Promoting intelligent design without critical thought

It’s about time a public school system really got behind open-mindedness. Dover Area High… It’s about time a public school system really got behind open-mindedness. Dover Area High School supports its students’ questioning about what they’re taught. High schools these days are so caught up with test scores that they neglect the students’ development into free-thinking persons.

Not Dover, though, right? “As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.” OK. OK. The classes at Dover High School are designed to make sure students can pass standardized tests.

But, the students are still encouraged to think for themselves. Otherwise, why would Michael Baska, the assistant superintendent, include the words, “With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind,” in a letter to parents?

The letter was sent out because it contains a prepared statement biology teachers will be reading to students, informing them that a book is available to those who wish to read it about intelligent design, which I’ve heard called creationism with a pseudo-scientific spin more often than anything else.

The students will not be tested on the material. The material will not even be taught in class. And, the parents can have the students excused from class while this piece of information is being delivered.

A school’s curriculum should reflect the surrounding community’s views. With so many schools barely able to meet minimal educational standards, it’s refreshing to read an article about controversial topics rather than poor performance or lack of funding.

For the moment though, let’s imagine that our friends in Dover are big Oscar Wilde fans. They’ve developed a new view on social interaction based on that wonderful line: “Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind.”

So, the fine folks of Dover have a large population of people holding an incredibly patriarchal view that in no way stems from a religious source – as Oscar Wilde is a far cry from being even remotely biblical. They do their town-meeting thing, and next fall a new letter goes out warning parents about the following in-class speech:

“This school district is standardized-test driven, so the material being taught will only be that contained in the usual social studies texts. A second textbook, however, is available to any student who would be interested. It contains an alternate view of the ideal social structure.”

However I may feel about the new topic, it’s definitely OK for teachers to let students know about its existence. Hell, my eighth-grade teacher went so far as to lend me his copy of “The Communist Manifesto.” He wasn’t exactly a Marxist, but he had a copy around for the occasional curious student. And in the hypothetical case of Dover, a large portion of the population wants its children to be made aware of these teachings. So, aware they should be made.

Education needs to be more than the accumulation of data. Schools should present opposing viewpoints, particularly those held by large percentages of the local population. If I remember correctly, after discovering one girl did not believe in evolution, my high school biology teachers said, “Yes, evolution is just a theory. But, then so is gravity.”

Intelligent design is cheating. It’s defeatist science sloppily wrapped around a lack of faith. But, that doesn’t mean it mustn’t be spoken of within school corridors. A distance must remain between church and state to protect the liberties of the people, but the distance between them is not the goal. It exists to guarantee just the kind of discussion that’s being forbidden in Dover.

The decorative sex should feel free to e-mail Zak Sharif at rzs8@pitt.edu or just slap him on sight.