GeorgiaDon

Sorry! Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm more familiar with the biology and chemistry programs, as that is where I'm involved in undergraduate and graduate teaching, and in those disciplines there are a preponderance of women students. I don't doubt that different ratios might apply in math or engineering or physics. The point is, students are free to apply to whatever majors they want, and they can't be excluded based solely on their gender. I don't know why some fields tend to attract more women, and others attract more men, but I'm sure that people tend to do better if they can enroll in majors they have an interest in. For that reason, any attempt to put quotas on participation based on gender would be destructive, on several levels. The disparities that do exist are based on people's choices, not on some imaginary "ideal" balance. There may be a perception by some that particular fields are hostile to this or that gender, and people may choose to avoid those fields for that reason. For example, anyone reading/listening to Shah's posts would perceive hostility to women as engineers. But those sorts of barriers are coming down too as women move into, and succeed at, those disciplines. Incidentally, the program in veterinary medicine (DVM) has admitted over 90% female students for many years now, and there is no "quota". It's simply that more women than men apply, and on average the female students are better qualified. This is a graduate/professional degree, so the students have already earned an undergraduate degree, and women seem to gravitate to, and be more competitive for the program. I believe most medical schools also have over 50% female students. If the men are "losing ground" in these traditionally male-dominated fields, it isn't because of Title IX, it's because they are being out-competed. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I agree with everything you have said here. Currently more women than men gain admission to STEM degree programs because they earn better grades/take tougher courses in high school, compared to the average male applicant. That's as it should be. These disciplines are not endangered because the proportion of male graduates is less than 50%. They would be threatened if considerations other than individual academic qualifications were to override admissions decisions. Well, first the statement by Obama that women's participation in STEM programs has increased to the point where female graduates outnumber males is somehow twisted into "Obama hates men". Then somehow this morphs into "Obama will impose quotas to further exclude men". And finally, this will destroy the quality of science and engineering in the US. I think I am just taking the OP and the article he linked at face value. But if I have misunderstood the point being made the OP is free to chime in and clarify his position, if he so wishes. My position is that Title IX required any educational institution that receives federal funds (such as research grants) to remove quotas and other barriers to participation by women; as a result, women are now participating and successfully competing against men; and that's a good thing overall. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I don't think the OP said something was "unfair" about that. The article the OP links, and which he obviously agrees with (as per his rant about "gender traitor"), associates Title IX with the fact that women graduates now outnumber men in many STEM disciplines. Since the OP directly associates the increased proportion of women graduates to the destruction of quality science and engineering programs, it is obvious that he disagrees with granting women access to these degrees, and so he must disagree with Title IX. I don't think the OP said that. The OP links, and quotes from, an article that claims that Obama is going to impose quotas to mandate more places for women in STEM disciplines. He then says (direct quote): "The success of the United States was built on high quality engineering and science and clearly Obama is hellbent on destroying that." I see no way to interpret that other than as a statement that including more women in science and engineering will destroy the quality of those fields in the US. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

At the University where I teach (which is the "flagship" State research university in my State), women constitute over 60% of the undergraduate students in the STEM majors, and a similar proportion of the graduate students. Similar numbers prevail at every public University that I know of. There is no need for quotas to "protect" female students, and zero chance they would be implemented. Male students have created the disparity all by themselves, by making themselves less competitive for admission by taking their high school studies less seriously than their female counterparts do. Here is what Title IX says: “No person in the United States, shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Only the most misogynistic could find something "unfair" in that. In fact, when you (Arvoitis) state that women's participation in STEM subjects will destroy high quality science and engineering in the US, you paint yourself as a misogynist of the worst stripe. Perhaps you are afraid of having to compete with women? Well suck it up cupcake. It's a competitive world, the best and most motivated will rise to the top, and no-one is interested in protecting the second rate by excluding women, non-whites, or any other groups of people in order to re-create a protected class of white males. As for Obama's comments on Title IX, his meaning was clear and obvious to all but the most biased: it is a great accomplishment for America that women have equal access to the educational system, instead of being effectively excluded from almost everything except home economics, education, and nursing, as used to be the case. If women now outnumber men in many fields, it's because more women, as individuals, work harder and/or have more aptitude for those fields. To twist that into an anti-male meaning is in no way different than saying that the number of black students earning degrees must reflect a government-imposed anti-white bias, because in many Universities 100% of the graduates used to be white (as everybody else was excluded) and now it's significantly less than 100% (because non-whites can't be excluded). Do you (Arvoitis) think it's a bad thing that whites have gone from 100% of the graduating class to something lower than that? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

