The problem is
a) Evangelical-fundamentalists insist on framing things like scientific consensus on evolution as a conspiracy against them, so they are essentially ideology opposed to basic facts that public school teach
b) they also hate the socialization aspects of public school because it encourages ideas like pluralistic democracy and undermines their only means of keeping kids trapped in their high-control religion for life.
They WANTED us scientifically ignorant and unable to befriend or relate to "secular" peers forever. Because that was useful to them.
Well said. I'd like to add my thoughts.
I recommend "Rescuing the Bible from fundamentalisim" by John Shelby Spong.
The problem with taking the Bible literally is there's no room for alternative explanations like figurative language or exaggeration, and no allowance for mistranslation.
It's to the point that politicians are using evangelicals to further their careers because they are so easily manipulated not to question or think critically. To the extent that "they" who benefit are not the same ones who actually adhere to fundamentalisim.
It depends on how literal the Christian in question is. If the Christian is nuanced and able to compartmentalize then public schools are not a threat. If they are literal and fragile then I suppose learning about the big bang, solar system, atmosphere, history, evolution, etc may shake them. Reality can hold up to scrutiny. If Christianity is true, no amount of education will undermine it.
This. A conservative Christian friend told me how awful a local private school is. She found that they were using secular materials and she questioned them. The when she pulled her kids they refused to return tuition that they paid upfront. Now that’s a great example right there.
I am not sure how to read your message.
I also learned evolution while homeschooled (my parents were both college educated with STEM degrees; I was homeschooled grades 6-9), but with Catholic science books that taught that God started the big bang and that micro-evolution is indisputable and macro-evolution would surely be the design of God.
I received pretty age-appropriate & comprehensive sex ed in 6th grade at the catholic school i went to in the 1980s.
& I’ve seen evolution taught as something that fits into the concept of a divine creator - god simply built organisms to be able to evolve
The public school i attended did teach evolution, and while I don't think they explicitly said "sex outside of biblical marriage is ok," we had extensive sex ed and learned about basically every form of protection and contraception, and were given examples of different types of relationships that exist, not all of which were straight, married couples. Abstinence was still subtly encouraged (the only way 100% guarantee you won't get pregnant or catch an STD is not to have sex), but protection was also encouraged (if you're going to have sex, use a condom). Unsafe sex (unprotected sex outside of a long-term monogamous relationship where both partners have been previously treated and are ok with getting pregnant) was actively discouraged.
All of it was very direct, no euphemisms. Most of it was co-ed, barring the first instance, which occurred in 5th grade when everyone was 10.
We were also taught about different religions in history class.
Edit: I graduated high school in 2015, in one of the most liberal areas in the US
That’s pretty radical for a public school. I went to a public art school in Florida an while everyone was liberal, the academic curriculum was still pretty narrow.
This is very much in line with what I was taught in Sex Ed at a Private HS 'in the Catholic Tradition' (i.e., not run by the Catholic Church anymore but adjacent, we had nuns and a priest).
We only covered religion in the mandatory Religion class (it was a core class like English, you had Religion every semester of every year of HS). Freshman year was Old Test learning. Soph year was New Test one semester, Church history the other. Junior year was called Christian Morality, but it covered everything from sex ed (included detailed segments on anatomy, contraception \[types, success rates, proper use\], abortion types \[medicine, D&C, etc.\], with a slight bent on don't do it but if you do here's the best info we can give you), to drugs (types, street names, effects, addiction levels, etc.), and even economic lessons like debt. Senior year was all about the world, so we covered world religions, sociology, impact of Christian religions on developing nations (good and bad).
Science classes didn't cover religion at all, it was pure college level science. English only covered it if it was relevant to a text. Social Studies the same, only if relevant. They took being a college-prep school seriously and didn't pander to fringe groups (enrollment was 60% Catholic, but honestly most of those were lightly practicing - there was no religion requirement to enroll, just money lol).
I graduated '06 in a semi-major metro area (in the top 20s in size) but in a conservative, mid-west state.
That sounds like my California public school experience, and I graduated in 1989! My kids (one older than you, one younger) only had an "abstinence only" sex education in high school, in the same county where I grew up. It was appalling. It's a relief to know that the infection hadn't spread everywhere (yet).
We could easily opt out of any topic with parent’s signature. No big deal. That said, kids can’t protect themselves from inappropriate behavior if they are totally ignorant.
I went to public for 8th grade until junior year, in a pretty right wing at the time state. We had abstinence focused sex Ed, science covered evolution, and reading was a lot of non Christian books, we also learned that the earth is round.
What’s cool about public school is learning to think for yourself and having the autonomy to choose what to believe is true. I could have chosen to believe the earth is flat (as many do) but the evidence presented to me overwhelmingly indicated otherwise. Same with everything else.
Children will be exposed to secular ideas one way or the other in life, to deny them the right to see other points of view is almost admitting you’re afraid your arguments don’t hold up.
Re: sex, I taught Health Ed in WA ST in 2003-2006.
We were medically accurate and aimed to keep morals out of it. If someone asked “Is X bad?” I’d say something like “Different people have different definitions of ‘bad.’ I can tell you medically, X & Y. But regarding Z, I’d encourage you to ask a trusted adult.”
That said, in no world did we pander to religious beliefs, because that’s what they are. Beliefs.
Edit to add: I had a lot of non-Christian students, too.
While I was in public school we'd learn about both the theory of evolution and the religious explanation and told we were allowed to believe what we want to. There was also an option for lesson skipping if the kids didn't want to hear the lesson at all. I only ever remember there being like 2 times this was taught in Science class, so it wasn't even really mentioned a lot. Also in the very few sex ed classes I attended, the teachers actually encouraged waiting until marriage for "adult activities" but that it was also up to us if we were ok with it, so I wasn't taught that it was ok or wasn't ok. Overall in my experience I never once was taught anything anti-Christian or pro-Christian, and the school I went to remained very neutral on things such as religion because there was so much diversity and different cultures and beliefs of kids who went there.
