2010-10-24, 05:54 PM
Erebus Wrote:- To first part: That's fine but what I'm saying is that I don't necessarily think someone should be funded by the government to teach their personal beliefs or the beliefs of the students.
The government's role is to represent the majority without denying the minority. If the majority wants their government to act in a certain way, then the government is sort of obligated to act in that way, granted it is still fair to minorities. As it stands, our schools actually do teach person beliefs. For example, we teach the beliefs of the Untied States here in the states. I doubt many would say that people ought not to have rights, but it is still a personal belief.
Quote:-To the second part: That doesn't really work well. If the entirety of the student body wants to have something taught to them (or rather their parents want something taught to them) then it could work. However if you just have 1 student with different beliefs or even one parent who doesn't want that taught to their child you arrive at a problem. What would be the propose solution: Have the child miss class or have the kid forced to learn something that may go against his beliefs? I'm not 100% sure but a student with different beliefs could sue for discrimination. As well I fell the time used for the comfort of the students could be used to teach more things, E.G. the week or so they spend on teaching and testing on intelligent design could be used on better things or at least deepening the understanding on current subjects.
As it stands, at least in my schooling, for controversial topics parents/students can opt out of learning them. For example, in my schooling, for sex ed, parents could decide if they wanted their children to learn about it. This allowed people who their children to learn about it, and it didn't force anyone to attend classes for it. In my class where our teacher taught Creationism/Evolution/Alien intervention theories he gave every student the choice of whether or not they wanted to be taught it, with the exception of evolution because that is state mandated for everyone to learn. No one opted out (and it wasn't because of the threat of harder work or anything). I feel he did a good job not teaching any of the subjects with a bias. He presented each topic as best he could with what believed and why they believed it.
Quote:-To the third part: You can't necessarily argue: "you pay taxes on it so you should ALWAYS be able to control it", their are a lot of things taxes go to that aren't used by the tax payers and if you want a customized education instead of the one already provided you should have to pay extra because you want the extra comfort and extra benefits. But I do agree that their should be some kind of "School Voucher" implemented to those who want a custom education.
I sort of just see it that they should figure out the general cost of public schooling and give vouchers for that. They can then decide to have completely free education at a public school with their voucher, or have it go to lowering the cost of a private school.