Careful Not to Get Too Much Education…Or You Could Turn Liberal by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
[T]he Southern Baptist Convention recently considered a proposal to urge all parents to pull their children out of public schools to prevent their exposure to “non-biblical ideas” which, as it happens, run rampant in fields like medicine, physics, archeology, literature, philosophy, history, astronomy, psychology, theology-in short, everything.
What will happen to that innovative American spirit if radical “conservatives” have their way with our educational system? How will the US fare in the global marketplace when certain ideas, or entire fields, become off-limits to students who’ve been indoctrinated to consult their ministers before learning new information?
What will happen to medical research, for instance, if this movement proceeds to its logical conclusion: outlawing the scientific method, a method notorious for not relying on biblical principles?
I fear men like [David] Horowitz because uncensored education is essential to our democracy, our people’s well-being and the nation’s long-term survival. The “conservative” movement that he’s spearheading reminds me of the news reports coming out of Iran in the months just prior to the conservative religious takeover of that country when its professors were warned to present the “correct” views in class.
This movement pretends to be about “balancing” liberal with conservative views, but the reality is a lot uglier than that. As the conversation I overheard suggests, this movement isn’t about balance, it’s about censorship-or even better, self-censorship that’s easily achieved by frightening students with social rejection, hellfire or both. Either way, scholarship is degraded in the process. …
Whether through self-censorship or junk education, our country’s children are paying the price for the political aggression of the far right. Robert Frost once wrote, “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.”
Tempers are short in today’s radical “conservative” America, and the emboldened radical right is in no mood to listen to anyone.