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January 26, 2007

Coddling of Parents' Beliefs Goes Too Far

The reaction of some parents in Washington state to the announcement that their children would be shown Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," in school brings up a fascinating question: at what point does society have a responsibility to insert itself into the parent-child relationship?

One parent, a Christian named Frosty Hardison, protested loudly when he heard his daughter would be shown the film at school. "Liberal left is all over Hollywood," he said. In an email to the school board, he wrote, "No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming." Forget science; he says he believes that global warming is "one of the signs" of the impending Second Coming of Jesus. I know many good people who hold that view. Are they right to protest the teaching of science in their children's school?

No question, the film is controversial. But why is it controversial? Two reasons, neither of which is fully understood by most Republicans: first, it is associated with that flaming liberal Clintonista, Algore, an association that carries an entire package of prejudices along with it; and second, a whole lot of corporate polluters have managed to find unscrupulous "scientists" to write "scientific" papers arguing against the theory that man's activities have resulted in rapid climate change and that the situation is urgent. Your average Republican, like most people, doesn't realize that real science is peer-reviewed and published in reputable scientific journals. If a person claiming to be a scientist says that global warming isn't occurring, or that what we are experiencing today is a purely cyclical, natural phenomenon, most Republicans will accept it as truth it because that's what Republicans are supposed to believe, and to think otherwise is to be a traitor to all that is good in America.

The interesting question here, really, is whether it is appropriate, when the future of the planet is at stake, for schools to continue to coddle right-wing parents who rely so heavily on faith or biased partisan views that they will flatly deny sound science and refuse to allow their children, whose responsibility it will be to deal with the problem, to be exposed to the information that will help them deal with it. You could ask similar questions in the debates over homosexuality and discrimination, birth control education and abstinence education, and evolution and intelligent design.

Here's my opinion. The school system has no business interfering with what a parent teaches a child about these controversial issues until high school. But at that point, parents need to recognize that their children are about to enter the real world where they will be exposed to all sorts of ideas. If they have not by that time taught their children how to think critically and argue convincingly for the positions they hold dear, if they have not developed the sort of relationship with their child that would result in their child discussing controversial issues with them at home and asking them questions about what they are being taught in school, then too bad. That simply indicates that the parents gave up their parental responsibilities long ago. If they want to shelter their children from reality into their teen years, parochial schooling or home schooling are available. But in the public school system, it is appropriate to teach kids what peer-reviewed, reputable scientific research has to say about these controversial issues. Too much is at stake to allow another generation to grow up ignorant of the facts.

Posted by Becky at January 26, 2007 08:11 AM