You cannot petition the Lord with prayer! But you can petition the British government

It’s a very sensible petition, too, asking the UK government to treat creationism appropriately.

Creationism and ‘intelligent design’ are not scientific theories, but they are portrayed as scientific theories by some religious fundamentalists who attempt to have their views promoted in publicly-funded schools. At the same time, an understanding of evolution is central to understanding all aspects of biology. Currently, the study of evolution does not feature explicitly in the National Curriculum until year 10 (ages 14-15). Free Schools and Academies are not obliged to teach the National Curriculum and so are under no obligation to teach about evolution at all. We petition the Government to make clear that creationism and ‘intelligent design’ are not scientific theories and to prevent them from being taught as such in publicly-funded schools, including in ‘faith’ schools, religious Academies and religious Free Schools. At the same time, we want the Government to make the teaching of evolution in mandatory in all publicly-funded schools, at both primary and secondary level.

Yeah, I can get behind that.

(Also on Sb)

Archaic religion + modern technology → horror in Bolivia

We think of Mennonites as an extremely conservative Christian sect that is cautious about adopting modern technology. But apparently, with the right incentive, they can innovate, as a group of Bolivian Mennonites demonstrate.

Wall is among 130 women and girls of the Mennonite colony in Manitoba Colony, who claim that from 2005 to ’09, the same cloudy horror visited them. They’re the victims of what is allegedly one of the ugliest sex scandals in the history of the Mennonites, a pacifist Christian Anabaptist denomination founded in Europe in the 1500s, if not Bolivia and South America. In a criminal trial now under way in nearby Santa Cruz, Peter Weiber, 48, a Mennonite veterinarian, is accused of transforming a chemical meant to anesthetize cows into a spray to be used on humans. For four years, Weiber and eight other Mennonite men allegedly sprayed the chemical through bedroom windows in Manitoba at night, sedating entire families and raping the females.

Charming fellows. Old-timey farmers. Quaint horse-drawn buggies. Insular, inbred, arrogant patriarchal monsters.

The accused didn’t just commit horrible acts, but don’t seem to feel guilt or remorse.

The men range in ages from 20 to 48. Four of them, including Weiber, are married. But they don’t seem to take the case too seriously: they often joke with guards or fall asleep during trial proceedings, and during one victim’s testimony the judge had to reprimand them for laughing and making faces. That may be one reason victims rarely go to the courthouse. “My heart was racing and my head hurt,” Susana Banman, 55, tells TIME about her one day at the trial.

Suddenly, I don’t find myself as distressed at the thought of the imminent potential extinction of humanity by ecological disaster as I once was. So that’s a bit of good news.

(via Jen)

Mortification of mind and flesh

This is the story of Lydia Schatz, a 7 year old girl in a good Christian home, tortured and beaten to death in the name of God.

Her parents were stupid people, following the parenting advice of a pair of demented fuckwits, Mike and Debi Pearl. The Pearls are popular and prospering because they have a ministry and a collection of books that appeal to a popular strain of fundamentalist Christian thought: the need to control. They see the family as a reflection of their imaginary god, patriarchal, ruled, dominated, and advocate a policy of discipline that echoes what they think their god desires.

[Read more…]

Foobaww first!

A former Texas public school teacher has sent me some stories from their career there. It’s not pretty. The situation is what I also recollect from my long-ago days in a Yankee high school, though, so I don’t know that we can just blame Texas, but it’s true — the system is often set up to give athletes (including cheerleaders) academic privileges that other students don’t get. Student athletes were expected to always pass their classes to maintain eligibility, no matter how poorly they did, and teachers were chastised if they compromised athletic eligibility.

Here’s a letter that was sent out to all teachers at a Texas high school, gently reminding them of what they must do — either pass students or give them an incomplete — so that the football team doesn’t suffer.

Teachers, please remember that we have over 1500 students involved in extracurricular activities who work very hard to have academic success as well as compete or stay connected to the school through their commitment to their organization or team. These students strive to do the right things and have adult coaches or sponsors who support you by working with any student who is not meeting your standards for conduct or academic success. The eligibility status of these students is very important to them, their parents, and to this campus. Please review six weeks grades of 68 and 69 to ensure that those grades accurately reflect student effort, test/assignment reliability and accuracy, and objectivity that can be explained. Please also remember that any student who you are going to allow to make up work or do additional work should be given an “I” instead of an assigned numerical grade.

From the UIL Side By Side
Rules:

Q: Can a student’s grade be changed for eligibility?

After a failing grade has been recorded, the situations in which a student’s grade may be changed to passing and eligibility status restored are only as follows:
(a) an examination of course graded issued by a classroom teacher is final and may not be changed unless the grade is arbitrary, erroneous, or not consistent with school district grading policy as determined by the board of trustees. The board’s decision may not be appealed. (This is also known as teacher or calculation error.)
(b) Extra credit work or work (including re-test) turned in after the grading period or evaluation has ended may not be considered when determining a student’s eligibility for extracurricular activities except in the case of an “incomplete” grade.

Thank you for your support.

Why are they telling the teachers that they have students active in sports? We all know this. We shouldn’t care. The job of a teacher is to make sure the students understand the material, and if their afternoon head-butting practice interferes with learning, students shouldn’t expect special exemptions. Why are they telling the teachers to make sure that “grades accurately reflect student effort, test/assignment reliability and accuracy”? We all do that, too, and not just for the student athletes. An accurate assessment of a student who doesn’t do the classwork should be FAIL.

I love how the administration blithely informs teachers that they should give incompletes to students so they can make up the work they should have done during the term later. That is not right. That is expecting teachers to put in extra work beyond the grading period, to help out the boneheads with extra time and instruction…but I suspect there is no talk of extra pay for teachers who do that.

Hey, I have this brilliant, amazing, completely non-intuitive idea: how about if our schools emphasized academics, not sports, and that extra-curricular activities were regarded as an optional side-issue, completely orthogonal to the goals of the school?

(Also on FtB)