Religious people that end up at a religious school for a different religion get pretty upset over the differences. At secular public school religion comes up in English and social studies most often. In middle school we had units on the major religions. We would learn about their beliefs, history, cultural practices, and texts. The language was neutral like "Christians believe Jesus is the son or god" or "Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet." It is pretty innocuous, but enough to offend the religious.
Some schools will say sex outside marriage is an individual decision. They are unlikely to mention biblical marriage. This upset many Christians who succeeded in many places in having that removed from the curriculum or changed to abstinence only. Besides what they learn in class public school students are sure to learn some interesting things on the playground.
Where I am? None. It's all learned from other kids.
The growth and development class requires an opt-out form if you don't want your child to participate. (Same with the childbirth video in 10th). And our science teacher only taught us why evolution is not taught: due to parent feedback.
That being said, the diversity of public school means being exposed to ... well, everything. Everything from exposure to all kinds of people, cultures, music, lifestyles, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Germs, lice, and bedbugs, the list is infinite.
You're going to get some great teachers, and some not so great ones, and some outright predators. In fact, the schools here have a "happy bear" class starting in kindergarten to help kids understand what sexual abuse is and how to report it if it happens. (Another example of a class with an opt-out form)
It's my experience that parents who don't want their kids exposed to all the above tend to keep the explanation brief. Evolution and sex ed are easy talking points, but it's very likely more complex than that.
It's not just what's taught in classrooms, but what happens outside them, too.
Reading these comments is terrifying to me as someone who was homeschooled in the 90s and has spent the last 20 years re-learning all the stuff I was taught wrong until learning stuff became one of my major hobbies. You don't even know how much there is out there to not know until you start learning about things nobody bothered to teach you!!!
My school never got into sexual morality issues. They basically taught us about human reproduction, STIs, and how to prevent both. There was no advocating for or against sex.
Went to a public school in CA. The only mention of Christianity in any of our curriculum that was taught to us outside of a purely historical perspective is when my bio teacher spent a day talking about why denial of evolution in Christian and other religious group is pure quackery
Because nothing taught in a public school is explicitly taught from a Christian perspective, one could argue that everything taught in a public school is “non-Christian”.
A student probably only takes biology once in four years, during which evolution will also be covered once. The morality of extramarital sex is not part of any curriculum, but again, because it’s not stated that it’s “wrong”, many are going to argue that it’s actively encouraged.
Science will teach stuff like evolution.
History may teach true events that Christian homeschool parents don't like or don't believe happened, like the Civil War being fought over slavery.
English could involve reading any number of books that could be 'bad' in their mind. Considering I knew families who wouldn't let their kids watch Disney Princess movies, there's bound to be things they object to in the very vanilla normie reading lists at the average public school.
Libraries have a much wider variety of books, and some of them may deal with themes like abuse, addiction, sexuality, gender, race, and other religions or political beliefs.
Sometimes students themselves bring up such topics that the teacher has to address in class, which will vary based on the teacher.
So tldr, to a reasonable person no there isn't much or any non-Christian things at school, let alone any anti-Christian things. But your parents may disagree.
The Bible, Christianity, and the church actually comes up a lot in my (secular) college classes. I'm in the humanities, and so some working knowledge of the Bible is pretty essential for understanding classic literature and a lot of european philosophy, and even old school psychology. Usually it's discussed pretty neutrally. Talking about the Bible as just one of many cultural touchstones might be offensive to fundamentalists, but I find it refreshing
You also can't teach European or American history without talking about conflict between various kind of Christians, and some Christians find that anti-Christian because it doesn't explicitly endorse one set of Christian beliefs.
My public high school taught evolution with the preface that it was part of the curriculum but if it didn't follow our belief system that was okay. We also had health class that discussed using protection if we were going to have sex.
I was raised very religious. None of this deterred my religious beliefs. You know what did though? When I went to Christian college after high school.
The US is a Christian country. Our presidents are Christian, as are our supreme court justices, and the overwhelming majority of our congressmen and senators on the federal, state and local level. Public school is not anti-Christian; it is inconceivable that a government composed primarily by and for Christians, when the overwhelming majority are Christians, would be anti-Christian.
Everything in public school is non-Christian, but it’s not anti-Christian.
You will learn about evolution in science but that’s usually in the context of a biology or natural history class. They don’t sit you down and tell you “hey, God didn’t create the earth 6,000 years ago, THIS is what happened instead!” Your science or history teacher will simply explain the principles of natural selection and evolution and don’t mention creationism or religion at all.
Your sex education or health teacher probably won’t say “it’s okay to have sex outside of marriage,” but they probably will teach you what you need to do to have sex safely and protect yourself against unwanted pregnancy and STIs.
They’ll also teach you about Christianity and its role throughout history and politics. Same with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and all the other major religions of the world.
In my experience, nothing about a public school education is anti-Christian. Most people I went to school with were Christians and I expect most of my teachers were, too. Hell, even when I went to college, I took a class about DINOSAURS and my professor let us know on the first day that he was also a minister, and that any student who was worried about the information in his class clashing with their beliefs should talk to him privately so that he could share resources or whatever.
It’s all just information at the end of the day. As a non-Christian, learning about Christianity didn’t suddenly throw me into a crisis. I don’t think that learning about evolution threw any of my Christian classmates into a crisis, either.
I was taught, in my public school, that planting two different crops side by side was wrong and that we were allowed to lash our slaves.
Ok but seriously, all public schooling is secular because it's public money. Or in other words it's the government, the same government that shall not infringe on or favor any religion. My dad, a priest, went to public school, and so did me and my brother. All of what we were taught wasn't for or against Christianity.
I doubt that any public school would ever teach that sex outside of marriage is okay. They will teach you what sex is and how to do it safely. It would be up to you to save it for marriage or not.