And how would you know how they taste?? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No clever shifting of goal posts, I was quite clear that I was referencing my thoughts when I was being told about the history of the university I work for when I started here, in 1996. It is true that another 16 years have passed, and many of those people will now be retired or deceased. Still, you'd perhaps be surprised how many senior administrators continue to work into their 70's. I agree that the people who grew up with segregation and Jim Crow will die out in the next couple of decades. In the meantime, they are still here and they still have influence, especially in families and cultures that pay heed to the "wisdom" of their elders. This goes for both sides of the racial divide here in the US; for example some people who were at the front lines in the civil rights struggle (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc) still see the world through the lens of the early 1960s, and they probably always will. It's kind of human nature, like people think the best music is inevitably the music that was popular when they were in their teens or early twenties. Like any revolutionary change, it won't be complete until the "old guard" is dead and gone and well buried. I'm aware that you belong to a group that has suffered much discrimination; in this country that discrimination is very much still ongoing. I'm glad for you that you have been able to move past the resentment, I'm sure your life is much healthier for that. Unfortunately, for all its dynamism American culture is still very traditional and resistant to change. People complain when a little trace of color is added to the $5 bill. It's no surprise that this is the only major economy that hasn't gone Metric, Americans are still convinced that one day the rest of the world will switch to US miles. And in a country that claims to be centered on Christian values, most people are still incapable of forgiveness, which accounts for the unseemly enthusiasm for the death penalty. Cultural values are adhered to for no better reason than "that's the way it's always been". In such a society, change (even for the better) is always going to be slow. I completely agree it's well past time to stop dwelling on the past, but there's a lot of inertia build into the American view of the world. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I did not make any accusation, the people who were victimized did. The USDA admits that their agents systematically denied loans to black farmers, so the situation has moved from accusation to documented fact. Also I don't believe we have ever met, so I don't know on what basis you'd be making assumptions about my race. Of course next to you Atilla the Hun would be a left wing liberal, so maybe I'll admit to that, but only in the sense that I disapprove of shitting on people based on their skin color. Maybe you've heard the expression "Damning with faint praise"? I think what you've done here is "Praising with faint damnation". It's up to the courts to determine who is and who is not a legitimate applicant for compensation. It's not up to me, and not you. People have to show evidence they applied for a loan, were unfairly rejected, and suffered harm. There may be a lot of claimants, but it certainly isn't every black American, and certainly can't fairly be called "reparations". As opposed to the white conservative, whose perspective is "fuck 'em, they won't vote for us anyway"? I'd prefer to avoid either stereotype and let people say what they stand for, thank you. BTW cute "spelling mistake". Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

