35 Reasons Pt 2

35 Reasons Pt 2 16. Does worldview censorship remain a live problem in contemporary public schools? At present it seems that ‘anything goes’ in the public school forum, from secularism to new age occultism, except the old Protestant common school ethic. Generic Protestants now stand in the place formerly occupied by Catholics and Lutherans. In Censorship: Evidence of Bias in Our Children’s Textbooks, Paul Vitz summarizes his extensive federally-sponsored study of the most popular public school textbooks used in the 1980’s. Vitz documents substantial worldview bias in these major textbooksÑthe sources that provide many children throughout America with their required reading assignments. The boxed excerpts offer a few examples. Read the whole of Vitz’ study if you think you can stand it; or check out many other similarly depressing studies. It’s hard to argue against the conclusion that censorship indeed is alive and well, perpetrated with good intentions by a politically-correct educational establishment.

Bias in School Textbooks

After analyzing a large group of social studies texts (in which every page of each evaluated text was examined independently by four investigators), Paul Vitz concluded that ‘the dominant theme is the denial of religion as an important part of present-day American life’ (p. 18). The investigators found ‘not one text reference to characteristic American Protestant religious life in these books’ (p. 15). Four 6th grade world history booksÑ’Riverside, Macmillan, Laidlaw, Holt, Rinehart & WinstonÑgive not a word of coverage to [Jesus’] life and teaching…. it is not that great religious figures are totally avoidedÑit is that Jesus is avoided’ (pp. 34Ð35). In basal readers, Vitz reports: ‘Serious Judeo-Christian religious motivation is featured nowhere. References to Christianity and Judaism are rare and generally superficial. Protestantism is almost entirely excluded, at least for whites. In contrast, primitive and pagan religions, as well as magic, get considerable emphasis’ (p. 75). While at least 19 stories feature Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Polynesian, American Indian and Buddhist religious themes, and well over 13 stories are devoted to magicians or occult themes, the name of Jesus does not occur once in 670 stories (pp. 68Ð69). (Keeping Christ company are Patrick Henry, Daniel Boone, Paul Revere, and even labor unions; p. 71.) ‘Certain themes just do not occur in these stories and articles…. The few with a modest promotherhood emphasis are set in the past or involve ethnic mothers. No story clearly supports motherhood for today’s woman. No story shows any woman or girl with a positive relationship to a baby or young child; no story deals with a girl’s positive relationship with a doll; no picture shows a girl with a baby or doll’ (p. 73). For social studies textbooks, grades 1Ð4: ‘not even the word marriage or wedding occurs once in the forty books! …neither the word husband nor wife occurs once in any of these books…. Note one of the many families described in these books features a homemaker….’ (p. 38). Elementary texts, Vitz concluded, ‘seem to be about an equal mixture of pap and propaganda’ (p. 77).

Pap or Propaganda? Another view: ‘I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational levelÑpreschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an area of conflict between the old and the newÑthe rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of Ôlove thy neighbor’ will finally be achieved….’ John Dunphy, The Humanist 17. Which ‘classics’ do children read in the public schools? Ravitch and Finn report that ‘the only history studied by most high school students was a single year of American history. Few states or communities require more. A year of world history, once obligatory as a high school graduation requirement in most districts, had become an elective or had disappeared altogether.’ This is not even to mention the lack of foreign language study, which many home-schoolers begin in the elementary grades along with English. Omissions like these can educationally handicap children for life. We acknowledge that not everyone desires a ‘classical’ education for their children as we do, and in recognition of such diversity we believe that there should be much curricular flexibility, as noted in the first section. Yet what is left out of typical public school curricula becomes even less understandable to us when we see what is often put in. For example, we both remember reading a nihilistic story called ‘The Lottery’ in Junior High, which though it possessed not a single discernible redeeming quality was still required reading nine years later when my sister went through the same school. Now unsuspecting fourth graders may encounter stuff that makes ‘The Lottery’ look tame, if their school district is lucky enough to use the handsomely-packaged Impressions series of language arts readers developed by Holt Rinehart and Winston of Canada, which are published throughout America by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Consider the edifying poem, ‘The Pocket,’ found in one of the fourth grade readers. For more themes of despair, mutilation, witchcraft and sorcery, etc., which our children evidently need to increase their vocabulary, see the extensive expos