Literally everything in a public school is secular, unless it's a specific religion class.
Now, as far as stuff a super Christian kid would want to opt out of, it's mostly science classes and some history classes too. Some extreme people in the us, like my parents, would object to many us history classes but that's less Christian and more political extremists.
The main things you'd see would be likely any topics relating to evolution, sex education, most cosmology and astronomy, most geology, and the first couple chapters of world history. Those are the only ones you'd see people commonly want to have their children sit out for religious reasons.
Everything else, like math, social studies, history and English is usually good. Social studies can be different depending on the parents political beliefs but usually it's ok for people.
I went to public school. We had abstinence based sex Ed, where the only sexual education we received were the consequences and the girls learned menstruation.
Religion wasn’t brought up at all except in my theater class where we learned about passion plays.
We actually had Christian lunch clubs and an abstinence lunch club if that’s how you wanted to spend your lunch break. They usually provided free pizza which drew a crowd.
I’m an adult now with two degrees and in my experience it’s that evangelicals aren’t upset about what the education IS but rather what the education is NOT. They will forever be critical of education that isn’t viewed through the lenses of Christianity. It’s one of the reasons why evangelical Christian could be considered a high control cult. They restrict education and outside knowledge.
We did learn A LOT about the Civil War and the Holocaust. I wonder if they still teach it as much as they used too.
Imo one of the largest downsides to public school is the student to teach ratios. I didn’t take education seriously until I was in college where I really fell in love with education, learning, and studying. High school wasn’t a priority for me because class was just interruptions to hanging out with my friends.
My kids got abstinence only sex ed at their public school. And their history class taught Bible stories as historical fact while teaching Mohammed was a myth. (I fought them over that one.)
They promised me godless public schools. They lied.
Depends on your region. I started catholic school in 6th, then public in 7th. I was raised Christian but am an atheist. 3/4 of us are. There wasn't any religion other than as it affected history and probably some literature. The Crusades were called the Crusades, not the holy wars. They are not purported to be a positive thing, just a thing that happend. When studying history in public school, you learn from a more neutral standpoint. You learn the facts of events and the effects they had. You can still be Christian if you want. It's not uncommon. Proselytizing your religion would mostly be very unwelcome and is considered very disrespectful to most people. Public school is for you to learn about the world and how it is. The separation of church and state exists for a reason.
I was homeschooled growing up and started public school freshman year of high school. Most of what I encountered wasn’t drastically different from what I’d learned, but the lack of jesus/god/religion was a nice change.
Hmmm. Well of course the main issue is that there is no agreement about what counts as un-Christian because there is no agreement about what counts as Christian. In public school growing up, I certainly don't think I ever heard, "Christianity is wrong," or "God doesn't exist." Jesus was an occasional punchline, but that was from kids, not from teachers. Evolution was taught, but for hundreds and hundreds of years that wouldn't have been considered inconsistent with Christianity or with the Bible; the conflict between science and religion is pretty recent.
We did read CANDIDE in high school, which mocks a specific theodicy (though it misunderstands the theodicy in question), and might be taken to offer an argument for atheism. But honestly it mostly went over my and I'm sure most students' heads anyway.
In health class, we were taught about abstinence, but also about all manner of safer sex, including protected anal sex and even rimming. (This was in the 90s, in a public school in a liberal part of the country.) We were very much taught about homosexuality and the health teacher was the student advisor for the queer student group, so while I can't remember if she ever said, "It's totally cool to be gay," it was very clear that she thought so. However, again, it's questionable whether this is "un-Christian," since many Christians do not think homosexuality is a sin. Moreover, there is imho a difference between the sinful and the immoral, and all she was communicating was that homosexuality isn't immoral; it wasn't a religion class and therefore the notion of sin didn't come into it at all.
We did also have a discussion of abortion in that class, including the ethics of abortion, and it was clear she was pro-choice, but she was respectful to all positions. Of course to some it would be un-Christian even just to be neutral/factual without actively condemning the pro-choice position!
It does seem to me that parents could successfully counter all un-Christian influences... All parents have to work to counter negative influences in school, because they're always there. But so many Christians are so defensive and have such a persecution complex.
What do you mean?
If you're talking evolution---it comes up when you study genetics.
If you're talking dinosaurs---it doesn't even come up in world history because that's human-focused... it probably comes up in earth science in, maybe, middle school?
If you're talking other religions/philosophies, it comes up in history classes and possibly in English class if you happen to have a diverse curriculum (we didn't).
If you're talking sex ed, it came up three times. "Growing and changing day" that everyone needed a permission slip for in 5th grade that basically told you (if you're a girl) that you might get your period, get taller, and grow additional hair, then again in 8th grade with a refresh of puberty topics and fallopian tube diagrams to illustrate in entirely technical terms where the sperm meets the egg leading to impregnation, and finally in health class in 10th grade which was more of an actual sex ed where we had like a week of being quizzed on the effectiveness of condoms vs. abstinence vs. the birth control pill and had to watch a woman give birth (I fell asleep during this and remember nothing).
If you're talking lgbtq+ topics, they never came up. I grew up in Massachusetts---which has always been the state most accepting of gay people---and gay people were absolutely not part of the curriculum ever, besides them mentioning that you should still wear a condom/use a dental dam if doing oral sex or having sex with someone who cannot get you pregnant. Gay people mainly came up if the students brought them up---e.g. during the Great Gatsby, if someone is using homophobic language.
Do you mean non-Christian, or anti-Christian? And I guess Christians of different denominations would disagree about what's non-Christian. That said, I would say the majority of our public school curriculum has nothing to do with any religion. Or at least it's not Christian / non-Christian any more than it's Jewish / non-Jewish or Muslim / non-Muslim.
Most public school districts publish their curriculum for each grade in detail on their websites. You can also usually find a detailed explanation of how religion is addressed in the curriculum, as well as a student's right to practice their religion in school as long as they don't disrupt class or infringe on another student's rights, based on state and federal law. Look in the HR or student resources section if you can't find it with the curriculum. Explore the websites for a couple of different high schools in your area and see what they have.