USDA helping to support white farmers, while illegally denying such help to black farmers, is a perfect example of institutionalized racism. Note that the USDA admitted that the problem continued until 1997, which is hardly "ancient history". Do you have a problem in general with people who ask for compensation when they are harmed by illegal activity, or only if the victims are black? Maybe you think the courts should only try to recover embezzled funds from Bernie Madoff's white victims, because compensating black investors would be "white guilt"? Here's a hint: if a crime specifically targets black farmers, most of the victims will be (you guessed it) black farmers! Interesting "news" source you linked to. It seems to make quite an art of race baiting. Also, it seems anyone who isn't a white Christian is out to destroy America. If that's where you get your "news" from, it explains a lot. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Slavery may have ended 150 (ish) years ago in the US, but it was replaced in much of the country by Jim Crow laws that ensured that blacks were denied educational opportunities, political representation, equal justice, and on and on. When I started as faculty at the University of Georgia, I went thorough an orientation that included the history of the University. One thing that stood out was a series of photos of the student riots that happened when the school accepted the first black students (as a result of court ordered desegregation), in January 1961. It occurred to me at the time (1996) that those photos were taken a mere 35 years ago, and the students in those photos would now mostly be in their mid to late 50's, a point in life where people have moved up the corporate/administrative ladder and have a lot more power to affect people than 20-year-old students do. If they were so full of hate as a 20-year-old in 1961, how much have they really changed in their heart in 35 years? Maybe a lot, maybe not. On the other side of the race coin, we still have a lot of people who grew up under Jim Crow, and in a culture that values family and the "wisdom" of their elders, the bitterness that was put in place still bears sour fruit. Black kids are still sometimes chastised and ostracized for "acting white", meaning doing well in school. There are still a lot of barriers that have to come down before the US "culture" (as if there is such a thing) is close to color blind, on all sides. It'll take more than a couple of generations. Anyway, the point is when it comes to the US we're talking about a couple of generations, not 150 years. Events that are within the living memory of a significant segment of the population are not ancient history. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Hi Ron, I think we're not on the same page, as my concept of what is meant by "spirit" goes well beyond "motivator". Presumably the "spirit" is what survives into the "afterlife", and I doubt that many people would relish an afterlife that is inhabited by their "motivation" without any sense of self-awareness, memories, etc. I kind of assumed that what is supposed to survive (the "spirit" or "soul") would be a self-aware entity, essentially the entire personality of the individual. Talking to a "spirit" would be indistinguishable from talking to the person, right? How can you have a conversation with "motivation"? It seems to me to be a real conundrum, if the "spirit" (in the sense that I imagine it, which is the complete personality, memories, hopes, desires of the individual) is supposed to be non-physical, yet it is subject to profound alteration by physical causes such as dopamine/serotonin/whatever levels in the brain. Similarly, it is well known that physical damage to certain regions of the brain can profoundly affect impulse control, mood, memory, etc. How can physical damage to the pre-frontal cortex change something as fundamental to the "spirit" as the ability to weigh consequences of actions and choose to avoid evil actions? I had an uncle who had a malignant brain tumor removed; before the surgery he was always calm, and exceptionally considerate of everyone, but afterwards he was impulsive, abrasive, angry, a prick in a lot of ways. Completely a different person. How could removing a physical piece of someone's brain change who they are so much, if the "spirit" is not also physical? It seems to me that if the "spirit" was non-physical and just used the physical body as a device, physical disease or damage might impair functionality (such as making you blind, like removing the lens from a camera), but it wouldn't be able to change the essence of who you are. Do you have a resolution to this problem? Cheers, Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm not Quade, but I'll take a shot. 1. Many medical conditions are much cheaper to treat in a doctor's office, in the early stages of the disease. Think, for example, about the cost of having a pre-cancerous mole removed vs treating full-blown melanoma. People without insurance commonly defer medical treatment, hoping things will resolve on their own, and when they don't they go to Emergency (by far the most expensive option) and then may require life-saving treatment they can't afford, so the hospital treats them and passes the cost on to those who do have insurance. Early intervention = lower cost. 2. Under the current system (EMTALA), some people receive care they cannot pay for, so that cost is shifted to the rest of us. I've seen estimates that suggest about $1,000/yr per family in insurance premiums goes to cover such costs. Under ACA, true "freeloaders" (people who could afford insurance, but choose to not get it knowing that if they are severely injured or seriously ill they will be treated anyway) will pay a tax penalty that is supposed to go to a fund to defray such costs (we'll have to see if it works that way). Those who are genuinely too poor to afford insurance will be covered under some expansion of medicare, though that will have to be paid for somehow (I'm not sure of the plan about that). Anyway, reducing the number of freeloaders means I won't have to spend so much to cover them, and earlier treatment should reduce the number of very high cost patients in the system. Of course another option (one that several posters here in SC have advocated) is just to refuse treatment to anyone who isn't either insured or able to pay cash. That might take care of the real freeloaders, but it'll throw a lot of other people under the bus too, including young people in low wage entry level jobs who haven't had the time/experience to move up the employment ladder to where they can afford both insurance and rent, people with preexisting conditions (cancer survivors and all the other "uninsurables"), etc. As I've written about a few times, but no-one ever cares to respond because it presents an unsolvable problem for the "under-the-bus-with-them" crowd, it's not uncommon for accident victims, heart attack patients, etc to be brought to the hospital without ID/insurance cards. If we expect hospitals to verify insurance/bank accounts before beginning to treat critically ill patients, a lot of people will die or be left disabled, including people who are insured but don't have proof on them when the ambulance delivers them to the hospital. Just so everybody understands what "no insurance/no cash = no treatment" will really require. Also, personally I disagree with the calculus that your value as a human being is strictly limited by the ratio of size of your bank account to the cost of treating a life-threatening injury or disease. If we go there, is there any limit to the "cost savings to society" we could achieve by discarding those we consider to be not cost effective to keep around? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

