eh, fuel. However, from the puzzle pieces we have found and put together, it is obvious that the picture is evolution.
EDIT: Forget exploitative, at 3 years old the first kids father told him he was going to hell, that's psychologically abusive. These parents walk an extremely thin line in the best of cases.