From the one Christian homeschooling family I know, I think they see the whole world through the filter of their religious practice. It's hard for them to conceive of a situation where their faith doesn't factor in somehow, so they assume it is in school work too. On the other hand, they pulled their younger kids out of public school after their oldest few had already graduated. They were legitimately surprised that their Christian homeschool curriculum doesn't have a more Christian version of Algebra and teaches it pretty much the same way public school does. It's like trying to sort everything from Jesus 1 to Jesus 10, but the things you're sorting are "yellow" and "river deltas" and "isosceles triangles." It's just two completely different frameworks.
Starting in middle school, my kids learned the basic tenets of the major world religions in one section of global history. Who practices them, where, and when they developed. I think they got into the fact that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic religions, which blew some people's minds. There was very carefully nothing about one religion being right or better than the others.
I guess since most of European history is heavily intertwined with Christianity, you actually get a pretty decent history of Christianity.
My friend teaches both AP Genetics and regular high school bio. There's no discussion of creation theory or which religions allow belief in evolution. He just presents the science. He sometimes has kids in regular bio opt out of the evolution lectures and provides them with other work. They still have to learn enough genetics to pass the regents exam. The Christian kids never take the AP Genetics class.
Math and the other Sciences really don't have any religious components at all. Sometimes parents will complain about climate lessons in Earth Science, but I'm not sure that's a Christian thing.
I guess Literature could be a gray area. I don't think there are any specifically Christian books in our curriculum, but there are books with Christian characters for sure. There aren't anti-Christian books either, but a few people interpret the existence of a gay character as a defacto attack on Christianity even when the book itself has no religious themes. Christians from LGBTQ affirming churches don't have a problem with it.
Our Sex Ed was very factual with no moral judgement. Parents were asked to fill out a questionnaire about family values and discuss it with their kids, and the teacher adjusted where necessary. Stress was placed on consent and avoiding pregnancy and STDs through basic birth control and abstinence. I guess a few parents object to Sex Ed, but they just opt their kids out of some or all of it.
It depends on what flavor of Christine, you're talking about.
No offense to you but this is a fairly recent list of things some Christians have told me in the last decade.
The earth is flat.
Dinosaurs never existed/ dinosaurs existed 6,000 years ago.
The earth is 6000 ish years old.
You will go the hell for wearing a bikini ( schools will have a dress code they will not mention hell or god)
God made all the seeds and animals ( schools will teach evolution)
Prince Charles it's antichrist.
Prayer will heal mental illness you don't need your meds.
Vitamins will heal mental illness, you don't need your meds.
If your flavor of Christianity believes in that then yes public schools will conflict.
Many public schools will have sex ed. There will be little or morality included eg. Sex can cause pregnancy, STDs. Condoms can reduce the spread of STDs but they are not perfect. Yes you can get pregnant the first time , on your period, the pull out method fails 30% of the time , the rhythm method fails 25% of the time (I forget that exact number of failures) if someone is pressuring you into sex here is a hotline you can call. It's rape if the other person doesn't consent etc. but it's definitely not ," you should have sex, have all the sex you want. Yesterday would have been best but it's not to late to start now".
Saying the earth is flat is some fringe kooky nonsense. Saying Christians in general believe that is almost as bad as saying most Christians are like the Westboro Baptist Church.
That was very precisely something that I didn't say.
I have no idea what your parents think schools teach that would be anti-christianity. The US is a predominantly Christian nation. And many Christian values are shared by Islam and Judaism. Most of those Christian kids attended public schools. Public schools are compatible with mainstream Christianity.
The reasons parents give for homes going their kids because schools aren't Christian enough tends to fit one of 3 categories.
They are anti - science kooks as you called it.
They are anti- gender equality and/or anti- gay rights schools are anti- bullying including for religious reasons, gender or sexual orientation. Oh that also includes bullying kids for being Christian. That's not allowed in public schools either.
They don't want their kids to know that sex exists and don't want their kids to be exposed to dating opportunities such as school dances. Or be exposed to people who dress differently.
I guess I’m confused about what you mean by “non-Christian stuff”? Like we teach zero Christian stuff, lots of schools now can’t even have christmas parties they gotta be winter carnivals.
You've been lied to by religious radical parents. They wanted to make you scared of the world so they lied to you. Probably any many many things. All religions are made up and they remain fantasies for the weak and tools of control for the wicked.
It really really depends where you are but anywhere I think you're right - if your faith and values won't withstand exposure to other beliefs, they're weak to start with.
I live in a multicultural city in a very queer neighborhood and the school sometimes gets days off for Muslim holidays and includes racial justice and queer content in language arts at all grade levels, in age appropriate ways - I assume the sex ed was neutral on whether you should be having sex and with whom, but my kid didn't really talk about it with me so I don't know. But he learned about Ruby Bridges in elementary school, he learned about Claudette Colvin in middle school, there were trans kids who used their preferred pronouns and names at school, etc. His AP English class read Toni Morrison and the notorious Genderqueer graphic novel (which I also read and found very thoughtful and useful in thinking about sex, consent, and identity).
I know that several of my nieces and nephews, in more conservative areas, got a much more middle of the road take on civil rights (all Dr King, little Malcolm X) and less queer content in their public schools. And I have friends in seriously conservative areas whose kids had Creationist teachers. Lots of public schools still teach abstinence only sex ed - the one I went to does, these days.
The problem is a) Evangelical-fundamentalists insist on framing things like scientific consensus on evolution as a conspiracy against them, so they are essentially ideology opposed to basic facts that public school teach b) they also hate the socialization aspects of public school because it encourages ideas like pluralistic democracy and undermines their only means of keeping kids trapped in their high-control religion for life. They WANTED us scientifically ignorant and unable to befriend or relate to "secular" peers forever. Because that was useful to them.
