Even those who aren’t surprised by the simple fact of Donald Trump’s assault on America’s universities must be shocked by the full frontal magnitude of it all, belated attempts to walk back parts of it, notwithstanding. (Harvard is putting up a courageous, clever, and effective defense.)

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    I wish we had a country where that resulted in your ass getting fired for cause. Teachers have a right to their personal belief systems, but that needs to stay out of the classroom.

    • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      2·
      23 hours ago

      In middle school our new science textbooks were recalled the first week of school. The textbooks discussed (horrors!) the big bang theory without also talking about the theistic theory. The books were returned with those pages rubber cemented together. The teachers were upset (upset enough that middle-school me noticed), but it was by order of the superintendent.

      My parents got me a copy of A Brief History of Time in response. Also, rubber cement is fairly easy to pry apart.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        12 hours ago

        What part of the country was this in?

        I grew up in a part of Pennsylvania that was heavily red and an extremely underfunded school system. However, as far as I knew, evolution was not “controversial” in our schools? We had a few dedicated (and criminally underpaid, I’m sure) teachers that covered it well, and none of them injected any of their personal bullshit into the classroom.

        Fast forward a few years, and then Dover hits the national stage as some test case for the creationists/“Intelligent Design” assholes trying to start up with their “teach the controversy” bullshit…

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 hour ago

            Description of Artwork: Discovery Works was a science textbook used in Marshall County’s middle schools. It featured two pages elucidating the Big Bang Theory.

            The Incident: Superintendent Kenneth Shadowen, after hearing complaints from parents about the book, recalled all of them from the students and ordered school staff to glue the two offending pages together.

            I’m wondering if “complaints from parents” was organic and just a few loud Karens making trouble, or a bunch of Karens pointed at the school by some wingnut activist group, like a local church?

            In any case: JFC, some people are so very fucking stupid. Imagine, being offended by science.

            • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
              2·
              1 hour ago

              My impression at the time was the superintendent acted on his own. Not even the board of education was involved, and they weren’t happy to be blindsided.

              My guess is the

              1. superintendent had a student in that grade,
              2. student came home with new textbook,
              3. superintendent saw the ‘blasphemy’ in the new-that-year textbooks,
              4. superintendent was his own Karen.