You do not have to dig through every page of curriculum to understand the problem.
This weekend, LifeWise programs took students to the Ark Encounter.
The exhibits speak for themselves:
young-earth creationism presented as fact,
and theological messaging about judgment, death, and salvation presented to children as truth.
And it does not stay there.
Kids bring those messages back into public schools. Back into science classrooms. Back into conversations with peers. Back into environments that are supposed to serve children from all backgrounds.
Then teachers are left to deal with the fallout.
Public schools are not required to treat pseudoscience as science.
And teachers should not be expected to absorb the consequences of religious instruction being presented as fact.
This is not neutral.
It is not harmless.
And it is not “just character education.”
They do not leave this at the Ark Encounter.
Public schools get the fallout.
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Photos posted by the Tinora, Ohio LifeWise program – from an exhibit during their trip to the Ark Encounter.
- Secular Education Association: Tagging for visibility
Facebook User
Facebook User
Facebook User
Facebook User - Facebook User: Oh He!! no! I have run across this young earth idea so many times along with the evolution is just a theory line. I’m not even a teacher. Pissed a mother off when she told me they shouldn’t teach evolution in school” and I told her they sure weren’t going to teach creationism because that isn’t even science. Thank god my kids are out of school and had to listen to me explain the geology of every state we ever traveled through. And as a side note it isn’t just science teachers that have to deal the misinformation. My son teaches world history and apparently his course goes back to the hominids. He had kids tell him they didn’t believe in that and didn’t have to learn it. He pointed out that it was on the test so they’d better learn it at least until the semester was over. I really hope he put it on the midterm.
- Facebook User: How can we be backslising into the dark so easily?
- Facebook User: I’ve brought this up a few times over the past couple years, because parents who sign up for Bible lessons, “character lessons”, and everything else featured on the LifeWise fliers, don’t know about the “field trips” to the Ark Encounter. And they should be informed!
- Facebook User: “All deserve death and judgment.” Such awful crap to pile on children.
- Facebook User: This is 4.6 billion years if it were an hour. I know the text is small but, long story short, modern humans have existed for .002 seconds on that scale. Graphic is from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
- Facebook User: Absolutely infuriating that people take children to these false exhibits. It is inexcusable that we are producing future generations ignorant of scientific fact.
- Secular Education Association: And this is exactly why what happens off campus does not stay off campus.
- Facebook User: This is 4.6 billion years if it were an hour. I know the text is small but, long story short, modern humans have existed for .002 seconds on that scale. Graphic is from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
- Facebook User: As an aside, a belief is an ambiguity which has been resolved to a non-verifiable fact.
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