When trying to decide what to write about, I thought that looking at the news articles on-line would be beneficial. This information is definitely up to date and deals with issues that are currently taking place. I came across an article that was posted on April 30th, 2009, but is new information to me. It is titled “Evolution classes optional under proposed Alberta law”, which caught my interest right away. The ideas that are put forth are very controversial and have been hotly debated for many years, not only in Alberta, but throughout the world.
The bill gives the right to parents to take their children out of classes that discuss topics containing information about evolution and homosexuality. “The new rules, which would require schools to notify parents in advance of ‘“subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation,”’ is buried in a bill that extends human rights to homosexuals. Parents can ask for their child to be excluded from the discussion.” Edcuation Minsister, Dave Hancock believes that it will not be a substantial change, as parents have always had the right to not include their children in anything that deals with values, religion, sex education, but now homosexuality has been added to this list. Many people believe that it will be difficult to completely exclude the idea of evolution in some classes and that schools should not start excluding topics based on religious preferences. “The proposed legislation has touched off a debate about just what kind of image Alberta's government is trying to create around the world.”
Personally, I find this ridiculous. How can we start excluding ares of the curriculum in order to meet everyone’s individual needs? By doing this, we are not allowing the students to make their own educated decisions about what to believe. In terms of homosexuality, how will our society ever properly handle the idea of homosexuality when we are constantly creating a heteronoramative society? How can we embrace these ideas when they are constantly being put down? The future generations have an opportunity to create a society that has less conflict, but we are eager to let this not happen.
** The following information was retrieved from a news article on CBC.
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Ya I think it is a little bit crazy to start including or excluding ideas from the curriculum to try and cater to everyones needs. That would be pretty much impossible to do. I also think that homosexuality shouldn't be something banned from schools to discuss. Especially with gay marriage becoming legal in so many places now it's not like it's something completely frowned upon. Everyone has the right to like whomever they want I really don't see it as that big of a deal. If parents think that discussing it in school is going to give their children ideas and turn them gay or something like that they must be crazy. For one, for the most part most people that are gay are born gay so talking about it really isn't going to change anything. Also talking about it in a controlled environment and discussing it in a nice way rather than kids making fun of gay people and saying on their own what they think about these people would be the better way to go. If kids can come to understand that it is not a big deal for people to be gay then their might be less bullying or verbal abuse toward these people.
ReplyDelete"By doing this, we are not allowing the students to make their own educated decisions about what to believe" That's kind of the idea. Look at this from the parents' point of view: You kidnap their kids, by law, for 6 hours a day to indoctrinate them with the ruling political party's ideas. Does that sound like democracy to you? So the right to opt out of classes that teach/preach ideas that are against the parent's beliefs is pretty fundamental. The issue is how to balance parent's right to indoctrinate their kids with state's right to educate. But you can't start from the assumption that your values are the right ones and parents are always wrong (though, that is true -- unless of course, we're talking about my kids, in which case it's the parent that right...) :-)
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