Re: Romania Removes Evolution From School Curriculum

On Jan 11, 8:37 am, "Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Romania removes theory of evolution from school curriculum

Evolution has been removed from the schools curriculum in a move,
which pressure groups argue distorts children's understanding of how the
world came into being.
Meanwhile, religious studies classes continue to tell Romanian
children that God made the world in seven days.
The theory of the Origin of Species and the evolution of humans is
no longer present in the compulsory curriculum, through a nationwide
decision made under the previous Government in 2006.
Before the change, Darwin's theory was taught to pupils aged 18 or
19 years old. This was also in the curriculum during the Communist
period of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Information on natural selection, how fish turned into lizards
and, more or less, a summary of the first 4.5 billion years of the world
until man walked the earth is now optional.
"We don't teach the theory of evolution anymore," said one 38
year-old Bucharest-based biology teacher.
But the Minister of Education, Cristian Adomnitei, argues that
biology is taught within the context of evolution.
"This subject can be found implicitly from middle school to
high-school," the Minister tells The Diplomat. "Do you think that the
studies about the world where we live, its evolution or genetics can
ignore the evolution theory? This is impossible."
But Remus Cernea, president of NGO the Solidarity for Freedom of
Conscience, is unimpressed by the Ministry's position on implicit learning.
"How can the evolution theory be implicit?" Cernea says. "The
evolution theory is either present in the curriculum and in the text
books and is studied by everybody, or not present in the curriculum and
nobody studies it."
Meanwhile, in religious classes, pupils are taught that the world
was created in seven days and God made plants on the third day and the
sun on the fourth. Textbooks claim the first man was Adam, who was 'made
of ground', and that Eve, the first woman, was made from one of her
husband's ribs.
"The Romanian state, whether it intends or not, offers pupils a
unique perspective on the world, the religious one, without any critical
scientific or philosophical offset," argues Cernea.
Biology has been cut from two hours to one of teaching per week for the
final two years in many high schools. In place of evolution, kids are
taught more about human ecology and the environment. A subject which one
biology teacher says children find boring.
"Kids find out what really happened from the Discovery channel,"
she adds. "They don't really believe the world was made in six days.
Well, I hope they don't."
No one is accusing the Orthodox Church of any kind of conspiracy
to replace evolution with creationism by the back door. "The only
motivation I can see is the lack of vision on pupil's education in
Romania," says Cernea.
In 2006, the Ministry of Education and Research also removed
Voltaire, Camus and Nietzsche from the philosophy curriculum. These
three writers are noted for their critical views on religion and
Nietzsche's pronouncement that 'God is dead'.
Some teachers fear a creeping conservative tendency in Romania's
schools.
At present, children are told religiouns classes from ages seven
to 18. This is mostly an Orthodox curriculum. They are also taught to
sleep in on Sunday mornings is bad because children should be going to
church.
"It's not being taught about religion and what it means," said one
headmistress. If a parent want their child not to attend the classes,
because they are, for example, Jewish, Muslim or agnostic, he or she has
to draft a letter to the school. The child then sits in a library or the
head teacher's office working on, say, maths or languages.
But there are new proposals to make all religious classes
compulsory for the education system, regardless of the parents' wishes.
All children who do not want to attend Religion classes would attend a
Moral and Religious Education class.
But there is no one qualified to teach Moral and Religious
Education. Some teachers fear that the classes will, with minor
additions, be the same Orthodox curriculum dictated by a religious
studies teacher to a single Jew, Muslim or Humanist in a library or
staff room.

Report by Michael Bird
Additional reporting:
Corina Ilie and Ana-Maria Nitoi

http://www.thediplomat.ro/reports_1207.php

--
Steven L.
Email: sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

If this is true then it is the best news we have heard in a very long
time. It's very rare to see science, truth, integrity, honesty and
intelligence win on such a large scale.

Ray

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bushshiite Fundamentalism in the Irish Times.
    ... > column, but whenever he refers to cosmology or evolution, he always ... > religion classes but they want to censor scientific textbooks. ... life science in schools here is under systematic attack. ... Ohio now has "intelligent design" written into ...
    (soc.culture.irish)
  • Re: Bushshiite Fundamentalism in the Irish Times.
    ... You have cited Kansas, the most egregious example, but all over the US, groups of fundamental evangelical christians are taking over local school boards, and then implementing curricula that include faith-based alternatives to evolution. ... Ohio now has "intelligent design" written into its high school curriculum, as a result of a concerted and organised effort by fundamentalists to hijack our children's education. ... It is just the thin end of the fundamentalists' wedge to get religion back into public schools, ...
    (soc.culture.irish)
  • Romania Removes Evolution From School Curriculum
    ... Romania removes theory of evolution from school curriculum ... Evolution has been removed from the schools curriculum in a move, which pressure groups argue distorts children’s understanding of how the world came into being. ... These three writers are noted for their critical views on religion and Nietzsche’s pronouncement that ‘God is dead’. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Romania Removes Theory of Evolution from School Curriculum [long]
    ... Romania’s withdrawal of the theory of evolution from the school curriculum could be evidence of a growing conservative tendency in teaching. ... These three writers are noted for their critical views on religion and Nietzsche's pronouncement that 'God is dead'. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: New survey on opinions of evolution
    ... A new study of those surveys suggests that the main reason for this ... only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was ... do not discuss religion in public school classrooms. ... In the US most parochial schools are Catholic, ...
    (talk.origins)