That is an excellent question. Unfortunately, I am not able to give a conclusive professional answer. My work was primarily as a substance use disorder counselor and not a mental health counselor. First I believe, as I stated above, there is a difference between the spirit of man and the soul of man. The soul is defined by some, and I accept this definition, as the mind, emotions and will. ... Thanks for your response, Ron. I wasn't looking for your "professional answer" so much as some idea of how you reconcile the idea of a non-physical spirit (the "mind, emotions, and will" as you state) with mental illness. It sounds as if you accept the idea that someone can be mentally ill, which I appreciate. Living in the South, I often get the idea that many people here do not believe in mental illness, at least not as a physical condition, but rather believe that "crazy" behavior is entirely voluntary and just reflects an evil "spirit". I wonder if this attitude isn't rooted in the notion that the "mind, spirit, and will" is intrinsically different from the physical body, so when people behave badly it must be because they are evil, not because they have a physical disease. Anyway, I don't understand how an immaterial "spirit" can be affected by drugs that affect brain chemistry. There are a variety of drugs that can help alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia. bipolar disorder, etc. These disorders strongly affect the "mind, spirit,and will"; if these aspects of human nature are not based in physical structures of the brain, how can they be affected by chemicals that merely change brain biochemistry? I hope you have a great, safe and happy 4th! Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

How do you know this? I researched it back in the 80's when I had a private Christian counseling practice. Hey Ron, Out of curiosity (maybe morbid curiosity), what's your take on mental illness? If the "person" part of us (the part that is conscious, that makes moral choices, etc) is distinct from the physical body and just uses it as housing for a while, how is it possible for physical conditions, such as defects in serotonin metabolism or dopamine receptors or whatever, to change the nature of the spirit so that it becomes paranoid, or sees/hears things that aren't there, etc? Are paranoid schizophrenics just bad spirits? Cheers, Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

ukskydiving.com is functional. That dropzone (North London Skydiving Center) is located at the Chatteris Airfield, Cambridgeshire. On the other hand, ukskydiving.co.uk is "under construction". Hopefully the North London Skydiving center (ukskydiving.com) is the one you have been dealing with. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Right, we have a broken system created by excess government regulation so we are going to fix it by means of more government regulation. By "excess government regulation", do you mean (or include) EMTALA? A former student of mine trained and worked as an EMT (he thought it would help hime get into medical school, and I think it did eventually). I asked him how much time EMTs spend searching a car accident scene to locate wallets/purses/ID/insurance cards before transporting injured people to the hospital. He said none, if those things are missing then the police will find them and bring them along later. Similarly, when they respond to a 911 call about a heart attack, they don't search the patient's house to see if they can find proof of insurance, they transport and leave it to family members to bring insurance info. Imagine a scenario where a family member is in an accident, they're critically injured and in the accident their purse was thrown from the car and is in the ditch. They get to the hospital but are refused treatment because they don't have proof of insurance, and die, despite you having faithfully paid the insurance premiums every month. No EMTALA, no obligation to treat. Literally, every year thousands of insured people would be refused treatment and die or suffer worse consequences than they otherwise would have, just because they arrive at the hospital before their insurance info does. Sure, some people use EMTALA to game the system. But what would you do to replace it, that wouldn't also lead to the scenario I described? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

The whole "broccoli" argument seems to me to indicate either a lack of understanding of the ACA, or a deliberate and disingenuous attempt to mislead. Broccoli is a very specific item; the appropriate comparison to broccoli would be a law that required everyone, male or female, to purchase a mammogram (or some other very specific medical procedure) every year. The law doesn't do that. Similarly, requiring that you buy your food only from Safeway would be comparable to requiring you to buy insurance from a specific insurer, say Blue Cross for example, and the law doesn't do that either. A defensible position might be to compare the "individual mandate" to buying food in general. Currently, we have a health care system that allows those who could afford health insurance to choose to spend their money elsewhere, knowing that of they get sick enough they can go to the hospital and be treated (sufficient to save their lives), and stick everyone who does have insurance with the bill. This is not very different than someone who would prefer to spend their money on skydives, then goes to the grocery store, gets what they need, and hand me the bill on their way back to the drop zone. Many (I suspect most) of us have a problem with having people who are really in need either starving or dying/suffering permanent disability due to a treatable condition, so as a society we choose to provide some level of "safety net". But, everyone would be pissed as hell to be handed a grocery bill by someone who then goes out to the parking lot and hops into a Lexus and drives off. Having the ability to purchase health care insurance, and choosing not to, puts everyone else in the position of either picking up the tab when they get sick/injured, stiffing the medical professionals who treat them, or having to stand around and watch people who have had a run of bad luck (for example, surviving cancer but finding themselves uninsurable when they relapse) die if they can't afford the treatment out-of-pocket. Currently as a society we opt for the first choice, which often also involves the second, but there's no shortage of people who it seems would be perfectly happy with the third choice. Anyway, if you think the government is over-reaching you have the option to support a party whose whole platform is to reign in the "over-reaching", at least when it comes to those who work for a paycheck. Of course, then you also get a government that tells you who you can marry, and what you can and can't do with your own body (well, especially if you're female), but life is full of choices. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Watch out for the snakes! Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I can see why you sign off with "BSBD" and not "cheers". Not that I disagree with you. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Did he do a good job? Did he show up when he said he would, and charge what he said he would? If so, sure I'd hire him again. I might politely decline the tract, or I might accept it (if I sense he'd be offended if I refused it) and then recycle it or something. On the other hand, if he did a poor job, would I hire him again because he's a Christian? No. But I'm sure some would. Again, church = business. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

