this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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And this is a school run by evil Pearson who controls all the textbooks, so that's a bit of a comfort even as America's educational standards slip down the tubes.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago

The bar is so fucking low.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

In civilized countries there's no need for all the pussyfooting about "cultural and religious beliefs" and reassuring sky-fairly-believers that the Theory Of Evolution module is merelly "introducing what the scientific standpoint is".

Merely that such an intro was needed is itself an indication of how fast the US is regressing away from XXI century Developed Nation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Nice try. Romanes eunt domus!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Romans are not buildings?!

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah it's not a point for science if the science teacher has to apologize for teaching science

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

That doesn't look like an apology for teaching science to me at all. I'm not sure how you're interpreting it that way.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (7 children)

It's the preemptive justifying and excusing of something that should need no justification or excuses to be teached.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Looks like an apology to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Probably the tone, diction

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

What's neat is some US states and/or school districts strictly enforce the teacher's right to pick the study materials, for better or for worse. Which is weird to think about because they don't even pay them fairly.

[–] [email protected] 161 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Deeply depressing that this email even has to be written.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, it is only a sensitive topic because bigots overreact.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

And why are we coddling bigots again

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Because they break shit when they don't get their way.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

So do children, but when you give in, they learn that's how they get their way and they do it more.

[–] activ8r 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Because they are in charge.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Love their phrasing. Really makes it difficult for anyone to object without sounding like a complete asshole.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 2 days ago

And it's just a little bit passive-aggressive, which I appreciate.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

It's well written message. What they did there was to not be an asshole in the first place. Respect pays off.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Religion doesn't necessarily need to disprove evolution, most religious people just do.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

we understand this is a very sensitive topic

Ya wot m8?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

In the American Dystopia factual things are upsetting to some people on the basis of conflicting with their preferred fictions. They are, unfortunately, numerous enough that the sane people here don't always have the time or energy to argue with those who actively refuse to see reason.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Hell, when I was in Catholic high school, there was a world religions class, and we learned all sorts of stuff about all sorts of religions, without any snark or derision or sense of superiority. I still remember that there's an eightfold path to union with Buddha, though I don't remember any of the steps on that path.

I was even the "resident non-believer" in class discussions, and I only felt a little twinge of weirdness from other students (but not the teacher). I was already an outsider so I didn't care. I suppose Catholic school isn't as bad as generic Christian (read: evangelical) school.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Christian school kid here. It was so cringey.

"OK kids, let's all have a giggle about how silly all the kids at public schools are because they think their ancestors were monkeys. We know the truth is that magical rainbow sky fairies created us and if we all believe this hard enough the sky faires will make sure nothing bad happens to anyone we care about but fuck those other cunts."

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Yup, I also went through Catholic grade school and received my first F in anything in the third grade. It was because I had a grievance with the way my ancient nun of a teacher explained heaven. I kept asking her about how the other ideas of heaven (nirvana/valhalla/ whatever else I had heard of be age 8) couldn't all be the same place just viewed through other languages/cultures. She ended up slapping me and giving me a failing grade in religion.

I have continued to fail at religion as a lifelong practice. She helped cement some contrarianism in me to the point where I actually read the whole bible by 6th grade so as to be better prepared for debates.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah. My grandmother sent my father to a Catholic school in part for the cult indoctrination... at least she has enough sense to be appalled about that specific school being one of the Catholic facilities involved in their child rape scandals at the time he was attending.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

'Last Thursdayism' is the key to ending the squabble on evolution vs creation.

Sure, Earth is a thousand years old or some shit; but you see, god is super sneaky, and made billions+ year long backstory for his fresh creation, so on day 1 the earth has topsoil, fossils, oil, critters in all stages of life including old cranky ones that still remember their childhood (which never took place, you see - that was pre-existence, but to the individual critter, pre and post creation of everything are indistinguishable.

Boom. Evolution is now compatible with creationism, we can stop bashing heads over that one now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

god is super sneaky, and made billions+ year long backstory for his fresh creation,

Now I can't get this mental image of God sitting there with a typewriter writing incredibly detailed Earth fanfics long before he actually made anything.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Not the Christian God, he just filled out a DND character sheet. Under the character info he wrote "Looks old as fuck, but is actually really young". And then in a different color pencil, kind of squeezed in sideways along the edge with an arrow that points back to the original sentence in a second line, "Full of random shit that could only be there if actually super super old!"

He will then use that sentence to explain away why he always seems to "know" something that could only be known if he was truly ancient.

Edit: Chatgpt was actually able to make an image I asked for without telling me it violated its rules, and at the same time looking something like what I asked for, what a miracle...

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

They could snark it up a bit by adding a disclaimer that some of the geology evidence will require teaching the earth is globe-shaped.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

It's only a sensitive topic if you're on that gamma bronze age peasant whineset

[–] SacredPony 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Looks like a pretty bog-standard notice whenever evolution gets taught, at least in all my classes. Really shouldn't have anything to do with religion vs atheism.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's stupid that such a disclaimer needs to be sent at all.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While I understand it is necessary to send out this kind of message, it is an example of coddling bigots and terrible people to avoid conflict.

[–] SacredPony 5 points 1 day ago

Which is sadly something you kinda have to do a lot of in the world of education if you want to keep a position of being able to teach. Ironically, it probably wouldn't be a real issue if the US had a more robust education system and understood the nuance of this stuff better

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Not standard in the U.S. at all.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Raised in a religious community, the closest we got in our high school was Earth Science and Biology (this one was taught by a christian fellow, too). I wasn't exposed to Evolutionary discussion until college.

I had an anti-science argument with my counselor and tried to opt out of Earth Science in my first year. She said "you just have to take it". I was at that stage where I was afraid to challenge my beliefs.

Within the next 4 years, I was agnostic. During college, and through an anthropology class, it was clear I was ill-informed.

At this point, I also wouldn't consider my self "atheist", because the community around it (on Reddit) became it's own sort of religion that spent their days bashing on (primarily) christians. Religion, to me, is no more than parables that teach good morals.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

The people on /r/Atheism are coming at things as getting away from oppression and abuse at the hands of religious communities. And they're a small portion of atheists, not really representative of "the community"...which doesn't really exist

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Religion, to me, is no more than parables that teach ~~good~~ questionable morals.

Ftfy.

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