I got this from my daughter's online school. Score one for science.
And this is a school run by evil Pearson who controls all the textbooks, so that's a bit of a comfort even as America's educational standards slip down the tubes.
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Yeah it's not a point for science if the science teacher has to apologize for teaching science
That doesn't look like an apology for teaching science to me at all. I'm not sure how you're interpreting it that way.
Probably the tone, diction
I feel like the tone of "There is NO option to opt out of this unit, it is required for all students to complete" along with "As as science class we will only focus on the scientific theory and evidence." is suggesting that their religious beliefs are irrelevant when it comes to science, which is far from an apology.
Acknowledging that they have those beliefs and this might upset them is not apologizing to them, especially when the overall message is "too bad."
I feel like the tone of “There is NO option to opt out of this unit, it is required for all students to complete” along with “As as science class we will only focus on the scientific theory and evidence.” is suggesting that their religious beliefs are irrelevant when it comes to science, which is far from an apology.
Imagine if you saw an ice-cream stand with a sign saying "The price is 5$/cone. There is NO option to eat icecream without paying. We are aware that there are many cultural and political beliefs on economics. As a capitalist stall, we ONLY provide icecream in exchange for money. We are not trying to change your beliefs, but introducing what our standpoint is.". If you saw that sign, I imagine you wouldn't think "ah, what a totally normal shop", you'd think "oh boy, Something Happened Here".
This email is proactively defensive in the same way. In a saner world, this email would be way shorter or wouldn't exist at all, because you wouldn't need to specify that a particular unit is non-optional, etc. Your screenshot makes me think of USA as more weirdly religious, not less.
Ice cream is optional. School is not.
Well others have told you why it's an apology, you can disagree
I don't think they really have. They've just insisted it is.
"They haven't told me, they've insisted" ..... what
Not sure how you can insist on something without it being communicated but ya sure
Because they haven't given any evidence for the claim?
So first off that's a completely different argument than the one you just made
Secondly they did, you just can't read apparently
But whatevs man do you if you've got nothing better to do than sit there, trying and failing to be pedantic and just acting confused for no reason then enjoy it I guess
Secondly they did, you just can’t read apparently
If I can't read, it's very silly of you to respond to me. But perhaps you could point out where.
It's the preemptive justifying and excusing of something that should need no justification or excuses to be teached.
Are you not familiar with America?
Live there, got a similar preface in my bio class 20 years ago. This isn't a victory. It's continuing to baby people who refuse to live in reality.
It's the country which maybe half a century ago for a while was considered a shinny example for the rest of us.
Nowadays, not so much (even the far right around these parts avoids copying the religious shit from America)
The point is this is the teacher saying "it doesn't matter what you believe, we teach science based on evidence and that's what your kid is going to learn if they want to pass this class." It's not an apology.
It's a preemptive and unprompted justification, hence its existence implies that the authors believe they need to justify themselves.
I'm not criticizing the authors for it, I'm criticizing the environment that leads the authors to believe they need to justify themselves when teaching Evolution.
Generally people don't justify themselves unprompted unless they feel there will be some kind of negative impact to themselves if they don't do it.
So, it's pretty shit that the teacher feels he or she needs to preemptivelly justify themselves when teaching an area of Science.
I live in a supposedly very Catholic country - Portugal - and teachers don't go around explaining their actions and justifying themselves for even sex-ed (which touches tabu subjects) much less for Evolution, simply because even if some people disagree with it (very few, I might add), the teachers won't be affected by any kind of pressure around it as the system is such that it's not going to be loudmouth non-expert parents that define or change the Education curriculum - the only case of parents trying to block some kids from learning something around here (by forbidding their kids for attending specific classes) ended up with the kids being flunked and stopped from advancing to the next year, the parents suing, the parents losing their lawsuit (so the kids are still a year behind their cohort and still have to take that class in order to advance) and last I check the parents relented because they had no other option. The system simply doesn't indulge that shit and public opinion is on the side of the system in this.
It’s a preemptive justification, hence its existence implies that the authors believe they need to justifying themselves.
Yes. Because otherwise religious asshole parents try to get them fired for teaching evolution. Do you really not know that?
I am aware.
What I'm criticizing is the system which lets parents have that power.
The teacher preemptivelly justified him or herself because that's what they have to do because the system is so shit that teachers have to be subservient to ill-educated fairy-believing morons who have zero expertise in the domain of teaching (or Science, for that matter)
The fault is not in any way form of shape of the teacher, it's in the AmericanTM Culture and Society - the teachers are as much victims of the Backwards'R'US society as the kids.