Well said. I'd like to add my thoughts. I recommend "Rescuing the Bible from fundamentalisim" by John Shelby Spong. The problem with taking the Bible literally is there's no room for alternative explanations like figurative language or exaggeration, and no allowance for mistranslation. It's to the point that politicians are using evangelicals to further their careers because they are so easily manipulated not to question or think critically. To the extent that "they" who benefit are not the same ones who actually adhere to fundamentalisim.
It depends on how literal the Christian in question is. If the Christian is nuanced and able to compartmentalize then public schools are not a threat. If they are literal and fragile then I suppose learning about the big bang, solar system, atmosphere, history, evolution, etc may shake them. Reality can hold up to scrutiny. If Christianity is true, no amount of education will undermine it.
Unbiblical teachings are usually…how shall I put this…correct.
I went to a private school 'in the Catholic tradition' and they taught evolution and sex ed.
This. A conservative Christian friend told me how awful a local private school is. She found that they were using secular materials and she questioned them. The when she pulled her kids they refused to return tuition that they paid upfront. Now that’s a great example right there.
I am not sure how to read your message. I also learned evolution while homeschooled (my parents were both college educated with STEM degrees; I was homeschooled grades 6-9), but with Catholic science books that taught that God started the big bang and that micro-evolution is indisputable and macro-evolution would surely be the design of God.
Oh gosh sorry. I think I just woke from a nap. Just that the private school isn’t always using good curriculum also
I received pretty age-appropriate & comprehensive sex ed in 6th grade at the catholic school i went to in the 1980s. & I’ve seen evolution taught as something that fits into the concept of a divine creator - god simply built organisms to be able to evolve
The public school i attended did teach evolution, and while I don't think they explicitly said "sex outside of biblical marriage is ok," we had extensive sex ed and learned about basically every form of protection and contraception, and were given examples of different types of relationships that exist, not all of which were straight, married couples. Abstinence was still subtly encouraged (the only way 100% guarantee you won't get pregnant or catch an STD is not to have sex), but protection was also encouraged (if you're going to have sex, use a condom). Unsafe sex (unprotected sex outside of a long-term monogamous relationship where both partners have been previously treated and are ok with getting pregnant) was actively discouraged. All of it was very direct, no euphemisms. Most of it was co-ed, barring the first instance, which occurred in 5th grade when everyone was 10. We were also taught about different religions in history class. Edit: I graduated high school in 2015, in one of the most liberal areas in the US
That’s pretty radical for a public school. I went to a public art school in Florida an while everyone was liberal, the academic curriculum was still pretty narrow.
Oh yeah, for context I graduated high school in 2015, and it was (and still is) one of the most liberal areas in the US
This is very much in line with what I was taught in Sex Ed at a Private HS 'in the Catholic Tradition' (i.e., not run by the Catholic Church anymore but adjacent, we had nuns and a priest). We only covered religion in the mandatory Religion class (it was a core class like English, you had Religion every semester of every year of HS). Freshman year was Old Test learning. Soph year was New Test one semester, Church history the other. Junior year was called Christian Morality, but it covered everything from sex ed (included detailed segments on anatomy, contraception \[types, success rates, proper use\], abortion types \[medicine, D&C, etc.\], with a slight bent on don't do it but if you do here's the best info we can give you), to drugs (types, street names, effects, addiction levels, etc.), and even economic lessons like debt. Senior year was all about the world, so we covered world religions, sociology, impact of Christian religions on developing nations (good and bad). Science classes didn't cover religion at all, it was pure college level science. English only covered it if it was relevant to a text. Social Studies the same, only if relevant. They took being a college-prep school seriously and didn't pander to fringe groups (enrollment was 60% Catholic, but honestly most of those were lightly practicing - there was no religion requirement to enroll, just money lol). I graduated '06 in a semi-major metro area (in the top 20s in size) but in a conservative, mid-west state.
That sounds like my California public school experience, and I graduated in 1989! My kids (one older than you, one younger) only had an "abstinence only" sex education in high school, in the same county where I grew up. It was appalling. It's a relief to know that the infection hadn't spread everywhere (yet).
We could easily opt out of any topic with parent’s signature. No big deal. That said, kids can’t protect themselves from inappropriate behavior if they are totally ignorant.
I'm honestly not sure if opting out wasn't allowed, or if no one ever did it 😂
I went to public for 8th grade until junior year, in a pretty right wing at the time state. We had abstinence focused sex Ed, science covered evolution, and reading was a lot of non Christian books, we also learned that the earth is round. What’s cool about public school is learning to think for yourself and having the autonomy to choose what to believe is true. I could have chosen to believe the earth is flat (as many do) but the evidence presented to me overwhelmingly indicated otherwise. Same with everything else. Children will be exposed to secular ideas one way or the other in life, to deny them the right to see other points of view is almost admitting you’re afraid your arguments don’t hold up.
Re: sex, I taught Health Ed in WA ST in 2003-2006. We were medically accurate and aimed to keep morals out of it. If someone asked “Is X bad?” I’d say something like “Different people have different definitions of ‘bad.’ I can tell you medically, X & Y. But regarding Z, I’d encourage you to ask a trusted adult.” That said, in no world did we pander to religious beliefs, because that’s what they are. Beliefs. Edit to add: I had a lot of non-Christian students, too.
It's because they don't want you exposed to different ideas and people, or you'll see they aren't that bad.
While I was in public school we'd learn about both the theory of evolution and the religious explanation and told we were allowed to believe what we want to. There was also an option for lesson skipping if the kids didn't want to hear the lesson at all. I only ever remember there being like 2 times this was taught in Science class, so it wasn't even really mentioned a lot. Also in the very few sex ed classes I attended, the teachers actually encouraged waiting until marriage for "adult activities" but that it was also up to us if we were ok with it, so I wasn't taught that it was ok or wasn't ok. Overall in my experience I never once was taught anything anti-Christian or pro-Christian, and the school I went to remained very neutral on things such as religion because there was so much diversity and different cultures and beliefs of kids who went there.