..... but aren't the gay couple the customers? Many Christian businesses are established to serve Christians. Christian Yellow Pages are published and marketed through churches and other Christian organizations for the purpose of maintaining trusted relationships. Some Christians will not do business with someone who advertises as such and then does work or perform services in the secular world. Right or wrong is not the issue. It is a fact of life. Therefore, the Christian photographer should have the right to decline the gay couple's offer. IMO Unfortunately I have to agree this often seems to be a matter of fact, at least around here (Georgia, USA). This was brought home to me several years ago, when a woman who worked with my wife was getting married. My wife recommended a friend of hers who has a small business baking cakes, especially wedding cakes (which are really good). The co-worker thanked my wife for the suggestion, but told her there was a woman from her church who baked cakes, and it would cause "problems" for her if she passed over the person from her church to do business with an "outsider", even though the cakes weren't actually all that good. That's when I realized joining a church was a business decision; belonging to a large church immediately gave you a large client base, whereas belonging to a small church was much worse for business, and having no church at all was possibly disastrous. I wouldn't say your small business can't survive if you don't belong to a church, but for sure a big church (big in terms of members) is a significant leg up. Anyone who thinks that in the Bible Belt the only consideration when choosing a church is theology and whether or not you like the priest/minister is missing a big part of the picture. Even if you are a closet atheist, you could look at Sunday morning (and Wednesday evening for Baptists) as necessary advertising. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

And you know this how? I suspect there was a boogie going on, from the number of skydivers who were apparently eyewitnesses. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

that's not about teachers, that's about the opinions of those that want to force their idea of a curriculum on the public schools - be it the wacky enviro freaks, or the rapid religious - both sides are trying to hijack curriculums Oops, I guess I misunderstood you. Sorry. Still, someone has to decide what is and what is not in the curriculum, and I don't like the notion of excluding anything just because someone, somewhere, may find it controversial or offensive. There's always someone ready to complain, if not about the "facts", then about the way they are taught ("old" vs "new" math, phonics vs whole language, etc). Teaching by rote memorization/regurgitation can become indoctrination, but involved parents should be aware of what is being discussed in the classroom, and they should be prepared to provide their perspective on issues they feel are being taught in a one-sided manner. Children are not well served by an educational experience that does not challenge them to consider differing points of view, as they never develop the tools to decide for themselves what to believe. On the other hand, some "life lessons" may be better taught by experience, rather than traditional classroom instruction. If students at school have to abide by rules of conduct that forbid acts of discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, etc they will at least have the experience of many years in an environment where such conduct is unacceptable. I think that's more powerful than having to read a bunch of assignments about "my two dads" or black history month. Don Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

From what I saw on the news last night, she's a nurse, in Florida nurses have to be licensed, and a conviction will make her unlicensable. Big consequences, life-changing in fact, even if she doesn't do a day in jail. It's never a good idea to lie to the court, especially about things like this. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Taken literally, that would put it on the parents to do all the teaching, which is how it was done up until public school systems were developed (unless you could afford private tutors). Perhaps a better way of thinking about it would be to regard teachers as professionals you hire, or choose to trust your kids with, because they actually have the expertise to help students understand various subjects well enough to be able to use their knowledge to think critically about things, or perhaps to eventually create new knowledge or technologies or art/music/whatever. Schools can offer curricula that parents can choose, or not, based on their perception of the best long-term interest of their kids. If you want a good grounding in math, science, literature, history choose A. If you prefer instead that your kids be able to discuss how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, if there is enough demand there should be a school B for that. Don't choose A then demand that they should drop history and substitute angel tetris. Regarding teachers as "a bunch of strangers who think they are smarter than everyone else" seems unnecessarily derogatory to me. Another thing, discussing controversial topics can be a great opportunity to teach critical thinking skills. Why does side A believe what they do, what is the evidence, how good is the evidence (what kind of experiments/observations, how many replicates, is it just based on anecdote, etc). Same for side B. What do you (i.e. the student) think is correct? What kind of evidence would it take for you to change your mind? Simply not talking about certain topics because they are contentious is a form of censorship. While that may be OK if your intent is to indoctrinate kids, it doesn't prepare them to think for themselves (which might be the point for some parents). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)