toto wrote:
Any anecdotes?


Departmentalized exams came into our division when I was in high
school. The following essay question was on the Biology exam: "Explain
the theory of evolution." Half the kids failed the exam because they
refused to answer the question on religious grounds. Only one boy had
the sense to answer the question, and then write something along the
lines of "this is a scientific theory, but many people including myself
do not believe it, instead believing that God created the Earth." He
got full marks (his mom was a TA). Ironically, the Biology teacher was
born again, and happily taught all kinds of science with the caveat
that people were welcome not to believe, but that they should know what
they were disagreeing with.

The parents of the kids who failed (and their fellows) went on the
warpath against the school. They started accusing the teachers of being
anti-Christian, unGodly, etc, and claimed they were warping and
perverting young minds. This was probably the parents of about 20% of
the school's students (200 kids total in the school). I'm not sure if
they managed to get departmental exams axed, but as a measure of
appeasement the school reinstated a "non-denominational" prayer at the
beginning of the school day. Non-denominational Christian prayer, that
is.

The Lord's Prayer had only been removed from the school 6 or 7 years
earlier, and the family of the kid who brought it about by claiming it
violated his human rights eventually had to move because of death
threats and vandalism to their house.

Some friends and I wanted to protest the reinstatement of prayer, but
since most of us were teachers' kids our parents talked us out of
biting the hand that fed us, as it were.

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)