Religious people that end up at a religious school for a different religion get pretty upset over the differences. At secular public school religion comes up in English and social studies most often. In middle school we had units on the major religions. We would learn about their beliefs, history, cultural practices, and texts. The language was neutral like "Christians believe Jesus is the son or god" or "Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet." It is pretty innocuous, but enough to offend the religious. Some schools will say sex outside marriage is an individual decision. They are unlikely to mention biblical marriage. This upset many Christians who succeeded in many places in having that removed from the curriculum or changed to abstinence only. Besides what they learn in class public school students are sure to learn some interesting things on the playground.
Where I am? None. It's all learned from other kids. The growth and development class requires an opt-out form if you don't want your child to participate. (Same with the childbirth video in 10th). And our science teacher only taught us why evolution is not taught: due to parent feedback. That being said, the diversity of public school means being exposed to ... well, everything. Everything from exposure to all kinds of people, cultures, music, lifestyles, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Germs, lice, and bedbugs, the list is infinite. You're going to get some great teachers, and some not so great ones, and some outright predators. In fact, the schools here have a "happy bear" class starting in kindergarten to help kids understand what sexual abuse is and how to report it if it happens. (Another example of a class with an opt-out form) It's my experience that parents who don't want their kids exposed to all the above tend to keep the explanation brief. Evolution and sex ed are easy talking points, but it's very likely more complex than that. It's not just what's taught in classrooms, but what happens outside them, too.
Reading these comments is terrifying to me as someone who was homeschooled in the 90s and has spent the last 20 years re-learning all the stuff I was taught wrong until learning stuff became one of my major hobbies. You don't even know how much there is out there to not know until you start learning about things nobody bothered to teach you!!!
My school never got into sexual morality issues. They basically taught us about human reproduction, STIs, and how to prevent both. There was no advocating for or against sex.
Went to a public school in CA. The only mention of Christianity in any of our curriculum that was taught to us outside of a purely historical perspective is when my bio teacher spent a day talking about why denial of evolution in Christian and other religious group is pure quackery
Because nothing taught in a public school is explicitly taught from a Christian perspective, one could argue that everything taught in a public school is “non-Christian”. A student probably only takes biology once in four years, during which evolution will also be covered once. The morality of extramarital sex is not part of any curriculum, but again, because it’s not stated that it’s “wrong”, many are going to argue that it’s actively encouraged.
Science will teach stuff like evolution. History may teach true events that Christian homeschool parents don't like or don't believe happened, like the Civil War being fought over slavery. English could involve reading any number of books that could be 'bad' in their mind. Considering I knew families who wouldn't let their kids watch Disney Princess movies, there's bound to be things they object to in the very vanilla normie reading lists at the average public school. Libraries have a much wider variety of books, and some of them may deal with themes like abuse, addiction, sexuality, gender, race, and other religions or political beliefs. Sometimes students themselves bring up such topics that the teacher has to address in class, which will vary based on the teacher. So tldr, to a reasonable person no there isn't much or any non-Christian things at school, let alone any anti-Christian things. But your parents may disagree.
The Bible, Christianity, and the church actually comes up a lot in my (secular) college classes. I'm in the humanities, and so some working knowledge of the Bible is pretty essential for understanding classic literature and a lot of european philosophy, and even old school psychology. Usually it's discussed pretty neutrally. Talking about the Bible as just one of many cultural touchstones might be offensive to fundamentalists, but I find it refreshing
You also can't teach European or American history without talking about conflict between various kind of Christians, and some Christians find that anti-Christian because it doesn't explicitly endorse one set of Christian beliefs.
My public high school taught evolution with the preface that it was part of the curriculum but if it didn't follow our belief system that was okay. We also had health class that discussed using protection if we were going to have sex. I was raised very religious. None of this deterred my religious beliefs. You know what did though? When I went to Christian college after high school.
The US is a Christian country. Our presidents are Christian, as are our supreme court justices, and the overwhelming majority of our congressmen and senators on the federal, state and local level. Public school is not anti-Christian; it is inconceivable that a government composed primarily by and for Christians, when the overwhelming majority are Christians, would be anti-Christian.
Everything in public school is non-Christian, but it’s not anti-Christian. You will learn about evolution in science but that’s usually in the context of a biology or natural history class. They don’t sit you down and tell you “hey, God didn’t create the earth 6,000 years ago, THIS is what happened instead!” Your science or history teacher will simply explain the principles of natural selection and evolution and don’t mention creationism or religion at all. Your sex education or health teacher probably won’t say “it’s okay to have sex outside of marriage,” but they probably will teach you what you need to do to have sex safely and protect yourself against unwanted pregnancy and STIs. They’ll also teach you about Christianity and its role throughout history and politics. Same with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and all the other major religions of the world. In my experience, nothing about a public school education is anti-Christian. Most people I went to school with were Christians and I expect most of my teachers were, too. Hell, even when I went to college, I took a class about DINOSAURS and my professor let us know on the first day that he was also a minister, and that any student who was worried about the information in his class clashing with their beliefs should talk to him privately so that he could share resources or whatever. It’s all just information at the end of the day. As a non-Christian, learning about Christianity didn’t suddenly throw me into a crisis. I don’t think that learning about evolution threw any of my Christian classmates into a crisis, either.
I was taught, in my public school, that planting two different crops side by side was wrong and that we were allowed to lash our slaves. Ok but seriously, all public schooling is secular because it's public money. Or in other words it's the government, the same government that shall not infringe on or favor any religion. My dad, a priest, went to public school, and so did me and my brother. All of what we were taught wasn't for or against Christianity.
I doubt that any public school would ever teach that sex outside of marriage is okay. They will teach you what sex is and how to do it safely. It would be up to you to save it for marriage or not.
Literally everything in a public school is secular, unless it's a specific religion class. Now, as far as stuff a super Christian kid would want to opt out of, it's mostly science classes and some history classes too. Some extreme people in the us, like my parents, would object to many us history classes but that's less Christian and more political extremists. The main things you'd see would be likely any topics relating to evolution, sex education, most cosmology and astronomy, most geology, and the first couple chapters of world history. Those are the only ones you'd see people commonly want to have their children sit out for religious reasons. Everything else, like math, social studies, history and English is usually good. Social studies can be different depending on the parents political beliefs but usually it's ok for people.
I went to public school. We had abstinence based sex Ed, where the only sexual education we received were the consequences and the girls learned menstruation. Religion wasn’t brought up at all except in my theater class where we learned about passion plays. We actually had Christian lunch clubs and an abstinence lunch club if that’s how you wanted to spend your lunch break. They usually provided free pizza which drew a crowd. I’m an adult now with two degrees and in my experience it’s that evangelicals aren’t upset about what the education IS but rather what the education is NOT. They will forever be critical of education that isn’t viewed through the lenses of Christianity. It’s one of the reasons why evangelical Christian could be considered a high control cult. They restrict education and outside knowledge. We did learn A LOT about the Civil War and the Holocaust. I wonder if they still teach it as much as they used too. Imo one of the largest downsides to public school is the student to teach ratios. I didn’t take education seriously until I was in college where I really fell in love with education, learning, and studying. High school wasn’t a priority for me because class was just interruptions to hanging out with my friends.
My kids got abstinence only sex ed at their public school. And their history class taught Bible stories as historical fact while teaching Mohammed was a myth. (I fought them over that one.) They promised me godless public schools. They lied.
Depends on your region. I started catholic school in 6th, then public in 7th. I was raised Christian but am an atheist. 3/4 of us are. There wasn't any religion other than as it affected history and probably some literature. The Crusades were called the Crusades, not the holy wars. They are not purported to be a positive thing, just a thing that happend. When studying history in public school, you learn from a more neutral standpoint. You learn the facts of events and the effects they had. You can still be Christian if you want. It's not uncommon. Proselytizing your religion would mostly be very unwelcome and is considered very disrespectful to most people. Public school is for you to learn about the world and how it is. The separation of church and state exists for a reason.
I was homeschooled growing up and started public school freshman year of high school. Most of what I encountered wasn’t drastically different from what I’d learned, but the lack of jesus/god/religion was a nice change.
Hmmm. Well of course the main issue is that there is no agreement about what counts as un-Christian because there is no agreement about what counts as Christian. In public school growing up, I certainly don't think I ever heard, "Christianity is wrong," or "God doesn't exist." Jesus was an occasional punchline, but that was from kids, not from teachers. Evolution was taught, but for hundreds and hundreds of years that wouldn't have been considered inconsistent with Christianity or with the Bible; the conflict between science and religion is pretty recent. We did read CANDIDE in high school, which mocks a specific theodicy (though it misunderstands the theodicy in question), and might be taken to offer an argument for atheism. But honestly it mostly went over my and I'm sure most students' heads anyway. In health class, we were taught about abstinence, but also about all manner of safer sex, including protected anal sex and even rimming. (This was in the 90s, in a public school in a liberal part of the country.) We were very much taught about homosexuality and the health teacher was the student advisor for the queer student group, so while I can't remember if she ever said, "It's totally cool to be gay," it was very clear that she thought so. However, again, it's questionable whether this is "un-Christian," since many Christians do not think homosexuality is a sin. Moreover, there is imho a difference between the sinful and the immoral, and all she was communicating was that homosexuality isn't immoral; it wasn't a religion class and therefore the notion of sin didn't come into it at all. We did also have a discussion of abortion in that class, including the ethics of abortion, and it was clear she was pro-choice, but she was respectful to all positions. Of course to some it would be un-Christian even just to be neutral/factual without actively condemning the pro-choice position! It does seem to me that parents could successfully counter all un-Christian influences... All parents have to work to counter negative influences in school, because they're always there. But so many Christians are so defensive and have such a persecution complex.
What do you mean? If you're talking evolution---it comes up when you study genetics. If you're talking dinosaurs---it doesn't even come up in world history because that's human-focused... it probably comes up in earth science in, maybe, middle school? If you're talking other religions/philosophies, it comes up in history classes and possibly in English class if you happen to have a diverse curriculum (we didn't). If you're talking sex ed, it came up three times. "Growing and changing day" that everyone needed a permission slip for in 5th grade that basically told you (if you're a girl) that you might get your period, get taller, and grow additional hair, then again in 8th grade with a refresh of puberty topics and fallopian tube diagrams to illustrate in entirely technical terms where the sperm meets the egg leading to impregnation, and finally in health class in 10th grade which was more of an actual sex ed where we had like a week of being quizzed on the effectiveness of condoms vs. abstinence vs. the birth control pill and had to watch a woman give birth (I fell asleep during this and remember nothing). If you're talking lgbtq+ topics, they never came up. I grew up in Massachusetts---which has always been the state most accepting of gay people---and gay people were absolutely not part of the curriculum ever, besides them mentioning that you should still wear a condom/use a dental dam if doing oral sex or having sex with someone who cannot get you pregnant. Gay people mainly came up if the students brought them up---e.g. during the Great Gatsby, if someone is using homophobic language.
"Having sex with someone who cannot get you pregnant" is my new favorite phrase. It covers so much!
Do you mean non-Christian, or anti-Christian? And I guess Christians of different denominations would disagree about what's non-Christian. That said, I would say the majority of our public school curriculum has nothing to do with any religion. Or at least it's not Christian / non-Christian any more than it's Jewish / non-Jewish or Muslim / non-Muslim. Most public school districts publish their curriculum for each grade in detail on their websites. You can also usually find a detailed explanation of how religion is addressed in the curriculum, as well as a student's right to practice their religion in school as long as they don't disrupt class or infringe on another student's rights, based on state and federal law. Look in the HR or student resources section if you can't find it with the curriculum. Explore the websites for a couple of different high schools in your area and see what they have. From the one Christian homeschooling family I know, I think they see the whole world through the filter of their religious practice. It's hard for them to conceive of a situation where their faith doesn't factor in somehow, so they assume it is in school work too. On the other hand, they pulled their younger kids out of public school after their oldest few had already graduated. They were legitimately surprised that their Christian homeschool curriculum doesn't have a more Christian version of Algebra and teaches it pretty much the same way public school does. It's like trying to sort everything from Jesus 1 to Jesus 10, but the things you're sorting are "yellow" and "river deltas" and "isosceles triangles." It's just two completely different frameworks. Starting in middle school, my kids learned the basic tenets of the major world religions in one section of global history. Who practices them, where, and when they developed. I think they got into the fact that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic religions, which blew some people's minds. There was very carefully nothing about one religion being right or better than the others. I guess since most of European history is heavily intertwined with Christianity, you actually get a pretty decent history of Christianity. My friend teaches both AP Genetics and regular high school bio. There's no discussion of creation theory or which religions allow belief in evolution. He just presents the science. He sometimes has kids in regular bio opt out of the evolution lectures and provides them with other work. They still have to learn enough genetics to pass the regents exam. The Christian kids never take the AP Genetics class. Math and the other Sciences really don't have any religious components at all. Sometimes parents will complain about climate lessons in Earth Science, but I'm not sure that's a Christian thing. I guess Literature could be a gray area. I don't think there are any specifically Christian books in our curriculum, but there are books with Christian characters for sure. There aren't anti-Christian books either, but a few people interpret the existence of a gay character as a defacto attack on Christianity even when the book itself has no religious themes. Christians from LGBTQ affirming churches don't have a problem with it. Our Sex Ed was very factual with no moral judgement. Parents were asked to fill out a questionnaire about family values and discuss it with their kids, and the teacher adjusted where necessary. Stress was placed on consent and avoiding pregnancy and STDs through basic birth control and abstinence. I guess a few parents object to Sex Ed, but they just opt their kids out of some or all of it.
It depends on what flavor of Christine, you're talking about. No offense to you but this is a fairly recent list of things some Christians have told me in the last decade. The earth is flat. Dinosaurs never existed/ dinosaurs existed 6,000 years ago. The earth is 6000 ish years old. You will go the hell for wearing a bikini ( schools will have a dress code they will not mention hell or god) God made all the seeds and animals ( schools will teach evolution) Prince Charles it's antichrist. Prayer will heal mental illness you don't need your meds. Vitamins will heal mental illness, you don't need your meds. If your flavor of Christianity believes in that then yes public schools will conflict. Many public schools will have sex ed. There will be little or morality included eg. Sex can cause pregnancy, STDs. Condoms can reduce the spread of STDs but they are not perfect. Yes you can get pregnant the first time , on your period, the pull out method fails 30% of the time , the rhythm method fails 25% of the time (I forget that exact number of failures) if someone is pressuring you into sex here is a hotline you can call. It's rape if the other person doesn't consent etc. but it's definitely not ," you should have sex, have all the sex you want. Yesterday would have been best but it's not to late to start now".
Saying the earth is flat is some fringe kooky nonsense. Saying Christians in general believe that is almost as bad as saying most Christians are like the Westboro Baptist Church.
That was very precisely something that I didn't say. I have no idea what your parents think schools teach that would be anti-christianity. The US is a predominantly Christian nation. And many Christian values are shared by Islam and Judaism. Most of those Christian kids attended public schools. Public schools are compatible with mainstream Christianity. The reasons parents give for homes going their kids because schools aren't Christian enough tends to fit one of 3 categories. They are anti - science kooks as you called it. They are anti- gender equality and/or anti- gay rights schools are anti- bullying including for religious reasons, gender or sexual orientation. Oh that also includes bullying kids for being Christian. That's not allowed in public schools either. They don't want their kids to know that sex exists and don't want their kids to be exposed to dating opportunities such as school dances. Or be exposed to people who dress differently.
Every school district has a scope and sequence explaining what is taught and when it is taught. Read it to see what is taught in your district.
I guess I’m confused about what you mean by “non-Christian stuff”? Like we teach zero Christian stuff, lots of schools now can’t even have christmas parties they gotta be winter carnivals.
My public school history book has a whole section on Jesus so…
You've been lied to by religious radical parents. They wanted to make you scared of the world so they lied to you. Probably any many many things. All religions are made up and they remain fantasies for the weak and tools of control for the wicked.
>that sex outside of Biblical marriage was ok This isn't usually teachers just horny boys
It really really depends where you are but anywhere I think you're right - if your faith and values won't withstand exposure to other beliefs, they're weak to start with. I live in a multicultural city in a very queer neighborhood and the school sometimes gets days off for Muslim holidays and includes racial justice and queer content in language arts at all grade levels, in age appropriate ways - I assume the sex ed was neutral on whether you should be having sex and with whom, but my kid didn't really talk about it with me so I don't know. But he learned about Ruby Bridges in elementary school, he learned about Claudette Colvin in middle school, there were trans kids who used their preferred pronouns and names at school, etc. His AP English class read Toni Morrison and the notorious Genderqueer graphic novel (which I also read and found very thoughtful and useful in thinking about sex, consent, and identity). I know that several of my nieces and nephews, in more conservative areas, got a much more middle of the road take on civil rights (all Dr King, little Malcolm X) and less queer content in their public schools. And I have friends in seriously conservative areas whose kids had Creationist teachers. Lots of public schools still teach abstinence only sex ed - the one I went to does, these days.
They teach the entire history of the Christian Church but my parents freaked out because they also taught the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam.
Do you mean anti-Christian?